I told myself it was manipulation. A performance. A calculated lie from a woman staring down a noose I’d already tightened around her throat. Of course she’d say anything to survive.
After all—how could anyone love a man like me?
A man shaped by violence. Scarred by Al-Chapo’s tortures.
A man who had learned early that tenderness was a weakness predators exploited. I was unlovable by design. Whatever humanity I’d once possessed had been beaten out of me in dark rooms where screams were currency.
I assumed she was trying to soften me. To whisper illusions of redemption into my ear, hoping I’d hesitate long enough for her to escape the trap.
Love?
Love was a luxury for men who slept without one eye open.
Men who didn’t wake up sweating from memories of chains and blood.
Men who hadn’t buried a pregnant wife.
Revenge came first.
It always had.
And yet...
That wasn’t the whole truth.
From her perspective, I’d been distant. Cold. A ghost haunting his own home. A husband who touched her without warmth and avoided her eyes afterward.
But inside me?
It had been a war.
From the very beginning.
Every time she smiled at me, something inside my chest tightened—an unfamiliar pressure I didn’t have language for. Every time she spoke without fear, met my gaze without flinching, it chipped away at the armor I’d spent years forging.
I hated her for that.
Hated the way she looked at me like I was still human.
Hated the way her presence disrupted the clean, brutal simplicity of vengeance.
I told myself I was protecting my plan. That distance was strategy. That cruelty was necessary.
But the truth was far more damning.
If I let her close...
If I believed her...
I wouldn’t be able to finish what I’d started.
So I hardened myself.
And when the moment came, I chose revenge over doubt.
Over truth.
Over her.
