MaMaLu refused to dignify that with a response.

I grabbed my school bag and went downstairs. Everyone was already gathered around the dining table. The only space left was next to Gidiot, because no one wanted to sit next to him.

"Good. We're all here. Ready to begin?" asked Miss Edmonds.

Gidiot stomped on my foot under the table. I winced as I opened my textbook.

"Everything all right, Skye?" asked Miss Edmonds.

I nodded and gave her a small smile. I wasn't a tattletale, but I knew I was in for another long afternoon.

Three times a week, Miss Edmonds came in from the city to Casa Paloma. My mother had inherited Casa Paloma as a wedding gift from her father. It was a lavish, Spanish-inspired estate on the outskirts of a fishing village called Paza del Mar. There was a small school in Paza del Mar where the locals sent their kids, but the expatriates preferred private tutoring for their children, and so we met in our house, which was the largest by far.

We were learning about soil erosion and landslides and earthquakes when Gidiot pulled my braid so hard, the little red flower MaMaLu had adorned it with fell to the floor. I blinked a few times, refusing to cry, and focused on the diagrams in my book. I wished Gidiot would fall down one of the fault lines, and into the molten core of the earth.

"Ow!" Gidiot howled, rubbing his leg.

"What's the matter?" Miss Edmonds asked.

"I think something bit me."

Miss Edmonds nodded and we continued. Bugs were common. No big deal.

"Ow!" Gideon jumped. "Swear there's something under the table."

Miss Edmonds took a quick look. "Anyone else feel something?"

We shook our heads.

My eyes darted to the big, antique hutch behind Miss Edmonds. On the bottom were two paneled doors with lattice inserts. The crisscross pattern was purely decorative, but as Esteban and I had discovered one afternoon, they made perfect peep holes if you were hiding in there.

I smiled, knowing Esteban had backtracked in from the garden. He hated school so he hid in the hutch on the days Miss Edmonds was there. That way, he had something to tell MaMaLu when she asked him what he was learning in class.

Esteban poked his fingers through the wood and mini-waved at me. He held out a straw, or maybe it was one of his paper creations. The next minute, Gidiot was hopping around the table on one foot, massaging his calf.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow!"

"Gideon!" Miss Edmonds was not amused. "You're distracting everyone. Wait outside until the rest of us are done with today's session."

I picked up an orange seed from the floor as Gidiot left. There were a few more under the table. Esteban had been shooting orange seeds at him through the straw. I could see little red marks on Gidiot's legs as he left the room. Esteban gave me the thumbs up from his hiding place.

I laughed at the thought of his crooked thumb sticking out of that old wooden cabinet. I was still laughing when I heard the lock turn on the door.

Damian was back. And this time there was no tray.

"It's time you earned your keep," he said.

I nodded and followed him out.

I'd spent all my time in the room, but now we were standing in the U-shaped space that functioned as the kitchen. It was done in mahogany and teak, and part of the countertop was cantilevered to accommodate a pair of barstools. There was a sink, a refrigerator, a two-burner cook-top stove and a microwave oven. All the drawers were locked down, but there was a chopping board, some potatoes and a big-ass butcher knife on the counter.

"I need those peeled and cubed," said Damian.

And he was going to let me use the knife? He had balls.

"Sure." I was already thinking of which way to slice them.

I started rinsing the potatoes, but had to grip the sink for a second. My head still hurt and my legs felt weak. My eyes were still closed when Damian grabbed my left hand, forced it palm-down on the cutting board and WHAM!

He severed the tip of my pinky finger off, sliced the top third-nail, bone and all-clean off, as if it were a carrot he was chopping for a salad. The pain set in a few seconds later, after the blood started spewing all over the counter.

I screamed from the agony of it, from the horror of seeing the top of my finger sitting there, dull and lifeless, like some plastic Halloween prop. I closed my eyes and screamed louder when Damian applied pressure to stop the bleeding. I backed into something-something solid and firm-and slid down until I was on the floor.

I tried to pull my finger away, but Damian held on to it. He was keeping it elevated, wrapping it up, doing God knows what, and all I could do was scream and scream and scream, because everything he did made it ten times worse. I screamed until the sobs set in, until I was rolled up in a tight ball, until the tears stopped and all I could manage were soft, soundless whimpers.

When I opened my eyes, Damian was holding a phone over me.

"Did you get that?" he said to the person on the other side. "Good." He walked to the other side of the counter. "Send the recording to Warren Sedgewick. Tell him that's what she sounded like when I hacked her body to pieces."

He picked up my dead finger, put it in a zip-lock bag and threw it into the freezer. "And tell him to expect a souvenir in the mail. It's the only part of her he'll have because the rest is scattered all over the place."

I could hear the faint sound of the other person on the line.

