Page 75 of Violent Attraction

So I nod. “I might have told her that I wouldn’t go against your father’s word on this. What’s done is done. She thinks that I don’t love her, that I’m choosing the cartel over her, that I won’t fight for her but that’s not even close.”

“Then what are you doing then?” There is curiosity in her voice. I think about not spilling everything to the nineteen-year-old but since I can’t go to her brother with this, I might as well tell her.

“I’m protecting her. There are a few things that I need to take care of, and I can’t do them with her at my side. That would put her in danger or worse yet, killed. I can’t do that to her. It was better for me to walk away and let her believe that I was throwing away four years together, and not have something happen to her.”

We begin to approach the town square, so I guide us through a path that has less people going through. I don’t need some random individual hearing this conversation.

“So why not be honest with her and tell her exactly what you are doing? You telling her could have saved her a whole lot of heartache.” Great, the teenager is the voice of reason.

“No shit, but if I had told your sister, she would want to be involved in every single detail. No way will I have her present while I put a bullet through someone's skull.”

Exactly what I want to do to her fiancé.

“I still think that you should talk to her.” She gives me a stern look before she takes a bouquet of flowers from my arms and walks straight to the cemetery.

I, of course, follow behind her and watch her place a bouquet of flowers on all the gravestones that have no decorations around them.

This is something that Camila does every single year. I asked her about it once and she told me that every single life should be celebrated, not just the one that we were close to.

I find it admirable.

Camila and I walk through the whole damn cemetery until the only flowers that are left are the one for my father.

We walk over to his gravesite together, and we both come to a stop when we see someone in a similar dress to Camila’s sitting in front of it. I don’t need to see who it is that is honoring my father, I already know.

“I’m going to go back to the estate and grab more flowers,” Camila shoves me, not even moving me an inch. “Go talk to her.”

Before I can say anything, Camila is leaving me there to interact with her older sister all by myself.

Isabella looks absolutely breathtaking, even from fifty feet away.

I make my way to her in a slow manner, avoiding all the other people around us, keeping my eyesight on her and her alone.

She must have heard me approaching because she looks up when I’m only a few feet away.

Like Camila, her face has an intricate design adorning it. The only difference between her face paint, is that Isabella’s is a lot more colorful. She even has jewels around her eyes.

“I can leave,” she says taking my attention away from her face.

She’s already pushing herself off the ground, where she was kneeling before I can answer.

“It’s fine. He would have been happy that you came by to visit him. He always loved hearing about any new designs you had come up with.” I wave for her to sit back down, which earns me a small sad smile.

I don’t want that shit.

I want the smile that takes over every single inch of her face and brightens up her eyes like no tomorrow.

She nods before extending a hand to me, silently asking me for the flowers I’m holding.

Without a word, I hand them to her and crouch down next to her, watching her place the flowers in an intricate pattern. Only a clothing designer would be this intricate with her work.

“Were you telling him that I’m an asshole?”

Isabella lets out a small laugh as she continues to place the flowers.

“I was telling him about my job. A few years before he died, he told me to build myself into the person that I wanted to be, and I was telling him that I did it.”

This time the smile that captivates her face is a real one, one that I haven’t seen in weeks. I never realized just how much you can miss seeing a smile until now.

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