Falling For The Forbidden

by Hawkins, Jessica

  His exasperation was nothing after what I’d endured from my father the day before. I crossed my arms. “We have to talk, Diego.”

  Where our compound was a more traditional Spanish-style hacienda, Diego’s was sleek and modern. The single-story house was a third the size of Papá’s—not even counting our hundreds of hectares of land—but still a mansion for these parts with stacked stone columns, a flawlessly smooth, white exterior, and manicured bushes around the yard. He led me up the walkway to the front door. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows showcased a cloud-like, puffy leather couch, flat-screen TV, and brass-and-mirrored coffee table atop a neutral geometric-patterned rug—plus the armed men who guarded all of it.

  “You can’t just show up, mi amor,” Diego said, opening the door. “That’s one way to get a bullet in your head.”

  “I tried texting, calling, e-mailing—everything,” I said. “I miss you, and I’m tired of sitting around watching the clock tick down.”

  “I know. I had to get rid of my last burner.” He shut the door behind us and dismissed a guard from the entryway. “I’ve been trying to make it to the house to see you. Because obviously, I miss you too—but it’s no excuse for putting yourself in danger.”

  He was right. I was being stupid for love like my mother. Knowing I’d anger my father wasn’t enough to keep me away, though. He wanted to separate us, but that didn’t mean he got to. Nobody was immune to love or resistant to the blindness it could cause. I shrugged helplessly. “I’m in love’s grip.”

  Finally, he opened his arms, and I walked into his embrace. “I’m in your grip,” he said, smoothing his hands down my backside. “I like this summery dress. Where are you supposed to be?”

  “Shopping with Pilar.”

  “And how did you get here?”

  “A cab. Security will be looking for me.”

  “Ay, Tali. If you don’t get me killed, you’ll give me a heart attack. I know Pilar is your best friend, but she’s weak. She will give you up.”

  “She won’t,” I said. “She’s easily spooked, but loyal as they come.”

  I needed to let her know I’d made it safely. We’d spent the morning in town, browsing the shops before an early lunch. We’d attended a service at the church—a gothic-style structure modeled after Spanish cathedrals with Oaxacan cantera verde stone and a domed bell tower. Saints looked over the altar from panels of floor-to-ceiling stained-glass windows, centered by a Virgin Mary. It was one of the only places that reminded me of my mother without inflicting pain.

  There were some things I missed about Mexico. Grand parades and festivals that shut down the town. Unbreakable loyalty that put family above all else. Goods made by hand with love and attention to detail I could never seem to find in the States.

  And Diego, of course.

  I craned my neck to look around the place where Diego both lived and conducted business. I hadn’t been anywhere the cartel operated aside from home and had only seen photographs and heard descriptions of safe houses, warehouses, and labs. “Can I have a tour?”

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “Someone could tell Costa.”

  “So send them away. You’re the boss, aren’t you?”

  He shook his head slowly. “I can’t. There’s too much work to be done.”

  I played with the placket of buttons at his collar. The ribbed style of shirt only seemed to highlight his tanned neck and muscular pecs. “I’ve been worried.”

  “I know, but this is different than sneaking around your own property in a flimsy costume.”

  My mouth dropped open. “It wasn’t flimsy. Tepic didn’t even recognize me.”

  He reproached me with a frown not unlike the one Papá had worn at breakfast the day before. “Ditching your security detail leaves you defenseless against anyone who might be looking for vulnerabilities in the Cruz family.”

  I blinked up at him. “You said we no longer have enemies. Most of our rivals were incarcerated, overthrown, or died, and we never made new ones because we’re no longer competitors.”

  “Don’t question that the Maldonados—or other cartels we do business with—know who you are. Our enemies won’t come looking for weak spots or collateral after a fuck-up—they already know who and where to strike to deliver the most pain.” He glanced through the entryway windows. “We especially have to be careful now that my brother’s back in town.”

  “What happened when you and Cristiano met with my father during the party?”

  Diego inhaled deeply. “How about that tour?” he teased.

