Page 8 of Burdens
I’d quit my position, called the Academy to see if their offer to be a training officer was still standing, and accepted the position the same day. I’d then packed my life in Sardenya and moved back to Blackwell with Jamal.
I hadn’t given a single thought to my previous life until my assistant, Sami, told me that Omar Barrera had been seen fleeing the docks with a building in ruins and a body in his wake.
I’d brushed it off like I’d always done until he’d mentioned Jamal’s and his wife’s names. I’d never felt fear so gripping asthe one I felt when I thought Barrera had taken him away from me as well.
I’d never driven so fast to the hospital to make sure Jamal wasn’t another body added to my father’s long list of victims.
Seeing the look on Jamal’s face when he confessed that he’d known Barrera was the man behind his parents’ deaths had been a rude awakening. It might have been too late to confess to the burden I’d been carrying over the last twenty years, but I’d promised myself at that moment that I’d make sure the expression of defeat on my nephew’s face would never see the light of day again.
After my visit at the hospital, I’d rushed back to work and locked myself in my office to look into the manila folder Sami had put on my desk before I’d left in a hurry. To say I hadn’t expected what I’d found inside would be an understatement.
My eyes had flicked over the victim’s features. Features eerily similar to those of the man who had tried to kill me all those years ago—or should I say, hadsomeonetry to.
The victim left in the rubble of the building was none other than Mateo Barrera, Omar Barrera’s only son (that he claimed) and my stepbrother.
I’d spent years detaching myself from the person I was born to become. I’d spent months making sure I would never become the personhewanted me to be.
I’d fooled myself into thinking I could move on and make a life for myself with no ties to him. But the reality was that my future had always been tied to him and I hated it.
There was only one thing I could do to end this.
Become the person I swore I’d never be.
“Will I get the silent treatment for the whole time we work together?”
I side-eyed Dale, watching as he reached for the A/C to crank it up. “We haven’t started the job yet, so there’s nothing to talk about.”
“We could get to know each other since we’ll be spending however long this undercover job takes us together,” he proposed, giving me a tentative smile.
This wasn’t my first time going undercover, but the Bureau had insisted that Dale, my point of contact—the one I was assigned to check in with every week—traveled with me instead of staying back at the Bureau. That had been their only condition before accepting that I take over the case since I had previous knowledge of the Barrera cartel.
“We’re not dating,” I grunted. This was exactly why I worked alone. No unnecessary chatting. “Just remember what your new identity is and don’t fuck up.”
Dale was a good agent, but he was too talkative for my liking. I preferred quiet, hence why I always kept to myself. I did my job and people respected me for it.
That’s all I needed.
Relationships weren’t made for me. The more distance I put between myself and people, the better. That way, no one could get hurt.
That’s a little too late,my mind added, but I ignored it.
Besides, they were better off without me in their lives.
Dale sighed, resigning himself from trying. “Got it. You’re not my type anyway. I prefer warmer people.”
I groaned and kept my eyes on the road. A bead of sweat trickled down my forehead and I grabbed the hem of my white shirt to wipe my drenched face. Despite the A/C’s best effort, it wasn’t enough to battle the scorching weather outside.
It was late in the afternoon and I looked at the navigation system to see that we were about an hour away from Bab AlMansour. I rolled my window down, hoping the highway speeds would help, and took in the air outside.
It was hot and extremely dry, but the smell of the mountains felt oddly familiar. I hadn’t been back here since the day I left. I never had a desire to and still didn’t.
I took a deep breath and tried to settle my nerves. Doing my job was easy. Facing my father after years, on the other hand, was setting my anxiety on fire. Coming face to face with the man who was supposed to love me but instead wanted me dead was turning out to be harder than I thought it would be.
I felt a multitude of emotions whenever I thought of him. I always believed I’d never cared. My mother had been so loving and caring that I’d buried all the horrible memories of my childhood involving him in the deepest parts of my mind until they’d vanished from my history.
But for some reason, every suffocated emotion was resurfacing even when, right now, I was pretending to be someone else.
Wringing my knuckles, I gazed out my window and worked to shut down the tumult inside my gut.
