by Cora Kenborn
“You did.” He opened his mouth to argue further, then paused as his eyes lingered on my bare legs, exposed by my long t-shirt. “That’s mine.”
I glanced down at the oversized, green shirt and smirked. “The shirt or me?”
“Yes,” he answered quickly. Moments of silence passed between us before Val sighed and pushed off the frame, folding his arms across his bronzed skin. “I don’t like the way things ended last night.”
I lowered my eyes, playing with a rogue thread on the pillow. “Me either.”
“Then let’s fix it.”
“Tell me about your mother.”
Cursing in Spanish, he rolled his forehead against the door. “Can we not—”
“Go back to your own room, Val.” Hugging the pillow to my chest, I curled into a ball, facing away from him. For some reason, I needed to know the human side of him. Before cartel life changed him. When he had a mother and a somewhat recognizable father.
A house. A family. Maybe a dog and friends who’d knock on the door and ask if he could come out to play.
To allow him completely into my life, I had to know if that version of Val Carrera existed. If he couldn’t, or worse, wouldn’t give me that, I’d walk out of his front door today and turn my back on him to save the last piece of myself from being lost forever.
Tears burned my eyes, and I closed them, willing the impending breakdown to stay forced behind closed lids. One rogue tear refused to obey and slipped through the cracks, trailing a telltale sign down the bridge of my nose. Before I could get rid of the evidence, the mattress dipped with his weight and Val’s hand gently wiped it away. Placing my hand in his, he shifted on the bed and pressed my palm between his shoulder blades. Swallowing hard, I slowly rolled over to face him. I had no idea what he was about to do, but the lull in the cadence of his voice demanded my full attention.
“Every word, every symbol, every color is for them.”
“’Them’?”
“My family, Cereza.” He traced my fingers over each symbol as he described them. “The number three on my left shoulder represents my family the day everything changed.” Trailing the pad of my index finger horizontally across his upper back, he rested it against his right shoulder. “The number two is what was left when a young boy doesn’t realize the difference between death and sleep.” Moving my finger once more, he dropped it to the middle of his upper back, equal diagonal distance from the other two. “The number one represents me—what was left after the last one had been taken away.”
Tears rolled harder as the block of Spanish in the middle of the inverted number triangle blurred. “Val, you don’t have to—”
Moving my finger down the left side of his ribcage, he ran it around the petals of a wilted white lily. “This is for my mother. Her name was Liliana.” Shifting my hand, it trailed horizontally over the sword which pierced through the petals and through another lily, smaller in size and shaded black on his right ribcage. “This is for my sister. Her name means dark little one.”
A long pause followed his last explanation, and I watched his back rise rapidly as his breathing escalated. “Val, please stop. I don’t need to hear anymore.” I didn’t. The personal pain etched in each work of art painted on his skin ripped a new hole in my already destroyed heart.
“The bird with its talons on the sword is a phoenix,” he explained as if I hadn’t spoken. His eyes glazed over, transported to another time and place. “The phoenix rises from the ashes and rebuilds what was destroyed.” The muscle in Val’s jaw twitched as he ground his teeth together with repressed anger.
“And the Spanish at the bottom?” I heard myself ask, unaware I’d even formed the words.
“La venganza es mía. Yo pagaré.”
“What does that mean?”
Val hesitated a moment before finally turning his chin over his shoulder and pinning me with a pained stare. “Vengeance is mine. I will repay.”
“I shouldn’t have pried into your personal life.” Touching him suddenly felt disrespectful, and I quickly removed my hand from his skin.
Staring through me, Val gripped a handful of the blanket and squeezed until his knuckles turned white. “My mother was a saint, Eden. She tried harder than any woman I’ve ever known to combat the evil she saw around her with the goodness inside of her.”
“Was?”