  I smiled. Because I was also curious about the house, I let him change the subject—for now. He walked me through the living area to a state-of-the-art kitchen with glossy, handleless cabinets and a black-quartz island square under a rack of hanging copper pots and pans.

  He pulsed his eyebrows at me. “Want to see the bedroom?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  We linked hands, and he led me down a long hall to the master, a large but mostly bare room with a dresser under a TV, a walk-in closet, and two bedside tables. Dove-gray sheets rumpled his king bed. “Well, now I know—you sleep on the left side,” I said and grinned. “I sleep on the right.”

  “Match made in heaven,” he said. “If I’d known you were coming, I would’ve made the bed. Nobody ever comes in here but the maid, and I gave her two weeks off for Easter.”

  “I don’t care,” I said, looking over my shoulder at him as I walked farther into the room. “I like tidying. I’ll make the bed when we live together.”

  “When we live together, there’ll be no point in ever making the bed.”

  My cheeks heated at the fantasy of waking up next to Diego each morning, lounging, laughing, and making love until we were forced to get up. “I can’t wait,” I murmured, stopping at the nightstand on the left side. It had only a phone charger, two business textbooks, and a picture frame. I picked up a photo of Diego and me smiling at my parents’ pool. “I remember this day,” I said. “It was the first time I’d ever worn a bikini.”

  “I remember it too, believe me. The bikini best of all.”

  I half-gaped at my white bathing suit, grateful it at least wasn’t sheer. Diego hadn’t yet grown into his broad shoulders, and his chest was smooth, not muscular like now. “How old were we here?”

  “You were fourteen,” he said.

  “Which would’ve made you . . . a cradle robber.”

  He laughed. “You know it wasn’t like that. You were like a younger sister to me. I remember that bikini because I almost punched my friend in the face for staring at you in it.”

  I glanced back. “You never told me that.”

  He stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “And I never told you that when you came home from school two years later, every puto within a kilometer radius was talking about the beauty you’d become.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “You’re exaggerating.”

  “I wish I were. I’d hear them talking about you. ‘Qué linda, Natalia Cruz,’” he mimicked. “That was when I knew.”

  I bit my bottom lip. “Knew what?”

  “I felt more than just protective,” he said. “I was jealous.”

  At times it felt as if Diego and I had talked about everything under the sun. That didn’t mean I didn’t love hearing all of his thoughts when it came to him and me. “But no other boys ever even looked at me,” I said.

  “I made sure of it.”

  A pleasant warmth crept over me. With his golden-brown hair in disarray and amusement dancing in his gemstone-green eyes, it was sometimes hard to reconcile the boy he’d been with the man he was now. He’d always been older to me—I’d turned sixteen only four years ago, when he was twenty-three. But he seemed much more comfortable in his skin now at twenty-seven.

  “I remember being sixteen and already crazy over you, but I thought you’d always see me as a little girl.”

  “I did,” he said. “Until I didn’t.”

&nbs
p; “I’ll never forget when you finally began to notice me,” I said. “I used to sit on the sidelines and watch you and the guys play outdoor basketball. Then one day, I showed up, and you walked off the court to come talk to me. You’d never done that before.”

  “The guys teased me for it,” he said. “I didn’t care. It meant they knew you were mine.”

  “I never noticed anyone else,” I said, glancing back at the picture. “But you know that. When we took this, you were both a best friend and like a brother to me—I didn’t really know what was happening, but I was falling in love.”

  “Then why’d you leave me?”

  I set down the photo and perched on the bed to face him. “The same reasons I always get back on the plane. I don’t want to end up like my mother. And I don’t want to lose anyone else. Papá never gave me a choice anyway. He still isn’t giving me one.”

  He furrowed his brows. “Did you talk to him about us?”

  “Yes. He doesn’t understand that we’re serious, no matter how I explain it.”

  Diego pursed his lips. “I warned you he wouldn’t.”

  “But he wouldn’t hear anything. He doesn’t even want me seeing you anymore, like at all. Not even while I’m home.”

