“When?”
“Sunday. He says we’ll go to Easter Mass, but the helicopter leaves before nightfall.”
“I’m doing everything in my power to get us out of this,” Diego said. “I need you now more than ever—you are my strength.” He glanced out my window, setting his jaw as if he were fighting himself. “But Costa is right. You shouldn’t be here. I’d never be able to live with myself if anything happened to you.”
“But you just said you need me.” I gritted my teeth to stem a fresh wave of tears, but not because I was sad. I hated that Diego and my father wanted me gone when this was the only place I should be. “I won’t abandon either of you.”
“This isn’t a game, Tali,” he said, looking back. “When the Maldonados come for me, they’ll come for us all.” He lowered his voice. “We owe them a lot of money.”
I would’ve had to have been a fool not to know that, but hearing it sent chills down my spine. “How much?”
“Millions and millions,” he said quietly. “More than we can ever repay.”
I covered my mouth. “There has to be a way out. Can you borrow it from somewhere? Ask for more time?”
“Years wouldn’t be enough. Retribution is taken with a long arm and a firm grip. Not even Costa can protect us.”
“Then we have to leave,” I said, standing, ready to run the second he agreed. “Fuck this life! Just come with me.”
“I can’t.” He reached for me. “You know there’s nowhere I can run they won’t follow.”
I went to my closet. “Well, we can’t stay here,” I said, wrestling my suitcase from the top shelf. “Since when are we sitting ducks? Why not at least try to disappear? We can get passports and start over—”
“Please, Talia,” he said, rising from the bed. “Don’t pull away from me.”
He caught my elbow and drew me into his embrace. Cupping my face, he kissed the tears that’d escaped down my cheeks. “Forgive me,” he whispered, sliding his hands everywhere on my body. “I’m desperate.”
His hungry lips found mine, and I grasped his hair as he took my mouth. I arched into him, letting him walk me backward toward the bed. He untied my robe and slipped his hands inside to grab my ass. His kiss grew more feverish. This time, he didn’t stop it, as if sensing this might be the last time.
As that reality hit me, I choked back a sob but tried to hide my despair with a moan.
Diego wrenched himself away and strode to the other side of the room. “We can’t do this.” His hair fell forward, and he tucked it behind both ears. “My God, Natalia. You are so beautiful . . . but we can’t. I’m weak.”
“Then let us be weak together.”
He paced the room. “It was a mistake to let myself fall in love with you, but I could no more help it than I could growing older each day.”
My gut smarted as if his words had delivered a punch to my stomach. “You don’t mean that.”
“How can I not?” His anguished eyes met mine. “I’m a dead man. I’ll never have you. Not now.”
“Don’t talk like that.” My throat thickened again. “You’ll find a way out of this, and then my father will understand—”
“Your father? He’s the least of our worries.” Diego unzipped his hoodie, balled it up, and tossed it on my reading chair. It slipped over the arm onto the floor. “It’s over, Tali—don’t you see?” He strode back and forth, his muscles straining his black t-shirt each time he thrust his hands in his hair. “Even if I found a way out of this, Costa would never forgive a failure of this magnitude.”
“Then there’s nothing keeping us here,” I said, reaching for him. “We have to go.”
He avoided my eyes as if it was easier to pretend I wasn’t here. “They’ll find us, and when they do, they’ll kill us both. I can’t put you in that position.” Finally, he stopped moving and pinched the inside corners of his eyes. “I’m as good as dead. The only peace I can have now is knowing you’re safe.”
My chest stuttered with a panicked breath. Fear crept into every part of my body. I had known it was bad, but seeing Diego come apart in front of me made everything even more real. He’d never expressed anything close to this level of anguish. “We’ll elope,” I said. “Papá will understand how much I love you, and he’ll find a way to stop the Maldonados. He has that power.”
“He doesn’t,” Diego said. “If he did, he would’ve stopped them already because he . . .” His jaw squared as if he were checking his emotions. “He’s in just as much danger as I am.”
