And, if I was honest, this part was still new to me in many ways—not just because I’d had only one lover, one time. Cristiano had been right to call me out for having my guard up, but it was more about wading into unfamiliar territory than resistance. About moving past the shame of having fought so hard against him only to give in practically overnight.
“I didn’t see you take your antibiotics,” I said, holding the dress shirt closed over my naked body.
We’d already undressed his wounds, and now they breathed. I’d gotten used to the sight of them, but my anger still simmered over what they represented. “So give them to me, Nurse Natalia,” he said.
I went to the closet to change into a nightgown, discarding his shirt and my destroyed pants in a pile. In the bathroom, I washed my hands for thirty seconds like the doctor had told me to, soaked a gauze pad, and carried his pills, fresh bandages, and antibiotic ointment back to the bed.
“The first night I brought you here,” he said as I climbed onto the bed next to him, “I thought you’d instantly see how well we fit together once I got you in my arms. I’d already known from the moment I’d seen you at the costume party that there was an attraction between us. I assumed you’d fight it, resist it, but that once we were alone, you wouldn’t have to fear it anymore.” His gaze, nearly as potent as his touch, drifted from the hem of my short, slinky slip down my bare legs. “As my wife, you’d have the freedom to give in.”
“You didn’t know me as well as you claimed.”
He shook his head. “I don’t consider myself a naïve man, but when it came to you, I suppose I was.”
He’d never intended to force me. His only mistake had been overestimating his male prowess and underestimating my will to hate him. It made more sense that he’d stormed out of my father’s house after bandaging up my wounds from the warehouse fire. I’d made it clear that morning that I believed he had it in him to rape me. Or how he’d grilled me about whether Diego had been forceful with me by the fountain the night of the costume party.
I sat back on my heels. Ghosting my fingertips around one wound, I asked, “Does it hurt?”
“Much less than it did a moment ago.”
“What was it like?” I asked as I gently touched the wet gauze to his torso. “Were you scared?”
He watched me. “Terrified.”
My eyes jumped to his, surprised by his admission.
“Not for myself,” he added. “For you.”
“Do you regret any of it?”
He paused, digesting the question. “I can’t, Natalia. I never want to put you in danger, but so many lives have been bettered because of everything leading up to the attacks.”
I was glad to hear he’d do it all again. If I hadn’t survived, at least my death would’ve been in the name of something good. “Why?” I asked. “Why is helping these women so important to you?”
“Do I need a reason?”
I smiled sadly as I patted his skin dry. “In this world, yes. Nothing is free. Nobody acts with good intentions.”
After a few silent beats, he reached up and cupped my cheek in his large, warm hand. “You do, don’t you?” His thumb touched the corner of my mouth. “What do you think Bianca would’ve wanted for you?”
How often did anyone bring up my mother to me? Rarely, if ever—as if the topic of her death was off-limits, when really, I relished the chance to talk about her. “I don’t know what she’d want for me,” I said, “but it wouldn’t be to stay in such a dangerous life.”
“She was raising a strong woman who wouldn’t allow fear or shame to rule her. Bianca would’ve approved as long as you were honest and unwavering in your choices.” He dropped his hand to my thigh and squeezed gently—not playfully this time, or even sexually. Just comforting. “If you truly want out of this life, then go, Natalia. But you’d be running away because wanting it scares you . . . and I think your mother would’ve made you question that. Confront it. If you want a place by my side, the way she stood by your father, then take it. Own it. Don’t feel ashamed that the cartel runs in your blood.”
Cartel life was maim, murder, and supplying evil with the means to tempt the good. “It is shameful,” I said, unscrewing the top of the pill bottle to shake his antibiotics into my palm. “Innocent people pay the price for what we do.”
“Was your mother innocent?” he asked. “Was mine? No. But they made no apology for it.”
I wished I could believe in my mother’s innocence the way I had as a child, but there was no such thing as a bystander in this business. But if my mother had helped Papá make decisions, or even stood by without protest—did that make her as ruthless as him? My father had killed, and so had she. I leaned over to trade the pill bottle for a glass of water on his nightstand. “The women in this world aren’t to be underestimated,” I said, handing him his meds.