“She’s dead.” His hand moved to my hair as he ran his hand down the length of it. “Close your eyes, Cereza. I’m going to tell you a story, and it isn’t one of your American fairy tales that ends with a happily ever after.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Valentin
Mexico City, Mexico
August 1993
I lined all my toy soldiers up on the windowsill. My small fingers pointed a pretend gun at them and I made the pashew sound as my finger gun knocked them down one by one.
“Valentin! Put those plastic men away. You need to come set the table for dinner.”
Glancing over my shoulder, I watched her balance the baby on one hip and shuffle white breakable plates on the other. I was a good boy. I liked to help. It made me feel important.
“Coming, Mamá.” Sweeping the soldiers into my toy basket with one arm, I scrambled into the kitchen and took the plates from my mother. She rewarded me with a smile and ruffled my hair with her nails.
“You’re such a big help, Valentin. Thank you.”
“Of course, Mamá.” I carefully placed the dishes on the table, counting them to myself as I centered them on the red woven placemats. I hesitated, not sure whether I should make her angry by asking about him, but my curiosity got the best of my manners. “Mamá, why are there only three plates?”
She buckled the baby in the high chair, and the smile dropped from her face. I didn’t like it when she stopped smiling. She’d been doing that too much lately.
“Tonight, it will be just you, me, and your Tía Pilar, son. Now, go wash up before we eat.”
Mamá taught me manners. I knew I should go wash my hands and stop asking questions, but I needed to know why he hadn’t been home lately.
“Where is Papá? He hasn’t been home in weeks. Is it because I’ve been a bad boy? Have I asked too many questions?” I should’ve run. I should’ve gone to wash my hands before she could get mad at me too, but I stood rooted in my spot, just staring at her. I missed my papá.
She sighed slowly and fell to her knees. I backed up, scared of what she might do. When Papá fell to his knees, usually it was to belt me. I didn’t like the belt. It hurt.
“Valentin,” she said, gently holding my hands. Mamá was always gentle. “Your father had to go away for a while.”
Her words scared me. “But…but…who will be our papá?”
A small smile pulled at her lips, warmness radiating from her hands as they held mine. “He’s still your papá. That will never change. He just got called away for a bit.”
I could feel my lip quiver. I wanted to be brave for Mamá. I tried to hide it. “When will he be back?”
“I don’t know. But until he comes back, I need you to be a brave soldier. Can you do that for me, Valentin? Can you be my brave soldier?”
I thought about my toy soldiers from the window. I made them battle and win wars. They were brave because I made them that way. I missed Papá, but I could be brave for Mamá—just like my soldiers.
“Yes, Mamá. I’ll be brave,” I said, shaking my head. “Until Papá comes back, I’ll protect you and Ana.”
After dinner, I helped clean up the dishes for Mamá and Tía Pilar like the brave solider I promised to be. I even cleaned up all my toy soldiers and got a bath all by myself. Curled up in my big boy bed, I’d almost drifted off to sleep when I heard it.
Pashew Pashew Pashew.
Excitement rushed through me. Had my toy soldiers started fighting without me?
Climbing out of bed, I rushed to my toy chest, and ripped off the lid. Confused, I stared down at perfectly placed soldiers, still in th
e box where I left them before bed.
Pashew Pashew Pashew.
My fingers tightened around my toy box as screams tore through the house, followed by men yelling words I didn’t understand. I started crying because the noise scared me, then I cried harder because I knew I wasn’t being a brave soldier.
Mamá needed a brave solider.
Reaching into my toy box, I grabbed the general and held him tight. He would protect me. The general protected all the army in battle. He would protect Mamá.
Opening my door, I rubbed my eyes as I walked down the hall. Men still shouted and I thought I heard Tía Pilar scream, but I couldn’t be sure.
That was, until I walked into the living room.
At least five men in black held guns just like my army men, only their guns lit up my house. Tía Pilar lay sleeping on the floor in a puddle of red Jell-O.
I liked Jell-O.
I took two steps forward when Mamá screamed.
“Valentin! Be a fireman, Valentin! Do as I say! Five alarm fire! Be a fireman now!”
