I froze, ice swelling in my veins, coating me from the inside out.

“Eden!” came the panicked voice from the other side.

Javier.

He had come. He had found me. Just as he said he would.

And I wasn’t afraid.

I went over to the door and opened it, not bothering with the chain. No chain would keep him out of my heart.

He burst into the room, dressed in black lounge pants and a white fitted t-shirt, his sleeping attire. The same outfit he wore when he killed Miguel. He must have changed shirts, because I absently noticed there wasn’t a speck of blood on him.

“Eden!” he cried out as he saw me, taking in my puffy, bloodshot eyes.

He grabbed my chin in his hands, pressing his fingertips into my cheeks. His eyes were wild, vivid, pulsing as they searched my face.

“Why did you leave me?!” he shouted with desperation. “Why did you leave me?”

My vision blurred, his golden face becoming hazy. It was a relief.

“You left me!” he continued, his voice cracking.

I sobbed and he shook my head back and forth until I stopped.

“Talk to me! Angel, please!”

My lip trembled. “You killed him. In our house.”

His face fell. “I had to. Angel, please, I had to. He wronged me. He wronged all of us. He lied. He lied!”

“You promised, you just promised me that I’d be kept out of it. Javier, you make it so hard to love you!”

His hands dropped off my face, falling to his sides.

“I know…I know. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not sorry!” I yelled at him, finding my strength. I moved away from him, needing my space. “If you were sorry, you wouldn’t have done it! I don’t care if Miguel lied to you, there’s no need to take an innocent man’s life.”

“He wasn’t innocent, he was with another cartel. All this time!”

“I don’t care! You…you murdered him. I love you and you murdered him and I’m in love with a murderer! You murdered him, you took his life, someone I knew even, in my house. In my kitchen. Where I eat the fucking bacon and eggs you make me every morning! You brought that into my life. I can’t love you and have that. I can’t do both.”

“I am sorry,” he said, now looking at the dirty carpet riddled with cigarette burns. When he looked up, his eyes were wet. “Please forgive me.”

Oh, his words were cutting up my heart. My anger was strong but my weakness was stronger.

I tried to hide it, to stay impassive and strong, but he saw my vulnerability and his eyes burned with hope. He came over to me, pulling me to him.

“I need you to forgive me, for I have sinned,” he whispered.

“I’m not a confessional,” I told him, trying to ignore his lips at my neck. “I’m just…I’m just…I can’t do this. I shouldn’t.”

I heard him sniff, felt his tears on my cheek. I was losing my resolve.

“Revenge has been my lover for too long,” he said, breath hot on my neck. He began sliding down my body, toward the floor, arms around me. “Power, my savior. I need to learn how to put you first, above those things. I need you to help me, to teach me. I don’t want to love anything more than you, Eden, so please, I’m begging you, show me how. You need to be my everything.”

He was now on the floor, wrapped around my leg, holding on for dear life, a small sob escaping him. All of my defenses were down and I was melting with him.

“I once told you to leave and not to love me,” he cried out, muffled. “I’m taking all of that back. Not because I deserve it or because I’m worthy of your love. But because I need it like the air I breathe. I need you. I need you to believe in me. I need your love to make me feel like I can be redeemed.”

I looked to the ceiling, looking for something to steel myself against him but there was nothing but the fan and its steady whir. Round and round it went like me. Why did I have to love this man?

“Eden, angel. Please. Please forgive me. Please give me another chance. Please give me a reason to keep fighting, to be a better man. Redeem me. Only you can.”

I sank to the floor and joined him, wrapping my arms around him. We held on tight like we were trying to choke each other. He cried into my chest and I gave up trying to keep my head above water.

“I love you,” I managed to say. “I will redeem you if you can redeem me.”

“I promise,” he said, lifting his face. He buried one of his hands into my hair, cupping the back of my head. His cheeks were wet, his eyelashes black and glossy. My heart swelled, knowing I wasn’t giving him up. Knowing it didn’t have to make the choice. Knowing I didn’t have to brutalize it. It was still intact and beating, all for him.

“Do you really love me?” I asked.

He watched my lips, shaking his head in disbelief. “I really love you. I love you. I love you.” I closed my eyes, relieved, and he kissed my eyelids.

“How did you find me?”

He kissed my forehead and spoke into it. “You have a tracking device on your car. I put it there.”

My chest caved, just slightly. I swallowed. “You have a tracking…you tracked my car?”

“Yes, I can never be too careful with you,” he said, now kissing my temples. “I told you I’d follow you.”

Was that sweet? Or was that creepy? Or was that just Javier?

“Why?” I whispered.

“Because of this,” he said, stroking the tattoo on my arm. “Because you belong to me. You’re my angel. You could change your hair color, your eye color, everything about you. But the tattoo will always remain. I will always remain. I am the ink in your blood.”

