Damian had seen pictures of Warren, but nothing had prepared him for seeing him in the flesh fifteen years later—fifteen years after he had chased Warren’s silver Peugeot down a dusty road. Warren looked smaller, shorter, not as all-pervading as he was in Damian’s head. He was in his fifties now, but looked older, with a chunky mustache that was almost all silver. How could he sit there, eating and drinking, so pleasant and alive, when MaMaLu was cold bones and desiccated earth? How could anyone go on so indifferent, so unaffected, knowing they had destroyed worlds and dreams and lullabies? Warren was El Charro, except worse. Whereas El Charro had made no pretense about being a monster, Warren had built himself a facade of decency.
If Damian had left then, at that precise moment, he would have stuck to his original plan—to take over Warren’s company, strip it, devalue it, dismantle it and rob him of the power and prestige he had traded his humanity in for. But just as he was finishing the last of his beer, Damian stopped mid-swig. A young lady slid into the booth with Warren. She didn’t sit across from him; she sat next to him and engulfed him in the biggest, tightest hug. Damian couldn’t see her face, but it was clear Warren had been expecting her. His whole face transformed. He glowed with something indefinable, something true but intangible, something Damian had only seen before in MaMaLu’s eyes—when he picked flowers for her hair, when he made her a seashell necklace, when he was sick, when he was hurt, when he made her laugh and sometimes, when he made her cry. That look, that look which Damian would have given anything for, was the way Warren was looking at his dinner companion—with the whole Goddamned world in his eyes.
Damian sucked in his breath.
Look away, look away.
But he couldn’t. And in that moment, Skye Sedgewick flipped her long, golden hair to the side and kissed her father on the cheek.
Fuck.
Damian felt like he had been punched in the gut. The memories he had locked up behind iron gates swelled against their chains.
“One more.” Damian slammed his beer on the counter. The bartender jumped. When she poured him another, he grabbed it and gulped it down in one long guzzle, drowning out everything that threatened to break free—echoes of kites and cakes and trees with bright, yellow flowers.
When he looked at Skye again, fortified and controlled now, she was gushing over something her father had given her. She tore through the logo-emblazoned packaging and held out a bag.
“Hermes!” she squealed.
Gone was the endearing gap between her teeth, sealed and veneered, just like her heart. She was the girl who hadn’t stopped when Damian had gone running after her car. She was the girl who hadn’t bothered saying goodbye. She was the girl who had trampled on his heart and his paper animals, and on MaMaLu’s love and songs and stories. She was, every inch, Warren’s daughter—callous and uncaring and materialistic and fake. A fake friend, a fake confidante, a fake childhood memory. She was a counterfeit, wrapped up in genuine designer packaging. But most of all . . . most of all . . . she was everything to Warren. The way Warren looked at his daughter left Damian with no doubt about that. Nothing was more precious to Warren than his daughter—not his mansion, not his cars, not his company. If Damian wanted to make Warren suffer, really suffer, he had to take her away from him. Forever.
“A woman for a woman,” said Damian when he returned to the table.
“A what?” asked Rafael.
“A woman for a woman. He kills my mother, I kill his daughter.”
“What are you talking about?”
“See that over there?” Damian pointed to Warren’s booth. “That’s a father who adores his daughter. There is no greater pain in this world than losing a child, Rafael. And I’m going to make sure Warren feels it, for as long as he lives.”
Rafael’s eyes darted from Skye to Damian. “Violence? Do you really want to go there? We’ve spent our lives running from it.”
“Not violence, Rafael. Justice. Skye Sedgewick for MaMaLu. Una mujer por una mujer.”
“I thought you were going after his company.”
Damian pulled out the Lucky Strike box from his coat. “I changed my mind.” He traced the worn, gold letters and thought of the newspaper article inside, of the lies, lies, lies Warren had spewed about his mother. “I’m going after Skye Sedgewick.”
“AND THAT’S HOW ESTEBAN BECAME Damian,” said Rafael. “When you prayed for him and MaMaLu, you threw him off. He couldn’t bring himself to kill you, but he could make your father think you were dead. And now,” Rafael raised the gun, “your time really is up, princess.”
It was almost dark. I could hear the waves crashing on the beach, the squeaks and flutters of night insects stirring around us, the piercing cry of an island bird—like some kind of nature CD: Sounds of the Jungle.
Close your eyes. Relax. Don’t fight it. Let Rafael shoot you in the head.
I was dead already. The truth doesn’t always set you free. The truth can kill you, slice open your innards and turn everything inside out. Everything I believed, everything I thought was real had been turned upside down. My father wasn’t the man I thought he was, Damian wasn’t the man I thought he was, and MaMaLu wasn’t living in a white-walled house with a backyard full of flowers.