Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
AMALIA (PRESENT)
For a few moments, when my eyes met his, time stood still, the seconds stretching longer than I ever thought was imaginable.
Memories slammed against the walls I’d erected when I became Ines, threatening to crumble my carefully constructed new reality brick by brick. My heart slammed furiously against my ribcage and the walls of the rather large cell we were in felt like they were caving in, enclosing us in a much smaller place where infinite moments we’d shared in the past fought against our new realities.
Me as his captor and him as my captive.
Both prisoners of our new circumstances.
I quickly realized that I would need much better defenses against him if his simple presence rattled me this much after years of building a barrier between who I once was and who I’d become.
Especially after he’d left.
My captive’s eyes widened. “Amalia?” His voice was barely above a whisper and deeper than I remembered, but I recognized it nonetheless.
I found myself taking him in, telling myself that’s what I always did with everyone I encountered so that I could store any details to my bank of information.
Yeah, right , my mind mocked me.
His bruised wrists were bound together with a rope chained to a pair of shackles hanging from the ceiling. His white shirt was torn, revealing various cuts on his torso, and blood matted the fabric of his shirt on his right shoulder.
I’d been told that one of Hamza’s men had injured him when they’d intercepted him, but apparently no one had tended to his wound. Something I’d have to unfortunately take care of.
If he was to die on my watch, it wouldn’t be from an easily preventable infection.
My gaze wandered over the right side of his face, taking note of the cut clumped with dried blood above his brow and fading bruise on his cheekbone. Other than that, his perfectly sculpted face remained intact despite the accident.
Some of his features might have changed and grown over the years—the fine lines beside his eyes, the thicker beard on his strong, chiseled jaw and the few grays peeking through his thick brown hair—but one thing hadn’t.
Ten years may have passed, yet his dark-brown eyes still ensnared me.
But I swiftly reminded myself that the man in front of me was the same person who I once thought was my everything, only for him to evaporate into nothing the moment he left.
I’d made my peace with it—or should I say ignored it like he never existed because it was much easier than to deal with the heartbreak that followed his abandonment.
But my name on his lips still had the same effect as it always had, the sound ricocheting around my body and dehiscing old wounds.
It’d been ten years, but all of a sudden, the pain of his sudden departure felt fresh. My chest squeezed and I inhaled in an attempt to regulate my pounding heartbeat.
The old Amalia would have been desperate to recapture how euphoric he’d made me feel, but I wasn’t that person anymore. The rose-colored glasses I’d acquired when we were together, blurred into a darkness that now consumed me.
My conscience often fought with my new nature, my heart battling with my head with what my mission was. But I knew the old Amalia wouldn’t find her way back until I closed this chapter. Unfortunately for her, we still had a long while to go before the Barrera cartel was no longer what it currently was.
I fought against the burn creeping up my throat and coerced myself to extinguish the fire threatening to overtake my insides at the reminder that he had been able to leave without so much of a goodbye.
Besides, at the end of the day, I had a job to do and he was in the way.
His gaze fought a wide range of emotions, but I didn’t care—or at least I convinced myself enough that I didn’t.
I took a small step back and crossed my arms, the skin of my fingertips itching to reach the blade sheathed against my thigh. “It’s you,” I stated flatly.
He raised his brow. “You sound disappointed.”
“You’re the last person I’d want to see and quite frankly, I would have preferred any other prisoner than someone who wasted a year of my life.”
“You’re hurting my feelings, pretty girl. Way to kick a man when he’s already down,” he replied, attempting to lighten the atmosphere.
The nickname seemed to have escaped him, but it didn’t stop the irritation bristling under my skin at his attempt at familiarity. Like he hadn’t run away without a word.
“Why are you on our territory? Who sent you?” I asked harshly.
A few days ago, while I was away to collect a shipment drop, Hamza called to inform me that DEA agents were sniffing around Bab Al Mansour and I’d told him I could easily take care of it on my own like I’d done many times before.
After infiltrating Barerra’s ranks, I’d cut all communications with my team. They’d evidently been against it, but I’d known I wouldn’t be able to cross the ledge into fully becoming Ines Bensaid, the new identity the Bureau had assigned me with, if I still had ties to any part of my life.
Including my family.
I’d told them the one thing I knew would strain our relationship so that I wouldn’t have to explain my whereabouts and simply destroyed the burner phone the Agency had given me.
They’d sent a few agents to create a line of contact, but unfortunately for them, I’d already embraced my role as Barrera’s sicario and got rid of them before they could endanger my cover.
I’d had only one goal in mind for the last five years and whoever got in the way needed to disappear.
By all means necessary.
No agents had dared come after me again until a few days ago, but strangely, Hamza had persisted in taking care of this one himself. Something about Barrera requesting one of them be kept alive.
