Page 16 of Devil’s Azalea (Nightshades #3)

EMILIA

I really thought he killed him.

God, I’m such a dumbass. The guys have been close since they were teenagers—he wouldn’t just kill him over some slight. Rafael is logical. Cold. Not some hothead who loses his shit like I apparently do.

The mirrored elevator walls throw my reflection back at me, and Christ, I look like hell. I need to get my act together before these doors open and Rafael’s men see me looking like I just watched someone die.

Which I thought I did.

I push up from the floor and scrub a hand down my face, wiping away whatever tears are still clinging to my skin.

Fuck, the last time I broke down like this was the night everything went to shit between Rafael and me. The night my dad died for the second time.

The elevator doors open at the basement level, and I stumble out, still in a bit of a daze as I make my way towards the delivery bike.

Some fragment of professional training kicks in, and I at least manage to return the bike to the restaurant I borrowed it from.

The waitress takes one look at me when I walk in and her face crumples with sympathy.

“Oh no, honey, you caught him red-handed, didn’t you?

” She clicks her tongue as she takes the key from my trembling fingers.

“Want to grab a drink? My shift ends in ten, and there’s this bar a few blocks down where you can tell me all the gory details. ”

I shake my head and turn away without a word. Can’t exactly explain that I just shot a mob boss and watched his brother take a bullet in a vest, can I?

The next moments blur—I don’t register walking back to my bike, don’t remember navigating through traffic without wrapping myself around a lamppost, don’t recall the security guard’s greeting.

One minute I’m leaving the restaurant, the next I’m standing in my building’s lobby.

Still wearing the damn delivery uniform.

Shit.

Now I’ll have to explain to Katie why I look like I deliver pizza for a living. Sighing, I drag myself into the elevator, and suddenly I’m blindsided by the flash memory of Rafael’s bleeding arm and the way his eyes searched mine as the elevator doors closed between us earlier.

He looked worried.

No. That has to be a delusion. A twisted fantasy born from whatever broken part of me still craves him.

You don’t threaten to shoot someone and then worry about them. If Romero hadn’t stepped in front of me, he would have pulled the trigger. He didn’t care . He wouldn’t.

But that stubborn voice in my head won’t shut up: Rafael would never hurt you. You know that.

“Bullshit,” I mutter to myself. I hurt him first, didn’t I? Shot him right in the arm. Though I tried to aim low, tried not to hit anything vital, but still. He was bleeding. A lot. What if I hit an artery? What if he lost too much blood and?—

“ What the hell is wrong with you, Emily? ” Worrying about my father’s murderer? The man who just shot his own brother? Sure, Romero was wearing a vest, but what if he hadn’t been? What if tonight, of all nights, he had decided to skip the Kevlar? It was a psychotic gamble.

But not for the first time, I have a flicker of doubt about the circumstances surrounding my father’s death.

The genuine confusion in Rafael’s voice when he asked what the hell I was talking about—that couldn’t have been an act.

Rafael doesn’t do fake. If he had killed someone, he’d own it with that cold, terrifying honesty of his.

There’s no real evidence tying him to Dad’s death. I only have Stacey’s words, and while I trust that woman with everything in me, she’s only human. She could be wrong. She must be wrong.

If Rafael really killed my father in front of FBI agents, he surely wouldn’t have kept coming for me over the years—especially knowing I was now an agent myself. And yet, he kept coming… even after my betrayal.

So what really happened that night?

The elevator doors slide open on my floor and I step out, dragging my feet towards my apartment. How the hell do I explain myself to Katie without spilling the ugly truth when she can see right through me? I chew my lower lip raw as I punch in my door code, bracing for the interrogation.

But to my surprise, the apartment meets me with darkness and blessed silence.

Katie isn’t home.

I breathe a sigh of relief. Thank goodness. I can keep my encounter with Rafael to myself a little longer.

I don’t bother with lights, just move through the dark, expertly navigating around furniture on my way to my room.

The jumpsuit comes off and goes straight into a trash bag—I’ll get rid of it tomorrow.

I shove it under the bed for now, then head to the bathroom and step into the shower, letting scalding water wash away the night’s memories, along with any trace of gunpowder residue that might still cling to my hands.

Cotton shorts and a tank top later, I’m back in the living room to water my azaleas. When I switch the lights on and reach for the spray bottle on the table, I spot a note in Katie’s neat handwriting:

Went out to dinner with Ben from IT. Don’t wait up for me. XOXO.

Ben from IT.

I rack my brain trying to picture this mystery man but come up empty. Oh well. I mist my plant, then plunge the apartment back into darkness and retreat to my room.

I collapse onto my mattress, staring up at the darkness as my mind replays the day like a broken record. Getting the mission dossier. Shopping for a dress that makes men stupid with wanting. Flirting with that sleazy council member Moore when I’d rather gouge my eyes out.

Sneaking up to Jason’s office. Rafael showing up like he’s got a goddamn tracking device on me. Almost getting caught. Being trapped in that tiny closet with him, feeling every hard inch of his body pressed against mine…

No, don’t go there.

But my body betrays me, heat pooling low in my belly as I remember the insistent pressure of his erection against my ass, the way his breath felt hot against my neck.

