It took him several years to accept that the man who’d reared him had been nothing more than a lackey doing a job. While Andres had effectively filled the role of disciplinarian, Matias had been deprived of a mother and all the nurturing softness and affection that came with that. But he’d had Camila.
“Did my parents know?” she breathed against his neck.
“Yes, they knew all of it.” With his arm around her back, he held her tighter. “Camila…”
She lifted her head at the grimness in his tone.
“Your parents worked for Hector. With Andres’ help, they used the citrus grove as a cover for their narcotics trade.”
“No.” A vehement whisper. “That’s not possible. I would’ve noticed something.” She rose up on her elbow, eyes wide and glistening. “We both would’ve known. No way that was happening under our noses without us stumbling on—” She gasped. “Did you know?”
“I didn’t learn any of this until after I left. They used the shack in the woods to store shipments.”
“The cannibal shack?” Her hand flew to her mouth. “But it was abandoned.”
“Not always.”
“That’s right.” She dropped her arm. “It used to be all locked up. Windows covered. Creepy as hell.”
He nodded. As a kid, he hadn’t given much thought to it beyond the stories they made up about a reclusive cannibal. “Andres and your father built that metal barn on the south side of the grove when we were older, remember?”
“The one packed with boxes of fertilizer and plant food and…”
“Some of it was legit. Most of it wasn’t. When they outgrew the shack, they used that barn.”
“Mierda.” A dark cloud shifted over her expression, stiffening her jaw. “My parents were simple people. They never would’ve wanted any part of that.”
He placed a hand on the side of her face, stroking his thumb across her sharp cheekbone, fully aware of how hard this was for her. “Hector smuggled them out of the poorest region in Colombia and set them up with a productive business in the States. He handed them a dream.”
“In exchange for a lifetime of servitude.” A frown appeared on her forehead.
“Yes.”
Trailing his fingers around the shell of her ear, he followed the graceful lines of her jaw to her neck and lower, beneath the edge of the leather collar. Her breath quickened, and her hand landed softly on his chest.
“The fire wasn’t an accident, was it?” Her fingers twitched against him, and her lip trembled. “They’re gone because of their involvement in your cartel? My sister, too?”
“Yeah. I hate this for you. Wish I could protect you from it.” He caught the metal ring at her throat and used it to gently pull her face to his.
She let him, but the arm against his chest was stiff, ready to fight. “Did they witness something or do something related to drug trafficking?”
His stomach hardened. Her parents had definitely done something, and it had nothing to do with drugs.
He evaded the question by answering one she hadn’t asked. “The night of the fire, I wasn’t the capo yet, but Hector was already dead. Died a year earlier from lung cancer.”
She searched his eyes, her expression suspicious, and she had every right to be.
“Jhon was running the cartel when your family died.” His pulse swished in his ears.
“Jhon?”
“My older brother. Jhon’s mother was Hector’s wife. Murdered when Jhon was young by a rival cartel.”
“You have a brother.” She caressed his face, fingers tentative.
“Had a brother.” He relaxed beneath her touch. “The night Hector died, he handed down the empire to Jhon. The next day, Jhon came for me.”
“How did he find out about you?”
“Hector spoke about me on his death bed, delirious and apparently regretful.” His throat tightened. “The only two people in the room were Jhon and Nico.”
Nico was the only reason Matias knew any of these details.
Her gaze turned inward, no doubt trying to connect the dots. “What happened to Jhon?”
As much as he disliked the topic of conversation, it loosened the knots he’d carried for years. He’d dreamt of this, the ability to talk and share with her again. She’d always been a good listener, the only person he could open up to about anything. This was how it was supposed to be.
“Jhon was a cold-hearted bastard, Camila.” He pulled in a thick breath. “He took me from my home, from you, when Hector died. He was so fucking narcissistic he wasn’t content to just own the cartel. He had to own everything and everyone around him, especially his only brother. So he came for me and controlled me by threatening your life.” He shoved a hand in his hair. “Christ, I was just a sheltered, eighteen-year-old kid. I know it’s no excuse, but he had a goddamn hold over me, one that kept me fearful and quiet about who I was.”
“He didn’t want anyone to know you were Hector’s son?”
“No. The secret stayed buried the year under Jhon’s reign. He treated me worse than a lackey, made me do things…”
He shuddered in memory of the torture, his and others. The metallic taste of blood in his mouth, the endless beatings, the helplessness and anger. So much fucking anger. He’d lost the soul of the boy he’d been and replaced it with a bloodthirsty savage.
“When I talked to you on the phone after you left…Jesus, Matias.” She touched his cheek and slid her fingers to his jaw, lingering on his bottom lip. “You were protecting me? From him?”
“Yes.” He met her eyes. “Until I didn’t.”
Her face paled. “Jhon arranged my abduction?”
Jhon hadn’t been the only one, but he couldn’t bring himself to break her heart. Not here in their grove.
“I’m sorry, Camila.” He pulled her against him and wrapped his arms around her back. “So fucking sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” Her breath trembled across his neck.
“It was my fault. I pissed him off. My relationship with Nico…” Fuck, he’d been so careless, so fucking naïve. “Nico’s father was Hector’s best friend. When his father died, Hector took Nico in and protected him like a son. Jhon resented him, viciously, and the feeling was mutual.”
“You were close to Nico back then?”
“He was the only friend I had, and other than Jhon, he was the only person who knew I was a Restrepo. We bonded instantly in our mutual hatred for Jhon. Nico covertly fed me information, secrets about the cartel and what Jhon was doing, all in an effort to take him out. In return, I saved Nico’s life.”
“Jhon tried to kill him?”
“Repeatedly. I watched Nico’s back, stopped multiple hits on him. Instead of killing me, Jhon turned his outrage on you.”
>
She lifted her head, eyes welling with tears. “You killed him, didn’t you?”
“Six weeks after you disappeared.”
A bird chirped somewhere in the foliage overhead, the grass soft and supportive beneath their entwined bodies. The warm air stirred with their breaths as he lay in silence, pondering the hell that had brought them to this point.
“With Jhon dead, why didn’t you come home?” Pain and confusion choked her voice.
“You were already gone.” He kissed her softly.
She nodded, and a tear fell down her cheek. “When I called you after I escaped, you could’ve told me all of this. We could’ve been together.”
“In that year you went missing, I did horrible things in my search for you. Slaughtered countless people. Used every brutal weapon in the cartel at my disposal. Somewhere along the way, I gave up. Gave up on you and myself and surrendered to this life. I became worse than the man who captured you.”
She went rigid against him, and he knew she was thinking about the slave trade, a conversation he didn’t want to have right now.
“My hunt resulted in more enemies than the cartel had ever faced.” He coiled a lock of her hair around his finger. “I couldn’t rationalize bringing you into it.”
“So you kept me in the dark, made me fear and distrust you, which kept me away.”
“Yeah.” His chest panged with regret, but hindsight changed nothing. It’d been the right thing to do.
“If you have so many enemies, why in the hell would Nico agree to be your decoy?”
“He owes me his life.” He huffed a laugh. “The past decade hasn’t been a total hardship for him. I shoulder all the stress and decisions while he struts around with more power and wealth than he would’ve ever had as a lieutenant. He’s been more than compensated for the risk.”
She rolled to her back and gazed up at sweeping arms of the trees. “Thank you for telling me. For protecting me from it all these years. I get it. I don’t like it, but I understand why you couldn’t tell me until now, when you could trust me with the information and protect me from those who want your secrets.”
He gripped her hand and held tight as a light breeze rippled over them, rustling the leaves and brushing his skin. Somewhere in the distance, a macaw squawked.