So many emotions ate at him that Rio didn’t know what he was feeling. Part of him wanted to weep for her. Part of him was so angry he wanted to hunt her brother and uncle down. “Rachael, sestrilla. It’s good you came here, to me, to your home where you belong.” He caught her wrists and brought the scars to his mouth. “Here, with me. Every morning the birds will sing to you. The rain has beautiful songs and it will play them for us. This is our world.” He felt a damn fool for uttering the words to her, yet so humbled that she’d accepted his own violent past. That she could look on what he did and not judge him harshly after all she’d been through. He would have quoted her a poem had he known one, just to ease her suffering.

“Elijah will never stop looking for me.” She caught his face in her hands. “You should have known him all those years ago. He struggled so hard to work behind Armando’s back to get us free. It was such a terrible life, always poised on the brink of death. He walked that fine line every day. We whispered together, passed notes we burned so no one would know what we were planning. He stood between me and our uncle all the time.”

“It must have been difficult.”

“We had no life. We were still in school but we couldn’t bring home friends. We couldn’t have any friends. We couldn’t trust anyone, only each other. There were no dates, no dances. We lived in constant fear. Sometimes, if Armando didn’t think Elijah was taking care of business, he and his men would break into our rooms in the middle of the night. They’d drag me into Elijah’s room and put a knife to my throat or a gun to my head. Elijah was so calm. He never wept. He never panicked. He looked at them and he looked at me and he would say to Armando, ‘What do you want me to do?’ That was all. And he did whatever it took to save my life.”

“Why do you feel ashamed?”

“He sold drugs. I’m certain he killed people. He was so beautiful, so full of laughter. He never smiles. He has nothing in his life. All for me. All in payment for my life. He would have been better off if they had killed me too. He would have been free. He could have broken away. He has skills like a chameleon. They never would have found him if he was alone.”

“He must have been extraordinary, even as a teenager. I would like to meet him. It may be that we can work something out.”