I smiled at María José in a reassuring way, hiding the hurricane brewing beneath my skin.
"And what exactly did Luis Miguel do?" I asked in a deceptively calm voice.
Because I needed to know.
Because if he had done anything—anything—to make my precious, innocent flower suffer…
Then I was going to make him suffer, too.
Tenfold.
I was never a patient man. I preferred my problems to be solved swiftly, preferably with a knife between someone's ribs or a bullet lodged in their skull.
It was cleaner that way—efficient. But as María José recounted what those kids did to her, I found myself gripping the wooden crate beside me so tightly that my fingers ached.
"Wait," I said in a dangerously calm tone. "You're telling me they made you trip over a tomato stall, then stole your father's money to pay for it?"
She nodded, her fingers twisting in the hem of her skirt.
"And now you have to work at the butchery to cover the cost so your father doesn't find out?"
Another nod.
