A Waltz With Wolves (Book II in The Harrison Inc. Series) | ✓

Chapter Fifty-Five: Detached

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I wait for the walls to cave in on themselves. I wait for the lights to go out and for everyone to disappear. Suddenly, I'll be free falling. And right before I hit the ground, I'll jolt myself awake; this is a dream. I want this to be a dream. I want to wake up right next to Leslie with the sunrays and the sheets and shit. I don't want this to be real.

But after waiting for the end of the dream, it never comes. This is real life. What I'm seeing is one-hundred percent real. Claude, Isaac and Penny stand beside me, staring in the same direction that I am but wearing different facial expressions; I'm the only one whose expression isn't distinctive.

Salvador continues to try and wake Alejandro up. There's a small groan that emanates from him, but he still remains partly unresponsive. Over and over again, Salvador shakes him vigorously by the jaw, amplifying his moans of pain. He does this until Alejandro opens his eyes.

"Look who's here, mijo," Salvador says to him. "Remember what we talked about?"

Alejandro, with his eyes puffy and swollen, builds up the energy to avert his gaze towards me. Even with the disfigurement of his face, I can still feel the coldness of his look; the hate and animosity radiating from him.

"Salvador." I fail at hiding my distress. "What is this?"

"I wanted to make sure that the Harrisons continued to place their trust in the Quintanillas. Think of this as a formal apology. A peace offering. A way to settle any doubt."

"One apology is enough. "

"That isn't enough." The faint smile he wore is now completely gone. "Alejandro is a reflection of the Quintanilla family. He's a reflection of me."

He doesn't move his eyes away from mine; Alejandro acknowledges no one else in the room but me. Naked, battered, bruised and bleeding, he only cares about the fact that I had the goddamn nerve to come into this room. I know from the hate seething from his gaze that he thinks I came in here on my own accord; that I wanted to see his suffering. That I knew about it. But I had no idea, and I hate myself for wanting to prove this to him. After everything he's done, I want him to know that I wasn't responsible for what they did to him.

Salvador moves Alejandro's hair away from his face, giving us a clear view of the damage. "Remember what we talked about?" he asks him again.

Alejandro nods slowly, a mixture of blood and drool hanging from his mouth.

"¿Sí o no?" Salvador grits out.

"Sí," Alejandro says quietly, almost inaudibly.

Salvador calls out towards the door, shouting a word in Spanish, and suddenly a man wearing a crisp bright polo shirt contrasting drastically with his tired features comes in. He has a black metal bouton in his hand with small silver blades on the end. Salvador grabs it from him and holds it up towards the weak light—I'm the first and only one to react when I realize what it is.

"Stop!" I yell. With my hand suddenly grasping Salvador's wrist, I have plunged myself into dire consequence. Immediately, Claude pulls me back and quietly coaches me to calm down. Salvador, his eyes narrowed in on me, composes himself and decides not to punish me for my outburst. But even though Claude has a firm hold on me, I've passed the line between staying completely quiet and realizing how fucked this is and intervening.

"Don't do this," I beg him. "Please. You don't have to do this."

"He needs to be disciplined," he explains to me, like Alejandro is a dog. "If he isn't punished for the decisions he makes, he will do it over again. He's a smart man, Sebastian. I was a fool to underestimate him, but I won't make that mistake again."