Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“Matias…” She wiped the back of her hand across her cheek, erasing a fallen tear. “I thought all this stuff—” A sob rose up, but she choked it back. “I thought it was lost in the fire.”
His eyes felt gritty and hot, but he didn’t look away.
She pulled the jacket to her nose and inhaled deeply. “It still smells like you.” Her gaze turned inward, and little lines formed on her brow. “Did you go back there after I disappeared? Did you see my parents before they died?”
Yes, yes, and fuck those motherfuckers to hell.
With a heavy breath, he sat on the bed and patted the spot beside him.
She set the jacket down and joined him, her shiny eyes searching his face. “You’re scaring me.”
Perhaps he would always scare her, but she wasn’t a runner. She would fight him, maybe even kill him someday, but she would never leave him. He found a strange sort of comfort in that.
“Six weeks after your disappearance, I killed my brother, Jhon.”
She gripped his hand and kept her teary gaze on his.
“A few weeks after that,” he said with a tight throat, “your sister disappeared.”
“Lucia?” Her voice whipped through the room.
“I had some guys watching the grove. I was in full-time-guns-out search mode, pulling every resource I had, trying to find you, hoping you’d show up there. When Lucia didn’t return home from work one night…” He insides clenched with guilt. He should’ve been watching her sister, protecting her. “I knew.”
“What did you know?” A lethal chill spiked her tone. “Where is she?”
“She’s gone. I’m sorry, Camila.” Pain stabbed through him. “She was abducted. Killed.”
Her hands flew to her mouth, her eyes wide and wet.
“I prayed to hell I was wrong.” He pulled her against his chest and stroked her hair. “Weeks went by, and your parents never reported her missing.”
“She would’ve been…nineteen.” She gripped his t-shirt. “She was an adult—”
“She was a missing person, Camila. Missing, and no one was fucking looking for her.”
“No.” A keening noise sounded in her throat. “I can’t hear this…”
“You have to hear it.” God knew, he needed to put this to rest. They both did. “Jhon was dead. Nico was the new face of the cartel. But Andres and your parents knew who I was, knew I was a Restrepo and the real capo. So I paid them a visit.”
Her tears soaked his shirt, her cries silent beneath the rush of her breaths.
He held her tighter, running a hand through her hair as his chest squeezed painfully. “Your parents denied any involvement in her disappearance. Said she ran away, she was trouble, and more bullshit on top of bullshit. Goddammit, I was so fucking pissed. And desperate. I had their houses bugged and their phones tapped. A few days later, I got my answer.”
Her breaths cut off, her shoulders hitched around her ears. Her entire body froze as if waiting to hear what he knew she’d already figured out.
“When Hector and Jhon died, they left behind an army of loyal men in my cartel. Men loyal to them, not to me and certainly not to Nico. This insurgency tried to overtake the cartel, and it took me months to root them all out.”
Her chest began to heave again, and her fingers dug into his arm. Having lived at the estate for a few weeks, she knew enough about cartel politics and understood how easily an uprising could occur in the wake of a fallen leader.
“These men who wanted to take over…” She gazed up at him, eyes tinged pink. “They went after you by going back to the place you grew up? To threaten your loved ones?”
“Yes. Except the only one I loved was already gone.” His insides tightened. “Camila, your parents…”
“They negotiated, didn’t they?” Tears skipped down her cheeks.
“They didn’t want to lose the grove or their lives, so they gave up Lucia in exchange for protection.”
“Why?” She reared back, teeth gnashing, and voice angry. “If my parents knew you were the capo, they would’ve come to you. And who the hell did they need protection from?”
“They needed protection from me.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “I don’t understand.”
He angled toward her, shifting as close as possible with his thigh pressed against hers and his hands cupping her neck. “I was hunting through my ranks, torturing and killing those who were involved in your abduction. That’s how I learned that Andres and your parents…” He paused, closed his eyes briefly, then looked at her. “They gave you up to Jhon to save their own lives.” When her face crumbled, he rushed on. “When I killed Jhon, they knew I would come for them.”
The brokenhearted look on her face and hitching sound of her cries sent a sharp bolt of agony through him. He pulled her onto his lap and held her for an endless moment as her shock morphed into full-body trembling. He rocked her and shushed her, his own eyes burning with so much goddamn remorse he couldn’t catch his breath.