“What—”
“Faith, no!” McCrae warns right as Faith speaks.
“I’m the one who shot your brothers. Not McCrae and definitely not Valentina.” Gasps fill the room, but instead of feeling anger or relief, I only feel defeat. It weighs on my shoulders so heavily, I slump beneath it.
“You…” McCrae snarls, but it’s Valentina who finally steps toward me, silencing the room. I can’t take my eyes off her—the way she extends her neck, her eyes flashing as if she’s preparing to walk into battle.
She doesn’t know it, but I’d fall on the sword to save her. I’d take the poison if it meant sparing her pain. I’d do anything to take away her need to put her guard up around me again.Anything.
“What are they talking about, Santos?”
I search her eyes, hoping to see a small crack in the ice wall she’s quickly repairing around her heart. “Santos is my middle name. My full names Rafael Santos Marteniz.” I inhale deeply. “Jose was my little brother.”
As my words land, I see the clarity and devastation hit her, blow by blow.
She doesn’t speak, doesn’t scream, doesn’t so much as breathe, and it’s worse than if she’d done all three. This silence is too reminiscent of death—death of what we had,of what we could’ve had.
“Valentina, please.”
“Don’t talk to her,” McCrae and Mateo threaten at the same time, but I push off the floor and take a step toward her anyway.
McCrae wraps his fingers around my arm, yanking me back. Tension coils in his grip, and I expect him to hit me too, but before he can, Valentina snaps out of her daze, raising her hand. “Don’t. Let him go, McCrae.”
Everyone stares at her in confusion. She doesn’t look at me, but I know her words are for me all the same.
“There’s been enough bloodshed between us. I don’t understand it, any of it, but I can’t hold it against him. I’d have never missed that first day when he had a chance…and everything after. I can look past this?—”
McCrae growls in protest. “Over my dead body. This fucking rat isn’t staying here. He’s responsible for everything—he shot me, shot at you!” He glares at me, his icy orbs piercing, and I prepare for the inevitable. “Did you tamper with her truck?”
They all stare at me, some with horror or fury—Valentina with composed indifference. My chest deflates. “Yes. I cut the brake line.”
There’s a round of collective gasps, but not V. She remains impassive—a wall of impenetrable ice.
“And the air conditioning. I fried that too,” I confess, deciding to get it all out now. It’s the least of my grievances at this point anyway.
“Tell me why we should forgive you,” McCrae growls, his fists at his sides. I don’t take my eyes off Valentina.
“I didn’t know. And as much as I don’t want to hurt anyone—” I hesitantly step toward Valentina, “—it’s only your forgiveness I care about.” It’s the truth, the only truth I have, even if it’s not enough.
Valentina’s icy façade cracks, understanding flicking across her face in a wave so quick, if I blinked, I’d have missed it. She’s there, still beneath the surface.
“You have it.”
“Like hell—” McCrae bellows, the glasses on the shelf rattling. It’s Faith who hisses at him to be quiet, and he instantly bites his tongue.
Valentina’s words are the small sliver of hope I’d been praying for, and I seize them, pulling my arm from McCrae’s shocked grip. “V, please. I’ll do anything. I’ll turn myself in. I’ll leave. I know I fucked up, but I was hurt and didn’t know you until?—”
“I know.” It’s more than I deserve, and yet I won’t give it back.
My knees threaten to buckle beneath me—I’m in completely awe of her.Despite what she’s faced, she’s still able to find understanding.
“Tell me what to do.”
She exhales as the invisible weight of the war she’s been waging in her mind leaves her body in a burst of air. “Time. I need time, Santos—Rafael.” She mulls over my name, and the way she says it—my real name—has butterflies erupting in my stomach. Time,but not forever.
“I hurt you, and I’ll never forgive myself.”
Valentina’s head tips as she searches me for something. “You also saved me.”
