Chapter 38

ELLA

Three weeks later, I’d slipped into life with Andrea. It was horrible and painful, but I’d learned to tolerate it.

Every day, I’d get up, take my pill, and make breakfast for us both. Sometimes Chico would help, sometimes he wouldn’t.

Then he’d put me to use doing whatever job he had going, whether that be tending to the latest bullet victim, cleaning, cooking, or serving food and beer to him and whichever disrespectful, misogynistic friends he had over that evening.

He liked to take me out of the house, too, whether that be because he needed my assistance distracting or persuading someone or simply just to drag me along.

I lost count of the number of times I watched him kill someone. At first, the coldness and complete emptiness in his eyes frightened me.

I guessed how easily he could just take a life without a second thought made me realize how dangerous he really was.

Although with every death my heart sank, the ringing in my ears from the shot of a bullet became normal, and his utter lack of emotion no longer fazed me.

One evening, I sat with my knees against my chest against the headboard as he sat next to me, laid out comfortably as he put a cigarette in his mouth.

“Want one?” he offered.

“No,” I whispered almost inaudibly.

“Try it,” he urged.

I could tell by his tone that it wasn’t a choice, so I took one out of the box he was holding out to me and held it in my fingers.

He brought my hand to my mouth and rested it on my lips before lighting it and then lighting his own.

It filled my lungs with the most revolting ash and smoke that burned and itched. But I didn’t cough or reach for water, I just stayed still and felt the sting scratch at my throat. It was a distraction if nothing else.

“You ever smoked pot, Blanca?” he asked.

“No.”

“Your alpha didn’t let you, huh?” he said with a slight laugh.

“I have kids,” I replied.

“Shit yeah, you do,” he said. “A lot of fucking kids. But they aren’t your problem anymore, and you’re with me now.”

“I’d rather just sleep,” I told him, handing him my barely touched cigarette before scrambling under the covers.

“Another time,” he said. “Sweet dreams.”

I closed my eyes and listened until he finished his cigarette and had fallen asleep before rolling onto my back and staring up at the ceiling.

It must have been hours until he moved, and I felt his arm wrap around my waist.

“Do you ever sleep, Blanca?” he asked.

“When I run out of things to think about,” I replied quietly.

“Go to sleep or you’ll look like I haven’t been treating you right,” he said, pulling me closer to him and closing his eyes again.

He hadn’t been treating me right, though.

The moonlight poured in through the large window and onto the bed, lighting up Andrea’s sleepy figure.

Even in innocent rest, he looked evil. Even when his piercing, satanic eyes were covered, a low sense of danger hung around him.

“How did you get like this?” I asked suddenly.

He opened his eyes again and looked at me disgruntledly.

“Like what?” he asked with a sigh.

“Such a powerful man at only nineteen despite being born a rogue,” I elaborated, treading carefully, unsure of how he’d react to the reminder of his past.

“Must we get into this at one a.m.? It’s a long story,” he slurred, his Mexican accent coming out strong as he closed his eyes again.

“It’s been playing at my mind for a while, and the curiosity is keeping me awake,” I said.

His eyes opened again, and he propped himself up on his elbows.

“My father was the future alpha of a pack in southern Mexico. My mother was his high school summer fling,” he began.

“She wasn’t his mate, so when she fell pregnant with me at sixteen, my grandfather, who was alpha at the time, exiled her from the pack, and she raised me as a rogue alone.

“He later found his mate and had more kids, but I was his first son, first in line to the alphaship.”

“So that is why you are so strong?” I asked. “You’re an alpha?”

“Only by blood,” he replied. “I didn’t get no pack handed to me. I had to find my own way, building a criminal organization and making billions a year from trafficking drugs.”

“Where’s your mother now?” I asked, genuinely curious.

He shrugged.

“I don’t know. She found her mate when I was ten. Of course, as the son of another man, he hated me, so naturally, abandoned me in the middle of the desert.

“From there, I found my way to a warehouse containing a gang of criminals that adopted me and taught me their ways. And here we are,” he finished.

“Oh,” I replied, kinda shocked. “Maybe you should find her. Or him.”

“They won’t want anything to do with me,” he said with a laugh. “I’m the kid they never wanted.”

“You had a fucked-up childhood.”

“Yeah, but I ended up better off. I have everything I want now,” he replied.

“Except love,” I said quietly.

“Love is bullshit.”

“You think that because you’ve never felt it,” I replied. “So you’ve given up on it, right?”

He stared at me for a few seconds. “To give up on it implies that I ever believed in it in the first place.”

“Well shit,” I stated. “No wonder you’re how you are.”

“What is that supposed to mean, Blanca?” he asked, raising an eyebrow as his tone hardened again.

For a moment, I had seen another side to Andrea. More personable, softer...perhaps even human. But he’d gone with my accidental slip of disrespect.

“Nothing,” I mumbled quietly as I rested my head back on the pillow and closed my eyes.

I waited until I was sure he was asleep again before slowly sitting up and leaning against the headboard.

Curiosity wasn’t stopping me from sleeping. It was the thought of my children now having spent an entire month and a half without their mother and of how desperately I missed them and their father.

The more I sat and thought as that intolerable man slept beside me, the more I began to choke on my own grief.

Soon enough I was unable to contain my tears and shaking, so I fumbled my way into the bathroom and leaned against the wall, trying to control my breathing.

I let out broken sobs as the agony consumed my every muscle. Sliding down the wall so that I was positioned in a ball by the sink, I allowed the tears to flow.

This wasn’t a rare occurrence. Almost every night in fact. It had been weeks, and the most insufferable thing was that I was beginning to lose faith in Leo.

The hope that he would find me was the only thing keeping me going, but he hadn’t yet, and it felt as though he never would.

“If you are going to cry, can you at least do it quietly?” Andrea asked as he appeared in the doorway of the bathroom.

I looked up at him in his single pair of shorts and nothing else before returning to my uncontrollable sobs.

He grunted before dragging himself into the bathroom and to the toilet on the other side of the room. He lifted the seat, and for a short moment, the only sounds filling the room were his urine hitting the water and my snuffles.

When he was done, he washed his hands and then crouched down so that his face was pretty much level with mine.

“Cómo estás, Blanca?” he asked, placing a finger under my chin and lifting my eyes to meet his.

“I miss my home and my family,” I replied truthfully as I wiped my eyes. “And my mate. I miss him so so so much.”

His jaw clenched, and he inhaled deeply.

“You’ll get over it,” he said monotonously, before standing up and leaving the bathroom.

“Can I phone him?” I asked hopefully.

“No. How is that supposed to help you get over it?” he asked from the bedroom. “Now come back to bed.”

I pushed my head against the sink and allowed more tears to roll.

“I won’t be able to sleep, and I’ll only keep you awake, Andrea,” I replied, willing to use any excuse not to get back into the same bed as him.

I heard the drawer of his nightstand open before his heavy, disgruntled footsteps marched back toward the bathroom.

“Open your mouth,” he ordered, crouching down in front of me again.

“What are you—” I began, before he grabbed my face in his hand and shoved a pill in my half-open mouth.

“This will help you sleep,” he said, lifting me off the floor. A weird sense of tiredness engulfed me, one I hadn’t felt in a long while. Suddenly the prospect of sleep felt very appealing.