Falling For The Forbidden

by Hawkins, Jessica

  Diego searched the night sky as if it might hold the answers we needed. “By this time tomorrow, the Maldonado deal will either be done or it won’t,” he said. “I don’t know why Cristiano is here. But I suspect we’ll find out soon enough.”

  Natalia

  My mother would sometimes braid her hair into a thick, black arrow she wore over one shoulder. It was that way now, but tonight was the first time it twinkled with stars. They winked at me as she held my hand and led me to my bed.

  “It’s time to sleep, Natasha,” she said.

  “Natalia,” I corrected as I got under the covers.

  She kneeled next to me. Heavy bracelets clinked on her wrists as she touched my forehead, chest, and each shoulder. “You’re old enough to know better now,” she said.

  “I’m only nine.”

  “The truth is in you like a heart. Like blood in your veins. Like bones.” She smiled. “Kiss me goodnight.”

  I sat up and hugged her neck, resting my head on her shoulder. Somewhere on the compound a shot rang out.

  “Mami?”

  “It’s okay, mariposita.” She laid me back on the bed. When she drew back, blood covered my nightgown. With another shot, she fell over me.

  I couldn’t breathe. From somewhere in the house, my father screamed at me to get down, but I was stuck under her body. I curled up under the bedspread and hid from the next round of shots. This time, they kept coming, an endless rat-a-tat-tat.

  “Natalia!”

  Jolted out of my dream, I launched forward, gasping for breath, as if someone had been sitting on my chest.

  The sky was lightening from black to indigo. Sweat trickled down my temple. I was still in Diego’s jacket . . . on the roof. We’d fallen asleep. My father would be looking for us, and—

  “Get down.” Diego shoved me over the side of the chaise, and I landed on my shoulder on the concrete.

  I hadn’t dreamed the shots. With another round, I covered my ears and moved my head under the chair. Most everyone I’d known had heard the echoes of a turf war at some point, but this wasn’t happening somewhere. These shots were being fired right underneath us.

  “Stay here.” Diego crawled to the side of the roof, rose to his knees, and looked over. “Fuck.” He ran both hands through his hair and made two fists. “Fuck.”

  “What?” I cried just as the shots stopped.

  “Shh.” He motioned for me to be quiet before slinking back. “The warehouse is under attack. Stay up here.”

  “What?” My heart beat hard enough to shake my whole body. I reached under the chair to grab his elbow. “Don’t leave me.”

  “They’re trying to steal what’s left, Tali. You know I can’t let them. I can’t, or else—” He inhaled a breath. “That product down there is the difference between life or death for me.”

  “They could shoot you.”

  “I won’t let that happen.” He dragged himself close enough to kiss me. “It’ll be okay.”

  “Diego,” I said shakily. “Let me come with you.”

  “Talia, you must hide under here. Give me the keys. Listen. Are you listening?” He took the keys from my shaky hands. “Do you have your phone?”

  I nodded quickly. “Yes.”

  “If I don’t make it back, stay hidden.” His words were soothing, but I heard the crack in his voice. When more shots sounded, he flinched. “Don’t come looking for me. Text Barto—he’ll find you. I’ll be back for you in no time.”

  I clung to his arm, tears blurring my vision. Was this what I’d been warned of? I see pain. I see betrayal and violence. And much death. What were the chances Diego would go downstairs and never return? They weren’t odds I wanted to take. I choked back a sob. “Don’t go.”

  “I have to, princesa.”

  My hair fell over my right eye, but I refused to release him. “I’ll come with you.”

  “It’s too dangerous. It’s for your own protection, and those are my men down there. I can’t leave them stranded.”

  “But I need you.” My heart had already been irreparably damaged losing one person—I couldn’t say good-bye to another. I wouldn’t abandon Diego. “You can’t die. You can’t.”

  “I’m not dying today, Talia. No way in hell.” He lifted the black veil of my hair and settled it over my shoulder. “When I go, you’ll be by my side, okay? I’m with you, life or death.”

  With a thick throat, I nodded. “Life or death,” I rasped.

  “Good girl.” He kissed my forehead. “I love you.”

