by Laura Sutton
“Why don’t you tell us what you’re thinking, and we can work through it?” Eli said. He looked so tired, circles dark under his eyes and a droop to his shoulders she had never seen before.
“So this witness, who is a known CI for this detective…” she sifted through the papers looking for his name. “Detective Mann,” she said when she found it. “What if this witness’s testimony, the detective’s animosity towards your family, and the lack of vigorous cross-examination of the testimony are related?” Sam’s gaze bounced between Eli and Dante.
“It would be hard to prove,” Eli said slowly.
“I agree, we would have to find some kind of link, but the threshold for getting a new trial on lack of proper defense is a bit lower than getting the appeal based on lack of evidence.” She waited for Eli’s agreement, but he was silent, staring at her. “I know something is fishy about the witness and this cross-examination, Eli. I just know it.”
Finally he nodded. “Yeah, okay. I mean, it’s all we have, really.”
“What does that even mean? What do you need to prove this?” Dante asked and Sam tapped her finger against her lips.
“We need private investigators, maybe a forensic accountant, I don’t know. We’ve got to find something linking the detective, your father’s lawyers, and the witness all together,” she answered.
“Money is no object, I know private detectives,” he said, and she nodded.
“It has to be one you trust, because if my theory is right, this is a bigger deal than we realize.”
“What do you mean, bimba?” Eli asked, and Sam brought up some news stories from Mexico on her laptop.
When Eli’s mother had been murdered, it wasn’t just a blow to the di Ruggiero family; it had been a hit on the cartel of the Ramirez family, Marissa’s family. The man who killed Marissa was from the rival García cartel, which was constantly at war with the Ramirez family.
“I know you always thought that your mother’s death was personal, because the man who killed her was her ex-fiancée, the man she left to marry your father.”
Eli nodded and she brought up another story about a particularly bloody battle between the cartels right after their father had been convicted.
“What if it was less about that, and more about making your family and your mother’s family in Mexico unstable?” she asked, looking at Dante for his reaction.
He rubbed his jaw as he seemed to mull over her words.
“It did hinder our drug–” Dante began, but Eli flashed him a dirty look and Dante quickly changed what he was going to say. “I mean, our trade with the Ramirez family, it cut down our supply by a good 75% for almost a year. We’ve since recovered, as has the family in Mexico, but she’s not wrong, Elias.”
Eli sighed. “Was our mother killed for a fucking cartel coup?” Eli looked devastated and Sam reached out to squeeze his hand.
“And Papa played right into their hands. They knew he would go crazy if she was killed, that he’d become careless. It’s… not a bad move from the Garcías. I’d do it, if it were needed.” Dante shrugged and stood. “I’ll get you whoever you need. I need to make some calls.” He disappeared to do just that.
“Want some lunch?” Sam asked in the ensuing silence.
Eli shook his head. “No, I want to take a bath,” he said, standing and holding out his hand.
“Right now?” She put her hand in his and let him pull her up.
“Yes, right now, with you. I need to think, and I need to get away from all of this.” He gestured to the stacks and piles of papers and folders on the table. Sam followed him to the bedroom they had been sharing since his arrival, the same one she had woken up in alone that first morning.
Sam went into the attached bathroom and started running the bathwater, adding some of the luxurious bath oil Sandra had acquired for her. Sandra had gone out of her way to make sure Sam was comfortable, from the beautiful clothing hanging in her closet beside what Eli had brought for her, down to her favorite shampoo and perfume. When Sam had tried to argue that it was all too much, Sandra shook her head.
“I’m sorry, Miss Samantha, but Mr. Dante told me it was my number one priority to make you comfortable while you’re staying here. It’s really no trouble at all.” The woman smiled but Sam was confused; why would Dante care about her comfort?
“Do you like working for Dante?” Sam asked. She was having trouble believing anyone could enjoy the man’s presence for any reason.