No. My heart fell to my feet. I’d lose the two people who meant the most to me in the world. I put my hands over my face. “They’ll kill him too.”
“I’m sorry.” His voice came out strangled. “I’m so sorry, Tali.”
I wanted to sink into a ball on the floor, but that wouldn’t help. As despair weighed on me, I forced myself to hold it together. I picked up his hoodie to fold it over the arm of my chair. “There has to be another way. There must be.”
“There . . .” He hesitated. “There is.”
I glanced up at him, unsure I’d heard him correctly. “What is it?”
“It’s not on the table,” he said. “I won’t involve you in any way.”
Me? I could do something? I didn’t care what it was. I hurried over to take his hands. “If I can help, let me. Please.”
He brought the backs of my hands to his lips. “I don’t deserve you. You should walk away now.”
“You must know I’d die for you if it came to that,” I said firmly.
He swallowed, his eyebrows cinching. “Tali.”
“I would,” I said. “Now tell me what can be done.”
With obvious trepidation, he paused for a breath, seeming to struggle to get the words out. “The Maldonados are too powerful. Nobody who would help us can match them. They don’t fear us—but they could.”
Hope surged in me. There was a way—that was all that mattered. Not all was lost. I would take a sliver of hope over nothing. “How?”
“Neither your family nor mine is strong enough to stand against them alone. But together . . .”
Together. Two families standing as one. Unified.
“You’ve been part of our cartel longer than you haven’t,” I said. “We already stand together.”
“Not officially.”
To bind our families in a legal sense meant . . .
Marriage.
My heart soared. Relief and joy—and a sense of rebellion—spread through me. They thought they could destroy us, but we’d fight back. My father thought he knew better, but he’d see that keeping us apart wasn’t the answer. Taking Diego’s name was not only a privilege, but now it was my destiny. I could save us—and I’d be getting exactly what I’d always wanted.
“We’d stay in the shipping business but bring on a weapons and narcotics division,” Diego explained. “Each cartel would benefit from the others’ infrastructure. Pooling our resources, network, and cash, we’d become a formidable front.”
“Father would forbid it,” I cautioned. “He’d never let us go through with it.”
“Once it was done, he’d be forced to see it was the only way. Our houses, united, expands his empire. He’d control the movement of his own drugs and guns—we’d be untouchable.”
“But where do the drugs and guns come from?” I asked.
“Cristiano.”
My stomach dropped. So it had come to that—making a deal with Hades to get another devil off our back. “But he set all of this in motion. Why would he help us?”
“Because it gives him power. Even more than our parents had. More than your father has. More than the Maldonados.” He closed his hands over mine, pressing my palms together as if we were both in prayer. “That was his goal all along, and this is the fastest way to get it. He gains more than he did as Costa’s partner—the protection of family. He knows what it means to bear the Cruz-de la Rosa name.”
I got a silent thrill hearing our names together
that way, even if it meant tying us to Cristiano. For once, I didn’t feel so helpless. I could act. Wanting to marry Diego—to take his name and give myself to him in every sense—no longer felt small, selfish, or disobedient. With our promise to each other before God, I’d be saving us all. There was no holier union than that.
“But would Cristiano help us?” I said. “Have you asked?”
“It came up when we spoke earlier, but I’d decided not to ask this of you.”
“I’m glad you did,” I said.
“If you go, Tali, you at least have a chance of survival. Your safety can be arranged, and you can continue your schooling. Agreeing to this means—”
“I stay. I know.” None of that mattered now. I could figure out my school situation later. “Did Cristiano agree when you spoke to him?”
“He’s greedy and calculating. For once, it works in our favor. But a warning—I’d have to be willing to promise him anything to get him on our side. Even if I don’t mean to keep those promises. Once we’re safe and can regroup, we’ll strategize a way to separate from him.” Diego gently took my face, thumbing the corners of my mouth. “I wish it had never come to this, Tali, but it’s where we are. Would you do this for me?”