I didn’t want to move. The man had Mamá pinned down on her back. They looked like they were wrestling. I liked wrestling.
“Valentin! Go!”
I didn’t like disobeying Mamá’s orders. Nodding, I turned when I saw one of the other men in black pick up one of the guns and start to chase me. A funny feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. Something didn’t feel right.
“Valentin! Please! Be a fireman, now!” Mamá screamed again, and something in her voice made me run. I ran fast as the man chased me.
My house was big. There were twists and turns and awesome places to hide. There was also a pipe that ran down the side of it. I’d gotten in trouble many times for climbing down it like a fireman. I liked to pretend I got called in the middle of the night to a huge blaze and was the only hero who could put it out. I’d open the window, wrap my legs around it and slide down, then hide out in the cellar until the ‘fire’ was over.
Or until Papá stopped being angry.
Tonight, the fire was real.
Somewhere along the way, I’d lost the man in black. Opening the window, I heard Mamá scream again then a loud blast. I wanted to cover my ears, but I couldn’t and hold the window too. So, I focused on jumping to the pipe and closing it behind me.
Once inside the cellar, I pulled my knees against my chest and covered my ears, drowning out the last of the screams until I fell asleep.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Eden
Houston, Texas
Present Day
Tears rolled down my cheeks faster than I could wipe them. He’d painted a picture I’d never be able to erase from memory. My heart bled for the little boy, waiting in a dirty cellar for a mother who’d never come for him.
I fought to find my voice. “You mentioned a baby…Ana. What happened to her?”
“No one ever found my sister’s body. I can’t think about that, Eden. I never have.”
Releasing the tear-stained pillow, I rolled over to face him, taking his hand in mine. “Why did you turn to cartel life after knowing what happened to your family, Val?”
Dropping his chin, the skin around his eyes bunched in a pained stare. “Why’d you not leave with your father after known criminals killed your brother in front of you?”
The question took me by surprise, as did the intensity of his gaze. In that instant, I understood him more than probably anyone ever had. The wall I’d built between us crumbled as the abomination I’d created in my mind of Valentin Carrera—El Muerte—fell away, revealing only a man who’d loved and lost.
A man who’d sought revenge for a family member brutally taken from him.
Just. Like. Me.
Before I could stop to think about it, I pushed off the mattress and straddled his lap, the t-shirt riding the tops of my thighs. As if magnetic, his hands automatically pulled to my waist, resting low against my hips.
Hooking a finger under his chin, I lifted his darkened eyes to meet mine. “Take me to Mexico.”
“Eden, I can’t. Weren’t you listening? I won’t take the risk.”
“Val, I’m not your mother, and you’re not six years old.” Forcing power into my voice, I took his face in between my palms. “Do you think I’m weak?”
“Of course not.”
“Do you believe whatever this is between us is worth fighting for?”
Pulling away, he closed his eyes and drew a tired breath. “Eden, come on—”
“Do you believe we have something worth fighting for?” I repeated, enunciating each word.
Opening his eyes, raw pain shot through them as he held my face in a mimicking grip. “I can’t go through the same thing again. It’ll kill me.”
“Me too,” I agreed, my voice shattering. “That’s why you can’t leave me behind. If we go, we go together. I have nothing left here, Val. The only two things I have to live for are revenge and you. If you leave, you take them both.”
His breath came rough and heavy, and he closed his eyes again, tightening his hold on my cheeks as he pressed our foreheads together. “You’re so stubborn, Eden.” Pulling me closer, he tilted my chin, opening his mouth and brushing it repeatedly over the outside of my mine. “You’re so fucking stubborn.”
Fire raced through me as he traced my jawline with barely-there kisses, trailing them down my throat and back up again. Groaning, I threw my head back, reveling in the touch of his lips on my heated skin. As his tongue grazed the underside of my chin and raked across my bottom lip, need exploded within me, drawing from the powerful connection we’d forged with one conversation.