Sandra beamed. “I do! He’s a wonderful man to work for, he even found my nephew a job.”
Sam wanted to ask more, because it was such a contrast to the Dante she knew, the cold and calculating kidnapper, but in the end it didn’t matter if Sandra adored Dante. Sam hated him, and knew Eli felt similar– they wanted to do anything possible to get him out of their lives for good.
Sam shucked her clothes and, nude, tested the water with her fingers; it was almost uncomfortably hot, but that meant it would take longer to cool. She didn’t wait for Eli; it may have been his idea, but her neck and back were aching from sitting at the dining room table, day after day, this last week. She sank into the large tub, closing her eyes and ignoring the sting from the hot water, pleased how it instantly started to relax her tight muscles.
“Getting started without me?” Sam opened her eyes to see Eli’s naked form leaning against the door frame. He was so beautiful, it hurt sometimes to look at him. From his broad muscular shoulders, his chest sprinkled with dark hair, the rippled muscles of stomach, down to the cock that, even as she stared at him, seemed to grow and harden in front of her.
“Fuck, bimba, you’re looking at me like you want to eat me alive,” he groaned, and she snapped her eyes back up to his.
“Maybe I do,” she said with a coy smile, and he stepped into the bathroom.
“Scoot up,” he told her, and she did, drawing her knees up to her chest to give him room to slide into the tub behind her. “Fuck, that’s hot!”
“Oh, quit whining,” she teased. She let him get situated behind her before leaning back, his half-hard cock pressing against her ass and lower back. He just wrapped his arms around her waist and she leaned her head against his shoulder with a sigh. It felt so good to be in his arms. She’d never take it for granted again.
“You know, when we move in together, we are going to have to find a place with a big tub like this, because I am going to require more baths with you.” He kissed the side of her head.
“You want to move in together?” she asked quietly and watched as Eli threaded his fingers through hers.
“I do,” he replied. She rewarded him with a kiss on the cheek. “I want to marry you,” he rushed to add, “Not now, I’m not proposing yet, too much is going on. But… someday. Eventually. Yes.”
Emotion filled Sam almost to bursting; gladness and joy and the conviction that, when he asked, she would say yes. But she was grateful that he wasn’t asking at that moment. She wasn’t quite ready to agree to marry him. Too many outside forces were still fighting them for their happiness.
“I want a future with you, Sam,” he continued. “I want lazy Sundays and for you to rub my shoulders when I’m working on a long case. I want to be there when you fall asleep at night, and wake up by you every morning. You’re my future,” he finished.
Sam turned her head and kissed his lips, a little sloppy and a little off center but it didn’t matter, it was still the best of kisses, because it was with him.
“I want that, too,” she breathed against his mouth.
“I swear that you will be safe,” he said, his voice fierce, and she turned her body in the tub and took his face in her hands and kissed him and didn’t let go even after she ended the kiss.
“I don’t need that promise from you,” she said. Eli started to argue, but she pressed her finger against his lips to stop him. “I don’t need that promise because I choose you, Eli, all of you, and that includes your past, and your family. Danger will always be a part of our
life, even if we succeed and get your father out of prison and Dante keeps his promise, and that’s okay. My life is so much fuller, so much better, with you in it, than having some sort of safe, empty life without you.”
Eli’s eyes seemed to glow at her words. “I don’t deserve you, bimba.”
She smiled and kissed him again. “Yes, you do, because I love you, and you deserve it.”
He pulled her to him and kissed her deeply, but to her surprise, didn’t urge for more than just the kiss. When it ended, she faced away from him again and snuggled back into his embrace, the hot water lapping around her shoulders.
“You know, the more I think about your theory, the more I think you may be right. It doesn’t make much sense that Enrique García would wait thirty years to exact his revenge for my mother leaving him by killing her. I think we were all a little short-sighted in our grief, at the time.”
Sam nodded at his words. “That’s understandable,” she agreed. “I wouldn’t think much of it, but that cross-examination of the witness was so bad, it can’t be ignored.”
