Sweet Collateral

Rafael leans against the wall, one foot kicking up against it as his thick arms fold over his chest. He studies my every reaction as though he expects me to run from the room screaming.

“Who is he?” I ask.

“You don’t recognize him?” His eyes flash with dark amusement.

“It’s hard to see through all the blood.”

“This is the guy who broke into my house and took you.” He smirks. “He told me all about it. Why he did it, who he works for…”

“And? Who was it?”

“Dominges hired them.” I don’t know who that is. “The boss of the Sinaloa cartel,” he clarifies.

And that terrifies me, because why would a man who sold me now want me? “Oh.”

“So, avecita…” He straightens away from the wall, prowling towards me with a lethal kind of grace. An unfamiliar sense of security washes over me when he moves closer, and I frown because I can’t quite compute this sudden trust in him. It’s not rational. But then, does it need to be? He stops, so close that I can see nothing past the colossal expanse of his chest. “What are you going to do about it?” Minty breath whispers over my face and I tip my chin up to look at him.

“Me? You want me to do something?”

“This man hurt you.” His gaze drops to my neck, which I know is ringed in thick purple bruises. He strokes feather-light fingers over the abused skin, his expression darkening with each passing second. Rafael circles behind me like a predator toying with prey, and moves my hair to the side. “He took you, and he would have handed you over to Dominges without a second thought, avecita.”

“I know.” My voice is nothing more than a broken whisper. The heat of Rafael’s body bleeds into my back, offering strength while threatening to burn me—such a precarious line. I resist the dangerous urge to lean into him, to take comfort in a man who I know can provide none. He may have saved me in a fashion, but this is just business to him.

“This man made you powerless, Anna. Here. In my home. Where I promised you safety.”

I turn to face him. “That’s not your fault.” I place my hand against his chest and feel his heart racing beneath my palm.

He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, and I drop my gaze away from his, focusing on the sight of my hand on his chest. Willingly. I’m willingly touching him. I frown at the unfamiliar sight, and my hand falls away.

“He’s going to die, avecita.” He nods towards the bloodied man. “I think you should do it.”

My eyes go wide, snapping to his instantly. “What?”

“He wronged you, and in my world, that warrants a payment of blood.” He reaches behind him and slowly pulls a gun from the waist of his pants. “I don’t know how to help you any other way,” he says quietly, like a confession he dare not voice too loudly. “So I’m giving you the choice. Either way, he dies.” He holds the gun out to me.

Tentatively, I reach out, wrapping my fingers around the cool metal. I wait to feel something…a sense of anxiety, or a whisper from my conscience…anything. All I feel is the heady rush of power that comes with holding that weapon, a power I’ve never once had before. I glance over my shoulder at the unconscious man. He would have handed me back to the very people I escaped, and I’ve seen enough of this cruel world to know my fate would be even worse than the one they inflicted on me for years. They would kill me. With the weight of the gun in my hand, my numb indifference splits like the parting of a curtain, allowing years of pent-up rage and bitterness to slither through to the surface.

“Wake him up,” I say. Without argument, Rafael walks over to a small sink I hadn’t spotted in the corner of the room. He fills a metal bucket with water before tossing it at the prone man. Jerking awake, the guy drags a rattling breath into his lungs. When he lifts his head, I see that one of his eyes is swollen shut. Blood streams from his mouth and nose and his jaw is an array of different colors. Rafael did that to him. I can picture him like an avenging angel, completely without mercy as his fists cause untold damage, driven by thick muscles and raw power.

The man’s gaze slips to the gun in my hand before he lets out a laugh that turns into a hacking cough. “You’re going to let the girl kill me?”

Rafael grabs a handful of his hair, wrenching his head back. “You should be thankful. You get to die at the hand of a beautiful woman with a bullet. I would have just started removing body parts until you bled out.” The man’s Adam’s apple bobs before Rafael drops him and moves back to my side.