Page 106 of Iron Roses
My hand rises to my face. My thumb kneads beneath my eye. Wet. I wipe it away.
The flames stay behind. The passage waits ahead.
Chapter Eighteen
The backseat bends as the road curves, and I keep one hand pressed flat against the window to brace myself.
Fausto hasn’t spoken since we left the house.
The journal rests in my lap. I look ahead.
The car slows. Gates rise into view, black iron set into crumbling stone. Beyond them, a mansion stretches wide—old, painted in beige that once tried to be white. Balconies sag above shuttered windows.
I don’t know where this is, but I don’t ask.
The car stops just past the gates. The journal passes into Fausto’s hand.
He flips it open.
A few seconds pass as he scans the page. Then he shuts it. The smile is already forming before he turns to me.
He taps the leather cover against his palm.
The lock clicks beside me.
The man seated to my right grabs my wrist. The other takes my opposite elbow. They pull me forward, one at each side. Fausto walks ahead of us, flipping through the journal as if reviewing a menu.
Ahead of us man waits. Deep wrinkles across his brow. His suit is wrinkled at the collar. A gold ring sits thick around his smallest finger.
He smiles as we approach. His eyes move down the length of my body.
“Meet your husband,” Fausto says without looking up. “Guillermo Valosi.”
He stops and closes the journal.
“Did you think I’d let you wander?”
The two men stop in front of Guillermo.
Guillermo steps forward.
His hand lifts. Two fingers press beneath my chin. He turns my face left, then right. His breath smells like licorice and gin.
“I expected prettier,” he says, chuckling. “But I like my women bruised. Means they fight. Means they know when to stop.”
He runs a hand from the edge of my jaw down toward my waist.
“You’ll learn to be soft with me.”
He leans in.
His mouth brushes the corner of mine.
Then—
I drive my forehead into his nose.
His head snaps back. He stumbles against the edge of the gate, one hand to his face. Blood flows instantly between his fingers.