"I know I've done it before." Damian sounded agitated. "This was different. I froze, damn it! She started praying right before I pulled the trigger. She fucking prayed." He slammed his fist down. The knife clanged loudly on the counter.

"I messed up, Rafael," he continued. "I wanted him in the morgue, identifying his daughter's dead body on her birthday. I know. I'll figure something out." He paused and raked his fingers through his hair. "I don't give a fuck about that. He can hire every Goddamned bounty hunter in the world. I just want him to feel it. I want him to suffer. As far as Warren Sedgewick is concerned, his daughter is dead." He turned and fixed his eyes on me. "And who knows? In twenty-one days, she just might be."

He hung up and wiped the blood off the blade. Then he poured a glass of orange juice, propped me up, and held it to my lips.

I sipped it slowly, because my teeth were chattering. I was hot and cold and sweaty and dizzy, and there was still blood dripping off the counter and splattering onto the floor.

"Why don't you just kill me?" I asked when I finished the juice. This was not some random kidnapping. This was a murder-turned-into-abduction. This was a screwed-up moment of weakness. This was a personal, targeted attack against my father. "What happens in twenty-one days?"

Damian didn't respond. He finished cleaning up the bloody mess in the kitchen before examining my finger. Some pink was showing through the bandage and it throbbed like hell, but he seemed satisfied.

He left me on the floor, propped up against the cabinet and started cutting the potatoes. "Cold cuts and potato salad for lunch?"

DAMIAN SENSED SOMETHING HAD BROKEN inside of me, or maybe he felt a vague sense of remorse over what he had done. Whatever the reason, he no longer tied me up at night, although he still locked the door and kept the key on him while we slept. When I woke up, the door was always open. He left me something to eat on the same counter where he'd chopped off my finger, and although the knife was nowhere in sight, the threat of it was lodged deep in my brain.

I was free to go about the boat as I pleased, but I spent my time curled up on the settee across from the kitchen. Damian stayed up top, at the helm station, for the most part. Two people, forced into close proximity, day in and day out, can communicate volumes without uttering a single word. He reminded me of pain and darkness and a double-gauzed finger. I must have reminded him of botched-up vengeance and the monster within, because we both steered clear of each other, except for the times when we had to eat or sleep.

I didn't ask him what my father had done. Whatever wrongdoing Damian was holding him accountable for had to be a lie or a misconception. Warren Sedgewick was the kindest, most generous soul in the world. He used his hotel connections to build dams and wells and water pumps for people in the most remote regions of the world, places that no one gave a damn about. He financed micro-loans and schools and food banks and medical aid. He rallied against injustices, treated his employees with respect and dignity, and he always, always made his daughter pancakes on Sunday.

When my father and I had first arrived in San Diego, they were Mickey Mouse pancakes with powdered sugar and loads of syrup. Then they turned into hearts and princess stuff. And even though I was all grown up, he refused to let me move out and held on to those traditions. Recently, he'd started making caricatures of my shoes and purses, big shapeless blobs of batter that he insisted I had to look at from different angles to appreciate. The condiments changed with my tastes-bananas with Nutella, fresh berries with brown sugar and cinnamon, shaved dark chocolate with orange zest. My father had the uncanny ability of tapping into my brain, pulling out all of the things I craved, and turning them into reality. I thought of lemon curd, swirled in mascarpone cheese, not because I wanted pancakes, but just so he could feel it-my topping of choice for the day-so he'd know I was alive.

Most of my bruises were healing, but my finger was still a red, raw reminder that a part of me was sealed in a plastic bag, iced over in the freezer. I peeled off my acrylic nails, biting and picking until I'd ripped into the nail bed-nine nail beds instead of ten-all cracked and ridged and covered with ugly, white flakiness. I thought it was an appropriate send-off for a fallen comrade. A nine-finger salute.

I missed the weight of my mother's necklace on my skin. I missed my pinky nail. I missed my hair. I felt like all the bits that held me together were slowly coming unglued, falling off, piece by piece. I was disappearing, disintegrating like the rocks that get eaten by the sea.

I made my way up to the deck for the first time since Damian had dragged me there, the day he threw my locket into the water. We were on a mid-sized yacht, powerful enough for deep sea sailing, but inconspicuous enough to avoid attention. Damian had it on autopilot and was sitting on a deck chair, with a line in the water. Whatever he caught would be dinner tonight.

I could feel his eyes on me as I made my way to the railing. The water parted into two foamy trails as we cut through it. I wondered how deep it went and how hard I'd fight when my lungs started filling up with it. I thought of sinking to the bottom, in one glorious piece, instead of breaking apart tortuously, one tiny piece at a time.

Forgive me, Dad.

I stole a quick look at Damian. He had gone still-deathly still-like he knew exactly what was going through my head. I knew his body stance now. He'd been the same way, all his muscles pulled in, alert and tight and tense, right before he'd had his slice of vengeance. I'd felt it then, and I could feel it now.

