Page 21 of Burdens
My gaze wandered over the right side of his face, taking note of the cut clumped with dried blood above his brow and fading bruise on his cheekbone. Other than that, his perfectly sculpted face remained intact despite the accident.
Some of his features might have changed and grown over the years—the fine lines beside his eyes, the thicker beard on his strong, chiseled jaw and the few grays peeking through his thick brown hair—but one thing hadn’t.
Ten years may have passed, yet his dark-brown eyes still ensnared me.
But I swiftly reminded myself that the man in front of me was the same person who I once thought was my everything, only for him to evaporate into nothing the moment he left.
I’d made my peace with it—or should I say ignored it like he never existed because it was much easier than to deal with the heartbreak that followed his abandonment.
But my name on his lips still had the same effect as it always had, the sound ricocheting around my body and dehiscing old wounds.
It’d been ten years, but all of a sudden, the pain of his sudden departure felt fresh. My chest squeezed and I inhaled in an attempt to regulate my pounding heartbeat.
The old Amalia would have been desperate to recapture how euphoric he’d made me feel, but I wasn’t that person anymore. The rose-colored glasses I’d acquired when we were together, blurred into a darkness that now consumed me.
My conscience often fought with my new nature, my heart battling with my head with what my mission was. But I knew the old Amalia wouldn’t find her way back until I closed this chapter. Unfortunately for her, we still had a long while to go before the Barrera cartel was no longer what it currently was.
I fought against the burn creeping up my throat and coerced myself to extinguish the fire threatening to overtake my insides at the reminder that he had been able to leave without so much of a goodbye.
Besides, at the end of the day, I had a job to do and he was in the way.
His gaze fought a wide range of emotions, but I didn’t care—or at least I convinced myself enough that I didn’t.
I took a small step back and crossed my arms, the skin of my fingertips itching to reach the blade sheathed against my thigh. “It’s you,” I stated flatly.
He raised his brow. “You sound disappointed.”
“You’re the last person I’d want to see and quite frankly, I would have preferred any other prisoner than someone who wasted a year of my life.”
“You’re hurting my feelings, pretty girl. Way to kick a man when he’s already down,” he replied, attempting to lighten the atmosphere.
The nickname seemed to have escaped him, but it didn’t stop the irritation bristling under my skin at his attempt at familiarity. Like he hadn’t run away without a word.
“Why are you on our territory? Who sent you?” I asked harshly.
A few days ago, while I was away to collect a shipment drop, Hamza called to inform me that DEA agents were sniffing around Bab Al Mansour and I’d told him I could easily take care of it on my own like I’d done many times before.
After infiltrating Barerra’s ranks, I’d cut all communications with my team. They’d evidently been against it, but I’d known I wouldn’t be able to cross the ledge into fully becoming Ines Bensaid, the new identity the Bureau had assigned me with, if I still had ties to any part of my life.
Including my family.
I’d told them the one thing I knew would strain our relationship so that I wouldn’t have to explain my whereabouts and simply destroyed the burner phone the Agency had given me.
They’d sent a few agents to create a line of contact, but unfortunately for them, I’d already embraced my role as Barrera’s sicario and got rid of them before they could endanger my cover.
I’d had only one goal in mind for the last five years and whoever got in the way needed to disappear.
By all means necessary.
No agents had dared come after me again until a few days ago, but strangely, Hamza had persisted in taking care of this one himself. Something about Barrera requesting one of them be kept alive.
Loose ends weren’t a part of his ways and I’d always been his best soldier to tie them. I hadn’t been told who it was, but I never expected my new prisoner to be the same man I’d once loved.
Noah had never told me much about his past and I’d heard whispers here and there at the Academy that his first andonlypartner had been killed when they grew too close to bringingBarrera under tangible sources. But I’d been either too naive and too in love to care.
It made a lot more sense as to why he was here now, but I still didn’t understand why he ventured on this territory in the first place or why Barrera didn’t simply get rid of him.
I would.
