Page 89 of Widow's Walk
“When the Ortiz estate was—”
“Razed?” she says, sharp but playful.
“Yes.” I pause.
She’s never asked what happened. To her family, her home, or her family’s legacy and enterprise. So, I’ve never brought it up. Until now.
“Territories were redistributed, and businesses were liquidated.” I stop again and decide my next words carefully. “But I thought it was only fair you had a say in some of it.”
She snorts bitterly. “You just said they were all handed out.” She looks away, jaw set tight. She’s retreating into herself, walls standing firm.
I need to press on before I lose her completely. “The house is yours.”
She looks up at me, frown lines creasing between her eyebrows. “What the fuck would I want that for?”
Fair question.
I sigh. Now second-guessing the second half of this. Perhaps it would be best to let her see for herself. “It should be you to decide what to do with it.”
Epilogue Two
Sinclair
The silence on the ride from the air strip to the ruins of my childhood is haunting.
Blackwell doesn’t speak, and I don’t ask questions. That’s our language when something is too raw. Say nothing, breathe through it, and pretend it doesn’t feel like being skinned alive.
The further we drive, the more familiar the land becomes, and the more chilling it is. I feel it in my bones. Like a map burned into me of a past I can never seem to outrun.
Then it appears. The Ortiz estate. Home. Hell. Both.
I stare out the window. Still and silent. He said it was mine now. To do whatever I want with it. Those words weigh morethan the marriage contract itself. A wedding gift, supposedly. Or maybe just another strategic move in a long-running game.
Because I still have no trust in men. Especially not the powerful ones who say the right things and hand over power like charity. So, is this a boon? Or a burden?
A way to give me closure, out of love?
Or is this him dangling my past in front of me like a leash I can never cut? Just because he can.
That’s the way my mind works. Fucked up, defensive, and programmed for betrayal like it’s religion. I’ve never had anyone give me anything other than another scar. But I would be a fucking fool to be led by blind faith.
As the car creeps up the drive and the devastation comes into full view, I realize something. I’m not triggered. Not really.
I expected the walls to close in, the nausea, and the bile to rise. The weight of everything I lost here. But instead, I feel…lighter.
The closer we get, the easier it is to see the damage that had been done the night of their final demise. Like a mirror reflecting my version of a dream come true.
My wildest dreams never looked like weddings or fairy tales. They looked like this. Ashes. Destruction. My family getting exactly what they deserve.
The night’s darkness is perfect. There’s no light to soften the edges. No birds chirping. No blue skies and sunshine. No disguise to make it feel like anything that it’s not.
It looks like a fucking warzone. The garish doors I’ve always despised blown apart. Windows all shattered. Parts of the iron gate twisted and flattened, like the perimeter lost its will to protect the vile scum inside.
There’s no sign of life. No soul. Just ruins.
Imagining my family being slaughtered like pigs, whether Blackwell’s intentions, I see the appeal to this.
I open the door before the engine is shut off. The gravel crunches beneath my boots, sharp and satisfying, like tiny fragments of bones snapping.
