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“This isn’t your home,” I murmured.
The angry, resentful man in the car beside me wasn’t the Mateo I knew. Not even the criminal version that I’d been living with for the last three weeks. This man was full of bitterness, and despite the way his massive muscles flexed and bulged, there was something weak about him. I sensed that his rage had no outlet, no clear target, and it ate at his insides.
“It’s the place that made me what I am,” he countered grimly. “I’m the kind of man who hurts people for money and makes deals to claim innocent little virgins. And I don’t feel guilty about any of it.”
At the outset of this journey, he’d told me he was trying to help me understand him better. I’d assumed that his intent was to make me more sympathetic to how and why he lived his lawless life.
But now that we were here, surrounded by the ghosts that clearly haunted him, he seemed to have lost track of his objective.
The anger that masked his pain was far more effective at drawing forth my compassion for him than any manipulative spin he could have put on this place.
“I’m not sure what you want me to say,” I replied quietly. He wasn’t intimidating me, and I didn’t feel any disdain for his impoverished upbringing. Mateo was bleeding inside, and he was giving me a glimpse at the trauma that had wounded him so deeply.
He remained silent for a moment, stewing in his dark emotions. “I don’t know what I want you to say, either.”
We pulled up outside a dirty, cream stucco apartment complex with roof tiles the color of dried blood. He put the Porsche in park, glaring at the rotting building.
“This is where I lived for the first seventeen years of my life.” He made the admission as though it was acid on his tongue.
I kept my expression carefully neutral, not wanting to display any sort of emotion that might derail him from sharing.
Before he’d announced this field trip, I’d had no desire to open my heart to Mateo or get to know him better. Keeping him at a distance was the only way to protect myself from getting hurt again.
But now that he was revealing his secret past that caused him such anger and shame, I wanted to learn more. I couldn’t feel compassion for the criminal who had been holding me hostage, but I could sympathize with this man who was making himself vulnerable by allowing me to witness his hidden anguish.
I was starting to put pieces together, bridging the gap between the man who had abducted me and the boy who had grown up in this hellhole.
Mateo had been seventeen the first time I’d met him. The young man I’d instantly swooned for at one of my father’s lavish parties must have only just moved out of this decaying apartment building. He’d appeared aloof that night—a muscular, sexy enigma.
How foreign he must have felt in our multi-million-dollar mansion, surrounded by people wearing designer clothes and sipping champagne.
I was beginning to suspect that despite his new wealth, Mateo still didn’t feel like he belonged there.
“You see that graffiti there?” he asked, pointing at one of the numerous black scrawls painted onto the stucco. “One of my gang members tagged the place. Marking our territory.”
I noticed how he said our, how his eyes were shifting out of focus as his brain pulled him back into a dark place he’d kept locked away for years.
Without considering my actions, I reached over and placed my hand atop his clenched fist.
He blinked and looked down at where I touched him, as though baffled by the contact.
“You don’t belong here,” I told him. “You’re not part of this place anymore.”
His black eyes lifted to mine, his brows drawn in a challenge. “Only because I fought my way out. I escaped violence with more violence. But at least with Adrián, I’m free to make my own choices. And I have the resources to keep the people I care about safe.”
“How did you end up with Adrián?” I pressed, seeking more information to connect the dots.
His scowl returned. “Why do you care?” he lashed out, pushing me away from his pain.
I kept my hand on his, refusing to break contact. “You brought me here to give me context,” I reminded him calmly. “Explain this to me.”
He looked down at our hands again, staring at my much smaller fingers clasping his meaty fist. After a tense moment, he unfurled his fingers and turned his palm so that it pressed against mine. He took a breath and briefly closed his eyes, as though my touch brought him palpable peace.
“My gang dared me to steal from Adrián,” he began, rubbing his thumb over my wrist as he spoke, feeling my pulse. That seemed to soothe him even more, and the tension eased from his huge body. “I was getting jacked by then, and I was throwing my weight around, using my size to instill fear and provide security for my mom. If everyone was terrified of me, they wouldn’t go near her.
