"I see."
My jaw hardens as I consider that I've hit another dead end. While I don't necessarily believe Eli without a doubt, what he's telling me makes sense. The Tribunal would not have involved him any further in the matter than necessary.
"It sounds as if you have made some enemies within the organization,” I point out. “Perhaps what you are trying to suggest, without saying as much, is that it was one of them who poisoned you?"
"Poisoned me?" His lips set into a grim line, and he shakes his head in disbelief before something seems to occur to him. "Are you telling me I was poisoned?"
"Yes. That is exactly what I'm telling you. Your bloodwork confirmed it."
I allow him a moment for this information to really settle over him, and as it does, I realize he's coming to some sort of silent conclusion as he processes it. At first, he appears angry, and then confused, and then... hurt.
"You know who it is, don't you?"
He shakes his head. "I... no, I don't know for certain."
"Spit it out, Eli. I saw the anguish in your eyes. You think it's someone close to you. Perhaps even your own son."
"No," he declares. "I don't believe that."
"It wouldn't be a stretch to consider." I examine him as I deliver the next blow. "He poisoned me as well."
"What?" His eyes snap to mine, and his anguish morphs to fear.
Eli understands what this means. I don't even have to tell him. But I will.
"He also kidnapped my wife and attempted to abort our baby. There are hundreds of Society hired men out combing the streets for him as we speak. His time on this earth is coming to an end, Eli."
"No." He looks at me pleadingly. "Please, let me talk to him. There has to be something I can do to make this right—"
"Come clean," I suggest. "And perhaps I will consider not bringing forward the evidence of his attempt on my life to The Tribunal."
"You haven't yet?" He searches my face, his love for his son foolishly overshadowing everything else I've just told him.
"No, I haven't yet. But there is still time.”
"What do you want to know?" he asks. "Come clean about what?"
"Why were all those files in your ex-wife's house? Dossiers on me, other members of IVI. All the members who were killed in the explosion…"
I want to believe the confusion on his face is real. That it can't be faked. But it also angers me because I am certain he must know.
"I... I don't know. I haven't even been to that house since Hazel..." Panic washes over his features when he realizes what he's just admitted to. He helped her escape.
"So, you are telling me that was Abel's doing then?"
"No." He clenches his hands on the bed railings, trying to drag his slumping body farther upright. "You are twisting reality to suit your own paranoia."
"Am I?" I laugh caustically. "And would I be twisting reality to remind you that you were the one who called me the night of the explosion? Too sick to go in, you said. That's how Leandro and I ended up there with our father. That's how I lost both of them. Because you set that chain of events into motion with one phone call, banking on the fact that I would help you."
My voice continues to rise as I do, looming over him as I clutch his hospital gown, lowering my face to his as I snarl the truth.
"You made me believe that you were a trusted friend and advisor. And you were the one who betrayed me."
Realization dawns on his face, and he shakes his head in denial. "No, Santiago. You have it all wrong. I was sick that night. I was vomiting uncontrollably. Believe me, if you think I haven't considered that very fact… that I sent you there, and what happened... it could have been myself and my own son. I have thought of it every day since it happened. I never stop thinking of it."
My hands fall away from his shirt, and I stumble back, angry with myself for giving him the opportunity to defend himself when he doesn't deserve it. I thought of him as a father once. Someone to look up to. Someone I admired. And now, he is a shriveled husk of a man who still has not one ounce of honor to his name.
"Your days are numbered, Eli," I inform him as I move toward the door. "And as for your son? You can consider him dead. When I find him, there won't be a soul on this earth who can save him."
14
Ivy
I can’t get Mercedes’s words out of my head. Can’t stop seeing her face, the hate in it. What she said, what she suggested, it’s what I’ve been thinking. It’s the thought that’s been in the back of my mind since Santiago rescued me from the doctor who would abort our baby and brought me home. But it’s not that alone that’s bothering me. Before coming into this house, before having the De La Rosa siblings in my life, I never felt hated. And being hated is different than being ignored or even disliked. It’s almost a palpable thing, a weighted thing.