Page 50 of Bad Blood

Sliding my gaze to my left I stare at Rocco’s shaded eyes and arch an eyebrow. He dips his chin in a silent affirmation to my unspoken question.

Excelente.

Words aren’t needed for me to know what has transpired. After settling Lola earlier, I provided Rocco with a specific task—track the scorpion. His findings were just as I anticipated. Edier Grayson already knows about our impending union, and Daddy Dante’s private jet has already landed in New York.

Everything is unfolding perfectly.

With one final nod toward Rocco, I smile inwardly as he reaches into his suit pants and pulls out his phone.

“Smile,muñeca.”

Thalia snaps her face toward me, but before she can utter a single protest, there’s a click and a bright flash of light.

“Did he just take our picture?” she says, sounding shocked.

“Yes,” I answer. Lifting my chin, I offer an unapologetic stare.

“I don’t want any mementos of this day.”

“They’re not for you,mi esposa.”Thalia flinches as I punctuate the words “my wife” with a slow smirk. “They’re for my new father-in-law.”

For once, she’s rendered speechless.

As the reality of my words sink in, that rainbow of color splashed across her face vanishes underneath a thick veil of chalky-white fear.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

This one is worth fifty-thousand, but Dante Santiago’s reaction when he sees it…?

Priceless.

Chapter Sixteen

Thalia

There’s moredanger in silence than with a spoken threat.

My father taught me that.

When I was twelve, we visited Edier’s family in Colombia for a whole summer. One evening, after dinner, a man was brought to the main house in chains. I remember watching from an upstairs window as he and Edier’s father stepped onto the front porch below to receive him. I’d cranked the glass open in the hopes that I’d overhear what this man’s offense was, but all I’d heard were his begs and pleas for forgiveness.

There wasn’t a word from anyone else—not even from the guards.

After ten minutes of this, I saw the flash of silver in my father’s hand. The man was dead before he hit the ground, his mournful eyes staring up at a night he’d never get to fill with begging and pleading again.

It wasn’t the murder that shocked me. It was the brutal way in which his justice was delivered.

Silently.

I sometimes wonder if that’s the reason why I talk too much. Why I spill my thoughts and emotions into a room to keep some kind of a messed-up equilibrium, because when the world goes quiet, things get serious.

Like the long, painful pause last month before I told my father that I never wanted to see him again. That I spent every day wishing I’d be born to another man.

Like when Bardi showed me his tape...

Like now.

There’s no finesse to how I’m being marched up the chapel’s aisle. It’s the only room in his casino that isn’t black and gold. The walls are white, and daylight is streaming in through another of those dome glass ceilings, making me feel like I’m under some kind of divine interrogation.