Perfectly on cue, Natalia lifts her hand from where it nonchalantly hangs at the curve of her hip, flicks her wrist, and a blade snaps open from a knife that was hidden in her hand. Her expression is cold, bored, and completely void of everything I saw in itbeforethat I still—probably stupidly—believe is real.
The first bead of sweat rolls down my back. Something—either more sweat, or blood, or both—trickles from my forehead over my cheeks.
“And afterthat,” Xavier goes on, crossing his arms over his chest as he stands in between Natalia and some other chunky, baldvatowith his hand on a pistol shoved in the front of his black pants, “I’m going to hand deliver your head to Ernesto so that we can quit dicking around with this nonsense already. He’s going to work with us, or he’s going to die. And since you’ll be out of the picture, we won’t have to worry about you fucking everything up again. Sound good,primo?”
My only response is an automatic flick of my gaze across the scattered group of cartel bootlickers that are standing in front of me until it lands on Natalia, who’s still wearing that lifeless, heartless expression.
“Go on now,chiquita.” Xavier reaches to swat her ass, and she doesn’t even flinch, merely stepping forward like a well-trained horse. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
Natalia holds my gaze as she saunters toward me, and I stare up at her, trying to gleansomethingfrom her vacant eyes. Even as she’s holding the glinting blade at her side, poised at the ready to fucking shank me, I’m still not entirely convinced. I still think there’s some semblance of hope in this situation that I just can’t see yet. I still think there’s a plot twist coming when it really fucking looks like this is justit.
She’s about five feet from me when I speak on pure reflex.
“Amor, you—”
“Cállate la boca.”
Shut the fuck up.
Her voice is deadpan, just loud enough to carry across the barren room, and she doesn’t sound like herself.
She doesn’t look like herself.
At least, the self Ithoughtshe was; that I thought Iknew.
And it’s slowly sinking in as she slowly approaches that I really didn’t know her at all. That, after all the years of playing I did, I’m the one who ultimately got played in the shittiest way possible, and it’s going to cost me my life and probably my family’s, too.
I jerk against the cuffs and shift the chair, inching it backward with a jarring screech that causes Xavier to explode into a fit of raucous laughter. He slaps his thigh, and hisvatosjoin in, but Natalia’s focus is laced with steel, and she keeps coming at me.
I keep my eyes trained on her and jerk my wrists again. “Natalia, look at me. I mean, try toreally—”
She swings her arm faster than I can blink, and stars explode behind my eyes with dull pain that blanches my cheek. “Be still.”
Every cell in my body goes as frigid as her eyes, which don’t stray from mine. When she reaches me, she extends her right hand toward me, her hand doing a seductive sweep across my shoulders and chest while she continues to hold the knife at her left side. She steps around me to stand just behind the chair and grates her nails up my neck, then uses them to comb back my hair before gripping it and wrenching my head backward.
The blade is cold against the skin of my neck, just under my chin, but now her head is inclined down, her face mere inches from mine, and thatscent.
Cinnamon and warm vanilla.
Those eyes.
Big, smoky-blue-gray eyes framed by long, fluffy, black lashes.
Papá has always been right. Iamfucking stupid. Because this woman is seconds from draining me of all my blood, and all I can think about is the fact that, even though it took this fucked up set of circumstances to realize I really waswrongabout her, I love her.
I’ve never loved anyone like this before, and I love her so much that even though she’s about to murder me medieval style, it’s not enough to change that. The rational part of my brain knows exactly how stupid that makes me, but I’m about to die, and maybe my soul has finally saidfuck it, this is just me. I’m just an idiot, I always have been, my heart is bigger than my head, and I lost it to her.
A deadly, beautiful assassin sent to kill me.
Someone I laughed with and got lost in. Someone who backed me up and stood by my side when my father was being a prick. Someone I held and comforted in the face of physical and emotional injury. It may have all been a lie, but my heart believed it was real.
And when you’re staring death in the face, shit becomes pretty fucking clear, everything gets stripped away, and you’re left with only the things that really matter to you. And to me, it was her;isher. And I’m about to die at her hands, but I’m not going to go out kicking and screaming. I’m going to go out with the truth on my lips.
The blade is still hard under my chin, Natalia’s still gripping my hair, forcing our eyes to hold, but I’d rather look at her while I’m dying than any of the cacklingcholosacross the room.
“Do what you gotta do.” I swallow thickly, my Adam’s apple bobbing and dragging against the knife. “I still mean every word I said,amor.”
She doesn’t even blink, but she does lower her voice to whisper, “Créeme.”