The bastard. He wasn't going to let me do it. He'd be on me before I could step a foot off the boat. He owned me. He owned my fate-my life, my death. He didn't need to say a word; it was there in his eyes. He compelled me off the edge. And I obeyed. I couldn't stop the sobs so I cried and I cried.

I cried the same way I'd cried when Gideon Benedict St. John had broken the clasp on my necklace and left chain marks on my neck.

Esteban had found me and was ready to go kick Gidiot's ass.

"Don't you dare." I made him promise. "You know what happens if you get in trouble one more time."

"I don't care." He swiped the hair off his forehead. He meant business when he did that.

"Please, Esteban. MaMaLu will send you away and I'll never see you again."

"MaMaLu's just bluffing."

Esteban called his mother MaMaLu. He'd always called her MaMaLu. She was his mama, but her name was Maria Luisa, so somewhere along the way, he'd started babbling MaMaLu, and it had stuck. Now everyone called her MaMaLu, except for Victor Madera, who worked for my father. He called her by her full name and MaMaLu didn't seem to like it. Or him.

"MaMaLu said next time you misbehave, she'll send you to your uncle."

"Ha!" Esteban laughed. "She can't even go a day without me."

It was true. MaMaLu and Esteban were inseparable, a hard-loving, quick-fighting part of my life. I couldn't imagine one without the other. They slept in a separate part of the estate, removed from the big house, a small wing that accommodated the help, but I could still hear them some nights-like the time Esteban was gone all day and didn't get back until past midnight.

That was the first year the cinema had opened in the village. They showed The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and Esteban stayed for all four screenings. MaMaLu had a right fit.

"Estebandido!" She'd gone after him with a broom when he finally showed up.

Esteban knew he was in big trouble when she called him that. I heard his howl all the way up in my room. The next day he showed up for his chores, looking like Blondie, Clint Eastwood's character from the movie, wearing MaMaLu's shawl-all squinty-eyed and chewing on a whittled down tree stub.

The following year Esteban watched Enter The Dragon and thought he was Bruce Lee.

"What do you do, Skye?" he asked.

"I fight back and I fight hard." I repeated the line he had coached me to use, over and over again, because that was a line from one of the movies he'd seen.

"Ready?" he said. "On five."

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . .

I attempted to free myself from his chokehold. I grabbed his arm using both my hands and followed through with the move he'd taught me, trapping his leg with mine and making a sharp 180-degree turn before pulling him across and away from my body.

We ended up on the grass, a pile of limbs and sharp elbows. I laughed. Esteban did not think I made a good martial arts apprentice.

"You need practice. And discipline. How do you expect to take on Gidiot if you can't even handle me?"

And so we practiced. Every day, Esteban turned into Estebandido, although he never liked playing the bad guy.

"Just for practice," he said. "Just for you, gerita. Do it like this. Whoee-ahhhhh! Ready? On five."

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . .

"No, no, no." He shook his head. "You have to make the sound."

"Whooo-ah!"

"No, Skye. Like a cat. Whoee-ahhh!"

The couple of times I managed to land Esteban on his back, his eyes shone with adoration.

"You're not so bad for a girl," he said.

We were lying in the shade of a tree, looking up at the sky. The branches were covered with clusters of delicate flowers, like yellow lace dripping down from brown limbs.

"I'll bring you cake tomorrow," I said.

He nodded and blew the hair out of his face. "Kick his butt if he tries anything, okay?"

I clasped his fingers and smiled.

Esteban wasn't invited to my birthday party, but Gidiot was. And all of the other kids who private-tutored with Miss Edmonds. There was a magician and a clown and an ice cream truck and pinatas. Silver and pink balloons bobbed all around the garden. I blew out nine candles while my father went nuts with the camera.

"Wait. I didn't get that. MaMaLu can you light the candles again? Skye, slowly this time," he said.

Esteban was perched on a ladder, cleaning the windows. Every so often, I looked over and he'd grin. He could see the big slice of cake I had hidden under the table. It had three juicy strawberries on it. Strawberries were Esteban's favorite, but he rarely got to eat them. The cake was our little secret and it made me feel like he was part of the festivities.

By the time we were done with the games and loot bags, the pink frosting was melting off Esteban's cake, so I decided to sneak off and give it to him.

"Where are you going, Skye?"

Gidiot had tailed me.

We were standing by the side of the house. I had Esteban's cake in one hand and a glass of lemonade in the other.

"Let me pass," I said when he blocked my way.

"Are you going to eat all that?" he asked.

"What's it to you?"

"Skye has a hole in her teeth and a hole in her tummy. She's a witch with a piggy tummy and no mummy!" He yanked me back as I pushed past him and the cake went splat on the ground.

I threw the lemonade in his face. That made him good and angry. He grabbed me by the waist and lifted me off the ground, shaking me like a rag doll.