Page 29 of Violent Attraction

Leaning down, I place a gentle kiss on her lips.

She’s going to hate me more than she did before, but this is what’s best for her.

Isabella deserves more than a man that is dedicated to the cartel.

I just hope that one day she’s able to find him.

10

22 years old

Life works in mysterious ways.

There can be curveball after curveball thrown in your direction or it can be as calm as the water in a lake.

For me, it feels like there has been a magnitude of curveballs thrown in my direction.

When I was younger, I used to think that my mother was killed because of something that I did. To this day, I still think that if I hadn’t wanted to go to the fabric store so badly, then she would still be alive. Then there are days where I think that all the blame for my mother’s death should fall on my father and my father alone.

If he wasn’t so power hungry and didn’t have people after him or angry at him, then maybe she would still be alive.

This might make me twisted and a bit sadistic, but I sometimes think that my life would have been better if it was my father in the ground instead of her.

Then I would have my mother to talk to.

Then the cartel wouldn’t exists.

Then maybe I would be able to be with the man that I gave everything to.

Four years.

It’s been four years since the faithful night of my graduation. Four years since I gave my virginity away to the one man that I thought would cherish it.

Four years since I had the best night of my life and woke up in a bed alone without even a note left behind.

That morning broke me into a million pieces. I sat there, in an empty bed, completely nude surrounded by his scent and cried.

Cried because he wasn’t there.

Cried because in my head, it didn’t mean anything to him.

Cried because I knew where he was, knew what he had chosen instead of me.

How did I know?

How exactly did I know that he had chosen the cartel over me? Because a few days earlier, I overheard my father and Cristiano talking about it. Talking about the logistics of the run and how Santos was the only one that could get the job done.

A part of me hoped when I fell asleep that night that he wouldn’t go. I hoped that when I woke up, he would be there with me, and we would finally be whatever the hell we were fighting all those years prior.

But I was wrong.

And it fucking broke me.

It wasn’t until after I left that room that I decided that I was never going to let any man make me feel that way again.

Not my father.

Not my brother.