Blood & Roses (Vigilante Crime Series)

by Kristi Belcamino

  Lane was exacting a revenge that Rose couldn’t comprehend.

  There was very little she could say to talk her out of it.

  Think, Rose. Think.

  The sound of police sirens started up, and out of the corner of her eye, across the city, Rose could see a convoy of vehicles winding down a city street, heading their way.

  Lane was looking too.

  The sound of sirens grew closer.

  Rose held her breath. If she ran and jumped, she could easily clear the space between the two open towers. If she missed, she would plunge 500 feet to her death. But she wouldn’t miss. She would count to three and run.

  Lane’s eyes were on her.

  Rose saw it then. Lane was going to kill Nico no matter what. She was going to slit his throat even if it meant Rose would shoot her dead. As soon as she realized that, Rose met Nico’s eyes. Something of the old Nico was there. He was no longer an old, confused man. He was the old Nico, the leader of the most powerful drug cartel in the world. He gave her a slight nod.

  Then with a terrific roar, he reared up and head butted Lane. She fell back at the same time Rose fired, but in the confusion of bodies and her worry about accidently striking Nico, she missed, and the bullet struck the wall. Meanwhile, Nico had ducked and rolled and come up swinging with a large metal pipe. Lane ran for the door. Rose fired twice more, but it was too late.

  Rose was about to say something to Nico when she saw him slump to the ground holding his neck. Blood pooled around his fingers. He’d been cut after all.

  Rose stuck her gun back in her waistband, backed up, and ran. She planted her foot on the wall and then leaped across the ten-foot expanse, landing hard and rolling onto the other tower.

  Within seconds, she was wrapping strips of her shirt around Nico’s neck. It was a minor cut; the blade had just grazed him. Her quick bandage job managed to stem the blood.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Tears pricked her eyes when he looked at her blankly again. The moment of lucidity from earlier was gone.

  “Let’s get you downstairs and to a doctor.”

  “Who are you?” he said.

  “Someone here to help you. Come on.”

  Rose helped Nico to the ground just as flashing lights bounced on the streets and walls leading up to the cathedral. She turned to him.

  “In your wallet, there is an identification card that shows your address and name. As soon as the police arrive, show that to them, and they will make sure you get to a hospital and then home.”

  He gave her a blank look and then said, “Okay. For some reason my brain isn’t working right. I know I should know where my home is, but I don’t.”

  Rose tried to hide the dismay on her face.

  “I have to go now,” Rose said. She thought about leaning over to kiss Nico on the forehead before deciding it would seem weird since he thought her a stranger.

  “Thank you, young lady,” he said. “Your parents did a wonderful job of raising you.”

  Rose remembered the first time she met Nico.

  They had been separated until she was eight.

  After she escaped to America with a coyote and then found refuge, love, and a home with Gia, Nico had found out about her and wanted her back.

  Gia had told Rose the entire story about a year ago.

  It was on Rose’s seventeenth birthday, shortly after Nico had been moved into the memory care home. Nico had told her all the details years ago and she’d never forgotten. Nico hadn’t found out about his daughter until his wife had died:

  Nico Morales bowed his head as he placed a single pink rose on his wife’s gold coffin, pausing as the flashbulbs from the approved paparazzi captured the moment for perpetuity.

  He lifted his head, flashing black eyes meeting those of the two photographers who stopped and nodded, handing their cameras to two of his men. The men peered at the images through the viewfinder. They would delete any that showed Nico’s face clearly.

  The two photographers were the only people who had been allowed to point a camera toward Nico for the past decade. One worked for the BBC, the other for the Associated Press. Both had proven they could be trusted to photograph the graveside events in the way that Nico had dictated.

  The only other people attending the burial were Nico’s attorney and confidant, Anthony Perez, and his late wife’s elderly mother who was escorted by his sister-in-law. She glared at him the entire mass.

  After placing the rose on the casket, Nico turned and headed toward the limousine.

  If anybody noticed his eyes were bone dry, no comment was made.

  As soon as Nico was back inside his heavily guarded compound in the hills miles above Mexico City, he changed out of his suit into some worn jeans and a soft black button down shirt. He lit a Mayan Sicars cigar and poured some Michter’s bourbon into a crystal tumbler. He tugged on the cigar for a few seconds and then, while he exhaled, swirled the amber liquid around before taking a deep gulp.

  The fiery alcohol slipping down his throat temporarily shook off the sense of numbness that had pervaded him since he’d found his wife’s body and the note.

  He pushed a button and summoned Anthony.

  The older man, still in his Brioni suit from the funeral mass, appeared moments later, his reading glasses propped up on the thinning gray hair on top of his head.

  Nico gestured for him to sit down in the light brown leather chair that matched the one Nico was in. He poured the attorney some of the bourbon and handed him a cigar. Neither man spoke.

