My chest tightens. I hate every single word coming out of his mouth, but he can’t stop. I need to know everything.
“She lived with him for four years, but each year she became greedier. Jefe wasn’t as lenient with her as he was with you. Whenever she did something he told her not to do, she was punished severely. Beaten and whipped with belts and paddles. Choked while she slept until she begged for mercy. She was even knocked unconscious once. You would think I felt bad for her. I didn’t. I didn’t, because she asked for this to happen to her. She would yell in his face, tell him to do something about it if she’d made him angry. She was addicted to it—his punishments. She was fucking insane.”
“So she’s the reason he likes to punish.” It’s more of a statement than a question.
He nods, just barely. “He got a thrill out of it, but he was the worst with her. She’d intentionally show up late for breakfast, even when he constantly reminded her. One day she pushed too far. She spit on his food, and he stabbed her in the thigh.”
My eyes stretch wide.
“One of the maids stitched her up. One day, during her very last week there, she told him she’d put up with so much of his shit that he needed to marry her. She demanded that he make her his wife. Jefe refused. He didn’t love her. Truthfully, I think he was beginning to despise everything about her. He was on the verge of killing her, which was his only other option, because he couldn’t let her go. She knew too much, and he didn’t trust her. He told her to her face that he didn’t love her and that he would never marry a psychotic bitch like her. She begged him to. Groveled. He refused every single time. I remember the day he told her: ‘Love is useless. You are useless.’ She’d changed after that. She no longer begged. She didn’t show up for breakfast and didn’t spend her nights looking for him. She hid in her assigned bedroom…and then one day she was just gone.
“We searched for her for years and got nothing. She’d completely disappeared…until one day she appeared during one of Jefe’s meetings as an associate for one of his well-trusted dealers. We knew then that she had her own agenda, but Jefe wasn’t concerned. He knew her threats were empty. He knew she was still the psychotic bitch who craved him day and night. He was still on top, and she was many levels beneath him. But one day, she was no longer the associate with the big dealer. She became the big dealer. She’d bought them out. Took over. She created her own empire and ran many of the small dealers dry. Now, she only needs one more big cartel dealer to rule all of Mexico—and that’s Jefe’s, but he’s not handing it over without a fight. And she knows that—she knew when she first took you that he was going to start a war. She wanted this—to lure him out. At first, though, she didn’t care to take what was his. Toni was dead, and she wasn’t about to take her business down with him. Henry Ricci was a lost cause to her, but when Yessica heard about you, I’m certain she dug deeper. She needed to know more, and she knew she was only going to get that from Henry. Henry made himself way too easy for us to find after escaping. That should have been a sign to Jefe then that something was going on—that something bad was about to happen. She took Thiago, thinking he’d cave and tell her about you and where Jefe was. It’s a very good thing he didn’t.”
He sighs, and I sit back in my seat, my pulse thudding in my ears now.
“Before that,” he continues, “she mostly stayed out of his way. But when she heard about you, oh, Patrona, her jealousy ignited. I know it did, because you are the woman she wishes to be. He loves you, not her. He will never love her. He treats you like a queen and gives you so much mercy, while he treated her like a pile of shit. This is why you have to go. Because if she catches you again, she will kill you this time, just to make The Jefe just as miserable as she is.”
12
GIANNA
The flight becomes rocky minutes after Emilio announces we will be landing soon. Fortunately, the landing smooths out when the wheels of the jet touch the ground.
The jet drifts along for two more minutes while I stare out of the window, at the mountains and the silky, blue sky.
I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. I can’t be with family again after being around Draco for so long. He should know this. It won’t be the same as before. A normal life doesn’t suit me anymore—not after everything I have gone through while in his hands.