“Before you explain, can you tell me anything about the men following you?” I ask when we are settled on the couch after I said goodbye to Natalia at the door. If Sloane is still being hunted, I want to get a handle on it ASAP. I swear if Rodrigo Fuentes is double-crossing us, I’ll personally see his blood spilled. “Think carefully. Even small details could help to identify them. What do they look like? What vehicle were they driving? How long have they been chasing you? I have a team looking at the traffic cams in the area where your car was abandoned, and if we can pinpoint them from camera footage, we can use facial recognition software to track them down.”
“I didn’t see their faces, and I can’t even be sure it’s the same men who have almost found me a few times.” She says it so calmly with no trace of fear, almost like she’s resigned herself to a life of always looking over her shoulder. Sloane pours the chilled Sauvignon into two wineglasses and hands one to me. “But it was two men. One was about six feet tall, the other shorter and stockier. They were in a dark-green SUV with tinted windows. Texas plates. Most likely fake. They’ve been following me for a month, all the way here from Kentucky. It didn’t matter how often I ditched them, rotated my plates, or switched cars, they always found me. It hasn’t been this intense since the early days. I’m wondering if they messed with my car. If maybe it was intentional that I broke down here of all places?” She shrugs casually as she sips her wine. “Maybe I’m reading more into it, but I’ve learned the hard way not to ignore my instincts.”
“You’ve changed.”
“I had no choice.” She looks straight at me, not shying away from anything. “It was either fall to pieces and the cartel would find me, or pick myself up and fight for my life. I chose the latter, and I haven’t stopped fighting ever since. But it was touch and go at the start. The first few months after I fled, I was a mess. Especially after I saw the news reports about my mother.” Pain glints in her eye for a few beats before she shakes it away. “I went off the grid. Found an abandoned cabin in Montana and hid there for months, only venturing out to get food. I wanted to die. I was all alone, and I knew they were hunting me, and it was probably only a matter of time before they found me.”
“I will never forgive myself for leaving you to fend for yourself.” Placing my glass down on the coffee table, I turn to face her. “I am so sorry, Sloane. My biggest regret is not trusting you.” I fist a hand over my chest. “Deep down, I knew you wouldn’t betray me or Elio. I should’ve helped you, but instead, I tried to kill you before pushing you away. I have hated myself every day since.”
She sits forward and cups my face. “Forgive yourself, Cristian. I have never blamed you. You were protecting the person you loved most in the world.”
“Elio was only one-half of that equation.” Keeping her hand flush against my face, I nestle into her touch, marveling at the tingles ripping across my skin as if no time has passed at all. Every part of me still craves every part of her. “You were the other half. I never even told you I loved you, but I did. I still do.”
“How can you say that after everything I did?”
“Forgiveness works both ways, Sloane. You were a young woman trapped in a nightmare, and you tried to do your best. I know that now. Like I know you tried to protect me and Elio the best way you could while trying to save your mother’s life. I’m so sorry you lost her, Sloane. She didn’t deserve to suffer and die like that.”
“It was you, wasn’t it?” she asks, moving closer. “You arranged the funeral and the gravestone.”
“It was the least I could do.”
Her eyes turn glassy for a few beats. “Thank you for doing that, and for the deposit you put in my bank account.”
“When I realized you had no money, I knew I had to act, but it wasn’t entirely altruistic,” I truthfully reply. “I thought it’d be how I’d find you, but you outsmarted us by withdrawing it in cash immediately, closing the account, and disappearing.”
“That money was the difference between life and death. I bought a car and met a couple of guys who helped me buy different fake IDs, set up multiple bank accounts in different countries, and taught me how to live off the grid. At the beginning, I tried to find work in some towns where I stayed for more than a few weeks at a time. But it was too visible, too risky, so I studied foreign currency trading, did an online course, and found I had an affinity for it. I’ve traded wisely and never gone hungry, always had a roof over my head. It enabled me to travel around easily and often to avoid being found. None of that would’ve been possible without that money, so you did protect me, Cristian. You did help. And you took care of my mother when I couldn’t. I didn’t find out you’d done that for months after, but it gives me peace to know she’s at rest now.”
“I pay a man to keep her grave neat and tidy and to place flowers on it weekly. I wasn’t sure if you’d ever visited.”
“I wanted to, but it was too dangerous.”
“I’ll take you there,” I promise. “As soon as I find these pricks and kill them, I’ll take you to Ithaca. You can visit the grave and the house.”
Her brow puckers as I lower our hands to my lap and link our fingers. “The house?”
“I bought your mother’s house off the bank, and I’ve ensured its upkeep has been maintained. I didn’t know if you’d want to move back there or sell it or whatever. But it’s yours to do with as you please.”
“Cristian.” Her face floods with warmth. “I can’t believe you did all that for me.” She doesn’t even know the rest yet.
