Page 105 of Bad Blood

“I have a confession to make.”

From the look on his face, he’s not sorry about it either.

“Considering my state’s newly reinstated gaming laws, I was intrigued by the competition… Tonight, Sanders has been inside your casino, taking notes and catching up with old friends. He should be long gone by now, though.”

As soon as I hear thatpendejo’sname again, I freeze.

Lola.

Goddamn it, Lola was in there.

“He had strict instructions to avoid your sister,” he reassures. “This time, anyway. Truth is, we missed Thalia. We wanted to bring her up to speed with the fact you’ve had Bardi’s tape all along. We thought it might help with herluciditytoward the true state of her marriage.”

I watch in mounting fury as he opens the passenger door and slides into the seat, calm as fuck—as if he didn’t just pull the trigger on me after all.

“She’s coming home with us, Carrera,” he says, reaching for the handle, and then winding down the window to continue his backhanding clusterfuck. “Santiagos don’t belong on this side of the East Coast. You know that as well as I do.”

But firebirds do.

They can fly anywhere.

“I thought we weren’t fucking each other over,” I snarl.

The bomb I’d planned for another of Sanders’s bars is about to get predated.

“Starting now,” he calls out in mock apology, rapping his knuckles on the roof of the car. “You know, all this could have been avoided if I’d just shot you that night outside the church. You’re lucky I’d never aim a bullet near her.”

I stand there long after the taillights disappear into the night, in the ruins of a ten-year-old grenade he just tossed at my feet.

The girl outside the church.

The one I risked everything to protect.

The one who haunts me dreams.

Thalia.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Thalia

Hurt is a hammer,designed to break you apart.

Pain is what happens on impact.

I’m feeling the brutal effects of both as Sam leads me through Legado’s back entrance and out into the deserted parking lot. At any other time, this would be at full capacity, but tonight was “by invitation only” for a select few.

A night of celebration.

A night of last memories.

A night of betrayal.

Don’t look back, I tell myself as my heels spark misery off the asphalt. Our future isn’t written in the stars. It’s scrawled on a note passed back and forth between enemy lines.

And then he was caught.

And now I hate him more than I ever did.So why the hell are there tears in my eyes?