Page 125 of Drawn Together

“You’re a hologram and you didn’t tell me?” I asked sarcastically.

He looked at me condescendingly and walked away from the bed to place both hands on the kitchen table. “I’ve done things that would horrify you,” he said after a long silence, looking at me very seriously.

“You were in the military; it’s normal you’d think that. The things you must’ve had to face…” I started, but he let out a laugh.

“My time in the military is the least of it.”

He was starting to scare me. I knew that Sebastian had a difficult childhood and a dark past. Everything indicated he had struggled to get to where he was now, but that didn’t mean he was a bad person.

“Stop demonizing yourself.”

Sebastian was about to say something when his phone began to ring.

I took the interruption to slip his T-shirt and my underwear back on. Why had such an intimate moment between us turned into a stupid debate about whether Sebastian was a good or bad person? It was ridiculous.

I could hear him arguing with someone, and as soon as he hung up the phone, he punched the kitchen window, which cracked, causing my heart to jump into my throat.

I stood up from the bed and moved away from him until my back was against the wall.

Sebastian turned toward me, his hand bloodied, the mask of hatred on his face slowly giving way to regret. He walked slowly over to me. “I’m sorry,” he said, holding out his hand.

I allowed him to caress my cheek, maintaining eye contact. “Tell me the fucking truth once and for all, Sebastian.”

He hesitated but finally nodded. “You’re not going to like what I have to say, but considering the way things are going, you’ll find out soon enough anyway. You’re too smart not to.”

I didn’t say anything, waiting for him to continue.

“Your father is a drug lord, Marfil.” He said it without hesitation, like someone ripping off a Band-Aid. Better to get it over with quickly so it hurts less, or so they say. But my world stopped, and the words that had just fallen from his lips echoed in my brain. I was unable to process them.

“That’s a lie,” I said, crossing the room to the opposite wall.

“No, it’s not,” he said, looking at me sadly.

I hated that look with all my being.

“How do you know?”

He pressed his lips together and let out all the air he was holding in. “Because I am, too.”

CHAPTER 35MARFIL

“I started out on the streets. We had nothing, and selling weed was the easiest way to get money. I lived in a neighborhood where drugs were common currency, and I did what I had to do to help take care of myself and the other kids who lived with me.”

I listened to him without moving a muscle. He didn’t come over to me, and I didn’t want him to either.

“I started out at fourteen. Samara knew, and she hated me for it, but the money I brought home from selling drugs helped to feed her.” The look in his eyes as he spoke told me that it pained him to remember those times. “Once you get into that world, it’s very hard to get out. The gangs control everything: who you talk to, who you hang out with, who you sell to… and if you squeal or try to leave, they’ll kill you.” He stepped closer to me and stretched out his tattooed arm. “I was an addict at age sixteen,” he admitted. “Heroin.”

I closed my eyes as I felt them fill with tears.

“Your father came across me,” he then said, and I looked back at him. “He was the one who helped me get clean. He saw potential in me, a potential that no one else had ever seen; everyone had always treated me like scum. He paid off the drug boss I worked for, and he advised me to enlist in the military. He sent me a little extra money every month, and when I finished my service at the top of my class, he paid to train me in everything I know. I was good, Marfil, the best.”

I wanted to plug my ears. I didn’t want to know more. I didn’t want to find out things that would make me hate him.

“For the first time in my life, there was something I was good at. I had found my place… Your father offered to let me work for him. It was nothing like my previous experience, selling drugs on the streets. Your father controls one of the largest drug routes in the country. Your uncle is the head of one of the most important cartels in Colombia.”

“Stop,” I said, wishing he would shut up.

He didn’t stop speaking, but he remained at a distance. “A few months ago, a branch of the Russian mafia in Miami tried to take one of your father’s routes from him. We planned an operation to intervene. I was the one in charge of carrying it out, strategy being my strong suit, but everything went horribly wrong. We didn’t know who we were up against, and the son of one of the most powerful Russian drug bosses in the world ended up being killed in the shootout. That was a few weeks before you were kidnapped. We can’t even be sure that it was one of our bullets or one of theirs, but from that moment, all they’ve wanted is to get revenge on your father.”