Page 11 of Burdens

One of the men approached me and nudged my chest with a piece of wood, probably a staff. One of my dad’s favorite tools for his men to use during interrogation. He’d always said that it was the perfect object to inflict pain with precision.

He ran the tip over my front before pressing the end of his rod into my solar plexus as he eagerly asked, “Can I wake him up?”

If I could see him, I bet his eyes were lit up with malicious excitement.

My mouth pinched shut as he continued pressing further into my diaphragm, making it hard to breathe. It was becoming harder and harder to stay put and not kick him.

Instead of waiting for a response from whoever was in charge, I watched his shadow bringing the staff upward and swinging it like a baseball bat straight into my already bruised and probably broken ribs.

It took every ounce of willpower to stifle my reaction to the force of his hit. I’d been tortured in the past, more than most agents with how often my father beat me black and blue, but fuck if his strike didn’t hurt.

He repeated the same motion a few times untilshespoke up.

“Enough,” she said sternly. “RememberRai’swants him alive.”

“But we could still toy with him a little,” he replied, bringing his staff up once again. I prepared for his next hit when the sound of a gun cocking filled the room.

“I said no,” she ordered.

“All good, Lalla Ines,” he said with a nervous chuckle. She was probably pointing her gun straight at him. “I was just messing around.”

After several moments, the man from the ambush let out a loud sigh and declared, “We should get going. He’s clearly not waking up anytime soon if he didn’t after the roughing Zouhair just gave him.”

The door screeched as they closed it and their footsteps were now going in the opposite direction. I didn’t dare swallow or breathe until their steps were now a muffled sound.

Thank fuck.

The pained groan I’d been keeping in finally escaped my lips.

“Look who finally decided to join us,” the woman, Ines, said.

I remained silent, hoping I’d just imagined her voice and that she wasn’t actually here.

But I could feel herwatchingme.

I cursed myself under my breath. I should have known someone stayed behind. I was so focused on not giving myself up that I didn’t pay attention to how many of them had left.

She spoke again. “Ready to tell me what an Agent is doing on Barrera’s territory?”

I didn’t respond.

“All right, I guess you’re choosing the hard way,” she said, turning a light on. I could feel her coming closer until she stopped right in front of me, the tip of her shoes brushing against mine. Then her hand tapped my covered cheek before she grabbed the fabric over my head and slid it off.

The hood landed on the ground next to us.

I peeled my eyes open and my vision slowly adjusted until my gaze met my captor’s. Piercing dark green eyes clashed against my dark brown ones—eyes that had haunted my dreams since I last saw them.

I opened my mouth to say her name, but no words came out as my mind debated whether she was a mirage or not, something my mind manufactured to torture me.

Awareness of who was in front of me filtered through my haze and acted as an earthquake to my senses. My body jerked back to life after being asleep for three days. Everything around us faded into oblivion and all the memories we shared together swept through my veins until they invaded my brain.

That’s when her furrowed features smoothed into the same conclusion I’d come to.

Standing in front of me was the woman I hadn’t stopped thinking about since the first time I saw her.

The one who got away.

And now my father’s sicario.