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She shook her head. “I’m as grateful to be alive as the next woman, but I can’t fuck with this cartel shit, Demi. I-I just can’t do it,” she said, waving her hands in surrender.

I grabbed her by the shoulders. “Trust me, Mara. Everything is going to be okay now. Whatever hold you think Ozias has on you, it’s over.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” she replied in disagreement. “It’ll never be over.”

“I promise I won’t let anything happen to you. You have my word.”

Samara paused, truly considering my words. “Are you sure?”

“I swear. You have my word and his,” I assured her.

As Ozias and I departed from the cemetery, my brain churned with questions.

He wasted no time calling his sister Maya and having her recall the men she’d sent to watch Samara back to Texas.

He promised me she’d have her life back, even if it weren’t the same one she had before everything happened.

The calm that settled over me had been replaced with a burning curiosity that I couldn’t hold back.

I needed to know why he’d spared her and why he’d kept the truth from me until now.

I cleared my throat before speaking. “Why?” I questioned, my voice tight. “Why didn’t you tell me Samara was alive, Ozias? Especially after I asked you.”

Ozias’s dark eyes flickered with a shred of remorse. He parted his lips to respond but paused as if he were tiptoeing around landmines, trying not to say the wrong words to make shit worse. He moved half a step closer but stopped mid-stride, aware of the invisible wall I’d placed between us.

“I never meant to hurt you,” he stated earnestly.“This is why I wanted you to come to Chicago. She’s what I wanted to show you. To prove to you that I’m not always a monster.”

I scoffed, feeling the sting of betrayal carving through me. “Why did you allow me to think the worst? To think that everyone I loved was gone knowing I’d already lost my cousin, my baby, and my father? Do you have any idea what that did to me mentally? Emotionally?”

He clenched his fists at his side. “At the time, I thought I was protecting you.”

“Protecting me from what?”

“I didn’t want to give you false hope when shit could’ve gone differently at any moment—what if she tried to call the police?

What if she tried to sell me out to your father?

What if I had to make her disappear again?

I thought it was best to wait until I knew for sure where she stood and that she knew the consequences if she chose to switch sides.

I swear, it was never about keeping anything from you .

. . it was a business move. I did what I felt was best.”

I pushed out a sour laugh as hot tears of rage began to sting my eyes. “Best for you, clearly. I thought you did, but maybe you don’t give a fuck about protecting me.”

“There you go saying shit you don’t mean when you know I’d?die a thousand lives for you.”

“I thought I was supposed to be your queen. Well, a queen is supposed to know what the fuck the king is doing, right? And yet, you kept me in the dark just like my father used to! It’s triggering for me, Ozias. Can’t you see that?”

“Look, I know I hurt you, and I can’t take that back. But believe me, I thought I was sparing you more pain. I see now . . . I was wrong.”

I scoffed again. “Dead fucking wrong! Samara was shaking like a leaf on a tree when she could’ve been feeling safe with me all along. You caused that!”

His expression hardened. “I sent her to Texas to heal and had Maya watch over her. Would you rather I’d had her buried in the fuckin’ desert like everyone else?”

I scoffed again as my eyes burned with tears.

Burying bodies in the desert was the one grim option he hadn’t given me when I’d originally asked what happened to the bodies.

“Wow. There he is. There’s El Diablo. At first, I thought it was a mask—something you could take off and put on when necessary, but no. This is who you are, Ozias.”

His baritone voice softened. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You meant it exactly how it came out of your fucking mouth. We both know that,” I said with an exaggerated eye roll. “Do you know how much worse I feel now knowing that you had every opportunity in the world to tell me, and you still kept it from me?”

His broad shoulders crumpled inward as the heaviness of my words weighed down on him. “Whatever I broke between us, I wanna fix it.”

I snapped my neck in his direction as my ears homed in on his unexpected response. “What?”

“I might not like it, but I know how to admit when I’m wrong, mi amor ,” Ozias admitted, his voice barely above a whisper.

For a moment, the only sound between us was the whistling of the breeze through the air.

I no longer knew what to feel or how to react.

Every emotion I felt didn’t feel appropriate for the moment.

Had I allowed Samara’s words to get into my head and take root underneath my skin?

