“I don’t react well to threats, Skye. And that company was built on dirty money. Cartel money. I would have given anything to see the look on Warren’s face when it all came tumbling down.”
“Well, that’s never going to happen now. He’s gone, Damian. My father died a few days ago. You got your revenge. It took a while for everything to crumble, for him to lose everything, piece by piece. The stress was too much for him. Foreclosures and debt collectors. Everywhere he turned. He had a stroke last year, and then another one a few months later. He didn’t survive the third one. So congratulations. You finally did it. You avenged MaMaLu.”
“Good.” Damian sat back and folded his arms. He should have felt a small measure of victory, of justice, but it did nothing to fill the Skye-less hole that was gnawing away pieces of his soul. “I can’t say he didn’t deserve it.”
“Don’t, Damian. It’s time to let it go. My father meant to get you and MaMaLu out of there. He was going to get you new lives, new identities. He came looking for you after MaMaLu died, but you were nowhere to be found. He couldn’t undo what he did, but he never meant you or MaMaLu any harm.”
A sick, slow heaviness curdled in Damian’s veins, the initial burst of happiness at seeing Skye dissipating like cool ether. She wasn’t here for him. She was here for her father.
“So that’s it?” he asked. “That’s why you showed up? A year later? To berate me for somethinghestarted? I walked away, Skye. For you. But he couldn’t leave it alone, could he? He just had to try to strong-arm me into keeping my distance. As if I could ever bring myself to contact you. You deserve better. I knew that. He knew that, but he had to prove that he still held the cards.”
“That’s not why he did it!”
“Then why, Skye? Why? I lost MaMaLu. I lost you. I lost eight years of my life. Why the fuck couldn’t he just leave me alone?”
“Because!”
“Because what?” Damian slammed his palms down on the table. “I hated that fucking bastard and I’m glad he’s gone. What did you expect, Skye? Did you expect an apology? You want me to sayI’m sorry?”
“Stop it, Damian.” Skye could see the guard making his way towards them. “I thought it would be different. I thoughtyouwould be different. But you’re still filled with so much rage.”
“And you’re still defending him.” Damian got up and let the guard cuff him. His outburst was going to cost him. He wished Skye had never come. He wished he’d never known her or Warren Sedgewick. He wished he could stop the pain that was shooting through him. “I guess blood will always be thicker than water.”
Skye’s face changed at his parting remark. She looked both heart-broken and enraged. The last thing Damian saw as they led him away was her back, shoulders hunched over the table.
That was the only time Skye came to see Damian in prison. He didn’t see her again for the rest of his incarceration, not once over the next seven years.
DAMIAN STOOD AT THE ENTRANCE of Casa Paloma, by the tall wrought iron gates that had once barred his way. The first thing he’d done when he got out of prison was to put in an offer, and he stood now as master, where his mother had been the help. The few prospective buyers with the means to afford the property had turned away from the daunting task of restoring it. Years of neglect had left it in disarray. Vine-smothered walls and balconies obscured Casa Paloma’s graceful lines. Overgrown trees encroached like dark shadows around the edges. The garden had transformed into a jaundiced mess of dry, tangled weeds, trash bags, and empty beer bottles.
Damian removed the chains and pushed the gates open. They squeaked from worn, rusty joints. The main house stood before him, its boarded-up windows staring at him with pale, blank eyes. Damian walked past it, ignoring the flurry of grasshoppers that clamored out of his way, to the small, modest building in the back that had once housed the staff. It was a single row of dormitory style rooms with a communal bathroom and kitchen. He stood outside the third door, overcome with nostalgia and a strange, tight knot in his throat. MaMaLu’s broom was still leaning against the wall, mummified in layers of dust and cobwebs. Damian shuffled his feet at the entrance.
“It’s me, MaMaLu,” he said, trying to get the words past his clenched throat. “Your Estebandido is home.”
The door remained shut. There was no one to let him in, no one to stare him down for being a bad boy. Damian leaned his forehead against the door and traced the frame. Flakes of peeling paint fell on his shoes. His let his hand rest on the knob for a minute before walking in.