Trailing my hands down his chest, he swallowed my low moan as he captured my lips in a hungry kiss that I had every intention of drowning in. I welcomed it, pouring every ounce of fear for our combined safety into it—our tongues tangling in a battle of dominance neither of us cared to win.
“I need you, Cereza. But this time, this is on your terms—all or nothing.”
The honesty in his voice, and uncharacteristic willingness to hand over power finally crumbled the last of my remaining walls. Breaking the kiss, a small smile curled one corner of my mouth before it claimed his again. “I’m all yours.”
With a low growl of my name, his hands bunched the bottom of my t-shirt and pulled it over my head, tossing it to the floor. Holding me protectively in his arms, he lowered me onto the mattress. His weight stole my breath, but I welcomed every theft.
As he made love to me, he groaned broken Spanish in my ear. I had no idea if the words were dirty or endearing, and honestly, I didn’t care. All I knew was that Val and I had passed an invisible milestone in whatever was happening between us.
And tomorrow, we’d pass a real one into the border of Mexico.
“Eden, wait.”
With a backpack full of clothes and supplies and one full of artillery slung over my shoulders, I paused in the kitchen on the way out to the SUV the next morning. Val instructed me to pack light. That hadn’t been a problem since he’d borrowed all of three outfits from his soldier’s wife. Hopefully I’d have a moment in Mexico to at least buy something else to wear that halfway covered my ass.
“Did we forget something?”
Wincing as he set his own bags down on the barstools, Val shook his head and shoved his hands in his pockets. “No, I just…”
The vet made Val’s much bitched about visit earlier in the morning, and other than a few stitches, antibiotics, tetanus shot, and temporary hearing loss, he’d miraculously escaped major injury.
Intrigued by his uncomfortable stance, I dropped my own bags and met him at the kitchen island with my hands on my hips. “You’re not changing your mind. I’m coming with you.”
“No, nothing like that. I don’t go back on my word, Eden. Know that about me, if you know nothing else.”
The veins in his arm bulged as his hand tightened around something in his pocket. Narrowing my eyes, I leaned my elbows onto the bar and twirled the
end of my ponytail around my finger playfully. “What’s in the pocket, Carrera?”
The lines around his mouth deepened. “Look, I know all that stuff with your dad and the medallion had to have been rough to hear. You thought it was a genuine gesture. How were you to know you’d been used, right?”
“We don’t know that for a fact, Val,” I corrected, straightening as tension ran through me. “There’s no proof he knew either.”
“Right.” He nodded, pity in his eyes. “Anyway, I know how much that thing meant to you.”
“Okay.” I eyed him cautiously.
“What I’m trying to say is…well, I don’t want you to feel like…shit, here.” Jerking his hand out of his pocket, he pushed his fist toward me and held it until I extended my palm. Immediately, his fist opened and a flat, gold link chain fell into my hand.
Curious, I held the pendant attached up for closer inspection. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen in my life. The top third looked to be gold, the sun dial looking top fanned above a woman’s skeletal face crowned with flowing long straight hair. Her open-boned rib cage stood pronounced and melted into a rose gold cloak. In her hand, she held a silver scythe similar to the Grim Reaper. It was both terrifying and beautiful.
“What is this?” I whispered, unable to tear my eyes from it.
“Santa Muerte rosary,” he explained, unclasping the hook and twirling his finger in a circle, indicating for me to turn around. “In my culture, Santa Muerte is very sacred, Cereza. In ancient times, sacrifices were made to the Lady of the Dead in order to receive a peaceful death. The tradition passed from generations and has changed into many different meanings. The basic request always remained the same; however, Santa Muerte can be asked for nearly every need, mainly protection from one’s enemies.”
Glancing down at the pendant resting against my chest, I ran my fingers across the cool metal. “But…death? Isn’t that a little morbid? Especially since what we’re walking into isn’t exactly safe.”
