Page 61 of Burdens
I’d never thought much of it because I’d had my own fair share of terrible parents. I might speak freely about how much I’d considered mine’s existence irrelevant after they’d abandoned us, but not everyone was ready to share their story.
The only time he’d ever given me insights into his relationship with his father had been when I’d asked him about the large scar nestled at the base of his neck. When he’d told me that it had been a birthday gift from his father, I hadn’t pried and knew he’d share about his past whenorif he was ever ready to do so.
The funny thing was, I didn’t care about him being Barrera’s son. No one chose the family they were born into.Iknew that better than anyone.
I would have never cared about that.
What I was furious about was the fact that he’d hid it from me, lied to me about it, and then left me behind like a discarded piece of clothing you forget under your bed instead of trusting me to stay.
To be there for him and accept all of him.
Was I that untrustworthy that he’d thought he couldn’t be honest?
I wanted to be indifferent to him. Iwantedto keep living in the world I’d built where he didn’t exist, but it never had been that simple. He was my first everything. My first true love, my first taste of true and intoxicating happiness.
I’d been content with my life before him. I’d known what I wanted to do with my career, loved being by myself, and had a pretty great relationship with my siblings. But I’d be lying if I said life hadn’t felt lonely.
I’d thought I was happy, but when I met him, happiness gained a new definition. I didn’t just fall in lovewithhim. I fell in love with the person I’d become when I was with him.
I had beenhappy.
And all of it had been taken from me when he’d left.
I’d felt betrayed. Istillfelt that way.
And to learn that the betrayal ran even deeper made the wounds I’d worked so hard to conceal resurface like they’d been freshly inflicted. Especially when after being silent for ten years, he had the nerve not to let me out of his sight, like I couldn’t take care of myself.
That made the anger burn even brighter.
But despite it, I kept facing one problem.
No matter how much I hated him, and God was I so angry with him,
I still fucking loved him. I felt so stupid for letting the hollow look in his eyes get to me. The one that told me something was off, that he wasn’t the same man I’d spent time discovering tenyears ago. I felt like a fool for letting it affect me as much as it did.
My emotions felt at an impasse because they constantly tugged in different directions. A part of me wanted to cling to the anger and resentment and wished he’d never bulldozed his way into my life while another part wanted to have him back.
¡Vaya tontería?1!
I needed to keep my focus on the task at hand, not sift through how my emotions were at odds.
The moment Nassim told me I had to leave, I knew things were bad, but I didn’t expect them to be this bad. I’d been undercover for the last five years and I wasgood. My mask had never faltered, no matter how hard it was and how many times I’d wanted to give up at the beginning.
I’d learned to compartmentalizeexceptwhen it came to the kids Barrera stole from their parents. I’d helped a few escape, but I’d always been more than prudent.
I knew no one had ever suspected my real identity and I’d always been careful of my surroundings, but I hadn’t noticed my picture being taken last month.
At first sight, the conversation depicted in that photograph wasn’t incriminating. The picture showed me with one of the cartel’s distributors, but Barrera had never been made aware of the meeting.
He might not suspect that I was undercover, but if he’d sent a request for a hit on the dark web instead of asking me to do it, it meant he at least suspected I might be double-crossing him, putting me in a much worse position than if I’d been compromised.
Nassim’s and my original plan was to overthrow Barrera right from under him instead of staging a coup because we knew it would be difficult since we’d never be able to gather enough people to go against all of his.
So instead, over the past year, I’d met with key figures in the cartel and worked out deals to sway them on our side. Some were much easier to convince than others, but after some longandpricey negotiations, I’d been able to get most of them on board.
What I’d been doing was risky and put me in a precarious position because any of them could easily turn around and expose me to Barrera, but everyone I’d spoken to came to the same conclusion.
Change in power was needed.