  He ran his hands over his face and looked to the ceiling. “Let me guess—I’m not good enough for you.”

  “According to him, nobody is—you know that. It’s not personal.” I stood and crossed the room to him, wrapping my arms around his middle. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks, though.”

  Diego lowered just his eyes to look down his nose at me. “You know it does. He’s your dad.”

  I shook my head hard. “Not enough to keep me away from you. I’m more worried about other things he said.”

  He nodded once to prompt me. “Like what?”

  I rolled my lips together, trying to think of how to put it in a way that Diego wouldn’t get defensive. “Papá thinks men who’ve only known this life can never leave it behind. Even if they want to.”

  “Of course he’ll say that,” Diego said. “It’s to plant a seed of doubt in your mind about me.” He used both hands to smooth my hair back from my face. “Is it working, Tali?”

  I hadn’t thought of much since yesterday except the new information involving my mother’s death, and what Dad had warned about Diego’s entrenchment in this world. I’d fought my father on each point, but with some distance, I worried his arguments might hold some validity. “Could you be happy in Santa Clara with me?” I asked. “It’s nothing like here.”

  “My love . . .” He held my cheeks and pressed his lips to my forehead. “Are you seriously asking if I can endure a life where I’m not in danger of being killed—or killing—each day . . . and I get to sleep by your side each night?”

  I smiled a little. “It does sound ridiculous when you put it that way, but still. What would you do for work?”

  “That’s why this Maldonado deal means so much to me,” he said. “The money I’ll make off it will set us up for a long time, Tali. And if your father makes an ongoing arrangement with them, even if I get a small percent for brokering the contract—it will be enough that neither of us will even have to work again.”

  “But I don’t want that,” I said. “I want an honest job and clean money. I’m not working this hard for a business degree I’m not going to use.”

  “It’s not about the money, Natalia. It’s important to me as a man that I provide for you. That means gifting you the freedom to follow your dreams, whatever they are, free of any financial burden.”

  “And what about your dreams?”

  “I’m afraid to have any until I know I can.” He smiled sadly and hugged me to him. “Once I pull this off, I can do anything. Including marry you. I want your father’s approval, believe me—it would mean everything to have him see me as a suitable son-in-law. But at the end of the day, once I can support us no matter what, Costa doesn’t have to agree.”

  I shook my head. “I could never abandon him,” I said.

  “Then we’ll stay in California or wherever you want, but we’re old enough to decide for ourselves. He’ll have to learn to accept our plans if he wants you in his life.” He smiled. “Because I’m not going anywhere. You will be my wife.”

  Excitement tickled my tummy the way a sip of champagne fizzed in my mouth. The idea of walking down the aisle to him made me giddy.

  “Let’s finish this talk over food. I’m starving.” He pulled me by my hand. “Did you eat?”

  “I had lunch with Pilar,” I said as we walked back through the house. When I noticed Diego humming Led Zeppelin, I gave him a quizzical look.

  “I’ve had it stuck in my head since this morning,” he said. “There’s this new drug in development, and it’s called Escalera al Cielo.”

  “Stairway to Heaven,” I translated.

  “Sí.” In the kitchen, he disappeared into the pantry. “You remember that guy Juan Pablo Perez?”

  “The really good chemist from Nogales?” I asked as I sat at the dining table.

  “He’s more than really good. He’s one of the top scientists in the country now. Probably the world.” He returned and handed me a Coke Light. “Tepic told me yesterday he invented a sedative with tetro-something. It’s a neurotoxin that comes from . . . ¿cómo se dice? Botete? What’s the word in English?”

  “Puffer fish,” I said and tabbed open my soda.

  “Sí. Anyway, it’s poisonous to ingest, but Tepic says in the right dosage, it’s not fatal.”

  I sipped my cola. “Why would anyone want to take that?”

  “Because, as Tepic put it,” Diego said, gesticulating with flourish to imitate Tepic, “it’s supposed to be a high more addicting than coke. More life-altering than ayahuasca. More euphoric than ecstasy.”

