Page 66 of No Sweeter Poison

“I’m not going to die,” Alejandro promises. “Not yet anyway. I still have too much to do.”

I can’t imagine living this way…not knowing whether you’ll make it home in time for dinner with your family or get hit with a bullet between the eyes before you do. Alejandro always appears so calm and put together, never a hair out of place, his clothes pressed and ironed. More akin to a business executive than someone capable of a slaughter with their bare hands.

Every time I close my eyes, I see it: his fist connecting with that man’s face, over and over again until his skull caves in. I hear the crunch of bone and cries of pain. The sound of someone’s neck snapping clean in half and the gurgled noises of a person choking on their own blood.

He did that. And part of me is afraid of him because of it but it isn’t the kind of fear that makes me want to run away.

No…it’s something else entirely.

“Are you all right?” he asks again.

“You look like shit and you’re asking me if I’m all right?”

He has a gash on his forehead, a busted lip, and a nasty bruise blossoming beneath his left eye. His knuckles are busted open and it took several layers of gauze to get them to stop bleeding through the fabric. I think he changed his clothes at some point because he’s wearing a clean shirt and dark slacks. Far be it from me to think he might want to wear something comfortable like pajamas or at least jeans. But no.

Button downs and slacks. Ready for a board meeting at all times.

“You’ve never killed anyone before.”

A shiver bolts down my spine. I draw the blankets up to my neck. “That wasn’t killing. That was self-defense.”

Alejandro’s gaze drops to the bed, the flower pattern on the comforter suddenly capturing his interest. “All right…”

He gets up to leave. I don’t know what comes over me because I reach out and grab his arm. He stops and looks at me and I realize now I have to come up with something to stay.

“Those men…were they looking for me?”

He shakes his head. “No. They were a problem long before you got here.”

“I thought you said no one enters or exits this province without you knowing.”

“We were too close to the border. But I’ve never had that problem before.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

Alejandro’s jaw tightens. He surprises me when he takes my hand. “You’re safe here. You know that, right?”

I wait a second before giving a curt nod. He isn’t convinced but doesn’t press me further. Words bubble up inside me and take form on the tip of my tongue but never escape. Silence engulfs us for longer than it should and he waits, expecting me to tell him everything swirling around inside my head but I can’t. It’s too much and I’m afraid of what’ll happen the moment I open my mouth. Will I say too much or too little? And the problem isn’t how much I’ll say.

It's what I’ll say.

“Get some sleep.” He presses a chaste kiss to my forehead. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

My hand catches his shoulder. He stills as I reach up to cup the side of his face, fingers grazing the injury beneath his eye and I wonder how long it’ll take for the bruise to fade. A day, a week, a month? How long will I have to look at him and remember how close I came to losing him?

“I—” my lungs tighten with the effort to speak. I blink away the blur at the edges of my vision. “I just—”

I’m exhausted. Traumatized. That’s what this is. He’ll hear the tremor in my voice and see the glimmer in my eyes and know that it’s nothing more than an emotional reaction to a terrifying event. He won’t see it as anything more.

Maybe that’s the problem.

A sob breaks free and it snaps us both out of our stupor. He grips me by the upper arms and I finally release everything I’ve been holding inside.

“Dahlia—”

“I don’t want you to die. Do you understand? I don’t—” I shake my head and drag my palms across my wet cheeks.

“Of course, you don’t. I know that. You’re a good person.”