  Only after Anthony had sipped some bourbon and smoked some of the cigar did Nico hand him Sylvia’s suicide note. The older man read silently for a few minutes and then folded the note back in half.

  “She is lucky she killed herself,” he said. “If I would’ve learned of this before her death, she would have begged me for death by fire.”

  Nico frowned. The comment was harsh. Even though she’d broken his heart with her suicide and the news in the note, he couldn’t deny that he’d loved her.

  “She was my wife.”

  “During the autopsy they found an IUD,” Anthony said, keeping his eyes on the tip of the cigar as he examined the ember there.

  Nico winced as if in pain.

  Anthony was possibly the only person who knew that the couple had tried fruitlessly for more than a decade to conceive. It had always been Nico’s greatest wish to be a father.

  When it became clear that they would not conceive, Nico confessed to Sylvia that he already did have a daughter. Her name was Rosalie. She had been conceived years ago when he had first been married to Sylvia. He’d gone back to visit family in Guatemala and had an affair with a local woman. After he’d learned the woman had borne a baby out of their union, Nico had sent his soldiers to get the baby, but they had failed. A group of villagers had armed themselves, and a shoot-out had occurred. The mother of his child was killed in the crossfire. It was a terrible tragedy and the worst possible outcome.

  The guilt of leaving the infant motherless along with the guilt of cheating on Sylvia had overcome Nico. He’d backed off and left the child alone to be raised by her grandmother. Until that day when Sylvia said she could not have children.

  After begging Sylvia forgiveness for the affair, Nico said he’d recently gotten word that the girl was on her way to the United States. She might, in fact, already be there. He wanted Sylvia’s permission to bring the girl back to their home so they could raise her as their own.

  To his surprise, Sylvia said that not only was it a wonderful idea but also that she would personally fly to California to meet the girl and bring her back to Mexico safely. Such a precious and important package could not be left to the lackeys who worked for Nico in the states, she said.

  At her words, Nico thought he could not possibly love her more.

  Anthony advised against it. When Nico disagreed, Anthony insisted on going to California to oversee the hand-off.

  Meanwhile, Nico stayed home ru
nning the daily operations of his massive cartel, which were surprisingly similar to the tasks of the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Dealing with supply issues, personnel issues, taxes, manufacturing snafus … the list went on and on. Nico learned early on the importance of delegating, so it wasn’t as overwhelming as it could have been. But it kept him busy. Despite this, he spent the entire time that Sylvia and Anthony were gone in nervous anticipation.

  It was only when Sylvia walked into their Mexican fortress alone that he learned what had happened. His daughter had been killed when one of his men—a Mexican-American named Garcia—had drawn attention from authorities cracking down on a child-trafficking ring.

  Garcia, behind his back, had been selling unaccompanied children who crossed the border into America. If Garcia hadn’t already been dead, Nico would’ve flown to San Diego himself, risking the loss of everything, just to strangle the man with his own bare hands. The fury was nearly impossible to stifle. And underneath it lay a deep shame that he had entrusted so much to a fool.

  Along with the crushing blow of learning his daughter was dead, Nico was beside himself that a man under his reign had been abusing and harming children. His own dead mother’s love may not have stopped him from being a criminal, but it would ensure he never harmed a hair on any child’s head.

  Each year, he anonymously donated $2 million to organizations that helped children in his country. He tried to keep it secret, but rumors had swirled after one particularly large donation. That was why, despite being the most powerful drug lord possibly in the world, old women in Mexican churches still knelt to pray for his soul every day, working their worn and smooth rosaries through gnarled fingers and asking the dear Lord to bless Nico Morales.

  But all of it had been a lie.

  His marriage now seemed like a farce.

  For years, Sylvia had taken to her bed and cried each month when her period came.

  Now he knew that, years before, she’d secretly undergone surgery to have an IUD implanted.

  Marriage was based on trust.

  She’d lied to him for years. And she’d lied to him about Rosalie being dead. She’d sat there stonily and watched him grieve for a daughter he would never meet.

  It was unconscionable.

  The woman must never have loved him.

  And in some ways that hurt the most.

  At the time Nico sent after Rose, though, Gia had known none of this.

  All she knew was that she would die fighting before she let the cartel leader take Rose from her.

  But then Gia and Nico had fallen in love.

  Nico had convinced Gia that being a father meant more than all his wealth, power, respect—even his life itself.

  From then on, Nico had devoted himself to Rose.

  He had left the cartel behind and gone into Witness Protection in San Diego just for her, in an attempt to give her a normal childhood.

  Unfortunately, at that point, that ship had sailed long ago.

  But Rose had loved him for trying.

  When Rose had wanted to go train in Sicily with Eva, he had agreed.

  Even though it was against what he wanted, he agreed for her.

  Then he and Gia left their own life in California behind, and the safety of the Witness Protection program, to move to Europe just to be close to her.

