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My delicate little flower possessed more strength than I’d thought. Given the volatile way I’d behaved, she should have been frightened or repulsed. Or both.
Instead, she’d held my hand and asked for more information. She’d asked to meet my mom.
My stomach knotted with familiar guilt as I pulled up in front of Mom’s house: a pretty four-bedroom home in a safe neighborhood. I’d tried to get her to live farther outside the city, somewhere I could hide her down a long drive secured by a big gate. But she wanted to be close to the beach, and she’d lived through enough misery that I would give her anything that might make her happy.
So, we’d compromised on this Spanish-style bungalow in Santa Monica. Only the roof of the house was visible over the ten-foot, solid wooden fence. An equally high hedge guarded the other three sides of the property. No one would be able to get close to my mom without breaching those barriers or tripping the highly advanced security system I’d installed.
I parked my Porsche on the street, pulling up to the curb a few car lengths down from her front door. Another disadvantage to this city property: no garage to shelter my expensive vehicles.
When I got out and went to open Sofia’s door, she took my offered hand without hesitation.
I’d completely fucked up my plans for how I was going to manipulate her by showing her my old neighborhood, but my shitshow breakdown seemed to have worked even more effectively to win her back.
She followed where I led, and we crossed the short distance from my Porsche to Mom’s house. I paused before I keyed in the code that would unlock the solid metal gate set into the fence line.
“I should warn you before we go in,” I said, speaking the words aloud to convince myself to continue. “My mom has scars on her face. They can be alarming to someone who’s never seen her before. I thought you should know. She gets self-conscious when people stare.”
Mom barely even went out in public. She lived with enough physical pain every day without dealing with the anguish of being gawked at.
I lifted my hand to the keypad set beneath the gate handle, but Sofia’s slender fingers closed around mine.
“Mateo.” I felt her say my name like a soft caress on my cheek. I hadn’t heard her speak to me in this sweet tone since the night she’d found out that I’d made a deal for her virginity.
I turned to face her, grasping both of her dainty hands in mine. I was hungry for more of this softness from her, and now that she offered it, my first instinct was to draw her close and keep her there.
Her lovely green eyes sparkled in the golden sunlight. For the first time in three weeks, she actually looked at me, peering straight into whatever I had left of my soul.
“You said my scars upset you at first because of something to do with you, not me,” she said quietly. “You thought that someone had hurt me, and that’s why they upset you. Did someone hurt your mom?”
My jaw clenched, a physical reaction to hold in painful admissions.
But Sofia was touching me. She was looking at me.
I couldn’t lose her again.
“Yeah,” I rasped. “Someone hurt her.”
“Will you tell me about it?” She wasn’t asking out of morbid curiosity. Now that I’d been stupid enough to lose control in front of her in my old neighborhood, she wanted to know more of my dark secrets.
But my fuckup had somehow brought her back to me. I could give her more if my confession would keep her close.
“Her boyfriend beat the shit out of her when I was fifteen.” The words were drawn from me, compelled by Sofia’s nearness. “He’d been supporting us for ten years, keeping my mom as a side piece and providing just enough money for rent and food. He was a gangbanger, and his relationship with her meant protection for both of us. She made him swear that he would leave me out of it.
“That promise lasted until my tenth birthday. He got me to start dealing for him, threatening to leave us high and dry if I didn’t comply or if I told Mom. So, I did what he wanted. Over the next few years, I grew bigger, stronger. He started asking me to do heavier shit, and I did. But one day, Mom found out.”
Her abject horror at the sight of blood on my hands was burned into my mind. For five years, I’d managed to hide the truth from her. She’d thought I was living as easy of a life as she could possibly provide for me, and seeing the bloody evidence of what I’d become had broken her heart.
I suppressed a shudder and continued on. “She confronted her piece of shit boyfriend, so he beat her and left her to die for daring to question him. I came home after dealing one afternoon to find her…”