On the one hand, I felt like I had every reason to smile again, knowing my best friend was still alive, even if it meant our friendship was never the same.

On the other, the man I’d secretly given my heart to had lied to me and omitted the truth every time I asked.

How could I trust him when he was so quick to keep a secret from me, even if his intentions were good?

I turned away and wrapped my arms around myself in a comforting embrace as if I were trying to keep all my emotions from spilling out at once.

I slowly twisted my neck to face him again, stationing my eyes on him.

I instantly sensed the vulnerability radiating from his body—from his tensed posture to his emotion-filled gaze.

“You should’ve told me,” I reiterated. “Maybe I would’ve spent less time hating you.”

“Do you hate me now?” Ozias inquired, his gaze brimming with remorse.

My chest deflated with a hard sigh. “No, but you should’ve trusted me enough to let me decide how to handle that situation. I could’ve helped. I could’ve—”

Ozias cut me off with a wave of his hand.

“I’d rob the sky of the sun and moon if I knew it would make you smile, Demi.

If it’s trust you want, you can have that.

I’ve already given you my heart, and I’ll spend the rest of my days making sure you feel like my equal.

You’re the only queen on my board, Demi.

Without you, the game’s not even worth playing. ”

My gaze shied away, falling down to my balled fists in my lap.“Do you really mean that?”

He dipped his chin without hesitation. “I do. When I told you I loved you, I meant it. Ain't no half-stepping with me, mi amor . One hundred is the only percent I’ll give and the only one I’ll accept.”

“Then never, ever give me a reason to question you again.”

“I’ll never lie to you again.”

The unexpected trip to the cemetery had unleashed a storm of emotions I hadn’t been prepared to endure, but as I sat there, listening to Ozias spill his feelings while sorting through my own, I started to feel like I could finally shed the back-breaking weight I’d been carrying around like a second shadow.

For the first time in weeks, I experienced a wave of clarity and peace I hadn’t experienced before.

It was as if I’d unlocked a new level in the game of life.

I turned my entire body to face him as my heart galloped at the reins inside my chest. There were no more secrets, no more enemies to slay, and no bodies to bury.

It was only us, the truth, and our feelings about it.

My lips parted, then paused as if temporarily paralyzed.

It was only for a fleeting second, but it felt like forever.

“I love you,” I finally admitted. Those three words spilled off the tip of my tongue as if they’d been biding their time until I was ready to confess the secret I’d been holding back from him.

“I know I didn’t say it back when you told me how you felt before, and I know you might’ve taken my silence as a rejection, but it wasn’t that. It was far from it.”

“Then what was it?”

“Fear,” I responded matter-of-factly. “Loving you . . . loving El Diablo . . . it scares the living shit out of me.” I watched his expression teeter between comfortable and not, and I continued on before he had the chance to respond.

“And although we both have flaws, I think we can work on them together. I want this to work,” I said, reaching for his hand.

“Us, Ozias. I want us to work,” I clarified, my voice rooted in certainty despite the charge of emotions surging through my body.

“I want to stay Mrs. Ozias Rivera forever. To be your queen. To really see where things can go and not because of the fucked-up circumstances, or revenge, or sex, or grief, or obligation, but because I’m choosing to be your queen and want you to be my king. ”

The car fell silent for a short while as I tried to read Ozias’s mind.

Visually, he seemed taken aback as if my confession had literally taken his breath away.

Then, without a warning or word, he leaned in and gently cupped the sides of my face in his hands.

His brown-eyed gaze was trained on mine with an intensity so hot that it sent a rush of heat pooling right to my sweet spot.

“You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say those words. The world is already mine, but I need you to make it all worth it. You’re my purpose and my reason. All I’ve ever wanted was for you to save a space for me in your heart.”

“You don’t need a space. You already have it all.”

He reeled me in for a long hug, and a smile broke through the fresh tears that were at risk of falling down my face again. For the first time in a long time, I was exactly where I was supposed to be—safe in Ozias’s arms.

“You meant what you said about being mine forever?”

“Yes.”

“Then forever it is, mi amor ,” he murmured before pressing his lips against mine in a searing kiss that held all the passion, solace, and affection we’d both been holding back. “Forever it is.”