And I am only going to add to that worry when he wakes.

Sitting up on the bed, I pet his dark head, brushing the hair from his face.

God. What a mess this is.

He stirs but barely, and I pick up the dagger he’d been carrying last night. I went back downstairs to get it after he fell asleep when I couldn’t sleep.

It’s as beautiful as it is deadly. Roses and skulls always with him. I bring the tip to my finger, and it takes just the littlest bit of pressure to break the skin. I watch a droplet of blood pool, then another. I smear it on the inside of my palm. Lay the blade flat there.

Blood on my hands. No. Not on mine. Not yet.

But on Abel’s.

On my father’s.

On my husband’s.

“What are you doing?” comes his deep, steady voice.

Startled, I look over at him. Not asleep. Not even sleepy. Alert. Awake. Like any good predator. He’s dangerous. Not to me, but to those I love. And I’m torn.

If I tell him, I betray my friend.

If I don’t, I betray him.

And betrayal may be the least of my concerns. I’m sure I will have to tie him down for him to hear what Colette confided in me. If he is to remain still and listen to reason after the words are out. If not, I know my husband. This dagger will have much more blood on it than the few drops from my finger.

He’s sitting up beside me, looking at the palm of my hand. At the smear of blood on his blade.

“You were going to kill my father,” I say. “If I hadn’t stopped you last night, you’d have done it.”

He neither confirms nor denies it.

“What would you have told me this morning?”

“Ivy,” he starts, reaching for the dagger.

I snatch it away and shake my head. “What would you have told me, Santiago?”

His eyes harden a little, but it’s not to shut me out. I know this now. This thing, this vengeance, in a way, it’s separate from me. Or at least it has become so to him. It has to be because how can he be how he is with me one moment and in the next be walking out of this house on his way to the hospital to kill a helpless old man?

Well, walking isn’t quite right. He’d been staggering. Did he need to drink so much to be able to bring himself to do it?

I think about what he told me about his own father. I knew already, at least a little of it. I knew he was a cruel man. But I guess I can’t imagine someone with that much power over you who is only ever cruel.