  He angled to get his 9mm from its holster, maneuvered out from under the chair, and sprinted across the roof.

  “I love you,” I whispered back.

  Night’s cloak lifted as the sun peeked over the distant mountains. With the whir of a helicopter, I curled all the way under the chaise and clutched Diego’s jacket closed around myself. A spotlight flashed over the roof. With a whistle from above, an explosion on the ground shook the building. The helicopter circled one more time, dropping grenades that rattled every bone in my body. I covered my mouth. Tires screeched, and the helicopter flew off.

  With unsteady fingers, I shot Barto a quick text. After what could’ve been thirty seconds or five minutes of silence, I crawled out. The helicopter was nowhere in sight, so I peeked above the concrete ledge. The rising sun cast rich purple shadows over a vast desert. Behind me, the town woke up, cars honking and people screaming. Men yelled below me. The blasts had stopped, so I risked getting to my feet to look all the way over the side of the roof.

  Flames raged below, licking the side of the building, jumping from one wood container to the next as black smoke billowed from the windows. I had to get off the roof now, or I’d be trapped. I needed to get to Diego. I snatched my shoes off the ground, ran for the door, and grabbed the handle, but it was locked.

  I slammed my fists against the industrial metal door, then my stiletto against the sliver of glass. I traded it for a discarded lead pipe and smashed the window. It shattered, leaving a space just big enough for me to get an arm through. Smoke wafted out, curling around me before it disintegrated in the wind. My eyes watered, and my nostrils burned. I whipped off Diego’s jacket to cover my mouth, knotting the sleeves at the back of my head.

  I rose onto the tips of my toes, feeling around. My skin heated fast while glass sliced into my forearm, but finally, I managed to grab the handle. I cranked it, opened the door, and ran down the stairs holding the jacket in place. I tried to blink away the burn blurring my vision as plumes of smoke surrounded me. I leaned over the railing and jumped back as heat scorched my hand. Movement below caught my eye. It looked as if men were running in and out. I waved the jacket and screamed for help. Flames engulfed almost everything on the ground floor, consuming the base of the stairs. If I didn’t get through, I’d have to jump over the side of the roof.

  I started down the steps when someone caught my waist from behind, picked me up, and carried me back up the stairwell. “Diego?” I cried.

  Strong, sinewy forearms pinned me to a hard body, easily wrapping around my torso. A voice rumbled against my back, deep and full of grit. “Try again.”

  Cristiano.

  I struggled to turn, and when we were back on the roof, I kicked his shin. He released me, and I stumbled back, spinning to face him.

  “What are you doing here?” I choked out.

  “Ladder,” he said, coming toward me. “Now.”

  “What ladder?” I backed away. With my eyes watering, he almost seemed like an apparition from the night before, still in his open-collar white dress shirt and wrinkled suit pants. It didn’t take long for me to connect the pieces. “You did this.”

  “We have to get out of here.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.” I snarled. “Your brother’s inside.”

  “You have no other choice.” He grabbed me by the arm. I wrestled with him, my chest tightening in panic as he easily yanked me toward the ladder. Suddenly, I was nine years old agai
n and his puppet, pulled along like I weighed nothing, forced to the edge of nothingness.

  I coughed as smoke suffocated my lungs. “Let go.”

  He took my shoulders and shook me. “Wake up, Natalia. This warehouse could blow any second.”

  It hit me then what was inside—gunpowder. Artillery. Explosives. Fear gripped me as easily now as it had the last time Cristiano had torn me away from my loved ones when they needed me most. But this time, I wasn’t afraid of what Cristiano would do to me. I feared for Diego. I didn’t think I could survive the crumbling of my future if he was taken from me. I tried to wriggle free. “I have to tell him.”

  “He knows. Diego can take care of himself, and if he can’t, it’s already too late.”

  I pushed him away. “Fuck you. I’m not leaving him.”

  “What are you going to do? If you run back in there, you’ll burn alive. Down is the only way out.” He didn’t give me a chance to answer. In one mighty swoop, he had me off my feet and over his shoulder.

