Feeling victorious, I grin. Then look over my shoulder to make sure I’m still alone before I step into Santiago’s study.
I stand and survey the space, the light of my candle dimmer than the flashing artificial green of the half dozen monitors across from his desk. They're the only modern thing in here. It’s a good-sized room with the huge antique desk at the center and a single chair across from it. A cognac-colored leather couch extends almost the length of the wall nearest me, and like the walls in my room, those here are paneled in dark wood. The far one is taken up entirely by leather-bound books and before it are two comfortable looking chairs with a small table between them.
I walk toward it, pausing at any creak in the floor, trying and failing to ignore the lingering scent of his cologne. It’s subtle, like when I smell it on him, but just as in the confessional the night of our wedding, it’s his scent, and I will never forget it. It’s like my body has a visceral reaction to it, too, my stomach fluttering, my heart racing.
I don’t know what it is about this man whose mark I wear etched in my skin. Whose ring circles my finger and whose rosary hangs heavy around my neck, but I am so highly aware of him past and present.
When I get to the wall of books, I see a glass with its remnant of amber liquid beside a book on the small table. The book itself is open and lying facedown.
I sit on the chair, and when I do, I see the pencil that must have rolled to the floor. I pick it up without even thinking and set it beside the book.
Santiago must have sat in this chair while drinking his drink.
I set my candle down and pick up the glass to inhale. Scotch. My dad had it for company at home. I bring the glass to my lips, and I’m not even sure why I do this. I’m not really thinking, and if I were, I couldn’t make sense of it. But I put my lips to the glass, and I drink the last sip of his scotch.
As the liquid burns its way down my throat, I close my eyes and lean my head against the back of the chair. Leather combines with the scent of scotch and him. Keeping my eyes closed, I inhale, aware of the shudder that makes its way down my spine. I know it’s not the scotch. It doesn’t work that fast.
I open my eyes and set the glass down, then touch the tips of my fingers to the leather spine of the book. No title. The leather looks and feels ancient. The tome is thick and probably shouldn’t be laid facedown and open like he’s got it. It’ll damage the binding.
Picking it up, I turn it over and peer at the page. But it’s not words at all that I see. It’s a drawing that takes up the whole of the page. A skull.
I turn the page and find detailed black and white drawings on the next one. This one is a woman. She’s beautiful. Older with dark hair and sad eyes and a veil that hides part of her face. I study it, something about how she seems to be peering out at me so intriguing I can’t look away.
I’m so caught up in it that it’s not until I hear the key turn that I realize I’m caught. I stand, hitting my knee into the table and sending the candle to the floor. I gasp as I watch melted wax spill into the fibers of the carpet before whirling to look at who has caught me, knowing there’s only one person, and meeting my husband’s dark eyes as they land dangerously on mine.
26
Santiago
My eyes flick to the sketchbook splayed open on the table. The pages are opened to an image I sketched of my mother from the funeral. I hadn’t been able to attend because I was still in the hospital, but Mercedes ensured it was videotaped for me, and I watched it more than once. That haunting image of my mother so broken burned itself into my mind. It’s a memory that was never intended to be seen by anyone. Least of all a fucking Moreno.
Heat rises in my throat as I stalk toward my wife. She's already trembling, shrinking into herself as she tries to move back. But there's nowhere for her to go. Doesn't she realize it yet? She'll never escape me.
My icy fingers latch around her jaw and force her gaze up to mine. "What do you think you are doing?"
"I... I..." She stammers over the words, trying to shake her head. Wide, terrified eyes peer back at me, but it's the scent of my scotch on her breath that fuels my ire.