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As I leave the room, I can only imagine the look she’s giving me.
Guilt claws at me.
Though I know I’m lashing out at her, it doesn’t change the fact that I’m doing my best to keep her safe. She doesn’t know the entire truth of the situation yet, and I want to do everything I can to keep her in the dark for as long as possible.
There was a better way to handle tonight, though.
I let the lives lost get to me, and I took it out on her.
But I don’t have it in me to pretend that everything is alright when I know it’s not. Not around Zoe.
I can only hope she forgives me, though I don’t know if I will forgive myself.
I hate the part of myself that’s capable of saying things like that to her, but it’s time that she gets it together.
This is the life that we’re both stuck with. It’s time that she embraces it because there is no other choice.
Not with her father and Demarco breathing down our necks.
22
ZOE
I can’t remember the last time I slept through the night. It had to be while I was still living at home. Back when everything was safe and calm.
Before I had to worry about people sneaking through my window and standing over me in my sleep. I didn’t have to think about the possibility that I would die every single day.
Those were before the days of seeing people die or a body cut into pieces.
As much as I’m falling for the Christian I see ninety-nine percent of the time, there is that other side to him. The one that’s harder to fall for.
Although, the other day, the afternoon after the shooting at the party, I could see the scared little boy hiding behind the monster he keeps pretending to be.
There is more to that darker side of Christian than I ever thought there was. I don’t know what fuels the beast, and I have a gut feeling that tells me I need to find out if I ever want to come to peace with the way I feel for him.
What a giant mess.
I was never supposed to start falling for him. I wasn’t supposed to like the passion and the tension between us when we argue.
I certainly wasn’t supposed to consider what it would mean to get it together and become a proper cartel wife.
What does that even look like? Will I have to be brutal and vicious like my mother when it’s time to take down Christian’s enemies?
As I get out of bed after another sleepless night and look in the mirror, I think I could be.
I see parts of my mother in myself. There is a world in which I could be the partner Christian needs.
I look at the gun sitting on my bathroom counter.
Camila has spent more time teaching me to shoot in the last couple of days than she has in several weeks.
I’m confident in my ability to hit a target, though I may not kill it on the first shot. Not yet.
I have to get to that point if I decide to dive into this life. I have to be ready to do what it takes to protect myself and the people below me in the cartel.
Though, I don’t know if when the time comes, I’m going to be able to pull the trigger.
“Morning,” Christian says as he appears in the doorway to the bathroom.
