Sweet Collateral

“Anna!” I jolt awake, a scream on the tip of my tongue as I’m torn from the dream. Rafael’s face comes into focus, and I suck in what feels like my first full breath in a long time. Dark eyes study every inch of my face, his brows knitted together tightly.

“I’m fine,” I say on a choked breath.

I know he doesn’t believe me. “Come on. Come have a drink with me.” He pulls me to my feet, and I allow him to without a word. We pass by a group of women in the hallway who stare at me as if I’m some kind of zoo attraction. Rafe’s wide palm rests on the small of my back over my damp shirt. Once inside his office, he pulls the door shut and rounds on me.

“You don’t sleep there anymore,” he says, going to the corner and taking the decanter of liquor off the small side table. He pours out two glasses and hands me one.

“Where else would you like me to sleep?”

He pauses with the glass halfway to his lips. “Where do you think, little warrior?”

“This isn’t that kind of arrangement, Rafael.”

“When did the nightmares get bad again?” he asks, ignoring me.

I down my drink in one gulp. “They’re always bad.”

He lifts a brow. “Not always.”

No, not when I’m with him. Why is that? I never could quite work that out. “They’re just dreams.” There’s a pause, a beat of the kind of silence that only ever seems to exist in the sleepy early hours of a morning. He says nothing, just waits, letting the quiet wrap around the both of us until I start speaking. The words seem to fall from my mouth without permission, as though he possesses my soul so entirely that I’d spill all my darkest secrets just for him. “I thought when I killed him, he’d stop haunting me,” I whisper.

“It doesn’t work that way, avecita. Memories don’t die with their creator.” He leans back against the desk and takes a cigar from a tin. “And that kind of hatred doesn’t end with a bullet.”

“Have you ever hated someone so much that you felt as though it was consuming you?” I fold my arms over my chest, trying to fight off the shiver that has settled into my bones. “He’s dead, and yet it feels like I’m festering from the inside out.”

He lights his cigar and inhales deeply. That familiar, comforting scent wraps around me. “My father,” he says quietly. “Like I said, a bullet sometimes isn’t enough, unfortunately.”

“Is that why you had him killed? Because you hated him?” I ask, genuinely curious. Rafael knows things about me—deep, dark secrets—and I know very little about him really. But I know that he had Nero kill his father because that single action was the catalyst for all that followed. It’s the reason I’m standing here right now.

Those dark eyes lock with mine, the red glow of his cigar reflecting in them demonically. “Yes.”

“Why?”

He seems to deliberate his next words. “My mother was my father’s whore. When she got pregnant, he kicked her onto the street. Only when I started making waves lower down in his cartel did he decide that I was worthy of being called his son. I was fifteen.” He inhales and then exhales a thick cloud of smoke, crossing one ankle over the other, the image of casual power. “He was an asshole who thought himself invincible because he was a cartel boss. But power can always be taken, little warrior. I still hate him, even in death, but I smile knowing that I took everything that was once his and made it stronger. Better.”

“It doesn’t feel like enough,” I whisper.

“And maybe it’s never will be, but you have to try and let it go.” This is what I’ve missed. Una tries to understand and maybe to a degree she does with certain things, but Rafael always just seems to get me. Our paths have been so very different. He’s closer to the men who enslaved me than he is to my situation and yet he always just knows. He puts things in perspective, and it’s as though all the wounded, fragmented parts of me gravitate towards him, begging him to piece them back together again. “You’re still standing, little warrior. And somehow, the depravities of this world haven’t tainted you irrevocably.” He reaches out, grabbing a handful of my tank and tugging me close. “I’m not sure you realize what a feat that is.”

I place my hands on his chest, sliding my palms over the soft, expensive material of his shirt. “Tonight Una asked me to kill a man. I hesitated.” He watches me, waiting for more, but I just shake my head.

“Tell me,” he demands as his thumb strokes soft circles on the side of my neck.