“You didn’t do anything,” he says, his voice a somber pitch. “That’s the thing about men like him. They don’t need a reason to be evil. They just need a target.”
I shake my head slowly. “But he said I had‘his blood’in my veins. He said I was hisvengeance.”
He takes my hands, his grasp firm. “Escúchame. Men like him thrive on power and pain. He’s been playing a game with you from the start. He didn’t bring you here because her loved you. He brought you here because he wanted to own you. He thinks that by breaking you, he can finally feel like he’s won something.”
“But he seemed so...real,” I whisper, my voice catching on the lump in my throat.
“It was a performance, Kat. A sick, calculated performance. He was never going to let you go, and he was never going to let you be happy. You weren’t a person to him. You were just another thing to own.”
He reaches and cups my face, and for a second, my body recoils. He doesn’t seem to notice, though, and proceeds to tilt my head so I look at him. “Don’t look for logic in his rage. There is none.”
I want to disagree, to tell him he’s wrong, but my body no longer agrees with me. I wait for a memory of Damiano’s kindness to rise and defend him, but all I hear are his words,“I need to kill her.”
“He won’t hurt you again, I promise,” Julian whispers after a beat.
He leans in closer, his forehead almost touching mine.I freeze. “I promised Mateo I’d protect you. I failed him by letting you stay in that villa as long as I did. I won’t fail him again.”
“What happens now?” I ask, my hands reaching for the blanket and tightening it around my body, desperate for comfort.
“We lie low here for three, maybe four days. I have friends—people who don’t answer to these families. They’re arranging a private flight out of a small strip near Trapani. We’re going to Mexico.”
“Mexico?” I repeat the word.
“Mexico,” he says, a small smile brushing his lips. “I have a safe house in Tulum. A small place on the beach. Just the ocean and the sun. We can live there until this is over.”
I want to believe him.
I want to believe that Julian can put an end to this, but I can’t.
I’ve lost too much.
I don’t know what else I can lose, but it doesn’t feel like there’s an end to this.
“I’ll never let anything bad happen to you again,” Julian says, his voice laden with intensity when he asks me once again to trust him,“Confía en mí.”
“Okay,” I whisper, though my words feel hollow.
As the wood in the fireplace begins to hiss, I close my eyes. Trying to think about anything other than Damiano.
He never meant anything he said.
He never loved me.
Chapter 35
Katarina
I rub the sleep off my eyes and squint to get them to focus. The sun filters through the window grime in weak rays, hitting the wooden table in front of me, where Julian had left a can of sausage and crackers he had for dinner last night.
I’m still in the armchair, my body frozen in its posture from not moving for hours.
Julian is sleeping on the floor beside me, still snoring.
I refused to take the bed in the back room last night and told him to sleep there, but he still ended up sleeping on the floor. When I try to stretch out, the chair creaks loudly, waking Julian.
He groans and stirs before turning towards me.
“Buen día.”I smile politely.
