Keep Me

A number of questions occur to me. “What about my major? What will I be studying?” I ask, wondering if Julian made that decision for me too. The fact that he took the matter of my college education into his own hands doesn’t surprise me; after all, this is the man who abducted me and forced me to marry him. He’s not exactly big on giving me choices.

Julian gives me an indulgent smile. “Whatever you want, my pet. I believe there is a common set of subjects you’ll need to take, so you won’t need to decide your major for a year or two. Do you have some ideas of what you want to study?”

“No, not really.” I had been planning to take classes in different areas to figure out what I wanted to do, and I’m glad that Julian left me this option. In high school I had done equally well in most subjects, which made it hard to narrow down my career options.

“Well, you still have time to figure it out,” Julian says, sounding for all the world like a guidance counselor. “There is no rush.”

“Right, uh-huh.” A part of me can’t believe we’re having this conversation. Less than two hours ago, Julian cornered me by the pool and fucked my brains out on one of the lounge chairs. Less than five hours ago, he taught me how to disable a man by stabbing him in the eye with my fingers. Two nights ago, he tied me to our bed and whipped me with a flogger. And now we’re discussing my potential major in college? Trying to wrap my mind around such a strange turn of events, I ask Julian on autopilot, “So what did you study in college?”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize that I have no idea if Julian even went to college—that I still know very little about the man I sleep with every night. Frowning, I do some quick mental math. According to Rosa, Julian’s parents were killed twelve years ago, at which point he took over his father’s business. Given that about twenty months had passed since Beth told me that Julian was twenty-nine, he had to be somewhere around thirty-one today—which meant he took over his father’s business at nineteen.

For the first time, it dawns on me that Julian had been right around my age when he took his father’s place as the head of an illegal drug operation and transformed it into a cutting-edge—though equally illegal—weapons empire.

To my surprise, Julian says, “I studied electrical engineering.”

“What?” I can’t hide my shock. “But I thought you took over your father’s business really young—”

“I did.” Julian gives me an amused look. “I dropped out of Caltech after a year and a half. But while I was there, I studied electrical engineering through an accelerated program.”

Caltech? I stare at Julian with newfound respect. I’ve always known that he’s smart, but engineering at Caltech is a whole different level of brilliance. “Is that why you chose to go into arms dealing? Because you had a background in engineering?”

“Yes, partly. And partly because I saw more opportunities there than in the drug trade.”

“More opportunities?” Picking up my fork, I twirl it between my fingers as I study Julian, trying to understand what would make one abandon one criminal enterprise for another. Surely someone with his level of intelligence and drive could’ve chosen to do something better—something less dangerous and immoral. “Why didn’t you just get your degree from Caltech and do something legitimate with it?” I ask after a few moments. “I’m sure you could’ve gotten any job you wanted—or maybe started your own business if you didn’t like the corporate world.”

He looks at me, his expression unreadable. “I thought about it,” he says, shocking me yet again. “When I left Colombia after Maria’s death, I wanted to be done with that world. For the rest of my teenage years, I tried my hardest to forget the lessons my father taught me, to keep the violence within me under control. That’s why I enrolled in Caltech—because I thought I could take a different path . . . become someone other than who I was meant to be.”

I stare at him, my pulse quickening. This is the first time I’ve heard Julian admit to ever wanting something different than the life he’s currently leading. “So why didn’t you? Surely there was nothing tying you to that world once your father was dead . . .”

“You’re right.” Julian gives me a thin smile. “I could’ve ignored my father’s death and let the other cartel take over his organization. It would’ve been easy. They had no idea where I was or what name I was using at that point, so I could’ve started fresh, finishing college and getting a job with one of the Silicon Valley start-ups. And I probably would’ve done that—if they hadn’t also killed my mother.”

“Your mother?”

“Yes.” His beautiful features twist with hatred. “They gunned her down right here on the estate, along with dozens of others. I couldn’t ignore that.”

No, of course he couldn’t. Not somebody like Julian, who had already killed for revenge. Remembering the story he told me about the men who murdered Maria, I feel a chill rippling over my skin. “So you came back and killed them?”

“Yes. I gathered all of my father’s remaining men and hired some new ones. We attacked in the middle of the night, striking at the cartel leaders right in their homes. They weren’t expecting such fast retaliation, and we caught them off-guard.” His lips curl into a dark smile. “By the time the morning came, there were no survivors—and I knew I had been foolish to think that I could ignore what I am . . . to imagine that I could be something other than the killer I was born to be.”