  “What are you doing?” I screeched.

  He strode toward the edge with no signs of stopping. For a split second, I believed he was going to launch me over the side until we reached an access ladder I hadn’t noticed before. “What the fuck were you doing up here?” he growled, descending down the side of the building swiftly, as if he didn’t have an adult female hanging over his back. “I told you to go straight home.”

  “He’s your brother.”

  Upside down, I spotted Diego’s Mercedes. We were at the back gate. The fire roared on all sides but hadn’t reached the lot yet. On the ground, Cristiano set me on my feet and scanned my legs and dress. In the cold light of breaking dawn, he seared me with a different kind of heat than he had the night before. He didn’t seem to like what he saw anymore. “Get on the horse,” he said.

  Near the open gate, a man on a horse held the reins of a rearing black stallion. I wasn’t going anywhere without Diego. I turned to run around front where the semis were parked, but Cristiano snatched my elbow, pulled me back, and hoisted me up. I struggled, trying to kick him as he carried me toward the exit. He put a hand to the horse’s nose, and when it’d calmed, Cristiano dropped me on its back.

  “You can’t do this,” I said, my throat thick. “We can’t leave Diego here.”

  He grabbed the horn and butt of the saddle, trapping me. “Your misguided loyalty is going to get you killed, but not today.” He pulled himself up, took the reins in one hand, and wrapped an arm around my waist to secure my back to his front. “Hold on,” he said and spurred the horse with a “Hyah!”

  The stallion jerked into motion, and we exited into the desert. I squirmed against Cristiano, fighting to look back. The other rider took off in the opposite direction to catch up with a group of men on horses. I braced myself for a bone-rattling explosion, and another irrevocable shift in my life. “He’s going to die,” I said.

  “Cockroaches survive fire. Butterflies, on the other hand . . .” He tightened his hold on me. “They go up in smoke. You’ll see your Romeo again, I guarantee it.”

  “Let me go.” My imagination jumped ahead to Diego’s funeral. The only black dress I had was the one on my body. The last one I’d seen him in. A scrap of fabric. I’d have to buy one. Or dye something black. Another dress for another funeral . . .

  “Please.” My voice cracked, but I clawed at the solid bar of his forearm, trying to free myself, prepared to fall off if I had to. I didn’t expect him to release me, so when he did, I braced to hit the ground. He grabbed me again, capturing my upper arms and pinning them to my sides. “I can’t leave Diego there.”

  “You’re not,” he said. “I’m forcing you away.”

  “Take me back.”

  “Have you learned nothing from your mother’s death?” Cristiano held me in a grip so tight, his fingertips dug into my bicep. “If you’re drawn to this life, fine—but you can’t be so fucking reckless.”

  My vocal cords protested, but I continued to fight. “I’m not drawn to it. I want no part of this.”

  “You’re lying to yourself, but if you want me to make that true, say the word. I’ll put the fear of God into you and send you sprinting back to California for good.” He put his mouth to my ear. “I thought I’d scared you straight years ago, but I’m happy to try again.”

  In that moment, any thoughts of Diego vanished. I remembered who I was with—the devil himself. “Where are you taking me?” I asked, twisting my torso against him.

  Riding one-handed, he slid his coarse palm higher up my bare shoulder. “I suppose I could take you anywhere, couldn’t I? Imagine if I showed up at the gates of hell with an angel like you.”

  Where young women were trapped and used, bought and sold. Dread spread through my body to my toes and fingers. There were worse things than death in this world, and Cristiano wanted to teach me a lesson. My heart hammered as his suit pants scraped my bare outer thighs. “But—why w-would you . . . you can’t—”

  “Mmm, there it is, the fear,” he said as I struggled to beat back my panic. “Don’t worry. You get used to the underworld’s fire.” He put his scratchy cheek to mine. “And I suppose, in exchange, I could be persuaded to give heaven a try.”

  We’d left the warehouse behind and were galloping along the edge of town, toward the thick of trees that surrounded the compound. Even when I recognized we were on our way home, my shivering didn’t subside. The power in Cristiano’s every touch, in his words, reminded me that despite the time that had passed, and despite the fact that I was no longer a child—I still held no chance against him. His grip on me never relented. He was in control of my fate.

