Falling With Grace

I sniffled. “This is why I’ll never tell you where he’s at. He still has three others I left behind.” I let out a slow breath through crimped lips and then sniffled. “I can still hear them begging me to take them with me.”

“And how do you know they aren’t dead already?”

I gulped.

How did I know?

“I have to believe they’re alive.”

“What if I guaranteed they’d be safe if you gave me his location?”

I gave a contemptuous smile. “And how would you do that?”

“I have the entire Mexican military under my payroll.”

A burst of laughter leaped from my throat. “If that were true, why did we have Generals walk through our gates?” I ran my tongue against the back of my teeth. “That’s why we didn’t run to the police when we escaped. He owns them. He exchanges our sex for their help.”

His jaw clenched, his handfinding the back of my neck. “Who were they, Grace? I’m not messing around now.”

My stomach fell, and a cold chill swept over my skin, his grip firm yet gentle. “I-I don’t know their names. Andrés introduced them as Generals. That’s it.”

Make him happy, chica. Your life depends on it.

I winced as André’s phantom grip bruised my arm.

“If I showed you pictures, would you remember?” Excitement lifted his voice, his eyes bouncing back and forth to mine.

I nodded. “Yeah, probably. Why?” A bite of panic hit my chest. “Don’t put me in the same room as them,please.”

“You’ll never be around them again, Grace.” His hold loosened, yet his body remained tense.

My stomach churned as he rolled to his back, his arm tucked beneath me, his body cradling me. I slipped my leg over his and closed my eyes, willing the nightmares to not rear their ugly head.

“Get some rest.”

25

Grace

The cold space beside me stretched further than my hand could reach, the sheets exposed to the fan pushing air down around me.

Elias is gone.

His faint scent swirled around me.

Did he kiss me this morning, telling me to sleep in?

Or did I imagine that?

I stretched, the delicious ache between my legs dampened by his absence.

My body jerked to an upright position, my chest heaving.

He left me…in his room.

Shit.

Shit.