She held her mouth against his, touching, not touching. Teasing. “I have two requests.”
“I’m listening,” he breathed against her lips.
“I want…” She touched her throat. “I want my collar back. Or better yet, I want something permanent and comfortable and ours.”
His body went hard a millisecond before he gripped her neck and captured her mouth with his. The kiss was potently seductive, possessive, and consuming, stealing her air and awakening every cell in her body.
Too soon, he pulled back, breathing heavily. “The other request?”
“I want to see the closet.”
CHAPTER 29
Matias led Camila into the closet of their private suite and angled her in front of the retinal scanner. His breaths quickened as the lock disengaged. What waited behind that door, the pieces he’d been holding back from her, were the knots of guilt he’d carried for years.
“I’m nervous about this.” He stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her chest, kissing her shoulder and savoring the feminine scent of her, bathed in the clean bite of citrus and lavender. “I’m not one of the good guys. I’ve done things for which there might be no forgiveness.”
“I disagree. You’ve eliminated bad guys far worse than yourself for over a decade.” She touched his inked forearm and turned her neck to press her lips against his bicep.
“Hold on to that thought for the next few minutes.” He let go and nudged her through the doorway.
She looked up at the ceiling as motion lights flicked on then turned in a circle, scanning the shelves of the small second closet. “Boxes? Plain, non-threatening cardboard. Definitely not what I expected.”
He went to the top shelf on the right and pulled down his two favorite boxes.
“We’ll start with these.” He passed her one and carried the other into the bedroom.
They placed the closed boxes on the bed, and he stepped back, hands in the pockets of his jeans.
“Open them.” His pulse accelerated, and a damp mist formed on his brow.
She flashed him a concerned look and opened the first box. Gasping, she removed picture frames filled with her and him, her and her sister, Lucia, and even photos of the old stray dog, Rambo. The citrus grove was the backdrop in most of the images.
“How did you get these?” Her hands trembled as she flipped through bundles of loose pictures.
He’d grabbed what he could that awful night, leaving behind the photos that included her parents. “There’s more.”
Eyes glistening, she darted to the second box and pulled out a slingshot fork from an orange tree, her favorite raggedy doll as a child, and his denim jacket—the one she’d stolen from him when she was fourteen and refused to return.
His heart hammered in his chest. There were a dozen more boxes of memorabilia in the closet. He’d gone through them so many times over the past eleven years he knew the contents by rote. He used to think he’d found comfort in them on his loneliest nights, but looking back now, he realized those memories had only made him lonelier.
“Matias…” She wiped the back of her hand across her cheek, erasing a fallen tear. “I thought all this stuff—” A sob rose up, but she choked it back. “I thought it was lost in the fire.”
His eyes felt gritty and hot, but he didn’t look away.
She pulled the jacket to her nose and inhaled deeply. “It still smells like you.” Her gaze turned inward, and little lines formed on her brow. “Did you go back there after I disappeared? Did you see my parents before they died?”
Yes, yes, and fuck those motherfuckers to hell.
With a heavy breath, he sat on the bed and patted the spot beside him.
She set the jacket down and joined him, her shiny eyes searching his face. “You’re scaring me.”
Perhaps he would always scare her, but she wasn’t a runner. She would fight him, maybe even kill him someday, but she would never leave him. He found a strange sort of comfort in that.
“Six weeks after your disappearance, I killed my brother, Jhon.”
She gripped his hand and kept her teary gaze on his.
“A few weeks after that,” he said with a tight throat, “your sister disappeared.”
“Lucia?” Her voice whipped through the room.
“I had some guys watching the grove. I was in full-time-guns-out search mode, pulling every resource I had, trying to find you, hoping you’d show up there. When Lucia didn’t return home from work one night…” He insides clenched with guilt. He should’ve been watching her sister, protecting her. “I knew.”
“What did you know?” A lethal chill spiked her tone. “Where is she?”
“She’s gone. I’m sorry, Camila.” Pain stabbed through him. “She was abducted. Killed.”
Her hands flew to her mouth, her eyes wide and wet.
“I prayed to hell I was wrong.” He pulled her against his chest and stroked her hair. “Weeks went by, and your parents never reported her missing.”
“She would’ve been…nineteen.” She gripped his t-shirt. “She was an adult—”
“She was a missing person, Camila. Missing, and no one was fucking looking for her.”
“No.” A keening noise sounded in her throat. “I can’t hear this…”
“You have to hear it.” God knew, he needed to put this to rest. They both did. “Jhon was dead. Nico was the new face of the cartel. But Andres and your parents knew who I was, knew I was a Restrepo and the real capo. So I paid them a visit.”
Her tears soaked his shirt, her cries silent beneath the rush of her breaths.
He held her tighter, running a hand through her hair as his chest squeezed painfully. “Your parents denied any involvement in her disappearance. Said she ran away, she was trouble, and more bullshit on top of bullshit. Goddammit, I was so fucking pissed. And desperate. I had their houses bugged and their phones tapped. A few days later, I got my answer.”
Her breaths cut off, her shoulders hitched around her ears. Her entire body froze as if waiting to hear what he knew she’d already figured out.
“When Hector and Jhon
