Chapter 8

8

Bea

W hat did I do? Why did I do that?

She was making so many mistakes. One after the other. If Rogue told on her, her uncle was going to kill her or at the very least, lock her in the cellar again.

The worst thing hadn’t been the hunger—that feeling of her stomach acids churning, trying to digest food that simply wasn’t there, had gone away after a while, leaving an odd emptiness—or even the hallucinations, or the thought that her uncle might choose to leave her there, that she would languish in that dark, damp cellar until she starved.

No. The worst thing had been the guilt—the knowledge that she deserved what was happening to her. That she’d wasted her life. That she’d chosen her own comfort over other people’s lives, and that if she died there, she’d never get the chance to fix it.

She couldn’t even claim ignorance. If she was honest with herself, she’d known, from an early age, what kind of business her father dealt in. She’d seen first-hand the impact of his business in the town where they lived. But she’d loved her father, so she’d turned a blind eye to it.

You were a child. You couldn’t be expected… She’d been a child, yes. And then she’d grown up. She’d allowed her father to ship her off to the convent school, and never looked back. She hadn’t once asked him to stop. He might have done so if she’d asked. He’d loved her. But she’d never asked, and now she’d never know.

After her father’s death, her uncle Emiliano had taken over. If her father had been a tough man and his business a dreadful, unspeakable thing, Uncle Emiliano was a hundred times worse. He was a hound, an expert at sniffing out people’s weaknesses and at exploiting them.

By the time Emiliano had brought her out of the cellar that time, Bea had been so weak she could hardly stand. Her uncle had dragged her to the dining room and explained the rules.

So many rules—the parts of the hacienda she was no longer allowed to go to, what her exercise routine should look like, exactly when and how much she would eat from now on, what would happen if she ever broke the rules.

Her uncle claimed he wanted her to look pretty. But Bea didn’t think her jutting hipbones and all but disappearing breasts were pretty. She knew her uncle, and it was all about control. That’s what he craved. That’s why he liked her hungry. She’d been hungry every minute of every day since. Until today, when another man had fed her his own dinner. Whatever happened, she was determined to enjoy this feeling—this unexpected absence of hunger.

She shivered, remembering the intimacy of the moment when her lips had touched his fork—remembering the intensity in his gray eyes as he’d fed her, bite after bite, until the plate was empty.

God. What did I do? If he tells my uncle…

But he wouldn’t. She didn’t understand why Rogue had chosen to feed her, but she knew, somehow, that he wouldn’t be talking to her uncle about it. Just like he hadn’t said anything about Manuel, or the book.

She steeled herself against the gratitude she couldn’t help but feel. He might have fed you. He might have beautiful eyes. But he’s not a good man. He works for Uncle Emiliano. She didn’t know what it was that Rogue was doing for her uncle exactly, but he was helping him. Helping him hurt others. He’s as guilty as I am.

Tears came to her eyes, but she pushed them back. She had to stay calm, or she was going to end up throwing up. And that would just be downright stupid, after the risks she’d taken. She took a deep breath, then another. She was only just starting to relax when she heard the sound of a key in the front door.

She stood up and folded her hands in front of her, her eyes looking at the tiled floor. That was another thing Uncle Emiliano insisted on. Respect . Nobody stayed sitting when he walked into a room. She heard—but was careful not look up—the door open, and footsteps coming her way.

“Ah, you’re here, florecilla ,” her uncle boomed. Bea clenched her teeth together. Little flower. She hated when he called her that.

“Hello, Uncle.”

“Emiliano,” a deep voice said, behind her. This time, Bea did turn. She hadn’t heard Rogue come into the living area. That was one thing she’d noticed about him—how silently he moved. Like a ghost, or like that wolf she kept coming back to in her mind.

“Isn’t she beautiful, Rogue?” her uncle continued, slurring the words slightly. He sounded drunk. Bea cringed.

