“And you knew what you were marrying when you agreed to become my wife,” he said, an edge now in his voice. “And sometimes, you have to accept that. Accept this.”
“Accept that you kidnapped a federale without telling me about it, and are now holding him in the desert somewhere, where you are going tomorrow, all while I’m supposed to stay here?!”
He raised a brow ever so slightly. “It is no place for a lady.”
“Oh, we both know I am not and never will be a lady,” I said, almost sneering. “You’re just trying to get rid of me.”
“So what if I am?”
I froze, caught off-guard. He’d said that far too easily. “Just like that … I’m suddenly someone to be thrown away. You used to love me!” I pressed my hand hard into his chest where his heart should have been.
With a slight narrowing of his eyes, he said, “This is for your own good. Don’t try and twist it around with some feminine woe-is-me bullshit.”
“Woe is me?” I repeated incredulously.
“There are bigger things going on here than just your feelings,” he said, stepping back and away from my hand, like he couldn’t stand for me to touch him at all. “Things that affect us all.”
“Well how the fuck am I supposed to know that when you don’t tell me anything?!”
He turned around, chewing on his lip briefly. “You want to know what’s going on?” he asked, his smooth tone suggesting I shouldn’t even be informed. “Our sicarios took Evaristo right out of his apartment outside Tijuana. He’s now at one of our fincas, outside the shithole town of La Perla, where he will stay until he gives us the information we need. When I get that information, I will take control over the Tijuana plaza.”
“It’s too risky,” I said.
“And that’s why I never asked for your opinion,” he stated. “Because I knew that’s what you’d say.”
“Kidnapping a federale, Javier …”
“It’s already been done,” he snapped. “And he will talk. And we will get what we want.”
“But I won’t get what I want.” I let my words hang in the air. I wanted him to snap at them. He didn’t, though. Because he knew.
He looked away. “Is that it?” he said softly. “You wanted to yell at me because I’m trying to keep you safe?”
“How is keeping me here safe? You think because Artur and some of the guards will protect me? The only person who can really protect me is you.” And what I didn’t want to say was that I was afraid that if he left me here, he’d leave me to die. That it could all be part of some plan to get rid of me. Not the best thing to think about your husband, but I couldn’t help it. I felt lost with rage and rejection, and everything seemed like a threat.
“The federales could come for Evaristo. They may track us. You would be safer here.”
“I don’t believe you for a second.”
“Fine,” he said. His voice was calm, but I could tell from the way he spun his watch around his wrist, the way the muscles in his neck looked strained, that he was close to erupting. “Don’t believe me. All I ask of you, as my wife, is to stay out of my way.”
I couldn’t help but scoff. “That’s all you ask of me?”
“Do you see me asking anything else?” His glare, his words, were knife sharp.
My head shook slightly as I folded my arms and took a deep breath through my nose to try and steady everything that was about to blurt out. “How about turning a blind eye on all the women — the prostitutes, whores, whatever they are — that you’ve been fucking behind my back?”
To his credit he kept his mask on, but his eyes flinched slightly. He didn’t say anything.
“You think I didn’t know?” I said, coming up to him until I was inches away. His spicy scent filled my nose, something that would normally turn me on or bring me peace, but now it was bringing me nothing at all. All my rage was making me feel hollow, like it was carving me out from the middle. Still, I wouldn’t let it go. “You’re practically doing it in public, flaunting it, as if you want to prove that you can get away with it, as if you can get away with anything! You don’t care if it hurts me, or maybe it’s that you want to hurt me. Well, you’re doing it. It kills me, Javier. Kills me to know you’ve been unfaithful.”
I watched him closely, my breath heavy, wanting to see something in his eyes, in his soul.
But he only swallowed and said, “You don’t understand.”
“Fuck you!” I yelled, my hands going against his hard chest and shoving him back. “I understand! What the fuck is there to understand?”
“Calm down,” he said, putting his hands over my arms, but I swatted him away and pushed him back again. The fact that he was basically immovable made me angrier.
“At least admit it! Admit it!”
“Fine,” he said, his hand coming over my wrist and holding it hard, the pain almost hard to bear. “I admit it. Is that what you want to hear? Does that make you feel better?”
“No,” I practically spat at him.