Page 11 of Inez

"Lorenzo, how could I have come between you and this Consuela of yours when I was on a different continent entirely?"

He lets out a slow breath. "Because she wasn'tyou, Sophia. She could neverbeyou. She could never understand me—she accepted the danger of my job, she accepted the time apart. But she couldn'tunderstandme. It's the only way I can put it. And beyond that, as I said, she just wasn't you. I couldn't love her because I was still in love with you."

My eyes burn, and it makes me angry. "That's not my fault."

He shakes his head. "No, it isn't. I suppose it doesn't make any sense to anyone but me, but even though you were the reason, I never blamed you."

"You're right—thatdoesn'tmake any sense," I snap.

He looks at me with a heavy sigh. "Sophia—"

"I amNOTSophia!" I shout. "Sophia is dead! The woman you loved is fuckingdead, Lorenzo!" I slam the heel of my palm against the steering wheel as I all but scream the worddead.

"Inez, then—"

"You knownothingabout me—about Inez. I may occupy the body of the woman you once knew as Sophia, but that person is gone. Inez is…I am…" I shake my head. "You cannot love Inez. I'm not…capable. Whatever thing it is inside of a person that lets us love and be loved…it died in that cell. My father's men raped it to death. Rafael raped it to death. And I…I finished it off, when I…all those people…"

I steal a look at Lorenzo and he's staring at the window, shoulders bunched around his ears, jaw tight, fists clenched so hard they tremble, white-knuckled.

The burn behind my eyes turns into a haze I cannot see through, and I pull onto the shoulder and brake to a skidding halt in the gravel with a swirl of dust.

Lorenzo is out of the car before I've put the shifter into park, hands knotting in his hair. I'm out and after him, memoriesof that awful, bloody night surging through me in a crushing cascade of gore-soaked nightmares.

Heads snapping back, brains spattering walls.

Stunned eyes going vacant as crimson circles bloom on shirtfronts, again and again.

The kitchen.

Maids' quarters.

Dining room. Cellar.

Stables.

Bunkhouse.

Spent shells trailing me like hot droplets of brass blood.

Bile stains the back of my teeth, presses against my lips. I stagger away into the scrub beyond the shoulder, fall to my hands and knees, and vomit until there's nothing left but strings of spit.

I feel him. He hands me a wad of gas station paper towels and a water bottle. I wipe my lips, rinse my mouth.

He pulls me to my feet, guides me away, and we perch side by side on the rear bumper. Bugs skirl and flutter in the beams of the headlights. "Tell me."

"I've never spoken of it. Not even to Jay—“ I cut myself off before a dead man's name leaves my lips. "My employer."

"Of course not. But you have to get it out of you,meu amor."

I look at him. "How can you still call me that?"

A semi groans past in a skirl of noise and wind. Silence returns. A gigantic moth flutters in front of me for a few moments, investigating me briefly before vanishing into the night.

"Sophia is gone. I accept that. But Inez…if that is the name you choose, I will honor that, because no matter the name, you are still you, and you are not dead. You went through a hell few could ever fathom, and you survived. I still see the woman I love whenever I look at you. I see your soul."

I shake my head. "I was never a very religious or spiritual person, you know that. But lately, thinking about…" I choke on the words. "When I face the fact that the blood of thirty-two innocent people is on these hands?" I examine my palms, turn them over to examine the backs, as if they are literally bloodstained. "I am beginning to believe in eternal damnation, Lorenzo. Because I deserve it."

"They weren't—"