“You’re sorry? You have no idea who or what you’re dealing with.” His tone is low and, if I didn’t know better, threatening. “And I don’t need your goddamn pity. Eat your dinner.”
My temper flares at his words. In an instant, I forget that Tristan is essentially a stranger off the street. I push to my feet and get so close our faces are mere inches apart.
“You either talk to me or I’m going home. I don’t care how dangerous you say it is.”
I expect anger, but his expression flattens into a hard calm. Somehow that’s even scarier.
“You’re not leaving here, Isabel.”
There’s something final about his tone, nearly knocking the wind out of me.
I maneuver past him and go for my bag. Before I can get to it, he’s between me and the door.
“I don’t think you heard me. You’re not leaving.”
I place my hands on his chest to push him away, but the second I attempt it, I’m stumbling backward. He bands his arms around my torso, dragging us toward the bed. My hands are free, so I pound against his shoulders and struggle against his massive strength.
“Let me go! Let me go, or I’ll scream!”
I’m already yelling, but he doesn’t seem to care. My heart is racing, and hateful tears burn behind my eyes. Inside, I’m at war with my innate trust in him and the fear he inspires.
Any possibility of escape is squashed when I realize he’s got me entirely immobile—hands around my wrists and his hard, heavy body pinning me flat to the bed, my legs kicking feebly off the edge. He repositions my wrists into one of his hands, reaches behind his back, and retrieves a sliver of plastic.
I scream and pray that Mateus’s earlier affection might save me now.
But he never shows, and Tristan has deftly cinched each wrist to the metal bedposts. The cable tie is thin enough to sting me when I test it but thick enough that I don’t have a chance of breaking it without really hurting myself.
As quickly as he secured me, he lifts off me twice as fast.
He paces once around the room.
“Why are you doing this?” My voice is weak and watery. I can’t fight him now. I can only appeal to his humanity.
He stops and pivots in my direction. His eyes are ice. No shred of the man I knew. A second later, he’s out the door and I’m alone. I cry and then I scream. I scream until my throat burns. Until the sky fades into a black night and sleep overwhelms me.
TRISTAN
“Who is the girl?”
Mateus shuffles barefoot toward the sideboard that holds a few bottles of his favorite liquors and a set of cut glasses. His linen clothing hangs loosely on his short and stocky frame. His calm expression and easy movements are perfectly relaxed. He’s at home, appearing so comfortable that I have no choice but to feel at home myself, as much as I ever could.
Part of Mateus’s gift is his ability to put people at ease. That’s also what makes him lethal. No one ever sees him coming.
“No one of importance, as far as I can tell,” I say.
An old girlfriend. I chastise myself for this new fact as a smirk curves Mateus’s cheek.
“You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”
He brings me a tumbler of clear liquid muddled with limes. One sniff, and I identify the local brand of cacha?a. The essence of sugarcane fills my mouth, but the lime clears it away, inviting me to another taste. I swallow, welcome the sensation, and exhale a sigh.
I close my eyes and think about her taste. The way it consumed me when I had it on my tongue. Then doubt and rational thought wash it away.
When I open my eyes, Mateus is sitting on the adjacent couch watching me. Tan leather cracked with wear and use slides under his palm as he rests it on the arm.
“She is very beautiful,” he says.
I nod. Isabel’s beauty is indisputable. I just wish it was the only thing drawing me to her.
“She looks at you like you are precious to her. I had no idea such a creature could exist in your world.”
I take another swallow and weigh my next words. Everything about this situation is uncomfortable for me. My past is foreign soil, a battleground I’ve never seen before. I’m unarmed and completely unready for it.
“I knew her once,” I finally admit.
“And now you are protecting her?”
“The opposite, actually.”
I don’t need to say any more. Mateus can put the pieces together. He frowns, and his lips form a wrinkled line.
“I see. So why have you brought her here?”
“I need time. She knows things…” I pinch the bridge of my nose, still uncertain how long it’ll take for me to explore this newfound curiosity about my past. “Someone will notice she’s gone soon enough. Probably her boyfriend or her coworkers. Then her family back in the States will know something’s gone wrong. I don’t have much time. You don’t have to worry. We won’t be here long.”
He sweeps his hand in a gesture between us. “You can stay as long as you need to.”
“I won’t make this your mess. Not in your home.”
He lifts an eyebrow and cocks his head. “If you must, you know I will oblige. Even if it costs me this refuge. My debt has not been paid.”
“I’m in no rush for you to pay it.” Calling Mateus’s debt over this would be foolish. I may have left Rio in a rush, but I still have time and space to maneuver.
Mateus sighs heavily. “Perhaps one day, if the devil doesn’t take us too soon, you’ll tell me your story.”
I muster a laugh. “Perhaps if I knew it, I’d tell you.”
Mateus’s eyes soften with understanding. We’ve hardly bared our souls to one another, but he knows my past is beyond reach. Oddly I think he counts my anonymity as an asset to our friendship.
“If your past is dark, how do you know who she is?”
I pause and relive that moment of recognition as she sat in the café this afternoon. Life had been different seconds before.
“She recognizes me. She knows me.” I frown hard. “We were lovers. She hasn’t forgotten, and I have no way of remembering.”
“Meu Deus, Tristan! How can you let her go?” Mateus’s cool calm breaks as he leans forward, resting his forearms on his thighs.
I shrug. “It’s her or me.”
He cusses under his breath and rises to his feet. He crosses the long room, opens a drawer at his desk, and returns.
“Here,” he says, pushing a blackened silver frame into my hands.
I open it like a book, and it parts stiffly. Inside, two ornately trimmed ovals reveal faded photographs. On each side, a woman and a man are dressed in clothing from a couple generations past.
I lift my gaze to him. “Your parents?”
He nods. “My sister raised me. My father opposed the regime, so they burned down our home. My parents were tied down, brutalized while my sister and I sneaked away. We couldn’t save them. Days later, we found this in the rubble. A miracle.” He’s silent a moment, his gaze on the frame. “Their enemies wanted them to disappear. No body, no voice, no grave beyond the ashes of our home. But this…” He leans in and drops his thick fingertip onto the center of his mother’s photograph. “This is a memory they could not destroy.”
When he pulls back, I close the frame gently and hand it back to him. “You’re lucky to have found it.”
He whips it from my grasp. “And you, idiota, are lucky to have her. She is your memory. She is your living and breathing miracle.” He shakes the frame at me once more before returning it back to his desk, slamming the drawer firmly shut.
He returns and drops on the couch. I marvel at Mateus’s break in composure. I’ve only seen him beyond reason one other time. Those were memories neither of us wished to relive. But this is different. He’s emotional over memories he holds. I have nothing like that.
“She’s going to get me killed,” I finally say. Suddenly, despite everything I’ve told myself, I know this to be true. Isabel is difficult and impulsive. No reasonable person would leave her life behind on a whim to come with me—a stranger. She’s unpredictable and far too attached to the person I once was. And already I can feel her reaching for more.