Yes. “Maybe.”
“I didn’t kill him.” His laugh was bitter. “I warned him, though. Told him what would happen. He didn’t listen. He went to visit one of my…one of Carlos’s associates. Not a nice man. They had a chat. Then when my partner turned to leave, he was shot in the back.”
I swallowed hard in the silence.
“All for doing the right thing.” He sounded incredulous. “All for doing his job. I killed the man who murdered him. He was sorry, in the end, but it’s not enough.”
No, it wasn’t enough. Strange that he could see that, a man who had been born to a life of violence. But then, he’d become an FBI agent.
“Did you always plan it this way?” I asked softly. Had he always planned to betray the FBI? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
He knew what I meant. “I was born to the king of a drug cartel. In those days, they really were like royalty, especially in Colombia where they lived. My mother was the daughter of some mafioso in New York, who sold her to solidify their business partnership. She was fourteen at the time.”
My heart hurt to think of a young girl—a child, really—being forced to marry a grown man. Forced to move to a different continent, where she may not have even spoken the language. But most of all, my heart hurt because of the quiet way Ian spoke of his mother.
“My father was the worst kind of asshole. He beat her, of course. The memories I have of her, we’re hiding. In the closet or under some piece of furniture. It wasn’t when he was drunk or angry. It was all the time. And she would sing to me. Quietly, under her breath. She never stopped, even though I realize now she must have been tired, her throat would have been sore. But her only thought was for me.”
I swallowed thickly. I knew how the story ended—with his mother’s brutally quick murder. But I hadn’t been able to comprehend then how much her death would have cut him. Slayed him.
The need to confess tickled my lips. He had a right to know. “Mia told me,” I admitted. “How she died. How you came to run the cartel.”
He stiffened, his body rigid behind me. For a second I was sure he would leave. Then he sighed. “Mia. Well, my father always said that women were a weakness. And for me, he’s been right. Twice.”
I shivered a little with the knowledge that he was talking about me.
“You loved her,” I said. Not a question. A statement of fact. Only if he loved her would he have confided in her that way. The way he was doing with me now.
“I still love her. I always will, but she’s better off where she is now.”
Yes, that was undeniably true. A loving, protective husband and a white house with a flowerbed. It was an idyllic life…and one that Ian had given to her, as a gift. He would have mourned that loss. He would have missed her.
“You gave her up,” I said softly.
“Yes.”
I had to turn then. In his arms, facing him. The shadows illuminated the curve of his cheek, the silver hair at his temples. He was made of shadows and reflected light, unreal even while I felt him solid and warm in front of me.
“And me?” I asked. “Will you give me up too? Keep me for a while, use me? Then turn me over when I fall in love with some wholesome FBI agent?”
“No,” he snarled the word. “That won’t happen. I wouldn’t let it.”
I stared at him, shocked by his vehemence but still disbelieving.
His voice softened. “The way I feel about you is different.”
My heart thudded a warning. “You don’t love me?”
“Not like that. I wanted to break her. I did everything I could to break her, but it never worked. I’d always stop at the last minute, pull back before delivering the final blow. Or maybe she was stronger than any of us realized. Either way, it didn’t happen. I couldn’t break her, so I had to give her away.”
“You wanted to break her, but not me.” My lips twisted in acknowledgement. “I’m already broken.”
He kissed my forehead. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.”
A shift happened inside me, a newfound certainty. He saw me. He knew me. And he still wanted me, just as I was. It had seemed like an impossible dream at one point in my life, though I couldn’t stop searching, even then. Who could love a monster? I was the monster, and he loved me.
His hand slipped down my neck and cupped my breast. He plumped the weight in his roughened palm. He pinched my nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Lightly at first, then harder. Pain shot through my body, and I yelped.
“You didn’t think I was going to go easy on you, did you?”
I shook my head where it rested against his arm. That was one of the things he loved about me, my resilience. And one of the things I loved about him—his ferocity. The way he took what he wanted, and he wanted me.