She rolled onto her side and watched him climb out of the bed and her heart skipped a beat. Wistful, she bit back a sigh. Then again, she was being stupid. She had absolutely no desire to undo a minute with him. Maybe she couldn’t keep him, but the days she’d spent with him burned brighter on her memory than any other she could recall.
If she had to settle for something vivid like this that would end in heartache, or something just . . . mediocre that she barely recalled a few months, a few years later? This was better, she thought. She hoped she could remember that later on down the road when she was cussing him out for leaving her.
He didn’t speak as he dressed. She didn’t bother saying anything. There was no point in trying to get him to change his mind. He’d already decided what he needed to do. He wasn’t there looking to see if she wanted him even. If he’d shown any sign of that, then she’d be all over him, giving him all the reasons he needed to stay.
But he’d come with a purpose in mind.
So fine.
Let him go.
Swallowing around the knot in her throat, she told herself she could get through this. The first few days would be the worst, right? After her father had thrown her out, once she’d gotten through the first few weeks, the first month or so, she’d figured out how to get along and she’d been okay. This couldn’t really be any worse than that.
In the dim light, he turned to face her after he’d pulled his shirt on, and she rolled onto her back as he came to sit on the side of the bed.
He reached up and touched her cheek. “Thank—”
“If you say thank you to me, I’m going to break your nose,” she warned softly.
A faint smile danced across his face, there, then gone. “Do you really think I can leave without saying thank you for helping me with Alex?”
She sat up and leaned in until they were nose to nose. “Anything else and I’m punching you, Gus. I did my job. Period.”
“Your job . . .” He sighed and pushed her hair back from her face. “What you did, were willing to do, was so much more. We both know it. But if that is how you want it . . .” He shrugged. Then he reached over for something on the nightstand.
She hadn’t noticed it before. The sight of it made her heart slam against her ribs for some reason and her chest ached.
It was stupid, maybe. No reason for a piece of paper to make her hurt, she thought. Especially when she hadn’t seen what was on it. But she already hurt, just seeing him hold it, his head bent as he stared down at it. Although it was too dark for him to read it, it was as though he was committing whatever words were on that paper to heart.
“Alex is with your boss.”
And the pain in her heart ripped deeper through her, if that was possible.
Swallowing, she nodded slowly. Unable to sit there, naked save for the sheet and blanket pooled around her waist, she climbed out of bed and padded over to her dresser. She tugged open a drawer and pulled out a shirt at random. It fell to mid-thigh, covering her decently, but she still felt exposed so she pulled open another drawer and fished out a pair of yoga pants. “Yeah, he’s still with Dez and Taylor. He’s made some progress from what I’ve heard.”
“Progress.”
The sound of his voice, hollow and empty, set off warnings in her head.
Slowly, she turned to look at him.
“I did what I could, you know,” he said quietly. “I did everything I could think of . . . letting him practice on me until I was almost immune to the headaches. I read so many bullshit websites, searching for any useful information I could find that might help him. And I still failed him.”
“You didn’t fail him.” She stared at his bent head, feeling like she was bleeding inside. “You just don’t have the tools needed to teach him this. He can get that from somebody else. It doesn’t mean you failed him.”
He lifted his head and stared at her. “He was almost taken because I didn’t protect him well enough, didn’t give him the tools he needed to protect himself.”
He surged up off the bed and started to pace, a sign of restless, reckless energy she’d never seen from him. “He’s making progress . . . I saw him.” He stopped and spun around until he was staring at her from across the room. “I went to the house yesterday, where Jones is keeping him, and I saw him. He looked almost happy, Vaughnne. It was like the burden he has carried all these years was just gone. In just a few days, these people have given him what I was never able to.”
“You can love him. You’re his family . . . that’s a bond nobody else can replace,” she said.
“His family . . . esta chingadera.” He turned away. “His family? Like that is the answer to everything? You know what I did, yes? To his mama? To my sister? I killed her, Vaughnne. Tell me now, what kind of family am I?”
“Why?”
He turned, the look in his glittering eyes full of rage and pain and grief. “Because she asked me to. Because I had to. Because if I didn’t, Reyes would catch us and kill us all. And if I left her alive? Reyes would just torture her more before she died.”
Then he went to his knees, slowly, his hands coming up to cover his face as a sob ripped out of him. Just one . . . that slow, ugly sound coming from the very core of his soul.
She’d known. In her heart, she’d known there were reasons . . . and she’d known it had left a scar on him. Blinking back the tears, she went to him.
Because she asked me to . . . because I had to . . . She didn’t know if he’d welcome her touch now, but when her fingers brushed across his skin, he reached out, quick as a wish, and hauled her against him, so hard and sudden, it knocked the breath from her.
With his face buried against her neck, he started to speak. “She called me . . . from the village. I already told you that. But Reyes was already after her and caught up with her just minutes after she hung up. She acted like she was trying to run. He didn’t know she’d made the call, and just took her back home. He started to beat her. By the time I got there, he’d beaten her . . . so badly . . . too badly. He’d shattered the bones in her legs, let her know that it was because she had run. He’d broken her ribs. And he did it all while Alejandro watched. The boy had to watch as his father tortured his mother, almost to death.” He paused, his chest rising, falling in hard, heavy pants.
She lifted a hand to his cheek and just waited.
“I couldn’t save her.” Stark, haunted eyes lifted to hers and he said it again, “I couldn’t save her. I told myself I could and I even tried to take her out of there, but she wouldn’t let me. She . . .” He looked away, a nerve pulsing in his cheek as he lapsed into a long, heavy silence. “Alex got it from her . . . this . . . whatever he has. I know he did.”
“It runs in families,” she said quietly. “I got it from my dad. It’s in the genes, just like a lot of other shit. The color of your hair, your eyes. This isn’t any different.”
He nodded stiffly. “He got it from her. She . . . she saw things. Sometimes things that had already passed, but it was from long ago. But other times, she saw what would happen—the future, I guess. She told me that if I tried to take her, Reyes would catch up with all of us and we would all die, except Alex. There would be nobody there to take care of him. He’d be a prisoner, trapped in that monster’s home, just a tool, forced to do what Reyes wanted and be beaten if he refused. That would have broken him.”