Page 106 of Bad Blood

“Am I going to have to deprogram you?” Sam asks as we reach his Bugatti. “What the fuck are you so upset about? The man duped you into marrying him. He forced you to betray your family. He lied to your face about—”

“Okay, enough.”

I’d forgotten his sympathy chip was ripped out and stamped on the day he made his first kill.

Freeing myself from his grip, I take a step back as he opens the door for me. “We were a war within a war, Sam,” I say quietly, casting one final look at Legado—shimmering high against a skyline, as black on the inside as her emperor's heart. “You and Edier didn’t get to fight this one.”

“No, we just fucking liberated you from it.” He gestures for me to get in the car.

When I refuse, he shakes his head at me slowly. “Thalia Santiago… Always wanting to save the world. Never realizing that it’s better to push certain people off it first…Especially a Carrera.”

“That’s a little hypocritical, don’t you think?”

His face loses all traces of amusement. “Get in the car, Thalia.”

“Wait.”

Sighing, he braces his hand against the door frame.

“How did you do it?”

“Do what?”

I hesitate. “How did you stop feeling for Lola, if it’s so wrong to care about a Carrera?”

I wait for him to blow up at me, but he gives me a gray smile that’s neither a lie nor an admission.

“You just do.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Jesus, Thalia…” He runs a frustrated hand through his dark hair. “You’re a fucking Santiago. This family comes first. Follow that rule, and you’ll figure out the rest.”

Deeply profound and evasive as hell.

“And youstillhaven’t gotten in the car.”

I steal one more look at the place I called my reluctant home for six days.

“Okay, Sam, I’m—”

Boom

The gunshot shatters the night, blasting chaos into the space between us. My heart slams against my chest and I fall back against the Bugatti door frame. Then I look to my left and find an ugly bloom of red spreading across Sam’s white dress shirt.

Oh God! Oh God, no!

“Sam!” Terror buckles my knees as I shove away from the car, watching as he skids down the side panel with a hissing curse and a final order.

“Run, Thalia... Get the fuck out of here!”

I have to get to him. I have to help him. He’s going to die.

I’m on my knees and reaching for him, when rough hands grab me from behind, squeezing so hard around my middle, I can only wheeze out a shocked scream.

As I’m lifted into the air, a bag is pulled over my head while another gunshot rings out.

Sam!