Prologue
There’s a fine line between love and hate.
I’d heard that cliché all my life thrown around by half-interested adults who gave few fucks about either one. The idiom du jour served to placate me enough to remove my adolescent angst from blocking Monday night football and return to my room, where I belonged.
It wasn’t until my heart blackened to a charred void that I understood the true meaning of the phrase. I found it amazing how much that fine line thickened while sweat dripped from the brow of someone I loved as I aimed a gun at his heart.
“Eden, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
His image blurred although my hand held steady. “Yours is the betrayal I never saw coming…congratulations.” In my head the words sounded cold, despite the wetness that trailed from the corners of my eyes. Crawling to my feet, I paced the small space in front of him before I realized I’d uprooted from my spot. Keeping my breathing shallow, I focused on inhaling only when necessary. The run-down house reeked of dank mildew and death.
The number of deaths that would be added to the stench remained to be seen.
“I never wanted to hurt you,” he implored, begging me to recall what we’d meant to each other. When I vacantly stared at him, he licked his lips and attempted to reach me on another level. “After all we’ve been through, it ends like this?”
“You’ve left me no choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
Hatred burned my eyes, incinerating the man reflected in them. “Fuck you.”
His sigh turned into a cough, rattling his chest. A knowing smile curved his lips. “There’s my feisty girl.”
I waved the gun in the air—a stupid move on all accounts, but his play on my emotions ripped at my soul. “I’m not anything of yours. You sold me out. You made me believe we were on the same side.” Tears rolled harder, ignoring my commands to stop and pissed me off further. “The whole time you had an end game, you son of a bitch!”
One step. Two steps. Three steps.
If I pulled the trigger now, it’d be point-blank range. I couldn’t claim self-defense. True, it hadn’t been his hand that’d pushed me off the step and sent me careening down a flight of stairs. But, in the end, it was his actions that brought me here.
And I wasn’t the one looking down the barrel of a Colt 1911 .38 Super.
All this time I’d believed him. All this time I’d trusted him. In the end, I’d been a fool because all this time I’d been used.
“Eden,” he pleaded, searching for a shred of the affection we’d shared. “I love you.”
There’s a fine line between love and hate.
Watching him grovel for his life, I suddenly understood the meaning behind the phrase. When I loved a person, I saw them through rose-colored glasses. Everything was perfect…until it wasn’t. I walked the line until I got knocked off and opened my eyes to the person I’d been blind to. My heart became torn…desperate to recapture the first untainted moments where the line was straight and steady. Before I knew it, hate filled the space where the love vacated, and my heart battled with my head.
Like an addict who promised one more hit would be the last, I knew it was a lie but told it anyway. I knew I couldn’t stop. The cycle always repeated and I hurt myself until there was nothing left but hate for both of us.
Unless the cycle ends.
I thought the past eighteen days had hardened me to violence, so it surprised me when my chin quivered. Vengeance took my salvation, but apparently, a conscience still resided somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind. Maybe that was one thing he hadn’t killed. Maybe that was the last shred of humanity I could hold onto as I burned in hell for the path I'd walked.
I would’ve done anything for him. He’d held me in his arms and promised to protect me.
I didn’t bother to stop the lone tear as it rolled across my nose and fell onto my bottom lip, pausing briefly before tumbling down my chin. “I love you too,” I whispered as I unloaded the gun, my mask slipping as he stumbled.
It’s funny how sometimes the people you’d give your life for are the ones who take it.
Chapter One
Valentin
The chair creaked as I leaned forward for the small glass, while seated at my desk. It pissed me off, and I made a mental note to have Mateo replace it tomorrow. To most people, a creaking chair was a minor annoyance. At the very least, it wasn’t worth the destruction of an eight-hundred-dollar piece of furniture. However, in my line of work, the creak of a chair could mean the difference between life and death. The slightest sound determined whether my head rested on my pillow at the end of the night or splattered in pieces against the wall.
Silence was golden. There were no exceptions.
Wrapping my fingers around the stem of the short tequila glass, I sat back, controlling my temper as the hinges from the chair protested. I held the glass up to eye level, ensuring it remained at room temperature.
Without so much as a knock, my office door flew open and bounced against the wall behind it with a crash.
“Quién crees tú? Te calmas o te calmo,” Who do you think you are? Calm down before I calm you down. I ordered, lifting an eyebrow at my first lieutenant. “You don’t knock anymore?”
“Sorry, jefe.” Mateo lowered his gaze in respect. “May I come in?”
I waved my wrist, indicating my disinterest. “You already are, aren’t you?”
He gave a quick nod and closed the door behind him. “We have a situation…”
“Do you know how old I was when my father gave me my first stem of tequila, Mateo?”
A deep line etched in his forehead. “Jefe?”
“I asked you a question.”
He clutched a paper in his hands and shook his head. “I don’t know…fifteen, maybe sixteen?”
A smile pulled at the corners of my mouth. “Nine.”
His only answer was an immediate widening of his eyes. Not that I didn’t expect it. I enjoyed a little shock value from time to time.
I lifted the stem between us and swirled the liquid against the sides of the glass. “Do you see how it sticks to the walls? That’s called a string of pearls. It means it’s good shit. My father taught me how to tell the difference as a boy. Now, most men would just shoot this and be done.” I narrowed a stare at him. “What would you do, Mateo?”
His face flicked from the glass to my face, I assumed trying find the correct answer hiding somewhere between the two. Unexpectedly, his gaze shot across the room to the side table where the bottle of Gran Patrón Burdeos Añejo sat, half empty.
“I’d drink it in small sips, letting it touch every part of my tongue before swallowing.”
My tug of a smile extended farther. “And why would that be, lieutenant?”
“Because it’s expensive shit, sir. When tequila is three-thousand-five hundred pesos per shot, you don’t drink it…you experience it.” He stood straighter, radiating the strength of a man confident he’d proven his worth.
“Buena respuesta!” I laughed, approving of his answer and raising the stem. Taking a sip, I set it down and clapped my palm down on the wooden desk. “What do you need?”