He pulled back and ran his finger along my lips. “You are all mine, even if you run. I will find you because a soul needs its other half to truly live.”

He watched my lips with lust as he brought his thumb into my mouth. Instinctively, I let him in, sucking it, tasting him.

“And now,” he growled. “I will reclaim you.”

Suddenly he ripped his thumb out of my mouth and his lips were on mine, hot and wet and filled with fire. I was caught off guard and fumbled for a few moments before I could kiss him back. My hands couldn’t take his shirt off fast enough, while he just ripped my t-shirt down the middle, right in two.

He buried his face into my chest, biting my nipples until I cried out from the pain, squeezing my breasts, slapping them lightly. Whatever beast had been let loose last night was still in him, wanting to put all his fire in me. I wanted to let him. I wanted to tame him between my thighs.

I tugged down his pants, feeling his erection come free, holding him hard in my hands. Javier snarled in return, going for my neck. He sucked and bit until I was sure he had drawn blood, a wetness flowing down and pooling in my clavicle. I squeezed his cock, making him moan, feeding the fire, spurring him on.

He grabbed my hair and wrenched my head back, tugging at it repeatedly while he bit and licked his way down to my hips. His tongue swirled along the bones, soothing for a blessed moment, before he ripped my thong apart and shoved his face between my legs. He plunged his tongue inside me, groaning loudly, the vibrations moving my body to the brink. I raised my hips, trying to drive his tongue deeper, trying to get more, and he responded by giving me everything. He moved a wet finger through the soft crack of my ass and fingered the rosebud for a second before thrusting it in me.

I stiffened at the sensation before losing myself to the feeling. I came instantly, my body convulsing around his finger and tongue. Before I had a chance to regain my thoughts, to recover, he got to his feet and pulled me up by my throat before spinning me around and slamming me against the wall.

His eyes bored into mine as I gasped for breath. He ground his teeth together and hissed, “You are mine and will always be mine. I am going to fuck you so deeply you won’t be able to look at me without thinking of this, of the way I own you, of the way I’ll keep you.”

He jammed my leg up and brought his cock to my entrance, where I was already wet and throbbing again. He pushed it in, but only slightly.

“Tell me you want this, tell me you want me,” he growled.

My insides quivered, needing his fullness, craving him.

“I want you,” I said. He jerked forward, my head bumping against the wall.

“Tell me you want me!” he yelled, his jaw clenching, the veins in his throat sticking out. “Tell me!”

“I want you!”

“Tell me you need me and that you’re just a big fucking hole without me.”

“For God’s sake, Javier, just fuck me!” I roared back.

He wasted no time in complying. With one upwards motion he impaled me on him, riding me so quick and so hard the room started shaking, the fan swinging overhead. He came with the fury of a tornado, of an animal, of a man whose only redemption was found somewhere inside of me.

When we were done, I could see that the beast went with him. He was my Javier again, perhaps not redeemed but at least loved. He sat on the corner of the bed in his clothes, looking elegant and refined despite everything I had just witnessed, everything to the contrary.

I went to the bathroom to clean up and was surprised to see the weary eyes of Ellie Watt looking back at me. Judging me. I had been so close to becoming her again. So close to freeing her. She was disappointed, her body marred by bloody smears, bite marks and bruises, physical signs of our troubled love.

I gave her the finger. Then I got ready to go back home.

Javier loved me. That was the only thing that kept me going in the weeks and months after I ran away. He loved me and he kept his business out of sight. I never saw Raul again, I never saw Alex. When he left, usually on the weeknights I was working, he never told me where he was going and I never asked. Our love grew in this oblivion, feasting on my blind eyes. I only knew the him that I saw and that was enough for me.

He loved me because he kept his word and he never stopped showing me what I was to him. Whether he felt he had something more to prove or he was trying to make up for everything he’d ever done wrong, I didn’t know and I didn’t care. We became closer, opening up to each other, appreciating each moment. I’d never imagined that I could love him more than I already did, but each morning, each smile from his beautiful lips made my heart swell. Its volume was surprising, taking so much in and giving so much back.

Some days we’d just lie in bed together, taking our time with each other’s bodies. He had a habit of pinching the end of my nose and asking me to make a wish.

“What do you wish for?” he’d ask.

And I’d tell him, “Just this.”

Javier had always wanted to put my broken pieces together and I wanted to show him that he had.

Everything was so blissfully happy that I had no idea how precarious it all was. How quickly it could change. It could go up. Or it could go down.

One morning I woke up feeling sick to my stomach and immediately hurled in the sink, not even making it to the toilet.

“Angel?” Javier asked, alarmed, as I slammed the bathroom door in his face. He knocked gently on it while I heaved and heaved, disgusted at what was coming out.