Page 53 of Don't Trust Him

I don’t know how to respond as he makes ready to leave.

“I wish I could stay, but you’ve got this handled,” Zario says. “I’ll get details with your man Rafe while you finish this job. I’ll send a car for you in a few hours. Make sure you make the job last until then, but you finish it.” Zario is getting this kind of sick satisfaction out of these words.

“Yes, papi,” I tell him.

The words turn in my stomach but I know he likes them.

I want to die saying them. But my actions aren’t my own. My head is spinning with past and present, reality and lies. I can’t trust anything.

Zario gets two of his men to come in. They have their guns pointed at us.

“If she doesn’t kill him, kill them all,” he says as he leaves.

And like that, he’s gone. The final insult.

I look at Grayson.

He’s barely fucking hanging on, he’s bleeding so much. So much of him is broken. I flinch internally remembering Juan.

Juan screamed. Cried. Begged.

Grayson’s eyes are vacant. His only sounds are involuntary sounds of pain.

But Zario fucking left…a small part of my brain is repeating that.

I don’t even start to realize that Zario is really leaving, Grayson barely hanging on to life, and that we may have made our way out of it, for a while.

“He’s going to die,” Rafe says quietly. I almost don’t register the words.

Is this what my mom felt when she killed my dad? Did she compartmentalize? Did it make it easier for her to torture me before she died?

Am I my mother’s daughter?

Rafe looks at me, grabbing my chin, and I nearly bite his fucking hand off before I think about who he is.

Grayson’s breathing heavy in his chains, blood flowing down his cracked ribs. I grab him by the throat and look into his eyes, seeing the same fire and lust that makes him so dangerous to me.

I want this partnership to work, and I want to trust us. Before I told myself that he and I are too much alike. Wouldn’t we spend the rest of our lives fighting, fucking, and watching our backs until one killed the other?

But even if that was true, why does part of me scream inside, even then, that’s worth it?

Because we belong together. Because I trust him.

But torturing Grayson with Zario makes my thoughts muddled. Makes me remember that fear and how I couldn’t trust him, and I can’t keep a strong grip on reality the whole time, so it’s like someone shaking me in and out of it.

Zario’s gone, left me with Grayson to finish the job.

Zario probably knows I won’t do it, but maybe I convinced him? His guards look at us, waiting to see the spectacle.

This is a test. I know it is. I know that we have to get the fuck out of here.

After Zario intercepted us from the plane before we could take off for paradise, he went to string Grayson up in chains.

I started helping.

Rafe and I began to try and throw Grayson under the bus from the very beginning. Said we wanted to use Grayson to get to him.

Zario didn’t want to believe it, but I could see that dirty fucker wanted to fuck me. Rafe and Grayson both about lost their minds, and I about lost every lunch I’ve ever eaten and told him that if he made me his queen, he’d get to taste what fucking me is like.

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