  I couldn’t fight Cristiano. I was in both God’s and the devil’s hands now. Wherever he chose to take me, I had to go.

  “That’s it,” Cristiano said when I sank against him, his voice suddenly hoarse. “I suspect you’ll even like the feeling of surrender.”

  For possibly the first time since it’d happened, I recalled crying into Cristiano’s neck as he’d taken me down the ladder into the tunnel. I’d had a strange albeit fleeting sense of safety. Despite all the things he’d done and the rumors I’d heard, I’d been programmed as a girl to see him as a protector no matter what he was, and somehow, a piece of that trust in him still remained.

  The sun rose between two mountains as we steered away from endless desert. Wind whipped my hair the way it hadn’t in years—not since the last time my mother and I had ridden the Cruz property, cataloguing different types of vegetation, a project for my science class that’d turned into a regular weekend activity for us. The fresh morning air felt good—reinvigorating even. The thought came with a wave of guilt. How could I think that when there was a possibility Diego had taken his last breath?

  Cristiano rode up the long drive toward the house. A team of men in black scurried around trucks and tanks like ants on a hill. They stopped to look as we approached, some of them raising their rifles, only lowering them once they saw me.

  Cristiano halted the stallion, hopped down, and reached for me. I slid off the other side and gasped as I landed on my bare feet. Pain shot through my soles, but I ran into Barto’s open arms.

  “We were looking for you all night,” he hissed.

  “There was an attack,” I rushed out. “And a fire at the w—”

  “I got your text.” Barto frowned as he rubbed between my eyebrows and showed me his soot-darkened thumb. “Diego took you there?”

  “Is he alive?”

  “I just spoke to him.”

  Barto clutched me to him as my knees gave out in relief. With gritted teeth, I turned my glare on Cristiano, who stared daggers right back at us, his eyes narrowing on Barto. “He did this,” I told Barto.

  “Who, Cristiano?” he asked. “Did he hurt you?”

  “No, but—”

  I jumped with a bang behind me. My father stormed down the front steps, the door swinging in his wake. “Natalia Lourdes King Cruz. Where the fuck have you
been?” He stopped abruptly when he saw Cristiano. “You brought her back?”

  “I called him about the warehouse fire,” Barto said.

  “I was already on my way, so I said I’d look for her,” Cristiano said.

  “And?” Papá demanded. In a rumpled button-down and jeans, he looked as if he’d gotten dressed in the dark. “You have as much in that warehouse as we do.”

  “More,” Cristiano said.

  “Yet you bring my daughter back to me yourself? The warehouse could explode. You should be there putting out the fire.”

  Cristiano pushed back some of his jet-black hair that had fallen over his forehead. “She was stuck on the roof,” he said. “Everything else can be replaced. Protecting your family has always been my priority.”

  My father’s ashen face stilled. He charged forward and shook Cristiano’s hand with vigor. “Your courage will be rewarded. What the devil was she doing there?”

  Cristiano glanced over. “Ask her.”

  Papá turned on me. Shadows marked his face like bruises. “What happened? Why were you there?”

  As my immediate fears of losing Diego and being kidnapped by Cristiano subsided, I was left with my father’s fury. “Lo siento, Papá.”

  “You’re sorry?” His voice rose as he stepped toward me. “Answer me when I question you. ¿Qué la chingada were you doing there?”

  I tried to stand tall in nothing more than a skimpy dress as my father, all his men, and Cristiano stared at me. “I—I . . .”

  “She spent the night there,” Cristiano supplied. “With Diego.”

  Father took one look at my outfit, hair, and makeup, and he grabbed me by the arm. “He better pray he burns alive. I will kill him for this.”

  “No,” I cried. I’d managed to keep my emotions in check since I’d been torn from my dream earlier, but now, they overcame me. “It’s not what you think,” I said as my voice broke. “We were talking and we fell asleep—”

  “Get inside.” He shoved me up the stairs to the house. “Indecent brat.”

  “Papi—”