Maybe if he’s not such a puzzle, I won’t be drawn to him as strongly.

“Good,” Ana says quietly. “Then I hope you understand that Julian didn’t mean to hurt you last night… that whatever he did was because he cares for you.”

“Cares for me?” The laugh that escapes my throat is sharp and bitter. I don’t know why I’m talking about this with Ana, but now that the floodgates have been opened, I can’t seem to close them again. “Julian doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “You’re wrong, Nora. He does. He cares about you very much. I can see it. He’s different with you than with others. Very different.”

I stare at her. “What do you mean?”

She sighs, then turns to face me fully. “Your husband was always a dark child,” she says, and I see a deep sadness in her gaze. “A beautiful boy, with his mother’s eyes and her features, but so hard inside… It was his father’s fault, I think. The older Señor never treated him like a child. From the time Julian was old enough to walk, his father would push him, make him do things that no child should do…”

I listen raptly, hardly daring to breathe as she continues.

“When Julian was little, he was afraid of spiders. We have big ones here, very scary ones. Some poisonous ones. When Juan Esguerra found out, he led his five-year-old son into the forest and made him catch a dozen large spiders with his bare hands. Then he made the boy kill them slowly with his fingers, so Julian would see what it’s like to conquer his fears and make his enemies suffer.” She pauses, her mouth tight-lipped with anger. “Julian didn’t sleep for two nights after that. When his mother found out, she cried, but there was nothing she could do. Señor’s word here was law, and everyone had to obey.”

I swallow the bile rising in my throat and look away. What I just learned only adds to my despair. How can I expect Julian to love someone after being raised that way? The fact that my husband is a stone-cold killer with sadistic tendencies is not surprising; the only wonder is that he’s not even worse.

It’s hopeless. Utterly hopeless.

Sensing my distress, Ana lays her hand on my arm, her touch warm and comforting, like that of my mom.

“For the longest time, I thought Julian would grow up to be just like his father,” she says when I turn to look at her. “Cruel and uncaring, incapable of any softer emotion. I thought that until I saw him with a kitten one day when he was twelve. It was a tiny creature, all fluffy white fur and big eyes, barely old enough to eat on its own. Something happened to its mother, and Julian found the kitten outside and brought it in. When I saw him, he was trying to coax it to drink milk, and the expression on his face—” She blinks, her eyes looking suspiciously wet. “It was so… so tender. He was so patient with the kitten, so gentle. And I knew then that his father hadn’t succeeded in breaking Julian completely, that the boy could still feel.”