Her stomach dropped as the woman, Celine, let out a short cackle. “Guy sounds like an idiot. He sold his soul, eh?”
“Idiot is a bit harsh,” Gil said, his professional smile never slipping. “When your options are to bleed to death or accept a shady deal, we both know which way most turn,” Gil said smoothly, though his icy blue eyes were looking at Gabriella with pity.
Everything Gil said felt damning. “Shot? Monster?” There was not enough air for the revelations she was given. “But what if he dies? I need to tell him I love him!”
Gil shrugged, his muscle rippling underneath his tactical gear. “Alright Juliet. Your Romeo is fine. Take a breath.” He waited a beat before continuing. “Listen, it comes with the territory. He won’t die since I’ve given him something nice and shiny to keep him going. But he made a deal. Withme. And he has unfinished business because of it.” He pushed her once more towards the vehicle. “Now go.”
Gabriella’s feet felt like lead or the black sandstone she had seen on the coasts. She almost tried to ask once more when gunfire split the night, closer than ever.
“Get in girl! I can’t keep you safe if you willingly wait for them to kill us,” Celine scolded, kicking the car into gear.
That made her jump into action, rushing to the other side of the vehicle to slide into worn leather.
The seatbelt clicked with a finality she was not ready to admit. Every turn and every problem the last few days, Gabriella realized she had only ever been allowed to ‘react’ and never been able to take control of her narrative.
Except for Mateo. Almost as if he knew. From the moment Mateo had taken her hand that night, he had tried to give her what little control he could allow because in reality, this was a situation she was not prepared for.
I love him,she thought desperately. For all that had happened with her friends dying, Sally, the men who tried to hurt her… she knew then in that moment, she loved him despite it all.
She leaned over towards where Gil stood. “Please don’t let him die,” she pleaded, desperation thick in her voice as the lump threatened to steal it away. She was tired of losing people she loved. Her parents. Her marriage. And now this? It was too much to bear.
Gil’s smile finally faltered. “That’s up for the Fates to decide.” He turned back towards the violence, leaving a wake of despondency in the hollow of Gabriella’s chest.
This is really it, she realized with finality. She was going to have to leave him behind.
“Gil!” she screamed as they departed. “Don’t you dare let him die! I’ll find you! Dammit I will!”
Despite her driver’s cackle, she kept her eyes steady on Gil. Gil raised two fingers and gave a nod before returning to thepath they came from. The sharp pungent smell of gasoline filled the air as they drove off. Tears in her eyes, Gabriella clutched her hands to her lap, fingers locked, and watched with apprehension as the screaming village disappeared behind them.
If she ever got to see Mateo again, she would tell him everything she had longed to say. But for now, she could only hope he made it out alive.
CHAPTER 24
SALLY
Sally found Mateo seated between the thick roots of a kapok tree, leaning his broad back against the base of the trunk. He had one hand pressed to his chest while the other gripped a pistol that looked like it weighed a thousand pounds to him.
“You stupid, stupid man,” she hissed, her Spanish clipped and fast.
His head jerked up, the pistol rising with it, and for one stretched-out second she thought he might actually shoot her. Blood had soaked through the strange translucent material on his chest underneath his torn shirt—some kind of huge wound patch that looked oddly luminescent in the stifled daylight filtering through the canopy. His typically tawny complexion was greying and the dark hollows that were his eyes tracked her movements with a flat mechanical focus.
“Sally?” He scraped her name out like a question and slightly lowered his gun.
Only slightly. Which means he knows how pissed you are and how dangerous that is for him.So he’s not as stupid as she initially thought.
“You should be dead,” she said as she stepped closer and examined the wound held by the translucent material. She ignored how he tensed at her approach. “Someone came running to me, screaming father had shot you in the back and left you bleeding out in his shack. But,” she gestured to him, “here you are … stumbling through the jungle like a drunken ghost. Not dead. Yet.”
“Disappointed?”
The word hit her harder than it should have. She crossed the distance between them and dropped to her knees in the mud. She was close enough to smell the copper tang of blood mixing with the wet-earth scent of the jungle floor, close enough to see the tremor in his hands, close enough to hear his shallow breaths. Each inhale sounded like a struggle.
“Mateo, you should have just kept fucking me.” The words tore out of her, sharp and raw. “You should have just done what I asked, followed my father’s lead, and thennoneof this would have happened. You would still be playing king, able to keep thegringaon the side, and I would still have?—”
Her throat closed.What? What would you still have, Sally? A father who sees you as a tool? A man who never wanted you?They had both used her, just in different ways and for different purposes.
Mateo’s voice was low, almost gentle. “I couldn’t continue. You know I couldn’t.”
“Because ofher?” The bitterness in Sally’s voice surprised even her. “Because of thatgringa. Gabriella.”