She tensed against me, and I knew she understood what I was saying. I had spent so long trying to leave that part of my life behind. To leave behind the identity of a victim. So I’d taken on a new role instead. The role of a monster. And how I excelled in this role.
“I knew it was only a matter of time before he killed me himself. So I ran. I kept running, and I never looked back. I moved down South, crossing the border to Mexico. That’s when I met Gabriel.”
She pulled back and looked at me. “That long ago?”
I smiled a little and softly traced the outline of her lips. “Yes. He’s my oldest friend. When I met him, his father was still alive. Gabriel had been the crown prince of the Mexican cartels.”
“But Luis is the head right now, isn’t he?”
I nodded. My observant girl. “Yes. Luis staged a coup when his father was on his deathbed. He and several other men attacked Gabriel and drove him to New Mexico. They thought he was dead. Luis is cocky. He didn’t bother to check if his brother was breathing. He figured the bullet he shot through his chest would be enough, and if Gabriel didn’t die on the journey there, he would eventually bleed out, abandoned in the middle of nowhere. And he would have been right. Gabriel would have died had I not found him in time. I was just starting to gain some power in the East. I wasn’t around when his father got sick, but I kept tabs on the cartels. It was in my best interest to have the cartels exactly where I wanted them.”
“For the South America drug trade, right?” she asked, surprising the hell out of me.
“What do you know about that?”
“I heard things in Father’s house. Right now, he holds the majority of it. And the Mexican cartels—they’re his middleman, right?”
I nodded, smiling a little. Everyone underestimated Catalina because she didn’t talk. That was their mistake. One I wouldn’t be making in the future.
“Smart girl,” I praised.
She offered a small, pleased smile that affected me more than it should.
I moved her head back down. It was easier to tell her about my dark past when she wasn’t looking at me.
“When I was in a position to get my sister out from under my father’s grasp, I came back to Russia. My mistake was underestimating his pull with the Solntsevskaya Bratva. They ruled Russia with an iron fist—they still rule it to this day, though not as prominent as they were in the old days. My father had set up an arranged marriage for her with their current enforcer. A brute of a man who was rumored to have been engaged three times before. None of his brides had ever lived past their wedding night.”
She burrowed closer to me but didn’t say anything. I sifted my fingers through her long hair, getting lost in the memory. In the bloodshed.
“My father wasn’t going to let her go without a fight. Not when he was counting on this connection.”
I was sure Catalina knew what that was like. To be used by her father to marry off to a cruel man. My hand clenched in a tight fist around her hair. I still had Henry Ramos in the dungeon, and I planned on drawing out his torture as long as possible. Gabriel had lent his doctor to us to keep Henry alive, in case we went too far.
And I would never go too far.
If I had it my way, Henry Ramos was going to be alive for a long while.
“I didn’t have enough men with me. I couldn’t wait around for my father to call in his favors and have the Bratva come for us. I got reckless. And when you get reckless, people die.”
She pushed herself up once more so she was looking at me. “It wasn’t your fault that Inessa died.”
“Wasn’t it?”
She shook her head fiercely—so much faith in me. But I knew.
“I sneaked into the house late at night intending to get her out. I didn’t plan on the bastard catching on to my plan and waiting for us. I lost sight of Inessa in my rage to kill him. I wanted to kill the bastard with my own hands. And it wouldn’t have been enough. But my desire for vengeance blinded me. She was caught in the crossfire and died. I eventually killed our father, but it didn’t erase what happened to me. And it didn’t bring Inessa back.”
She shook her head, her eyes wet with tears. “He was a bad man. It didn’t bring her back, but it stopped him from hurting anyone else. Stopped him from hurting more children.”
I swiped my thumb under her eyes, over the single tear that fell, and I stared at it in fascination.
“Is this for me?” I asked gruffly, cupping her cheek.
She turned toward my touch. “For you. For the boy you once were. And for Inessa.”
I pulled her down and kissed her, letting her tears mingle between our lips. I hadn’t cried in so long, I didn’t even think I remembered how. But Catalina was different. So free with her emotions. Perhaps that was why I had spent so much of my time fascinated with her tears. I couldn’t cry myself, so perhaps she could do it for both of us.
She placed her hands on my shoulders, her nails digging into the skin as I deepened the kiss.