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My chest tightens, and suddenly, it’s painful to breathe. To lose her—and the child she’s carrying—would have been more than I could bear. My breath catches, and I turn my head away, pretending to survey the landscape to hide my turmoil.
It’s Tia who breaks the silence eventually. Her voice is still shaky but awed as she sits up to look at me. “Where did you learn to climb like that?”
I glance at her, watching the shadows of the evening light play across her face, and I sit up as well. Turning to face her, I bend my legs and rest my arms on my knees. “Rock climbing is a hobby of mine,” I confess, the words feeling strangely vulnerable. “I find free climbing therapeutic.”
Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and she lets out an incredulous laugh. “Therapeutic? Hardly. I can’t see anything calming about the possibility of falling to your death.” She shakes her head in disbelief. Then her onyx eyes flash back to me with a new, sharp edge. “Though maybe, in your case, something extreme like that would be necessary. I imagine you must need a lot of therapy to cope with the amount of death that seems to surround you…”
I tense, the edges of my calm facade beginning to crack. “You weren’t supposed to see that,” I say darkly, dropping my eyes to my hands.
“Well, that clears it all up. Knowing I wasn’t supposed to see it makes murder so much better.” Her voice drips sarcasm, triggering my temper.
“Well, if you hadn’t been snooping around, sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, maybe you wouldn’t have nearly gotten yourself killed.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have chased me!”
“You didn’t seem too upset about it when I was climbing down to get you,” I growl.
“That’s not an excuse for killing a man.”
“You wouldn’t understand. What were you even doing that far out in the woods? If you’d stayed closer to the house, you could have continued living happily as the naive little princess you’ve grown up to be. Without a care in the world.”
Tia’s eyes narrow, and she snaps, “I’m not a little princess.”
“You are if you think I’m doing anything that your father hasn’t done a hundred times before.” I shoot back, my voice laced with bitterness. “You have no clue what really happens in this town, do you? Don Guerra might be more subtle about it, but believe me, he’s killed at least as many people as I have.”
She scoffs, unimpressed by my argument. “Even if that were true, my father has had several decades more to rack up the body count you’ve accomplished in just a few short years.” She boldly lifts her chin, eyeing me with haughty contempt. “You know, not every problem in life needs to be solved with a gun or a hammer, Leo. You seem intelligent enough to figure out the difference.”
A surge of irritation courses through me, and I can’t mask it in my next words. “Not every problem in life can be solved with diplomacy either, Tia.”
Her eyes flash with defiance. “Maybe you do know the difference, then, and you just prefer to be a cold-blooded killer rather than a don who knows how to lead through respect.”
“You can’t have respect without fear,” I counter.
“Yes, and I’m sure once we’re all dead, you’ll have an army of ghosts who respect you immensely,” she says sarcastically.
Infuriated by her deliberate stubbornness, I hold my tongue before I say something I might regret.
“You didn’t even blink, Leo.” Her voice is hushed, breathy in her disappointment. “You took a man’s life like it was nothing.”
I stand abruptly, furious with Tia for rubbing my face in my ugly work when I just saved her life. For a moment, I contemplate leaving her there until I can collect myself. But the sun is setting quickly, and the longer I wait, the farther I’ll have to carry her in the dark.
With a frustrated growl, I scoop her up unceremoniously, holding her securely in my arms.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she squeals, squirming as she pushes fruitlessly against my bare chest. But her protests are easy to ignore.
“I don’t imagine you can walk home,” I reply, my tone cutting through the air like a knife.
She stops fighting me at that, and a tense quiet falls between us. Her protests are replaced by a brooding silence as I carry her toward home. The weight of her in my arms is both a physical and metaphorical burden, the echoes of our argument lingering in the air as I think about the violence she so detests me for.
And yet, she’s willing to defend her father?
That makes her a hypocrite. Or she’s lying to herself.
Either way, I don’t like it.
What frustrates me further is the fact that I just saved her life. Not once, but multiple times. At no small risk to my own survival. But apparently, that counts for nothing compared to the traitor I executed to keep the rest of the Valencia men in line.
Not that I think any reason I give her will merit my actions in her eyes.