“I should’ve been in the courtroom. I should’ve been on his defense team,” Eli murmured, guilt coloring his tone.
Sam shook her head. “No, because if this is the conspiracy I think it is, you could’ve been hurt as well, to get you out of the way. They needed your father convicted. because– I think– they believed it would disrupt and weaken your family. They obviously didn’t know Dante very well.” She chuckled a little at that thought.
“No, they thought he would crumble like Papa did, but my mother was his Achilles heel, not Dante’s,” he said.
“I don’t think Dante has a weakness,” Sam muttered and Eli made a hum of agreement.
“At least, not yet. It seems to be women, for the di Ruggiero men. Mama was it for my father, and you’re mine, bimba.”
“Are you ever going to tell me what bimba is?” she asked, and he chuckled.
“Directly translated, it’s just ‘baby’, but it’s more than that, it’s ‘my baby’.”
Sam’s eyes widened. “So… from the beginning?” she asked, disbelieving, and his arms tightened around her waist.
“Yes, Sam, from the very beginning. I wasn’t ready to admit it, but… yes.”
Sam pulled his arms tighter around her and let the silence and the warm bath soothe them. She had known from the beginning, too. She was his, and he was hers. No matter what they faced, they would face it together. Forever.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Eli
It took several days before they could find anything to prove Sam’s theory, but eventually they did, and it came from three separate sources.
The first was from Sam. She started searching through all the social media accounts of everyone they suspected to be involved in the conspiracy. She found nothing on Detective Mann’s page or his wife’s, while their children were still too young to have a social media presence.
Luciano di Ruggiero’s lead defense attorney was another story. The man and his entire family were very showy with their online presence, and it seemed in the last year or so he wasn’t even trying to hide his connection with top García cartel members. Fishing trips in the Yucatan, pictures with men who everyone knew ran the García cartel, though they weren’t wanted by the law… yet.
The final nail in the coffin was the attorney’s son, Eric’s, social media accounts. He was dating a beautiful girl, enjoying life at a prestigious college in California, and that girl just so happened to be Maria Fuentes-García, the daughter of Miguel García, head of the cartel.
“It’s still not enough evidence, but Maria’s and Eric’s relationship goes back years. They went to the same prep school in Connecticut,” Sam said, pointing to graduation pictures of the two dating from five years ago, two years before the murder of his mother even took place.
“Did the lawyer disclose this information to you all?” Sam asked Eli, and he shrugged.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t around for the hiring of the defense, I had checked out by then.” He shook his head. The guilt was eating him alive. His father had been railroaded and scapegoated and it was his fault. He should’ve helped. He should’ve been the one defending his father.
Sam must’ve read the look on his face because she stood from her chair at Dante’s dining room table, took Eli’s face in her hands, and kissed him.
“Whatever you’re thinking, stop. You didn’t create this, and I won’t let you beat yourself up over choices you were making while you were grieving your mother,” she told him.
He pulled her into his lap and buried his face in her neck. She smelled like flowers and oranges and he just wanted to hold her forever.
“Maybe this could’ve been avoided if I had helped his defense,” he mumbled against her skin and she ran her fingers through his hair, soothing him.
“Maybe, maybe not. Or maybe they would’ve killed you to ensure someone they controlled handled his case, and it would’ve been an even grimmer outcome.” She pulled his face away from hers and looked into his eyes. He could lose himself in their gray depths.
“We can’t live in the past. All we can do is our best in the present, Eli,” she whispered.
“You’re by far too good for me, bimba, but damn if I’m going to let you go,” he said with a grin.
With a grin of her own, she sauntered back to her side of the table and buried her nose in another file.
Sam sent off her findings to the appellate lawyer. It wasn’t a lot, but it was a start.
What happened next wasn’t luck, and Eli was afraid to have Sam know how far his family would go to protect and get revenge for the people they were loyal to, but he also knew he didn’t want to hide anything from her.
