He doesn’t sleep in the room with me.

After last night—after what he said—how could he?

It’s well past 8:00 a.m., and since he walked off last night, there has been nothing but silence.

I push out of bed and walk to the door, hoping he’s still around. Stepping around the corner that leads to the dining room, I hear glasses clanking and forks scraping china. I enter the dining room, and am utterly surprised to see Mrs. Molina sitting there with a newspaper on the table.

She’s reading the newspaper, a bowl of hot cereal and fruit in front her. It’s a much smaller table, only able to seat six. She hears me coming in and lowers her paper, smiling wide at me. From that smile alone, I’m assuming she doesn’t know what I’ve done…at least not yet. Draco is nowhere in sight.

“Buenos días, cariño!” she sings, dropping and folding her paper. She sits up in her chair, smiling up at me. I take the seat across from her, warmth coursing through my bloodstream. She doesn’t know. She can’t know, otherwise she wouldn’t be smiling right now. “How are you?” she asks.

“I’m great!” I try and sound positive and uplifted. I’m far from it.

“Are you loving it here? You’ve been here longer than I have, right? I arrived around midnight last night.”

“It’s beautiful,” I tell her.

She smiles, and Emilio steps around the corner, coming from the kitchen. “What would you like this morning, Patrona?” he asks.

“I’ll take what Mrs. Molina has,” I say, and he bobs his head. “Thanks, Emilio.” Mrs. Molina takes a sip of her apple juice. “Will Draco be eating with us too?”

She shrugs. “I have no idea. It is not like him to miss breakfast, but he’s told me he has a lot of things to handle this morning, so he’ll probably be a little late. He told me you would be joining me though. If you couldn’t tell, I was waiting.” She winks.

I smile a little and then twist my lips. We’re quiet for a moment. She takes a bite of her green apple. I grab a red Honey crisp from the bowl. “It’s not weird to be taken away from one home and put into another so quickly?”

She waves a highly dismissive hand. “Oh, please. I am used to it. His father did it all the time. No one place is ever safe for long when you are a Molina. That mansion we were in was just our favorite one.” She looks around. “But this one is starting to grow on me, too. It’s…simple. And we don’t get much simplicity in our lives.”

My upper lip twitches to form a small smile. Emilio returns with a hot bowl of cereal and places it in front of me. It smells delicious, like cinnamon and honey. “Enjoy, Patrona.”

He takes off, eyeing Mrs. Molina briefly before stepping around the corner. Though I have no appetite, I dig into my food anyway, eating without really tasting it, while she reads more of her newspaper.

A door shuts from a distance, and I hear slow and measured footsteps. When Draco steps around the corner, my heart goes mad, banging like drums, my pulse loud in my ears.

He doesn’t even look at me as he walks around the table, gives his mother a kiss on the top of her head, and then takes the seat to the left of her, at the head of the table, of course.

“Buenos días, Mamá,” he sighs.

“Good morning, hijo.” She drops her spoon.

Draco looks over at me. “Gianna.”

“Morning,” I murmur.

He looks away, at the entrance of the kitchen. Emilio appears with a bowl of cereal for him, too. This isn’t like the meals we had at the mansion—the multi-option, wholesome meals that I used to die for.

This hot cereal is basic, simple. Just enough to get you through the morning. Now that I think about it, most of the meals I’ve had here are very simple—chicken with rice or potatoes. Breakfast would be waffles with fruit, or toast with eggs.

“I think I will read by the pool today,” Mrs. Molina says after finishing up her food.

“Go and enjoy yourself,” Draco mumbles before taking a bite of his meal.

She nods, and Emilio steps up and grabs her bowl. “Would you like me to get anything for you while you’re by the pool, Mrs. Molina?” he asks in Spanish.

“No, honey. I will be fine, but thank you.” She smiles at him, and then me, and then takes off, humming.

When I can no longer hear her happy tune, Emilio leaves, and I look over at Draco. “You haven’t told her.”

“Told her what?”

“About Thiago.”

He looks at me with cold, dead eyes. No response.

I sigh, my appetite completely gone now. “Maybe I should tell her.”

“You won’t speak a fucking word of it,” he snarls at me, brows stitched.

“She deserves to know. She loved Thiago.”

“I know she did, and if she finds out why he died and what you did, she will fucking despise you. She is the only one who thinks you are an angel, and I want it to stay that way—not for my sake or yours—but for Lion’s. You need her to have your back, because if she doesn’t, you may just end up dead around here.” He shoves back in his chair, causing a screech on the hardwood floorboards. He stands up tall, glaring down at me, pointing a stern finger in my face. “You will not say a fucking word. She doesn’t need to know another family member of hers is dead. She doesn’t know we are under threat—not this severely—so keep your fucking mouth shut and stay out of her goddamn way.”

He stalks away, and before I know it, a door slams, making the walls shake. I flinch when I hear it, eyes wet, throat thick with emotions I can’t stand feeling. I stare down at my uneaten food.

My hands are fucking shaking, my heart still racing. My gut feels twisted into a thousand knots.

No one here is on my side. No one but Mrs. Molina, and even I know that won’t last for long—not when she finds out what really went down.

* * *

For the rest of the day and the next, Draco doesn’t say a word to me. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are set up, but only his mother is at the table. He doesn’t show, though I know he is around.

Mrs. Molina makes excuses for him, saying he’s been very busy lately, but she has no fucking idea what is even going on.

