Rape and pillage. Literally.
Scum of the fucking earth.
A strange feeling of defeat seeps into my bones, and I drop my head, exhaling loudly.
Natalia’s still going to jail, but I’m not going to fucking fight with her. I’m not going to try to extract a confession from her. At least, not right now when she’s totally incoherent and high on pills I drugged her with and probably won’t even remember this tomorrow. I won’t be able to deal with this shit if I let my anger over it get the best of me, and that’s all I’ve done over the past two minutes or so. For right now, I need to forget the anger and focus on the fact that she’s just a helpless, scared woman right now; a victim of sadistic people who share my own fucking bloodline and are probably at least somewhat responsible for her becoming who she is.
It’s only been a whole day since I figured out who Natalia really is, and I only have a haphazard semblance of a plan: keep watching her phone, keep her from communicating with Xavier, try to glean some kind of info from the messages, and shake her down enough to get her to confess. But suddenly, I feel like I should go about this differently. I feel like the best way to get her to cooperate with me is to keep working on the trust a marriage needs—even if this marriage is a total sham. After all,I’mnot the one who did any of the sadistic shit that’s rendered her to this kind of a state of fear; theactualshit she just incoherently admitted.
I’m not the one who’s going to hurt her. I’m just the one who’s going to have to turn her over to the police, which I can say for certain is better than what Xavier’s probably got planned for her.
I’m the good guy. Despite killing those assholes months ago, I’m still the good guy. Despite drugging her and wrapping my hand around her throat only moments ago, I’m still the good guy. And I need to keep being the good guy right now, despite the fact that the only reason she’s sobbing and convulsing in my bed is the fact that she tricked me into marrying her so she could kill me.
I place my lips against the shell of her ear and stroke her thick mass of soft, ebony waves away from her face. “Natalia… baby… it’s Joaquin. Can you hear me?”
She merely whimpers pitifully, breath hitching amidst little hiccups, and I kiss her temple.
“It’s Joaquin,” I say again, slipping my hand under the nape of her neck and drawing her face toward mine. “You’re safe here,querida. Don’t cry, baby doll. Don’t cry,hermosa. Everything’s okay.”
Another sob explodes from her lips. “No está bien. Nada esta bien”
“It is,” I counter, shifting to lie on my back while I slide my arm under her waist, pulling her to lie on top of me. “Everything’s okay. You’re just having a bad dream.”
I wrap my arms around her, and she stiffens against me, snapping her face upward. Her glassy, vacant eyes flick and dart, refusing to focus. “¿Quién eres tú?”
Who are you?
It feels like something’s stabbing me straight through the heart. I honestly hate everything about this situation, but all I can do is roll with the punches and swing from tree branch to tree branch and hope to figure out a way to land on my feet.
Stroking my hand over her hair, I gather it loosely into my fist and use my opposite hand to sweep my thumb across the crest of her cheekbone. “I’m your husband,querida. You’re safe here. Everything’s okay.”
Natalia’s lips part, her breath coming in shallow puffs of air. A shadow of something that hints at recognition drapes her eyes, but they do a subtle drift that tells me she’s still not all there. Despite that, she relaxes slightly, her body melting against mine as she rests her chin on my chest and continues to stare in the general direction of my face.
“You didn’t hurt me,” she slurs, eyes heavily lidded, but still sort of looking at me.
“No, baby,” I murmur. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
She looks more apprehensive than convinced, but the pill and liquor in her system seem to override all of that, and she slowly blinks her eyes closed. She falls asleep with her cheek resting on my chest, and I’m still not even tired, but now I can’t move. All I can do is watch her while she sleeps and roll the chaos of everything over in my mind.
I’mnotgoing to hurt her.
But I’m alsodefinitelynot going to let how fucking weak I still am for her getmehurt.
I’m fighting a lot of variables in this situation, and suddenlythatseems to be the biggest threat.
Thatfeeling.
The one that practically screams that I’m totally fucking fucked because I’m trapped in love with this traitorous woman against my own goddamned will.
That feeling of love mingling with the pang of dashed hope and righteous indignation at the knowledge of what my cousin and all of his shitbag cohorts have probably done to her. The one that makes no goddamn sense given that I now know who she is and why she’s here.
“God, you’re fucking beautiful,” my treasonous lips mumble without permission while I absently curl a strand of her hair around my fingers.
Yep. That’s the biggest threat here.
Because if I can’t keepthat feelingunder my heel, I’m not going to be able to do what I need to do. And if I can’t do what I need to do, it’ll cost me and my family literally everything.
TWELVE
