Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
“I’ll take that downstairs and get out of your hair.”
“What’s in it?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“He’s sentimental, my brother,” he says, fingering the box. “Likes his pen pals. You wouldn’t know it looking at him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing that’s any of my business. I’ll take it to his office.”
“But you made it your business, and you clearly brought it up to send some message so just go ahead and get it over with,” I say outright because Caius Augustine is a manipulative son of a bitch—and I do mean bitch. There’s no way that box just got up here by accident or coincidence. There’s no such thing where he’s concerned.
Caius’s expression shifts, then grows serious. He studies me for a long minute before a little gleam brightens his eyes. “Fair enough,” he says. “You want me to be direct? Okay, I’ll be direct. He cares about you, which means you can hurt him, and he has been hurt enough for a lifetime. Clear enough?”
“Is that some sort of threat?”
He sighs. “What would threatening you gain me?” He shakes his head, then walks around me to get to the box, knocking my shoulder on his way even though there’s plenty of room to get by. “You know we’re half-brothers right?” he asks. He picks up the box and heads to the door.
I follow him. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Let’s just say I’m the unwanted half.”
The way he says it makes me stop. This isn’t what I’m expecting at all.
“All my life I’ve dealt with people not wanting me. Not trusting me. Not being good enough for anyone,” he starts with his back to me, then faces me when he reaches the door. “When people keep assuming the worst of you, you grow a thick skin. Problem is, that makes you a little less human. And I think that less human part is all you see when you look at me. It’s a shame.” He gestures for me to open the door and continues before I move, “I am the result of collective disappointment, Madelena. Can you relate?” Another pause. “But my brother has always been there for me. He’s never judged me, thought anything of me that he wouldn’t tell me to my face. That means a lot to me, and I am loyal to him and very protective of him.”
“I wouldn’t hurt him,” I say feeling defensive.
“You know about the Commander. But you don’t know what put Santos firmly under that bastard’s thumb.” I hold my breath and wait and a long enough moment passes that I’m not sure he’s going to continue so I’m surprised when he does. “He wasn’t even eighteen when he found the girl he loved murdered, the word whore written in her own blood across her stomach.”
“What?” I find myself covering my mouth with one hand and my stomach with the other.
“She was stripped naked, legs spread wide. Staged that way after her death as if the killer had meant for him to find her in that degrading position.”
I lean my weight against the wall. “Oh, God.”
“Her father had killed her the night he found out…” he pauses, shakes his head. “Santos was hours too late and blamed himself. And then he took his revenge.”
“He killed her father.”
Caius nods. “Then you know something.”
“Only that.”
“That one act caused his life to change forever—hell, all of our lives to change forever—because the Commander intervened.”
“What happened?”
“Those next five years are too ugly for your ears, I’m afraid. If you open the door, I’ll go.”
“Why did you tell me this?” I ask, blocking his exit.
“Open the door, Madelena.”
“Why?”
He sighs. “Because he’s not going to. He wants to protect his innocent little bride. But you should know how damaged he is. That, what I just told you, is the tip of the iceberg. And he didn’t deserve any of it. Not one little bit. He used to be good. I should have done more to protect him from the Commander. I was his older brother, after all. But I didn’t. Like Santos himself, I, too, failed. But I won’t fail again. So, I guess the reason I’m telling you is so you know where he’s coming from, the damage that’s made him what he is.”
“Like I said, I wouldn’t hurt him.”
“Good. Because if you do, I’ll hurt you.”
8
SANTOS
After confirming Caius is on his way to Augustine’s, Val and I head there. I find Mom standing in the middle of what was once an uncluttered living room looking at various swatches of fabric for new curtains she’s apparently having made.
“What was wrong with the old ones—which, by the way, were brand new?”
“Nothing. Just not my style. You want me to be comfortable, don’t you? Since you’re moving me out of my own home.”
“Of course I do,” I force myself to say. I am running out of patience with this poor me routine. “Where’s Caius?”