Then the image of Ryan Barlowe’s lifeless body crashes through the memory, and the heat dies instantly.

The poor dead waiter. I found his wallet after Rafael left me alone in that office.

Tomorrow I’ll look him up, see if someone’s waiting for him to come home, someone who’ll file a missing persons report when he doesn’t.

I flip to my side, not wanting to think anymore.

A bone-deep exhaustion weighs me down, anchoring me to the bed. It’s been a long day. A long year. Scratch that— a long decade . I need sleep. Twelve dreamless hours where I don’t exist, don’t remember, don’t want. But my brain buzzes relentlessly, keeping me painfully awake.

I toss and turn for hours, still wide awake when Katie finally comes home in the early predawn hours. Her footsteps are soft as she approaches my room. I squeeze my eyes shut, pretending to be asleep when she opens my door to peek in.

“Oops,” she murmurs, carefully closing the door again.

I keep my eyes shut, listening to her footsteps fade towards her room. Seconds later, the shower hisses to life. Still, I keep my eyes stubbornly shut.

Then—

Dark voices speaking in angry Italian fill the frigid room.

I’m flat on my stomach on the cold, unforgiving concrete floor, my jaw, hip, and arms throbbing in symphony with the roaring ache in my skull.

Everything hurts.

And from the snippets of conversation I catch—men arguing over who should get a turn with me first—I know it’s about to get worse. So much worse.

I need to get out of here. But I can’t move without my entire body screaming.

Have to move, have to move, have to move.

Each breath burns, my chest wrecked from the kicks I took earlier.

God, I was so stupid. Coming here.

Hot tears mixed with snot drip to the floor.

Move !

My heart gallops wildly, painfully. I stretch a hand out. Drag myself forward.

Not even an inch.

It’s unbearable.

Pain lashes up my spine. And a scream threatens to tear through my throat.

But I can’t stop.

Move or risk a fate worse than death.

So I drag myself again and again. Crawling inch after agonizing inch.

Help me!

Somebody, anybody, help...

More tears as I gain another precious inch.

My hand stretches again ? —

Sudden movement behind me casts a man’s shadow over my broken body. He chuckles as if he’s amused by something. Me . And my pathetic attempt at escape.

I whimper, digging my nails into concrete until they crack and bleed as I struggle forward once more.

Then a cold, meaty hand wraps around my ankle, making me shriek.

I’m yanked back violently, and I scream bloody murder as pain explodes through my body.

This is it. This is how I die. This is how I ? —

The scene shifts abruptly, and now I’m standing up, the pain gone. But there’s a gun pressed to my temple.

“I’ll shoot you.” The voice is dark and menacing and curls all around me—but I recognize it as Rafael’s. “You betrayed me, piccola. Broke the omertà. And the punishment for that… is death.”

Before I can beg or plead or explain, the trigger clicks, and BANG ? —

I jolt upright in bed, gasping, heart punching through my chest. My legs are all tangled up in the sheets, my body drenched in sweat, and my hands shake as I wipe my forehead.

I glance around my bedroom, disoriented and terrified .

“Lamp. Picture frame. Desk. Books. Sunlight.” My heartbeat gradually slows as reality reasserts itself.

Fuck. I haven’t had that nightmare in years.

I thought I’d finally buried the horror of that night when I was sixteen—the night Rafael, Michael, Romero, and Maximo saved me from those monsters. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to ditch Lana, the shrink Stacey made me see.

I glance towards the window, wincing at the bright sunlight streaming in.

It must be mid-morning already. I kick away the sweat-soaked sheets and wobble to the bathroom where I brush my teeth, washing away the cottony taste from my mouth before stepping under another scalding shower until I feel human again.

“Finally. The sleeping beauty rises,” Katie remarks dryly as I emerge from my room. She sips from her coffee mug, studying me over the rim with eyes that miss nothing.

“Can I have some of that?” I don’t wait for her permission before snatching the mug from her hand and draining the contents in three desperate gulps.

The bitter liquid burns a path down my throat and hits my bloodstream like lightning.

I shudder. “You sadistic psychopath. How do you drink this battery acid?”

“Hey!” she protests, glaring. “I didn’t force you to chug it like you’ve been wandering the desert for twenty years.” Her expression softens. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

“I’m fine.” I carry her mug to the coffee pot on the kitchen island and refill it with more of the pitch-black caffeine before returning it. She accepts it wordlessly, but her eyes never leave mine, probing, assessing until I crack. “I just had a nightmare.”

She nods like she already figured that much out. She knows how horrible my nightmares used to be. Until ten years ago. Until Rafael pulled me from the darkness only to cast me back into it .

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Nah, not really.” I shrug and sink into the chair across from her.

“Well, I think I have something that might cheer you up.” Her lips curve into a sly smile as she gets up and disappears into her room. A moment later, she returns holding a bouquet of pink azaleas and a small pink box.

My stomach drops to my toes.

“Spill. I need to know everything. Are you seeing someone?” she demands, setting both items on the table in front of me. “Because these came in for you this morning.”

Even before touching the small envelope tucked among the blossoms, I know exactly who sent them. After last night, the last thing I expected from Rafael were flowers—and what’s that… a jewelry box?

What game is he playing at now?