The room was much smaller than he remembered. A single shaft of sunlight lit up the dark, musty space. There was no lingering scent of the jasmine hair oil that MaMaLu used. The fabric partition between their beds lay crumbled on the ground, from the night they’d taken MaMaLu away. There were notostadaswaiting for him, no glass ofhorchata, but what broke Damian that quiet morning was her bed. MaMaLu’s bed was never unmade, but now it sat there, sheets pulled back, pillow askew, covered in dust. They had dragged her out, and it had stayed behind, empty and forgotten, unmade for the last twenty-three years.
Damian was moved to action. He took the bed sheets outside and shook the dust out of them. He pounded the pillow, turned the case upside down and shook it some more. He made the bed up, stretched the sheets out tight so not a single crease marked the surface. He turned down the top sheet and tucked the ends in. He returned MaMaLu’s pillow, stood back, repositioned it, and stood back again. A speck of dust settled on the covers, and Damian, determined to have nothing mar MaMaLu’s bed, started the whole process over again.
He was still fussing over the sheets when the bottled up sensation that had been building in his throat erupted. Damian had not cried for MaMaLu, not in Valdemoros when they’d told him she was dead, not when he placed sunflowers on her grave every year, and not when he opened her littleLucky Striketin. His grief had been curtailed by rage. But now the rage was done. He had avenged her, made El Charro pay, made Warren Sedgewick pay. They were gone, and with them, his burning need for vengeance. Damian had nothing to hold on to, nothing to keep the storm of tears at bay. All the deep, dark emotions that had tormented him lay hollow and spent, like a pile of powdery skeletons. Hate was an illusion, rage was an illusion, vengeance was an illusion. They were all empty husks that he had watered and nurtured, and in the end, they bore no fruit.
Damian crawled into MaMaLu’s bed and rolled up into a ball. He was a boy when he’d left and he had returned a man. He had been alone then and he was alone now. The only difference, the only cruel, bitter difference, was that he had lost his one chance at redemption. He had been so busy holding on to hate, that he had let go of love.
Damian thought of the last time he had seen Skye.
You’re still filled with so much rage,she’d said.
He finally understood what she’d been trying to tell him.
THE TASK OF RESTORING CASA Paloma was colossal, but Damian had both the time and the resources. For eight years, he had run his company from prison. His direction was necessary, but his presence was optional. Damian had achieved what he had set out to do, but it had brought him no comfort. He found solace in gutting and painting and patching the main house. He ripped the vines off the facade, cleaned out the pumps so the fountains worked again, and hired a team of landscapers to restore the grounds. He had the roof replaced with terracotta tiles and gave the exterior stucco a fresh coat of white paint.
Slowly, the house started looking alive again. Flowers bloomed in the garden. Butterflies and hummingbirds returned. The place had been ransacked over the years, but a lot of the original furniture remained, along with the chandeliers. Skye’s mother, Adriana, had had a flair for drama. Damian wasn’t sure if he wanted to keep the velvet curtains in the dining room. He sat at the table where Warren had once convened with El Charro and his men, and considered the heavy crimson fabric. It added a touch of old world opulence, but it also blocked out much of the light.
A soft thud interrupted his thoughts. The renovation crew was gone for the day, but old houses made all kinds of noises. Damian ignored it and got up to examine the curtains.
There it was again. Another little thud. Damian spun around. It was coming from the antique hutch he used to hide in, the same hutch from where he’d spied Skye and MaMaLu interrupting Warren’s meeting. Damian stood before it and heard a distinct thump. Whatever was in there, possibly a bird or stray cat, had seen him. On the other hand, it could be something not quite as harmless, like a snake. Damian got on all fours and opened the door slowly.
She was a bony little thing with brown skin and a long, messy braid. Her knees were folded up to her chin and she peered at him with huge, cocoa eyes. She was wearing a white shirt with a school crest, and a navy skirt. Her socks were askew, one pulled up to her knees, the other at her ankle.
