Sweet Collateral

“This is your business, Rafe, not mine.”

His lips twitch, his eyes dancing with something he refuses to speak. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” I answer without the hesitation I undoubtedly should have.

“Do you think I’m fair?”

“Yes.”

His finger presses under my chin, his gaze lingering on my mouth. “What happened to you was not this. They had a choice, and choices have consequences.” That rough fingertip trails the length of my throat. “Do not look at them with pity. You know how this works. You know what this warrants, so say it. Do not be afraid of it.”

“I’m not,” I breathe. “I’m afraid of how easily I could condemn them.” I know that vital pieces of my humanity have been lost, stolen, and with that, I could so easily become like the very monsters I hate so much. I can’t embrace that. I can’t speak the words that would seal the fate of these women, even though I know whatever I say, they’ll die. “Don’t make me.”

His eyes bore into mine, hard and without an ounce of mercy to be found. I know these women will die. “Ah, avecita, your resistance is so beautifully futile.”

He glances at Samuel and nods once. There’s a string of curse words from the more defiant girl, while the other one sobs as they’re dragged to their feet and taken away. Samuel follows them towards a door at the back of the warehouse, pulling his gun from his holster before he disappears through it. The door closes with a heavy bang, the finality of it ringing through the air like a gunshot on a perfectly silent night.

“Why did you bring me here?” I ask.

“Because you’re ready.”

“For what?”

“You need to embrace this.”

“Embrace what?”

“Who you are. You’re never going to be normal, Anna.” The words feel like a blade digging between my ribs, poking at a vulnerable spot. “You’re never going to go back to Russia, and have a normal job, and get married to a normal guy…”

I drop my gaze to the ground, a strange sense of loss winding around me like invisible fingers, squeezing the air from me. Because he’s right. I’m irreversibly altered, and I’ll never be right, never think the way sane people do.

“I just want…peace,” I whisper.

“Then accept yourself as you now are.”

“That would mean accepting what they made me.”

“No. It’s accepting the person you became in order to survive. She’s strong. I like her,” he says as he starts walking across the warehouse.

Why is he doing this? I can’t work out whether he’s trying to fix me or break me further. And why? Why does he care? Despite all the pretty words exchanged between us, all the ways he makes me feel so impossibly safe, we both know he’s going to hand me over to Nero Verdi. Maybe he has no choice. I’d like to think that.

I follow him to the door we came in through and out into the scorching sun. He opens the passenger side door, waiting for me to get in. Just as I reach the car, I hear the distinctive crack of a gunshot echoing around the vast space that surrounds the warehouse. My pulse skitters at the sound as my eyes meet Rafe’s cool, hard expression. A second gunshot quickly follows, and I know it’s Samuel putting down those two girls, no doubt after digging them a shallow grave in the sandy earth. I know that I should feel something, pity for them, perhaps even disgust at Rafael, but nothing comes. As always, I feel nothing, just hollow, empty acceptance that this is the way things are.

Rafael offers me his hand, and I take it, allowing him to help me into the car before he closes the door. And then we drive away from his warehouse of drugs and death, clouds of desert dust billowing in our wake.

22

Rafael

Anna doesn’t say a word as we drive back to the house. She’s lost in thought, no doubt warring with herself. She didn’t react to the sound of gunshots though, once again proving that she’s immune to such violent acts. I keep waiting for her to show me the broken little creature lurking beneath that front, but it never comes. She’s certainly broken, just not in the way that one would expect.

When we get to the house, she doesn’t get out of the car. Instead, she sits, her distant gaze locked beyond the windshield.

“Why are you doing this to me?” she whispers.

“I told you.”

“No, you told me what you were doing, but not why.” She throws her head back against the headrest. “Why do you even care, Rafe?” Her words piss me off. “You’re going to hand me to Nero. End of story. Whatever you think I am, or was, or could be, means nothing. He bought a whore.”

“No.”

“I am a whore.”