My heart skipped. I didn’t need a proposal or pretty words or a grand gesture. I just needed Diego. “Life or death. I belong to you in either.”
He swooped down to wrap his arms around my waist and lift me off my feet. “What have I done to deserve your love and loyalty?”
“Everything.”
He brushed kisses along my neck and jaw, eliciting a shiver from my body. I had no idea how it was possible that moments ago, everything had felt hopeless, and now I couldn’t stop smiling. “How do we do it?” I asked.
He caressed my cheek with his stubble, a scrape that soothed me with its familiarity. “On Sunday, pack your bags before Mass. Bring them. Don’t breathe a word to your father, or he’ll try to stop us.” Finally, his eyes danced as his posture straightened once again. It felt good to be able to take away his worries. “When we were kids, you wanted to go to Antarctica.”
I laughed. “Are we going on a trip?”
“No, but is the coldest place on Earth still on your bucket list?”
“I thought it sounded exotic—it was always so hot here. The grass was greener and all that.”
He smiled. “I’m not even sure they have grass there. So where do you want to go?”
Fleetingly, I thought of my life in California, and all the dreams I’d had for us there. Was that over? Or on hold? I couldn’t think of that now. Nothing mattered more than the man standing in front of me. “Why?” I asked. “Will we have to leave for a while?”
“No, mi amor.” He lowered me onto my feet. “Just indulge me.”
Ah. A honeymoon? He kept me in his arms as I kept mine around his neck. I lifted one shoulder, trying not to seem too giddy. “I’ve been many places with Papá. New York, Buenos Aires, São Paulo . . . and I’ve seen even more with my school friends.” I ran my palm down his wide, muscular chest. “But I’ve not yet been to Southern Europe. I’d like to see Tuscany.”
“Make me a promise,” he said, absentmindedly twirling the ends of my hair around his finger. “If things get hard, if you miss me and we can’t connect, promise me you’ll dream of us under the warmth of the Italian sun. When it’s dark, and you’re worried the light won’t come again, dream up ideas for us to do once we can get there.”
As tempting as it was to fall into that fantasy, all I heard was what he wasn’t saying. Was there a chance we’d be separated? “Diego . . .”
He kissed the tip of my nose. “Just know that it may not be right away, but we’ll make it to Europe one day. When the time is right.”
I balled his t-shirt in my fist. “You’re making me nervous.”
“I’m the one who’s nervous.” He raised his eyebrows. “See the sweat on my temple?”
I blew gently on his hairline to cool him. “What is it?”
He took my hands, kissed each of my palms, and held them between us as if we were standing at the altar. “I can’t ask what I want to ask. It wouldn’t be right. But . . .”
I blinked up at him. What could possibly make him nervous when his life had just been on the line—and still was?
Oh. With the realization, I involuntarily rose onto my toes with excitement. We were promising our lives to each other. I didn’t need a proposal—but now that I was getting one, I couldn’t keep my grin at bay. “Yes?”
“Natalia.” He smiled down on me, gently squeezing my hands. “Make an unworthy man happy. Meet me at the church this Sunday.”
Natalia
It was a question that had only one answer.
There wasn’t a sliver of doubt in my mind that I’d marry Diego. He’d been my best friend and my love for a long time, but now, he’d finally be my husband. “Yes,” I whispered. “I will meet you at the church on Sunday.”
He lifted my hand to kiss my ring finger. His lips lingered there until he pressed his forehead against the back of my hand. “Por favor,” he whispered. “Holy Virgin Mary.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked at the overwhelming sadness in his appeal. “Why don’t you look happy?”
“I am, but I fear what lies ahead.”
The gauzy curtains of my balcony fluttered, causing the candles on my dresser to flicker. I pulled him by his hand toward the bed. “Then lie with me and forget.”
“Tali . . .”
