Breakfast on Tuesday

26. Dead girl

"Carla, shit!" Dante was upon me in no time. He held me in his arms, his large palm caressing my cheek. "Baby, open your eyes. Open your fucking eyes and look at me."

I groaned in pain, clutching the side of my head to stop it from spinning.

Santiago cleared his throat. "Listen here, boy. Shoot this bitch or I will shut your new bitches eyes permanently."

The world stopped spinning for a couple of seconds and I forced myself to open my eyes. Dante's worried hazel gaze was the first thing I saw. Something stilled inside me when a small smile curved his lips.

"There you are, cariño. I know it hurts but you cannot go to sleep. Stay awake for me, yeah?"

I nodded and licked my suddenly dry lips.

"Promise me, Carla."

"Okay," I croaked. "I promise."

He stared at me lovingly, or at least that was what it looked like from this inconvenient angle on the floor. Maybe I was hallucinating and seeing things, but whatever it was causing this muddled and improbable vision of romance could take my money. All of it.

What money? The thousand euros your mom sends you out of obligation? Maybe it's time you got a job. You know, grow up a little.

The money my mother sent me was better than nothing. Without it, studying abroad would have been impossible. Sometimes I wished my mother loved me for me and not just out of some moral obligation. Maybe then I wouldn't have been so eager to be loved by a man who didn't want me. Maybe I wouldn't feel the need to seek attention in the wrong places, to crave action and near-death experiences so I could remind myself that I was alive. Maybe tonight, for once, I could go to sleep in anticipation of what the next day would bring.

Unfortunately for me, scorn and fury quickly replaced the affectionate glint in Dante's eyes, and just like that the little bit of hope I was holding on to evaporated.

I deserved so much more than this. I shouldn't have to speculate and fantasize about the affection I saw in my lover's eyes. When he looked at me, I should feel like I was the only girl in his world. And I did feel like that around Dante, but only in his bed.

"You're a dead man, Santiago. I swear it," Dante said, tearing a bigger hole in my sweater from the tiny hole created by the bullet so he could better examine the wound.

"Stop threatening me and shoot Elisabeth. Right now! Or I swear on your mother's grave, I will put another bullet in your girlfriend. This time I won't miss." He shoved Elisabeth toward Dante and she stumbled, landing on the floor next to me, air whooshing out of her lungs.

Tears spiked her long lashes and ran down her rosy cheeks. I reached my hand out to touch her shackled wrist and her eyes flew open, revealing lakes of green. She mumbled something behind her gag but I couldn't understand her.

I grabbed her hand to reassure her that I was there for her. The palm of her hand was soft, her grip even softer as if she had already given up on life.

Santiago's shiny shoes appeared in my line of sight and then he was lifting me off the floor. He grabbed me around the neck and held my body in front of him like a shield, his arm squeezing my bullet wound and causing unfathomable pain to shoot up my arm.

Whimpering, I watched as Dante slowly rose from the floor, his lean body moving like a machine. His eyes turned into granite and he pierced Santiago with a murderous glare. If looks could kill, Santiago would have been buried six feet underground right about now.

"You have five seconds, Dante, and then I'm going to blow her beautiful but useless brains out. I will kill both of them if you refuse to choose. That way, I know you'll feel at least an inch of the pain I feel from losing my son." He pressed the cold barrel of the gun against my temple. "One!"