Mrs. Molina and I spend time together at the pool after several meals, but I don’t dare bring up Thiago or even Draco. Instead, I encourage her to talk about Los Cabos, this home, and even about what book she’s currently reading. Though she is engaging and lively, I find it hard to concentrate on what she’s saying. Every time she speaks, her voice becomes a hum, distant in the background.

Instead, I hear the ocean roaring from far away, the crunching of cars running over asphalt and gravel. I hear my slow, thudding heart, and the raging, screaming thoughts in my head. I am aware of every single thing, including how close I am to losing my sanity.

Mrs. Molina is still out by the pool when I decide to grab some bottled water. As I enter the kitchen, I see Draco outside on the terrace. He has a phone glued to his ear, his back facing me. His shoulders are hunched, and his hair is a disheveled mess being tousled by the wind.

He turns a fraction, the first few buttons of his shirt undone. There are bags beneath his eyes, and his eyebrows are dipped and glued together.

He is furious.

He orders something into the receiver of the flip phone, and then he slams it closed right before slamming it down on the ground and breaking it in half. He grips the guardrail in front him, shoulders still hiked up and tense, breathing heavily like a savage beast.

He finally turns, peering over his shoulder, and his eyes find mine.

I don’t speak. Really, what can I say? I expect him to come in and talk to me—to say something, even if it’s rude or mean or whatever. But he doesn’t. He comes inside, but his eyes are no longer on mine.

“Everything okay?” I ask, but he completely ignores me, marching right past with his chin up and his jaw flexed.

* * *

The next morning I hear doors slamming. Something falls to the floor and then another door slams shut. Gasping, I sit straight up, hurrying for my robe and sliding my arms into it, wrapping it around me and covering my gown.

I rush out of the bedroom, but the living room is completely empty. The pool water is still. There is utter silence.

I walk to the empty kitchen, checking the patio. I start to think it was all in my head—that I was hearing things—until I hear stomping and Mrs. Molina asking, “WHERE IS SHE?” in Spanish.

She storms into the kitchen, her eyes puffy, gray hair a frizzy mess. I’ve never seen her so distraught. So…unhinged.

She charges for me, pointing a fierce finger in my face.

“You! What have you done?” she roars in Spanish. “What have you done, Gianna!”

I blink rapidly. Guilt courses through me, taking over every single fiber of my being. “W-what are you—”

“No!” she snarls. “Do not play dumb with me!” She’s still speaking Spanish, the words flying at me like sharp spears. “He is dead because of you! My only nephew is dead! Why didn’t you listen to Draco? Why? He trusted you!”

I feel my bottom lip quivering, my eyes bulging out of my head. Emilio and Patanza appear behind her. Emilio grabs Mrs. Molina by the shoulders but she shrugs him off.

“Señora, please,” he pleads, grabbing for her again.

This time she doesn’t shrug him off, but she does glare at me. Hard. Cold. In this moment she looks exactly like her son—ready to defend and kill if she must.

“He trusted you. I trusted you.” She points at herself, stabbing a hard finger into her own chest. “I thought you would be good for him. I thought you would give him some hope, but all you did was snatch that hope and light away from him. You’ve ruined him!” Her voice breaks.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, holding my hands out, but she shakes her head, standing up tall.

“You are not sorry! You are weak and just like the others! You had a chance, and you blew it. Thiago was all we had, Gianna. All we had.” Her tears are continuous, like waterfalls, overflowing. “Because of you…he is gone. They took him, because you didn’t trust my son enough—because you wanted to be better than him. You did the wrong thing.” She sniffles hard, and my throat thickens with unwanted emotion. “I will not be surprised if he never forgives you, Gia.” Her head shakes swiftly as she swipes a tear away. “Your father would be so disappointed in you.”

When she airs her last sentence, I feel a crack form in my chest. My heart, which was pounding in my chest, stops. My hands, which were shaking with adrenaline, are cold and still.

I didn’t know my heart could be any more broken than it already is, but she just did me in.

The pieces are crumbling and wilting away, but only because I know what she says is true.

Daddy would be angry.

He wouldn’t have forgiven me, if I’d done this to him.

And because I know this godawful truth, I am devastated. What the hell have I done?

Emilio finally gets her out of the kitchen, looking back at me once with sympathetic eyes. Patanza still stands there, her lips pressed. With one shake of the head, she turns her back to me and walks away.

When they are gone, I sink onto a barstool, dropping my face into the palms of my hands. I don’t cry. I can’t cry. Instead, I fight the tears, though it’s hard as hell to do.

I hear footsteps, but I don’t look to find where they’re coming from.

I don’t care who it is—that is until the familiar voice says, “If you want to cry and be useless, go to your fucking room and do it. I don’t want your tears on my countertops.”

I pick my head up, frowning at Draco, who is standing at the door of the kitchen. His first words to me in nearly forty-eight hours, and that’s what he has to say?

I push off the stool, walking up to him, getting in his face. “You think I don’t feel bad about this?” He doesn’t answer me. He matches my stare, challenging me in all the wrong ways. “If you are so angry, why haven’t you punished me for it yet? If I’m just like the others, why am I still here? Why?” I demand.

Still, nothing.

His jaw ticks as he pushes me aside and walks toward a liquor cabinet, taking down a box of cigars. I watch him as he sniffs one and then locks it between his teeth.

After putting the box back where it belongs, he’s walking in my direction again, but he goes right past me, his eyes far away from mine.

Just like that, he’s walking away too.