Page 14 of Don't Trust Him

In Columbia, our neighbors weren’t far from us, and they had coca plants just like us. Before the powder comes the leaves and after the leaves comes soaking them in gasoline to alkalize them.

My father had made Peruvian Paste and my mother rolled it into cigarettes.

Bogota had very poor people who would scrape together their last pesos for a taste, and it made enough money to put food on our table and for my parents to save for my education.

When my father started, so did a few other men in town. They did not have a small operation like my father, and therefore he was the first weakness and competition to snuff out.

I came home from school one day and saw my mother lying naked on the floor, sobbing so softly and her glassy eyes vacant of the person she used to be.

My father was tied to his chair, body soaked in gasoline. A rag stuffed in his mouth. A bowl from the kitchen held his feet, drenched in it. That’s when they burned him, right in front of me.

I smell my father’s flesh, hear my mother’s screams, and feel the heat of what happened, my house being torched with my father. This is the story that nobody knows, save Rafe who knows parts of it.

Rafe is the one who usually brings me assignments. He’s ranked higher than me in Cabeza Dios. He is a mentor and, in many ways, a father figure to me. He has always been there to watch over me since I started in this business. He taught me almost everything I know about smuggling cocaine and also about distributing microwaves.

What an odd skillset to have.

But I never share anything deep, dark, twisty, or just so intimately me with anyone.

I look at Grayson Teague, into his soulful eyes, and the panic attack subsides.

Instead, I feel myself starting to open up to him.

“They killed my family, now I move their drugs,” I say, deadpan.

But this is huge for me to share.

“They think I’ve forgiven them, but they will probably never fully trust me” I say, my mouth forming an “o” at the words before I sigh deeply and then look into Grayson’s gorgeous, absolutely piercing gray-green eyes.

Those eyes peer into my mine like they can see into my soul. A shiver works down my spine and to my core, wicked, wanton, and unwanted…but undeniable. In this moment I’d fucking tell him anything, the way I feel when I’m talking to him makes me feel so light. Like a time before everything was so serious. Before I lived for vengeance and breathed raw and inhuman needs. He makes me human again when I’m with him and I know it’s too addictive.

I’ve made a point to never use our product, but I know what it does. It put the surreal nature of life into this magically real perspective. It makes the impossible seem possible. It feels really fucking good. And I think if I’m not careful, Grayson will do that and so much more to me.

But I look into those eyes. He leans closer to me.

“Forgiveness isn’t the right word,” Grayson says softly, bringing his palm to cup my cheek.

“It isn’t. But they don’t know what lies in my heart. They think they’ve crushed me, but they’ve built a monster,” I say, admitting these things for the first time aloud, or truly ever to myself.

Why can I tell Grayson?

Why do I want to?

I’m cautious. I’m smart. That’s why I’m still alive.

But this fucking idea is about as crazy as they come.

“We aren’t going to get this done fighting each other,” I say to Grayson. He looks at me as if he knows what I’m about to say and agrees. So I continue. “We’ll only, well, fight each other. The pile of bodies may or may not have coke squared at the end.”

This breaks his hold on me as I pull back.

I’ve never felt so vulnerable before and I realize that it make

s me want him to come back and touch me again…but I can’t let him have this effect on me.

I can’t want to trust him.

I trust no one.

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