This is nothing more than blackmail dressed up as family duty.
I want to put him through a fucking wall.
Instead I make myself stay still. Make myself stay here.
“Okay.” I take one step into her, enough that the spray hits my shoulder instead of the space between us. “Then leave your father out of it for a minute. Whatdoyou want, Natalia?”
She sighs. “Johnny?—”
“I’m not asking what your father wants,” I say. “Or what happens in two months. I know that part matters. I know Anna matters. But I’m asking about you.”
Her eyes drop.
For a second I think she’s going to keep deflecting. But then I see the shine gathering in her eyes, and whatever she was about to say seems to catch in her throat instead.
“It doesn’t matter.” Her voice is thinner now. Frayed at the edges. “What I want doesn’t change anything.”
“It matters to me.”
That lands. I see it land.
Her chin trembles once. Just once. Then she bites down on it, teeth catching her bottom lip like she can stop it from spreading.
“No one’s ever asked me that before.”
My jaw aches. I realize I’ve been clenching it so hard my teeth are grinding, and I have to consciously make myself stop.
Of course they haven’t. Not her father. Not that cartel fuck. Not any man making plans with her life like she’s a piece on a board instead of a woman with a will of her own.
“I’m asking,” I say.
She stills. She looks at my chest, not my face, and I watch her try to get there. Try to open her mouth and say the thing that’s sitting right behind her teeth.
She doesn’t make it.
Her eyes fill so fast I don’t think she saw it coming.
“I’m so tired, Johnny.”
It comes out cracked. Not an answer or a deflection. Just the thing underneath all of it finally breaking the surface, and it sounds like she’s been carrying it for years, not weeks.
I reach for her then, slow enough to give her time to pull away if she wants to. My hand settles against the side of her neck, slick skin warm beneath my palm, her heartbeat quick and hard under my thumb. And when she doesn’t pull back, I draw her in against me.
“I’m tired of being good for them.” Her voice is muffled against my chest. “I’m tired of smiling and nodding and acting like it doesn’t matter what they do with me as long as everybody else gets what they want. I’m tired of pretending this isn’t killing pieces of me.”
I shut my eyes, my cheek against her hair, and feel it move through her body where she’s pressed to mine. Not just sadness. Exhaustion. The bone-deep kind. The kind that comes from being bent into the shape other people need for too long.
“You don’t have to pretend with me,” I murmur.
She goes very still in my arms. The water keeps running over us, but for a second the only thing that registers is the hitch in her breathing where it lands against my skin.
“That’s all I know how to do,” she says bluntly. Like it’s just a fact. Like it’s normal.
My arms tighten. Becauseno. Fuck that.
I ease back just enough to look at her. Hair plastered dark against her cheeks. Lashes spiked. Mouth trembling at the corners in a way she’d probably hate if she knew I saw it.
“That’s what you’ve been telling yourself.” My thumb drags once along her cheekbone. “But it’s not what I’ve been seeing.”
