“My father was one of the most powerful drug lords in Colombia.” Julian’s voice is barely audible, his breath ruffling the fine hair near my forehead. I had already begun to fall asleep, but I’m suddenly wide awake, my heart hammering in my chest.

“He started grooming me to be his successor when I was four years old. I held my first gun when I was six.” Julian pauses, his hand lightly stroking my hair. “I killed my first man when I was eight.”

I’m so horrified that I just lie there, frozen in place by shock.

“Maria was the daughter of one of the men in my father’s organization,” Julian continues, his voice low and emotionless. “I met her when I was thirteen, and she was twelve. She was everything that I was not. Beautiful, sweet… innocent. You see, unlike my father, her parents sheltered her from the reality of their lives. They wanted her to be a child, to know nothing about the ugliness of our world.

“But she was bright, like you. And curious. So very, very curious…” His voice trails off for a second, as though he’s lost in some memory. Then he shakes it off and resumes his story. “She followed her father one day to see what he was doing. Hid in the back of his car. I found her there because it was my job to be a lookout, to guard the meeting spot.”

I can barely breathe, unable to believe that Julian is telling me all this. Why now? Why tonight?

“I could’ve told her father, gotten her in trouble, but she begged so prettily, looked at me so sweetly with her big brown eyes that I couldn’t do it. I made one of my father’s guards take her home instead.

“After that, she came to see me on purpose. She wanted to get to know me better, she said. To be friends with me.” There is a note of remembered disbelief in Julian’s voice, as though nobody in their right mind could’ve wanted something like that.

I swallow, my heart stupidly aching for the young boy he had been once. Had he even had friends, or had his father stolen that from him too, just as he had destroyed Julian’s childhood?

“I tried to tell her that it wasn’t a good idea, that I wasn’t somebody she should be around, but she wouldn’t listen to me. She’d find me somewhere almost every week, until I had no choice but to give in and start spending time with her. We went fishing together, and she showed me how to draw.” He pauses for a second, his hand still stroking my hair. “She was very good at drawing.”

“What happened to her?” I ask when he doesn’t say anything else for a minute. My voice is strangely hoarse. I clear my throat and try again. “What happened to Maria?”

“One of my father’s rivals learned that she was seeing me. We had just raided his warehouse, and he was pissed. So he decided to teach my father a lesson… through me.”