“It’s quite simple.” I stare deep into her eyes, holding her hands more tightly. “I love you. I would do anything for you, Sloane.”
“I was so sure you still hated me.”
“Never.” Tugging her into my chest, I hold her close to me. “It was anger speaking that day. I have never hated you, Sloane. Far from it. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me someday.”
“There is nothing to forgive.” She eases away from me. “I have never hated you for anything you did that day. I deserved it and more.”
“No. You were a victim too.”
“I was, but I still made a lot of bad choices. I’ve read a ton of self-help books during the years we were separated, and I went to therapy during a six-month period where I was settled in a small town in Switzerland. Sylvie helped me to realize how much trauma and stress impacted my decisions back then. She told me to forgive myself, and I’m trying, but it’s not easy knowing different choices might have meant different outcomes.”
“You were put in an impossible position. Thrown headfirst into a world you knew nothing about.”
“I wish I’d told you. I wanted to, Cristian. I really did, but every time I came close to telling you, that bastard would send me another picture of my mother and send me reeling. My head was such a mess.” She gulps back a mouthful of wine and kicks off her slides, lifting her knees to her chest. “If I’d been able to think more clearly, I would’ve realized there was never any way to save my mother. She knew it. In the last live video, she told me to save myself. That was the time to tell you, but guilt was eating me up and screwing with my head. It was only much later I realized Pablo had already killed her before I missed his deadline. He’d been toying with me all along, and I feel so fucking stupid for not seeing it.”
We stay up for hours talking. Sloane fills in the rest of the gaps, and I listen as she tells me everything, stuffing my fist in my mouth when she explains the abuse she endured while in Mexico and here in New York. It’s hard not to hate myself for not realizing what was going on right under my nose. Sloane asks a bunch of questions about Elio, and I scroll through photos on my phone, talking her through all the milestones she missed.
By the time the clock chimes one, we’re both all talked out and exhausted. We haven’t discussed what happens next, but it’ll have to wait until the morning. All I know is I can’t lose her again. I want her back in my life, fully, in every way possible, and I have zero doubts. I truly hope she feels the same way. “I left some pain pills and a bottle of water by your bed,” I say before we part ways in the hallway. “If you need anything during the night, come wake me.”
“Okay. Thanks, Cristian. Sleep well,” she says before disappearing into her bedroom.
I stare at her bedroom door for way too long before I force my legs to move, walking into my room. I grab a shower before climbing into bed, and though I’m tired, I’m too wired to sleep. Knowing Sloane is across the hall is the worst kind of torture. Today feels like a dream, and I’m afraid to sleep in case I wake to find it was all a figment of my imagination.
After an hour of indecision, I say screw it and fling the covers off. I stalk out of my bedroom in my pajama pants and bare feet, like a man on a mission.
Five years.
Five fucking long years I have waited to know if Sloane was even alive.
On so many nights, I ran through scenarios in my head of what I would say and do when I found her, and not a single one involved us sleeping in separate bedrooms when we reunited.
This isn’t about sex—though every part of me craves intimacy with her—but connection. For years, I lay lonely in bed, remembering how incredible it felt to hold her in my arms. I’m fucked if I’m sleeping alone tonight.
“Sloane,” I whisper, tiptoeing into the room. “Are you awake?”
Covers rustle as she props herself up on her elbows. “Yes. You can’t sleep either?”
“Not without you.” I pad to the bed. “I swear I don’t have any expectations, but I spent years sleeping alone, missing you so much it felt like I was dying every night. Let me sleep here with you. Only to hold you. To reassure myself you’re real and you’re not going to disappear overnight.”
Wordlessly, she peels back the covers and pats the empty space.
I waste no time getting in and wrapping my arms around her. A deep sense of serenity settles over me when she curls into my side and presses her cheek to my bare chest.
We don’t speak, but words are not needed.
This. I just need this.
The ministrations of her fingers tracing light circles on my chest lull me into sleep, and I’m dozing off when she lifts her head. “Cristian,” she whispers, and my eyes instantly flicker open.
“What is it, baby?”
Her hand flattens over my heart. “I need to tell you something else.”
“I’m listening,” I promise, tightening my arm around her waist.
“Everything we shared back then was real. None of it was a lie. My feelings for you were always pure and true.”
“I know, beautiful. I know.” Pressing a lingering kiss to her brow, I wish it were her lips, but I can’t push any agenda. We still have a lot to work through, and I won’t do anything that might scare her away. My biggest fear right now is that I can’t hold on to her. It will devastate me all over again if she decides not to stay.
“I had a lot of regrets,” she says, holding my face trapped in her gaze. “But my biggest regret was never telling you I loved you.”
My heart soars hearing it. I hoped her feelings were as strong as mine, but hearing confirmation of it is everything.
“Like you, I never stopped.” She peers deep into my eyes as she says, “I love you, Cristian. I love you so much, and that will never change.”
