His grin hit me square in the chest. I’d never seen him crack a wide, genuine smile before. The effect was dazzling.
“I’ll introduce you to the finer points later,” he promised, tugging my hand again.
He walked more quickly as he led me deeper into the house, pulsing with energy that I could only describe as eager. For a man who liked his alone time, Raúl seemed shockingly enthusiastic about showing me his personal haven.
We toured his massive home gym and a billiards room before exploring a full spa. He simply called it “the pool”, despite the fact that the enormous space contained an indoor pool, a hot tub, and a sauna.
My eyes were practically popping out of my head by the time we reached the bowling alley.
“You have a bowling alley?” I was completely overwhelmed by the inconceivable excess of his house. And there didn’t seem to be a single spare bedroom. Raúl obviously took his no guests policy very seriously.
He shot me a crooked grin. “It came with the house, but I figured I’d keep it. Why not?”
“Why not?” I echoed faintly, nodding as though that was the most reasonable explanation in the world.
“Well, that’s it,” he announced. “I’ll show you the grounds.” His expression dropped to something more serious. “I meant what I said, Marisol. Do not try to run from me. You won’t get far before I find you, and I don’t think you’ll like what will happen when I catch you. But I’m not locking you in a cage,” he added. “There’s plenty of green space on my property. You can go outside.”
My eyes searched his stony face, assessing. “I can go outside, but I can’t leave the property?” I pushed back a bit, testing his limits.
“Right. You won’t leave my home unless I’m with you.” His chin tipped down, causing his heavy brows to cast forbidding shadows over his eyes. “After your last escape attempt, I don’t trust you yet. I’m sure you can understand why.”
I bit my lip and broke from his gaze. “I really am sorry that I put you at risk.” I truly meant it; I wasn’t trying to manipulate him. Guilt knotted my insides as the gory images that’d haunted me during my reckless flight to Juárez flickered across my mind—Raúl, dead because of me.
“I believe you,” he rumbled. “But you’ll have to prove that I can trust you not to run. That will take time.”
I nodded glumly, too bogged down in my guilt and residual trauma from that awful day to muster up any anger at his controlling decrees. For so long, I’d been surviving one day at a time. While I felt far safer with Raúl than I had in months, I remained locked in that limited mindset. The idea of staying with him whether I wanted to or not felt far too much like captivity, no matter how comfortable my prison was.
Grappling with my feelings over this strange new scenario was too much. Once I had a few more proper meals and a lot more sleep, I could start thinking about the future. For now, I could stay with Raúl without protest.
“And you won’t be leaving the property with me anytime soon,” he added, as though casually supplying further information to clarify my position. “Stefano doesn’t know you’re here, and I want to keep it that way for a while.”
That snapped me back to full clarity. “What? Does he still want to kill me?”
“No. He’s promised Carmen that I’ll find you and bring you back safely. She wants to make sure you’re okay.” His hand tightened around mine. “But she won’t like that I’m keeping you. She’ll try to take you away from me, and that will cause problems between me and Stefano. No one wants that.” His jaw hardened to chiseled granite. “Things would get bloody if they tried.”
Keeping me? Taking me away from him? He made it sound as though I was his possession, a toy he didn’t want to give up.
Suddenly, thinking about the future seemed very important. Staying here indefinitely wasn’t an option. Not only did I fear my own dark impulses, but Raúl’s possessiveness stirred memories of some of my most terrifying experiences with Gehovany.
The boy who’d been my first love had insisted that I belonged to him. When I’d tried to leave, he’d used violence to make sure no one could keep me from him. He would hurt the people I loved if they dared to stand in his way, and my presence in their lives endangered them. That was why I’d had no choice but to abandon my home and my family. It was the only way to protect them from Gehovany.
“I’m not going to let it come to that. But that’s why I can’t take you off the property. It’s not a permanent arrangement. Things will settle down after a while.” Raúl seemed to think he was reassuring me, as though my horrified silence was in response to his claim that there would be a bloody conflict within the cartel. He had no idea that he horrified me.
I forced a jerky nod, hiding my true feelings from him. If he suspected that I’d already decided I couldn’t stay, he’d only lock me down tighter. I was completely alone and isolated here. And Raúl was more than strong enough to hold me exactly where he wanted me.
He brushed his thick thumb over my cold fingers in what was meant to be a soothing caress. “Let’s go outside.”
The view from Raúl’s backyard was stunning. A thick tree line surrounded the house on three sides, but the back lawn ended abruptly in a sharp cliff. He kept me several yards back from the edge with his restraining hold on my hand, so I couldn’t tell how far the drop was. We must be at a significant elevation from Mexico City, based on the perspective of the distant cityscape. The towering buildings were rendered miniatures from up here. They glittered beneath the midday sun; a sparkling focal point framed by lush greenery on either side.
The trees around the house were broken up only by this view and by the wide driveway at the front, which wound into the trees and out of sight. It was impossible to tell how far his property extended, or what the surrounding area was like. For all I knew, we could be tucked away in the wilderness. Or a residential street might lay just beyond the curve in the driveway. This area was completely foreign to me, and I had no idea what to expect if I tried to leave Raúl’s property.
I jerked my eyes away from the impenetrable tree line, rejecting the idea of a reckless escape for the moment. I’d traveled alone into unfamiliar territory before, but my situation wasn’t that desperate yet.
As I looked away from the trees, my gaze caught on a small patch of cultivated land. It was situated just to the left of the spectacular view, which had initially caused my attention to skip past it.
My feet carried me toward the garden without thought, and this time, I was the one pulling Raúl along in my wake. Despite the morning’s disturbing revelations, the sight of bright blossoms winking amongst the greenery made my heart expand in my chest.
As we drew nearer, I realized that most of the cheery colors I’d noticed were flowering vegetable plants, not marigolds or dahlias. My joy deflated slightly, but the warmth of the sun and the rich scent of tilled soil kept my spirits up.
“You have a vegetable garden?”
Raúl was full of surprises. I never would’ve expected that a drug lord would keep his own garden.