papa and slowly shook my head. “No . . .” I cried again, as tears welled up in my eyes. I looked about the room, searching for some form of relief, but none was to be found.
“They were attacked by Valdez’s men. Run off the road, dragged from the car to a ditch and shot in the head.” I tried to hold it back. I did, but a rebellious sob spilled from my mouth. I covered it with my hand to quieten the noise, but it was no use. She had been my friend. My dearest Teresa. One of my only two friends in the world was dead.
My father didn’t move from behind his desk. His hands steepled as he regarded me, coldly. Death was nothing to my papa. Simply part of his everyday life. “The men who killed them will be taken care of,” Papa stated, as though I wasn’t breaking enough in front of him. As if one of his closest friends hadn’t just been killed in cold blood by his number one enemy. “Go to your suites, Adela. Take the day to mourn Teresa. Then carry on tomorrow, as you must.”
I looked at my father and wondered how he could brush off so easily something so devastating. Then I considered how it was always his way. If you died, it was as though he never knew you. He never talked about my mother. My own mother was a stranger to me. I knew nothing of her, save the snippets the staff had given me. And I wondered, if I were killed, how would he react? Would he take a day to mourn me, then return the next, all business, “as one must”?
Unable to deal with my father and his coldness right now, I stood up from the chair and walked out of his room. But with every step I took the paralyzing sorrow started to build inside me, until it felt like a grenade about to explode in my chest. I rushed through the hallways, needing air. I clutched my chest as my brain took me to the very spot I didn’t want it to go. To Teresa and how scared she must have been today. To that moment she was dragged from the car and shoved roughly to her knees. More tears fell as I tried to imagine what it must be like to know for certain that in the next few minutes, she would no longer be. This was it. She wouldn’t see another tomorrow.
And I wondered if she felt any pain as she was shot through the head.
I prayed it was a quick death. It was the luxury that all of us in this life wished for, if taken by an enemy. A quick and painless death. Though, most of our enemies wouldn’t grant us this death—they’d want to make us pay.
When I burst out of the door, night had fallen. The hacienda’s grounds, although beautiful and blanketed in moonlight, suddenly felt like a prison. It was a feeling building more and more lately. The freedom I’d never had was suddenly becoming all I craved. Well, almost.
I ran into the landscaped gardens and into the high hedges. I didn’t know if anyone was around. At this moment, I didn’t care. I was lost, with no one to turn to . . . or, at least I did have someone—want someone. Unfortunately I was unable to go to him for fear of us being discovered.
Tanner’s face sprang into my mind at this moment. I didn’t know how we had gotten here, to this place. I didn’t know how he, the man I was never meant to like, let alone desire, had become my sun. Had become the star of my every waking thought. But he had. He had become my center—the anchor that kept me still.
But I didn’t know how, after tonight, I would survive. Because he was leaving. After four long visits, each time stealing another fraction of my heart and soul, tomorrow he would leave. The contract that kept him here was done. And there were no plans for him and his father to return.
Teresa . . . gone . . . Tanner . . . going . . .
Another sob soared from my throat and I sank down to the dirt. I set the tears free. I liberated the tears that were stinging my eyes to the point of pain. Drop after salty drop flooded my face, robbing me of breath. I