Uncle Emiliano was always dangerous, but never more so than when he was drunk. And there was something on the sleeve of his jacket. A dark brown stain that hadn’t been there when he’d left the dinner table. Oh my God. He killed that grower. He killed that grower and stopped to celebrate on his way back.

Rogue made a noncommittal sound. It took her a moment to realize he was responding to her uncle’s statement. Beautiful? No, she wasn’t beautiful. Pretty, perhaps, in the way a poppy with a damaged petal can be pretty. But not ever beautiful. A man like Rogue wouldn’t find her attractive. He was the beautiful one. She’d seen him out running in the early mornings, all strength and raw power, where she was weak and wan.

“We need to speak, Emiliano,” Rogue said.

For the first time, Bea noticed the open laptop in his hands. Ignoring Rogue, her uncle approached her. The fingers of one hand gripped her jaw, like pincers, pulling her face up. “Look at me when I speak with you, girl.” She raised her eyes to his—and hated that they were the same color as her father’s. “I would keep you here for myself, but alas, business must come first.”

It wasn’t the first time her uncle had expressed that disgusting thought, but there seemed something different about his tone tonight. Bea’s body started shaking. She felt unclean. Like this might never wash off. She wished she didn’t understand what he was saying. After all her hard work to keep the food down, she might end up vomiting now all over her uncle’s shoes. She bit her tongue and pushed the nausea down.

“Emiliano,” Rogue said. There was something sharp, something hard about his tone.

Bea’s hope soared for an instant, before she realized Rogue wasn’t paying any attention to her. He was pointing impatiently at the screen in front of him. Through the tears blurring her vision, she couldn’t make out what was on the screen—small green print on a black background.

She swallowed back a moan, wishing she could fade into the wall. Just fade away and not have to live with this fear anymore. Fade away and…

“How close are you to done?” her uncle asked, his tone impatient now. But at least his attention was on Rogue now, and on the flashing screen.

“Close,” Rogue replied. “But I will need the other two test accounts to finish. The ones you wanted me to link. Where do you keep those? Depending on how many sites we’re talking about, it might take a day or two longer to link everything together.”

Bea’s curiosity stirred. Test accounts? Sites? What the hell were they doing?

“I don’t have them yet,” her uncle replied, his tone jovial again. Warning bells rang in Bea’s mind. Such quick mood shifts weren’t normal, even for her uncle. How much has he had to drink?

“What?” Rogue asked. “So, what am I doing here, exactly? I can’t move forward without them.”

“Two friends are coming to visit tomorrow. They will bring the accounts.”

Rogue huffed. “What? They’re not yours? Why would you expect someone to simply hand over?—”

Her uncle raised his hand. “You’re not a businessman, Rogue. But I am—a great businessman. And you know why? Because I’m good at figuring out what people want the most. I often know before even they themselves know they want it. Just like I knew what you wanted,” he said, smacking his lips together.

Bea sneaked a look at Rogue. The man’s jaw was clenched tight. For a moment, there was so much fury in his gray gaze, she wondered if her uncle had caught on. Then he blinked, and when he opened his eyes the anger was gone, replaced by mild curiosity.

“I know my friends,” her uncle continued, “and I know exactly what they want.” She forced herself to stay still as her uncle’s thick hand came up to graze the neckline of her pale dress. Uncle Emiliano’s eyes took their time coming back up to her face. “One of them is Oscar Aguilar. You know how much he’s always admired you, florecilla .”

No. Please no.

The air in the room grew thin—too thin to breathe. Bea wished she could let all the air out and float away. Simply disappear.

“I don’t understand,” Rogue said.

Emiliano gave an impatient sigh. “You worry about your business, and let me worry about everything else. Just make sure you’re ready to add those new accounts tomorrow night.”

“Whatever you say, Emiliano.”

Her uncle’s large chest shook with hilarity. “Whatever I say. I say soon I’ll be the most powerful man in all of Colombia. In the entire southern hemisphere, perhaps.”

Bea prayed with all her heart that wouldn’t come to pass.