She looks away. “It’s all a lie.”
“It may have started based on a lie, but where’s the fucking lie now? Because from where I’m sitting, we have an actual, legal marriage, and you love me, and I love you.” I raise my brows and stare at herhard. “Tell me the part that’s a lie, Natalia.”
She says nothing and stares at her hands.
“What’s the lie, Natalia?”
The room is thick with silence for a long stretch of time. Long enough for me to grow impatient and restless.
“Natalia,” I prompt, leaning toward her again.
She still says nothing, so I reach to cup her chin and lift her face. The tears are there again, matting her thick, black lashes and reddening her smoky-blue eyes.
“It is a lie that you love me,” she finally says, “I don’t believe it. I don’t understand you.”
I sweep my thumb under her eye. “Well, you should. Because I do. I wouldn’t have come after you like this if I didn’t. I wouldn’t have been sick to my fucking stomach and unable to sleep for the past three fucking days if I didn’t. I wouldn’t have spent day one driving all over all five of the goddamn boroughs and hired a private investigator on daytwoif I didn’t. If I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t be sitting in this shitty motel begging you to stay with me after you left me and started turning tricks. What part ofany of thatsounds like Idon’tlove you, Natalia?”
Her bottom lip trembles wildly and another tear slides over her cheek. “I hate my life, Joaquin,” she whispers.
I frame her face with both hands. “Then stop with this bullshit and let me give you a new one.”
She clasps her hands around my wrists and lets her chin sink into my palms. “There’s no way for this to actually work. When your father finds out who I am, he will—”
“I don’t give a fuck what Papá does. If I’m not doing exactly what he expects of me, I’m not going to make him happy, Natalia. He’s never going to approve of me. So, he can just deal with the fact that I’m going to do what makesmehappy, and what I know will make me happy is being with you.”
Her throat pulses with a swallow as she meets my gaze. “I am a murderer and a used-up whore.”
I draw my thumb below her eye to catch another stray tear. “Baby, you’re not. That P.I. I hired gave me all kinds of information about your history. I know you’re from a little town in New Mexico. I know you were kidnapped by the cartel when you were five. I know your mamá filed a police report for you right away.” The rims of my eyes start to prick, and a lump swells in my throat. “There was a picture of you when you were a little girl with it, and I’ve never seen anything so sweet. And I don’t think anything has ever broken my heart as much as knowing what that little girl went through. He also…”
I pause and pick up both her hands. “Honey, your mamá’s alive. That was the other thing I found out from that guy.”
Natalia goes three shades paler right before my eyes. “Thatis a lie.”
I shake my head and rub my thumbs over the back of her hands. “It’s not,querida. She’s alive.”
She snaps her hands out of mine. “I saw the photos. I saweverything.”
Reaching into my back pocket, I pull out my phone and open the file from Vinnie, then hold out my phone. “Look right there.”
She hesitates before taking it and then slowly scrolls for a moment. Her thumb pauses, and her hand starts shaking. “This is a lie.”
I can only imagine how hard all of this is for her to process, especially with the state of mind she’s obviously in. “No, baby. It’s the truth. Whatever they told you and showed you was a lie.”
“They…” She drops the phone, and it hits the matted carpet with a dullthump. “They showed me photos. They said it was her. I knew what they did to me. I believed they did it to her, too, and worse. They brought in a boy my age. We were both only teens. They said he was responsible. They told me to deal with him. And I did.” She turns up her big eyes, brimming with more tears, and looks at me. “The first time I took a life, it was a boy who was screaming his innocence. In that moment, they broke me. I had been trapped there for almost as long as I could remember at the mercy of whatever they did to me, but that was the death of all hope for me. And that’s how they turned me into this.”
The lump is still wedged in my throat, and I have to clench my jaw to keep my chin from trembling. “Well,” I force the word past my restricted throat, “you’re notthis. And we’re going to deal with these pieces of shit. And then we’re gonna go find your mamá.”
Natalia says nothing, but her whole body is visibly shaking, and I move to sit next to her on the bed. She trembles harder as her rigid defenses start falling down, and I wrap her up in my arms, cradling her in my lap like she’s still the little girl in the photo. Except that she’s the furthest thing from that little girl now. She’s a battle-hardened warrior, stronger than anyone I’ve ever known and stronger than I’ll ever hope to be, and I never thought I’d ever love anything so much.
I release her only long enough to strip off my hoodie and pull it over her arms, wrapping her up in it like a security blanket. She pulls the hood over her head as though trying to hide and buries her face in my chest, the too-long sleeves covering her balled up fists while she curls up against me, and I hold her.
Her attempt to hide the flood of tears is fruitless, but I don’t make a big show of trying to dam them. She’s too strong, and she really doesn’t need me to be her savior. She doesn’t need anyone saving her. What she needs is a partner; someone to stand with her, fortify her, and have her back no matter what. And I can do that. I will do that for the rest of my damn life if she’ll let me when this is all over.
As though perceiving my internal thoughts, Natalia sniffles and lifts her face enough to press her cheek against the side of my neck. “I have never loved anything, and nothing has ever loved me. But I love you,amor. I love you without even knowing how to love. I don’t know what I’m doing either, but I know whatever I’m doing, I want to do it with you. If and when I burn in hell for the sins I have committed, the ashes I leave behind will cry out with my love for you.”
I tuck my head to look at Natalia’s weary face and hold her closer. “If you’re planning to burn on the altar of revenge for this, I will go up in flames with you.” I shove my hand in my pocket to retrieve the ring and then slip it on her finger—for the third time in this totally fucked-up, but totally fatalistic marriage. “Hasta que la muerte nos separe.”
‘Til death do we part.
