I don’t repeat it. I don’t care about his name. I never want to see him again. “He knocked me out, and when I woke up, I was in that awful place.”

“Bring me the shoes you were wearing.”

“What?”

“Colette’s shoes. Go get them.”

“I don’t have them. I guess they got lost somewhere between the gala and the cellar. I—”

“Mercedes had them sent to your room.”

I pause. “No, she didn’t. I don’t have them.”

His face becomes stone-like, and I swear I can see him thinking, trying to make sense of things. His jaw is tight, body tense. Before I can ask why it matters, he storms out of the office and down the corridor. I rush after him as he hurries up the stairs to my bedroom. By the time I get in there, he’s in the closet, and when I get to it, I see him inside, pulling clothes off hangers, opening drawers, and shoving things aside wildly.

“Santiago?”

With a roar, he knocks a whole shelf of shoes clear off, and I jump backward. He turns to me, and the rage I see in his eyes is nothing like I’ve seen yet.

“Where are they?” he demands.

“Not here. I told you!” I back away into the wall. “You’re being crazy!”

“Where the fuck are they?” He slams his fist into the wall, and I jump, letting out a scream.

He shakes his head and storms out of my room to barrel down the hall to Mercedes’s bedroom.

“Mercedes!” He bangs his fist against her door, and when he finds it locked, he rams his shoulder into it so hard I hear wood splinter. It takes only two times for the door to crash open.

“Santiago, stop!” I rush in after him and am glad for his sister that the room is empty.

But then he begins to tear her closet apart, and when he doesn’t find what he needs there, he destroys her bed, then her desk, pulling out the drawers, dumping their contents, and smashing a beautiful antique lamp against the wall.

“Santiago, what are you doing?” I scream as I try to pull him away, try to make him stop, but he just shakes me off. “Santiago, stop!” I grab his arm and cling tight, but it’s a mistake. He’s out of control, and when he next shoves, I go flying backward and crash against the large, heavy armoire, slamming the back of my head so hard that for a moment, time stands still.

“Fuck! Ivy!”

I blink, sway on my feet as the room spins. When my knees give out and I reach for something, anything, he catches me, big arms wrapping around me, sweeping me up just as consciousness slips away.

21

Ivy

His smell is all around me. I breathe it in, but when I turn my head, pain makes me hiss.