Loose ends weren’t a part of his ways and I’d always been his best soldier to tie them. I hadn’t been told who it was, but I never expected my new prisoner to be the same man I’d once loved.
Noah had never told me much about his past and I’d heard whispers here and there at the Academy that his first and only partner had been killed when they grew too close to bringing Barrera under tangible sources. But I’d been either too naive and too in love to care.
It made a lot more sense as to why he was here now, but I still didn’t understand why he ventured on this territory in the first place or why Barrera didn’t simply get rid of him.
I would.
Even if it was for purely selfish reasons.
Noah’s brows pulled together. “Who sent me? Your territory?” he said, a puzzling look on his face. “Why are you here? There was nothing about?—”
“Why I’m here is none of your concern,” I said, cutting him off.
He shook his head and a cough rattled his chest. “It kinda is in light of my current situation,” he deadpanned as he tugged on the chains.
“I’ll see what I can do about that after you tell me why you’re jeopardizing my assignment.”
He huffed out a small laugh. “Always bargaining. Glad to see you haven’t changed.”
“You don’t know me,” I said, my tone dry as I tried to soothe the urge to let out my frustration on his face.
He lifted a single eyebrow and let his gaze drift down my body. “I beg to differ, pretty girl.”
One moment, I was standing a few feet away from him, and the next, my dagger was pressed up right beneath his chin, my free hand holding the back of his head forward. “Do not call me that ever again,” I seethed, looking up at him. Before I could stop myself, I added, “You lost that right a long time ago.”
A flash of hurt dimmed his features, but it disappeared as fast as it came. I waited for his expression to morph into panic like all my previous victims had when I had them at my mercy in their final moments.
But it wasn’t fear that painted his gaze like I’d expected.
Instead, amusement shone in his irises as he leaned into my touch, his skin tensing against the sharp blade. That only had me pressing the edge harder against his neck, a droplet of blood blossoming against his tanned skin.
It slowly trailed down the curvature of his neck, but he still didn’t flinch.
The faintest smile curved his full lips. “Careful now, pretty girl ,” he drawled. “You wouldn’t want to go against your dear boss’s wishes.”
“I don’t answer to anyone but myself,” I said through gritted teeth. It wasn’t exactly the truth, but he didn’t have to know that.
Barrera had appointed me as his enforcer and I mostly executed my own wishes to get the answers I needed, but he still ordered me around like one of his lower soldiers and I had to feign to obey every once in a while.
If he ever found out why I was really here, let’s just say what I did to prisoners was a mere play compared to what he’d have done to me for being a rat and my body probably would never be found as I swam in Oued Aguz.
I moved my attention back to Noah, waiting and watching. Silence coiled between us like a living, breathing element that sent frustration raging through my veins. My chest grazed against his with every breath as we stared at each other.
Our lips were merely a brush from one another, his breath fanning across the parched skin of my lips. I could practically taste him.
We exchanged a quiet push and pull with neither of us giving an inch. His expression looked inquisitive as if he was searching for something, while mine battled between pushing the blade further into his thyroid to rid myself of him once and for all, and the nagging invocation of the stain he’d left on my mind, reminding me that once, I’d loved him.
I shook myself out of it because, frankly, I had better things to do.
I exhaled the breath I didn’t notice I was holding and begrudgingly released my hold on him. Brandishing my knife upward, I cut the rope tied to the chains above his head and stepped back, watching him land on the cement ground with a loud thud.
“Behave until I’m back,” I ordered as I looked down at him on his knees in front of me.
When he glanced up and his gaze found mine, a small flicker of satisfaction brushed against my breastbone. But it was briskly replaced when I noticed how weak he looked. No matter how far I’d gone or what I’d done to get here, my past self occasionally snuck out.
I hated myself for caring even in the slightest, but he was still Noah.
The same person who used to be part of some of my favorite memories.
But those same memories I once treasured had long turned bitter.
I should’ve known better at the time.
People always left.
Their memories only festered until they turned into ashes.
I let out an exasperated sigh. “Bathroom’s in the corner and I’ll see that someone gets something to eat sent to you,” I threw at him. “And before I forget,” I added before I raised my fist and connected it with the injured side of his face.
His head whipped to the side from the sudden impact, the bones of my knuckles crunching against his cheekbone. “What…” He paused to spit, a mix of blood and saliva landing on the cobblestone floors. “What was that for?”
I raised my hand, my knuckles stained with splatters of his blood, and patted his cheek. “Just doing my job.”
People would grow suspicious if I’d visited a prisoner and came back unmarked. This was insurance. And a little payback if I was being honest.
He said nothing more as I turned on my heels to walk away.
As I moved to lock his cell, I briefly chanced one last look at him, finding him rubbing against his abraded skin. When the bolt slammed shut, he lifted his head and our eyes met again.
I paused for a moment, a tumult of emotions running through me. Then I left.
Just like he’d done.