It was just a crush…wasn’t it?
Logic told me no future existed for Val and me. There couldn’t be. Morality couldn’t allow me to stand by the side of a man who remotely had a hand in what happened to Nash. The idea of doing so would be beyond disrespectful to his memory. It’d be unforgivable.
A hollow burn spread through my chest as my mind catalogued the failed relationships in my life. Every man I’d ever trusted or loved had hurt me or deserted me. Davis left me, my father turned his back on all of us long before this mess ever started, and Nash was literally ripped out of my arms.
Maybe Mateo and Emilio were right. Maybe I was a black widow. For all Val’s faults and reprehensible acts, the thought of harm coming to him tore a hole in my heart. Everything inside me warned me to back out now and save both of us mutual destruction. But as I asked myself the silent questions, one answer rang louder in my head than any doubt.
I’d fallen hard for Valentin Carrera, and I was more conflicted now than ever. My conscience knew he’d given the order to torture Nash, even though it wasn’t my brother he’d targeted; he admitted it himself. However, there had to be some humanity in a man who held a part of me so strongly tied to him that I couldn’t walk away. Surely, I hadn’t fallen so far off the line between right and wrong that I couldn’t recognize an irredeemable person from one whose soul seeped with evil?
Weaving my fingers through the metal bars in the headboard, I tilted my chin toward the ceiling, letting out a frustrated breath. “Damn you, Danger.”
“If you’re going to damn me before I get to hell, at least break down the list.”
I jumped at the sound of his voice, quickly releasing the metal bars and pushing up on my elbows. He stood in the doorway, his left arm and hip bent as they both rested against the frame. A half-smile played on his lips as his body shifted forward. An unstable surge of lust and emotion brewed inside me as I ran a heated stare from his messy hair to his bare toes. Clad only in a pair of draw string black sweatpants, the casual attire and bare chest threw me off.
Mesmerized, I mentally counted the defined rows of abs as they trailed down to the well-defined V that disappeared behind the low-slung waistband. “I thought I locked the door.”
“You did.” He opened his mouth to argue further, then paused as his eyes lingered on my bare legs, exposed by my long t-shirt. “That’s mine.”
I glanced down at the oversized, green shirt and smirked. “The shirt or me?”
“Yes,” he answered quickly. Moments of silence passed between us before Val sighed and pushed off the frame, folding his arms across his bronzed skin. “I don’t like the way things ended last night.”
I lowered my eyes, playing with a rogue thread on the pillow. “Me either.”
“Then let’s fix it.”
“Tell me about your mother.”
Cursing in Spanish, he rolled his forehead against the door. “Can we not—”
“Go back to your own room, Val.” Hugging the pillow to my chest, I curled into a ball, facing away from him. For some reason, I needed to know the human side of him. Before cartel life changed him. When he had a mother and a somewhat recognizable father.
A house. A family. Maybe a dog and friends who’d knock on the door and ask if he could come out to play.
To allow him completely into my life, I had to know if that version of Val Carrera existed. If he couldn’t, or worse, wouldn’t give me that, I’d walk out of his front door today and turn my back on him to save the last piece of myself from being lost forever.
Tears burned my eyes, and I closed them, willing the impending breakdown to stay forced behind closed lids. One rogue tear refused to obey and slipped through the cracks, trailing a telltale sign down the bridge of my nose. Before I could get rid of the evidence, the mattress dipped with his weight and Val’s hand gently wiped it away. Placing my hand in his, he shifted on the bed and pressed my palm between his shoulder blades. Swallowing hard, I slowly rolled over to face him. I had no idea what he was about to do, but the lull in the cadence of his voice demanded my full attention.
“Every word, every symbol, every color is for them.”
“’Them’?”
“My family,Cereza.” He traced my fingers over each symbol as he described them. “The number three on my left shoulder represents my family the day everything changed.” Trailing the pad of my index finger horizontally across his upper back, he rested it against his right shoulder. “The number two is what was left when a young boy doesn’t realize the difference between death and sleep.” Moving my finger once more, he dropped it to the middle of his upper back, equal diagonal distance from the other two. “The number one represents me—what was left after the last one had been taken away.”
Tears rolled harder as the block of Spanish in the middle of the inverted number triangle blurred. “Val, you don’t have to—”
Moving my finger down the left side of his ribcage, he ran it around the petals of a wilted white lily. “This is for my mother. Her name was Liliana.” Shifting my hand, it trailed horizontally over the sword which pierced through the petals and through another lily, smaller in size and shaded black on his right ribcage. “This is for my sister. Her name means dark little one.”
A long pause followed his last explanation, and I watched his back rise rapidly as his breathing escalated. “Val, please stop. I don’t need to hear anymore.” I didn’t. The personal pain etched in each work of art painted on his skin ripped a new hole in my already destroyed heart.
“The bird with its talons on the sword is a phoenix,” he explained as if I hadn’t spoken. His eyes glazed over, transported to another time and place. “The phoenix rises from the ashes and rebuilds what was destroyed.” The muscle in Val’s jaw twitched as he ground his teeth together with repressed anger.
“And the Spanish at the bottom?” I heard myself ask, unaware I’d even formed the words.
“La venganza es mía. Yo pagaré.”
“What does that mean?”
