Page 37 of Don't Trust Him

I hold her closer.

“I love you, Eliza,” I tell her. I fucking said it. How could I help it? “I have fucking loved you since I saw you, I’ve loved you more when I fought you, and I became fucking addicted to you the moment I was inside you. Fuck,” I groan.

I hold her so tight, and my eyes can’t shut for a moment, just looking at the cascading brown waves of her hair down her back as I hold her.

I feel the hot drop of a tear sliding down my shoulder as I hold her.

I pull back and look at her.

“I can’t fucking love you,” Eliza says, voice choking. She rubs the back of her hand over her tear but her eyes and her nose are bright red. She’s like a work of art, but way more fucking gorgeous and fucking unattainable.

I want to distract her from reality. I want to go back to the dream we were sharing.

“Do you think the concierge could just get you new shoes for every restaurant I took you to?” I ask her.

She smiles wide. “Maybe. But maybe we’d spend a lot more time with just the white slippers, the plush ones with the big gold InterContinental I’s on them, and ordering room service. We could spend months in bed at that rate,” she laughs.

Fuck it, I’m laughing with her.

I’d rather think about her shoes than I would my breaking fucking heart, or hers.

Twenty

Eliza

“An old-fashioned, please.”

“Right away, ma’am,” the bartender nods with a smile, immediately taking bottles off the shelf and preparing my cocktail. I drum my fingertips on the counter and look out the large floor-to-ceiling windows wistfully.

God, nothing beats these plush bars. Too bad that Grayson preferred a trip to the hotel’s gym instead of joining me. Ah, well, nothing beats a relaxing drink after you’ve just had the best sex of your life and plotted to take over the world.

I still can’t believe the things Grayson and I agreed on. Have we just signed our death sentences?

Don’t go there, Eliza, I chide myself, taking a deep breath as I try to rein in all those thoughts. Sure, our plan might be the stupidest thing anyone has ever attempted—going up against two of the largest and most vicious cartels in the world isn’t exactly a bright thing to do—but it’s not like we have a choice.

It might seem like have a choice, that I can just shut the whole thing down, keep my eyes on the prize, and do my job. But it’s not that simple. To do that, I would have to deny everything that I am. Because, now I see it...all those years with the Cebeza Dios cartel, they were nothing more than a paid internship.

An internship during which I learned the art of logistics, violence, money laundering, and all the skills you need to run an organization that thrives on crime. And, more than that, I learned how to control the darkness inside of me. I learned how to harness it.

Because, whether I like to admit it or not, revenge never left my mind. How could it, when I still wake up in the middle of the night, smelling burning gasoline and flesh? How could it, when I still dream of the flames that engulfed my father, turning his body to ashes?

Lorenzo Quentin took me in out of mercy.

And it’ll be that small kindness that will be the seed for Cebeza Dios’s downfall.

“And there you go.” The bartender pushes the glass across the counter. Nodding, I mouth a thank you. I take a sip of my cocktail, allowing the whisky, citrus and sugar to coat my tongue.

“I never enjoyed whisky,” I hear a voice say from behind me, one that I haven’t heard in decades. “I’m s

urprised you do.”

I don’t move. I remain frozen in place, glass in my hand as I try to comprehend what’s happening.

Has the cocktail been spiked?

Am I hallucinating?

Or am I just going batshit crazy?

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