The witness who had testified to seeing his father leave the bar was dead, found in a seedy motel in South Dallas, the heroin needle still in his arm. If they got the appeal granted, it would be very hard to prove the case without his testimony and its cross-examination.
“Did your… did someone…?” she haltingly whispered to Eli as he held her later that night in bed.
“Yes, bimba,” he told her just as quietly and pulled her closer when she shivered. “Someone from the family killed him.”
“I’m not sad about it,” she mused. “How odd is that?”
He moved his hand over her back in soothing circles.
“I didn’t know your mom, and I don’t know your dad, and Dante scares me, but that man lied under oath,” she said, like it was unimaginable.
“He did. He lived a dangerous life and made the wrong enemy,” Eli answered and kissed her forehead. “Try to sleep, bimba, I promise all of this will be over soon.”
They woke the next day to a report from the forensic accountant Dante had hired. Several large deposits had been made from the same account in the Cayman Islands into accounts owned by the same Mexican corporation: one to the lead attorney on the case; one deposit to an account under the name Patricia Mann, who just so happened to be Det. Mann’s wife; and another deposit in the name of the CI… all done one week after the conviction of his father.
“Is this enough?” Dante asked as he read through the report.
“I think so. It’s enough to prove that Papa’s lawyer didn’t provide an adequate defense and that another trial is needed to find the actual truth,” Eli answered. For the first time in years, Eli smiled at his big brother. Not the man who ran the most powerful crime family in the southern United States, but his brother, who just wanted their father out of prison.
“I’ll call the lawyers and have them come by and pick this up, then I’ll arrange for the plane to take you back to Virginia– tonight, if you wish,” Dante said.
Eli looked at Sam, who just shrugged.
“Why don’t we arrange for that flight in two days? There’s something I need to do while I’m in town, and it’s too late to do it today.”
“Whatever you want,” Dante said, and left the room.
“He d
idn’t even say ‘thank you’,” Sam muttered and rolled her eyes. Then she smiled at him. “What do you need to do?”
He took her hand from her lap and kissed the back of her fingers. “I want to see my mother’s grave. I haven’t been back since the day we put her in the ground, and I feel like I need to say goodbye.”
She nodded and blinked back the tears that had gathered in her eyes.
“Will you go with me?”
“Of course,” she answered with a watery smile.
That was how they found themselves walking through the cemetery on a crisp, late fall day in Dallas. Sam demanded they stop and get flowers on the way, and Eli had tried to argue that it was a waste, but Sam had insisted.
“What was her favorite?” she asked once they were inside the florist.
“White roses. She loved white roses. I remember her always planting rose bushes in her garden, when we were kids,” he answered and smiled at the memory.
Sam spoke with the florist while Eli hung back and watched her. She was dressed in black jeans and an oversized gray sweater, had apologized, feeling under-dressed for such an important trip, but Eli didn’t care. She looked beautiful, and it wasn’t just her face or her body, but her heart, her mind, her soul that made her radiate beauty.
This was the woman he would one day marry, the woman he would weather the ups and down of life with, maybe have children with. He always thought finding the woman who completed him would be frightening. He’d seen how all-encompassing his parents’ love had been, how his mother’s loss had devastated his father, and it worried him. He knew that if anything happened to Sam, he would be the same as Papa, a shell of a man, with nothing left to live for. But instead of forcing her away, refusing to risk that sort of heartbreak, he was going to do everything in his power to make sure she stayed safe and happy. With him.
They walked the path that led to his mother’s grave; she was next to a giant old oak tree and Eli knew that would make her happy. His father or brother had gone all-out with her headstone, having a breathtaking statue of an angel carved into the white marble by a master. Her name, Marissa Guadalupe Ramirez di Ruggiero, was carved into the base of the angel statue, waiting only for that of her husband to join hers when it was his time.
