I step closer.
"If someone grabs you from behind—" His hands land on my shoulders, spinning me around, pulling my back against hischest. I gasp at the contact—all that bare, sweaty skin pressed against me through my thin t-shirt. "What do you do?"
"I don't know."
"Elbow." He guides my arm, slow and deliberate. "Right here, into the solar plexus. Hard as you can. Then stomp on the instep. Then run."
"What if I can't run?"
"You can always run. That's the second rule." His mouth is close to my ear. I can feel his breath. "Thefirstrule is don't get grabbed in the first place. Stay aware. Watch exits. Trust your instincts."
"What's the third rule?"
His hands tighten on my shoulders. "If someone wants to hurt you and running isn't an option... you hurt them first. Harder than they expect. You go for eyes, throat, groin. You fight dirty. You survive."
I turn in his grip. We're face to face now, inches apart, and his hands are still on me.
"Is that what you did?" I ask. "Did you fight dirty?"
Something shuts down in his expression. His hands drop.
"That was different."
"Tell me."
He's quiet for a long moment. I think he's going to walk away, retreat behind that wall of professional distance. But instead, he moves to the weight bench and sits down, forearms braced on his thighs, staring at the floor.
"Her name is Rosa," he says. "My sister. She was twenty-two. I was twenty-six. She'd been dating this guy for about a year. Marco. He seemed fine at first. They always do."
I sink down onto the floor across from him, cross-legged, waiting.
"It started small. Jealousy. Checking her phone. Telling her what to wear, who to see. By the time she told me about it, he'dalready broken her wrist once." His jaw tightens. "She made excuses. Said she fell. Said it was her fault for making him angry. The usual bullshit."
"What did you do?"
"I told her to leave him. She said she would. She didn't." He looks up at me, and his eyes are flat. Empty. "Three months later, he put her in the ICU. Fractured skull. Collapsed lung. Internal bleeding. The doctors said if she'd gotten there twenty minutes later, she would have died."
My chest hurts. I can barely breathe.
"I went to find him," Cesar continues. "He was at a bar, drinking with his friends, laughing about something. Like he hadn't just beaten a woman half to death." A pause. "I waited until he went out to the parking lot. And then I killed him."
The words hang in the air. Simple. Brutal. True.
"You killed him."
"Yes."
"Do you regret it?"
He meets my eyes. Holds them. "I regret getting caught."
I'm not scared.
I'm wet.
"Your sister," I manage. "Is she okay now?"
"She's married. Good guy, treats her right. Two kids. Lives in San Diego." The ghost of a smile crosses his face. "She calls me every Sunday to make sure I'm not 'backsliding into my criminal ways.' Her words."