  I giggled, raising my soda can. “But is it more satisfying than Coca-Cola?”

  “Apparently.”

  “But why the name?”

  “Juan Pablo says it’s a round-trip ticket to heaven.” Diego came and hugged my neck from behind. “It’s peaceful. Euphoric. It starts with tingling in the lips . . .” He kissed the corner of my mouth, then brushed his lips over my neck. “Then moves down to your fingers and arms. It puts you in a trance, and . . .” He tapped me once between the breasts with his fingertip. “Slows your heart . . .” He waited several seconds, then tapped again. “Like that.”

  I put my hands on his forearms, keeping him close. “That sounds dangerous.”

  “That’s the price for a high like no other.” He kissed my cheek and returned to looking in the fridge.

  “And with the wrong dose?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “You said with the right dose, it’s not fatal. What happens if Juan Pablo gets it wrong?”

  Diego leaned out from behind the refrigerator door and cut his finger across his neck. “Te mueres.”

  “Death. It’s literal then—a stairway to heaven.”

  “He wouldn’t put it on the market until it was safe, but I’ll be honest. I’m not about to risk it.” He shut the fridge door and grabbed a mango from a fruit basket. “We don’t have shit to eat.”

  I toed off my flats and pulled my foot onto the chair to hug my knee. I fixed the skirt of my dress even though I wore boy shorts underneath. “Are you going to tell me about the meeting you and Cristiano had with my dad? I talked to him the next morning.”

  Diego picked up a small knife from a drying rack on the counter. “How much did he reveal?”

  “Everything, I hope.” If there was more to the story my father had shared, then Papá probably didn’t know it. I picked invisible lint off my dress. “He said Cristiano found and returned jewelry that the hitman had sold. And that the sicario admitted to being hired by another cartel.”

  Diego rested his hip against the counter. “That’s what he told me too.”

  “Do you believe it?”

  “I . . . I’m skeptical. I’m not sure how—” He blinke
d at me and shook his head. “I don’t know why I’m making excuses. No—I don’t buy the story. I don’t trust Cristiano, but I’ve never known Costa to be gullible.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “My father isn’t gullible. He’s trusting his instinct with the evidence he has.”

  “Something he’s known for,” Diego pointed out. “Strong intuition. But I’m afraid he’s too close to this.”

  Like my mother had been? She’d trusted her life in Cristiano’s hands and had lost it.

  “You heard what Costa said at the party—the prodigal son returns.” Diego balanced the mango on a plate and sliced a clean curve along the skin. “I think it’s obvious he has never been a good judge of Cristiano’s character.”

  “What if Cristiano’s telling the truth, though?” I asked. “Why would he come back knowing my father’s been hunting him?”

  “It’s been years. Maybe he thought the old man had softened.”

  “Papá made it sound as if it took Cristiano that long to track down the jewelry and the hitman.” If that was true, I could see why my father had said Cristiano had proven his loyalty. But I’d spent so long hating him, acknowledging anything positive about him felt foreign. And disloyal to my mom.

  Diego’s knife slipped, and I jumped as it slammed the plate. He glanced at the table, barely noticing, as if lost in a thought. “Whatever Cristiano’s reason for returning,” he said, “it must be worth risking his life.”

  “But if the Calaveras are as successful as you say, what could he want from us?”

  Diego resumed skinning the fruit. After a few moments, he responded quietly. “Once a man gets a taste of power, his need for it surpasses hunger. It’s a sickness that demands more.”

  Papá had said something similar about Diego. Because he was somebody in this life, he couldn’t ever be nobody. “What’s the more that he wants?”

  He twisted his lips. “He was Costa’s star quarterback, as the gringos say. Cristiano never failed at any task. Other cartels tried to lure him away, but he stayed true. He was the only one who could talk back to your father and not get punished for it.” Diego gently separated the mango’s skin, but his knuckles whitened around the knife handle. “Maybe Cristiano thought he’d one day partner with Costa—or even take over the cartel.”