any more.
Beth reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a bag of M&Ms. This day called from M&M therapy. She knew it would and had planned ahead and bought a family size bag. There was no way four ounces was going to cover it this time. She remembered there being a time when half a dozen pieces would do the trick. She sucked on them one at a time, never biting into them, letting them dissolve on her tongue. The combination of slow breathing and the spike in her blood sugar always lifted her mood, at least temporarily. Like any drug, the effects were short-lived and she needed more and more to get her fix…but they would do until she could get home and see Torres. He was a far more powerful opiate. The withdrawal from him would be a bitch…
It was just after 9pm when Beth arrived home. She was still having a hard time adjusting to calling her new house home. She knew it would take a while before she stopped thinking of her small bungalow as home. They had moved to a nicer house, a bigger house in a gated community. The move made sense, Torres barely fit in her bungalow and the new house had the security they needed. There was a protective detail assigned to Alejandra around the clock. After what happened to Paige, she was taking no chances. Alejandra would grow up shadowed by a bodyguard until Beth brought down El Escorpion.
Beth tiptoed up the stairs to Alejandra’s bedroom. She was lying on her tummy, arms above her head, fast asleep. Beth pulled the blanket up over her shoulders and leaned down and pressed a small kiss to her cheek. “I’ve missed you, Pretty Girl,” she said to her sleeping form. She had been gone less than twenty-four hours but it was too long. Beth stood and stared at her child for a while, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest.
She is safe. The tight knot in Beth’s stomach loosened a little. She is safe. Beth repeated the words to herself over and over until she almost believed them. She never fully would, and that was OK, because that meant she would never let her guard down again. She couldn’t save Paige, but she would protect Alejandra.
Eventually she kissed her cheek again and then went to look for Torres. She knew where he would be. Where he always was, in the garage working, cutting or sanding. A rush of anticipation shot through her when she thought of her husband. That was one emotion that has not been dulled, the thrill she got when she was with Torres. Sometimes it was the only way she felt alive.
Beth held on to the cold wrought-iron banister as she rushed down the steps.
“Hey,” Beth said when she reached him. He was bent over a workbench. His shirt stretched taut over his biceps. His skin looked darker from the contrast of his white shirt.
He looked up and gave her his trademark half smile. Her heart faltered. He was so perfect, scars and all. She didn’t even notice the slash on his cheek any more. It wasn’t until people reacted to his appearance, that she remembered. Objectively he was a terrifying sight, he was six feet of scars and muscles and tattoos. But to her, he was just Torres, her gorgeous husband; the one who held her when she cried, and kissed her until she was breathless. He was hers for now and that was all that mattered tonight.
“Hola, Mami.”
Beth crossed to him wordlessly. She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth against his. His lips opened to her, returning the same urgency. His hands dropped to her hips, pulling her hard against him. She reached between them, pulling up his shirt. She needed to feel him, the smooth knotted scars of his burned chest.
She pulled back just enough to speak. “Take off your shirt.”
“Giving orders now, Gatita?”
Once upon a time she did give him orders. He was her recruit; she had trained him. And now he was her husband. “I just want to see you.” She didn’t wait for him to lift his arms before she started pulling up.
“Hard day?”
Beth didn’t look at him; instead she studied the think black lines of his Santa Muerte tattoo and the scar it covered. She hadn’t told him she was going to Folsom to see her dad. She told him she was in the office catching up on paperwork. “Yeah,” she murmured. That much wasn’t a lie; it had been a hard day.
She had lied to him and she did not regret it even a little. Torres knew about her dad, that he was in prison. That was more than she had ever told another man. He didn’t need to know that she went to see him today. That would make it too real. It was done now, that was all that mattered.
Beth circled her index finger trough a loop in his belt and pulled him closer to her. She needed him. It wasn’t lust or desire, though they were there, it was something deeper; she needed him to feel alive, to feel anything that wasn’t wrapped up in fear and anxiety.
With Torres, everything else disappeared. There was no room for anything else.
“Let’s go to bed,” she murmured against his lips, pulling him towards the door.
Torres never slept more than four hours a night. Every night after she was asleep, he got up again to work in his shop until 2:00 or 3:00. Sleep had never come easily to him, but it was worse now since he escaped from Colombia. He never said anything. She just knew. She could feel it in the tautness of his muscles, never relaxing, always ready to move, to strike. He always waited until he thought she was asleep, and returned before she woke, but she knew, they just didn’t talk about it. They both had their secrets. And they both knew not to push.
What they had now was good. It was solid and passionate and fulfilling, but it was also delicate and new and most likely unsustainable. They had known each other for six years, but this, the new permutation of Beth and Torres as a couple, was new, born out of necessity and devastation, formed from their broken pieces. Eventually they would crack, everything did. But right now they were in the moment before everything turned to shit. She couldn’t go back to that moment with Paige, or with her mom, but she was living in that moment now with Torres, and she would enjoy it until it was gone.
The Torres that came back from the jungle wasn’t the same man that left. And what he returned to was more different than he could have imagined. There was no warm welcome, just resentment and regret.
But they found their way back together. It was inevitable. The pull was too strong, their connection too intense, so they were together, scars and all. Was it love or addiction? The answer didn’t really matter, because he made her feel good and quitting him now wasn’t a choice.
She had waited for the “I love you” when he came back, but it never happened, not even when he proposed. After Paige died, when she was at her lowest point, he was there for her. He told her that she was going to marry him and he was going to take care of her. That was the closest to a declaration she was going to get and it was more than she deserved.
They had loved each other once. She truly believed that. But now, what they had now, what was it? Could it still be called love after so much pain had been inflicted? Torres leaving, Beth turning to Patterson, the abandonment and the betrayal… So much had happened, but still Torres was the one who made her forget.
Beth pulled his hand and led him to their bedroom. She had more to forget tonight than usual. She pulled him closer and ran a hand over the raised skin of the slash on his face and then lower to the Santa Muerte tattoo that covered the left side of his chest. His muscles grew taut under her touch. Her hands dropped lower still, to his wrists, which were now wrapped around her waist. They were encased in thick scar tissue, a remnant from his imprisonment. His whole body told his story, it was written in the scars and tattoos. He looked like he could be an inmate; that is why she had picked him. She needed someone who could infiltrate a drug cartel, but his looks alone had not done it, his ruthlessness had.
He was a killer and a drug runner and a gang member and he was the only person who could make her forget all of that.
Torres pulled her hard against him. His body was a solid wall of muscle. Physically he could overpower her without even trying. If he wanted, he could break her; snap her in two. And she liked that; there was nothing to fight against with Torres, because she would lose. All the control was his. She didn’t have to think or fight or rationalize, all she had to do was feel.
She was