“It’s not a request.” Diego and I had waited long enough. I had no more doubts about making this union. My heart hammered as I slipped my robe over my shoulders. “I almost lost you today,” I said, tugging on the sash to open the bow. My robe fell to my feet, revealing my negligee. “And I’ll be damned if either of us leaves this world without having spent a night together.”
“You may be damned, Tali.”
“I won’t, because I know what’s true in my heart.” Sunday, we’d commit ourselves to each other before God, but tonight, we’d make love as husband and wife in our souls.
“And what’s true?” he asked.
I put my hand to his cheek. “That I love you.”
“And I you.” His eyes roamed over my short, strappy nightgown. “You are so lovely in indigo silk that matches your eyes.”
“Mi madre said a lady never wore anything less than the best to bed.”
He smiled crookedly at his basic black tee and chinos. “I’m underdressed.”
“You’re overdressed. If you want to see more, you have to show more.”
He arched an eyebrow. “A motto I can stand by.” Bathed in candlelight, he grimaced as he slowly pulled his shirt over his head.
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
“A couple bruised ribs, nothing more.”
I gently pressed my lips to a purple mark blooming on his chest and then a small gash on his right bicep. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. I’m still standing. And here with you, no less.”
I touched the button of his pants, pausing to ask for permission. It came in the form of his low-lidded stare as he wet his lips. I undid his pants and pushed them down.
He cast them aside, took my chin, and tilted my eyes up to meet his. After a tender kiss to my forehead, then the bridge of my nose, he gathered up the hem of my negligee. I raised my arms so he could slip it over my head.
He stepped back, gripping the purple silk as his eyes drifted down my bare breasts and stomach to my lacy underwear. I kept my shoulders back even as nerves tickled my tummy. He’d never seen me this way. I knew he’d been with other girls—and that I actually meant something to him. But as he stared, doubt took over. Had he been expecting more? Was he worried about my inexperience? Or was it simply too strange to see his best friend naked?
He wore only boxer briefs, but it wasn’t much different than seeing him in a bathing suit.
“Well?” I asked finally.
“My life is on the line,” h
e said, swallowing, “and yet, I don’t believe I’ve ever experienced such happiness.”
My heart fluttered, pumping relief throughout me. “I’ve heard it only gets better from here.”
He grinned, then swooped down to hug my waist and litter kisses on my neck until I laughed.
“You were never this ticklish when we were younger,” he said, lifting me so my legs wrapped around him.
“Well, you never tickled my neck, did you?” I arched into him as he lowered me to the mattress and climbed over me. I bent and opened my knees to make a home for his hips.
“Would you like to hear my ode to you now?” he asked when we were mouth to mouth.
I nodded breathlessly.
He cupped my cheek, thumbing the apple of it. “She is a heavenly creature cut from the finest cloth with which God had to work. A fabric so fine, that to be dressed in it is to be a king, and to forget anything that came before it.” He paused as candlelight flickered over his face. I ran a fingertip along a cut near his hairline. “Her love is all-consuming and more addictive than any high. It can twist fantasy to truth and make honest men lie—without blame. Those hopeless to receive it turn mad.”
I didn’t know any other man who felt so deeply, much less possessed the gift of expressing it so beautifully. A tear of love and joy slid down my cheek. “Diego.”
“There is no greater pleasure than to be in the presence of your love,” he finished.
I put my arms around his neck and pulled him down to me. He kissed me, running a hand along my waist and under my backside, then drew me against him.
I gasped softly as the length of him slid over my thigh. I was both eager and tentative to finally touch him. I wanted to do it right, to know that I could make him feel good.
He brushed his lips along my neck, and I quivered as he kissed my collarbone, then down my chest. “I can’t believe we’ve held off this long,” he said.
“Our patience has been admirable.”
“Our patience has been foreplay,” he said, running his tongue along the skin under my nipple, “and it will be rewarded.”
In that moment, the sensation of his breath cooling my tender skin was the best thing I’d ever felt—until he pulled my nipple into his mouth and sucked, sending ripple after ripple of pleasure down my stomach.
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