  He had been the best father she could imagine.

  There was nobody on earth she loved more.

  But he was not the man she had grown up with anymore.

  That man was gone.

  She had been mourning the loss of that father for the past few years.

  Now, he repeated his words about her having good parents as if he were unsure he’d already said it.

  Swallowing back her tears, she smiled and nodded.

  “You’re so right,” she said. “Especially my father.”

  Then she ran and slipped behind a car and kept watch until the police and an ambulance arrived. After she saw an officer speak to Nico, glance at his identification card, and put him in an ambulance, she knew it was safe to leave.

  29

  The enchanted forest of Òrrius.

  Timothy had taken her there once.

  During the day.

  The sun was low on the horizon now.

  It was fun to be afraid in the forest with Timothy. They wandered along the forest trail, stopping to photograph the figures carved into rock. Several looked like the Easter Island heads with long faces and large noses. But there was also a disconcerting looking blob with eyes and even a large elephant.

  Timothy had tried to scare her that day.

  He’d told her that it wasn’t actually true that local artists had made the carvings. He said that some mythical creatures, such as dwarves or gnomes, made them in ancient times and still lived in some of the rock caves along the trail.

  He’d dared her to go inside. When she rolled her eyes and refused, he laughed and crawled into one.

  Just watching him slither inside made Rose claustrophobic. But then when he didn’t immediately come out, she began to panic.

  She called for him, but he didn’t answer.

  Finally, she leaned down and was about to crawl inside herself when he appeared.

  His face was dirty, and his arms and cheek were scratched.

  “You okay?” she said, helping him up.

  “Yeah.” But he was quiet after that.

  “What was inside?” she finally asked after they had put some distance between themselves and the cave.

  He gave a tight smile. “We can talk about it later.”

  Shortly after that, he led her back to the car. He didn’t say anything on the way home, just played music loudly. She was slightly pissed at him but gave him his space.

  It was only when they were back in Barcelona that he spoke.

  He pulled over in front of her apartment.

  “What was it?” she said.

  “Looked like some type of place where they do sacrifices. There was an altar and wax candles that had burned out and blood and…bones.”

  “Oh.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “I thought those were all rumors.”

  “Apparently not,” Rose said, less flustered about it than he seemed. “Do you think it’s people in a cult or something sacrificing animals?”

  He shook his head but then nodded. “Yeah,” he said in a voice that sounded like he was trying to convince himself. “That’s probably what it is.”

  “Cool,” she said and reached for the door handle.

  He turned and reached for her, one of the thousands of moments that she now realized, with hindsight, were his attempts to be more than friends. She nimbly avoided his reach and slipped out of the car. Then she leaned in the window.

  “See you on the beach tomorrow?”

  “Bet.”

  Now, as Rose came around a corner there was a small tourist shop on the side of the road. She pulled over. Inside, she showed the clerk the picture of Lane on her phone.

  The elderly woman behind the counter was just closing up. She gave the picture a quick glance and looked away, busying herself by cleaning the counter. She seemed hesitant to answer until Rose said, “Please help me. She took something from me, and I aim to get it back.”

  The woman nodded. “She is rude. She is not welcome in my shop.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “She rents the old Cava house.”

  Moments later, Rose’s scooter was hugging the curves of the road leading to the small house the woman told her about.

  It was perched on the edge of the forest. It was one of only a few houses that did so.

  Rose stopped before she got to the house and parked her scooter in the woods on the opposite side of the street, making sure it couldn’t be seen.

  Then she headed toward the house. It was now dusk, casting everything in shadows and sending a chill down Rose’s spine.

  The house was low and made of dark stone with windows high up toward t
he roof. It seemed to blend into the woods behind it. There was a small, dark brick path that led from the front around to the rear of the house. Rose crept to the back, following it. The sweet smell of marijuana drifted toward her as she did. She self-consciously reached for the gun, reassured to feel its smoothness beneath her hoodie.

  As she rounded the corner, Rose saw a patio made of stones circled around a fire pit. Several chairs surrounded the pit.

  Lane sat in a chair facing the path, legs spread, a large rifle resting on her lap. She was inhaling from a marijuana pipe. Keeping her eyes trained on Rose, she set the pipe down and reached for a glass filled with some type of amber liquid.

  “You found me.”

  “You wanted me to find you,” Rose said.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Why?”

  Lane smiled a hard smile.

  “So I can kill you.”

  Rose glanced around. There was one nearby house with the lights on in the gloaming. “Your neighbors will hear the gunfire.”

  Lane shrugged. “I’ll kill them too. It’s just this elderly couple who are annoying as fuck. No one else is around. Besides, I’m sure they already saw you pull up and are watching anyway. They have to die for that alone.”

  “You’re sick.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why Timothy?”

  “You took everyone I loved away from me. I figured I would take everyone from you. One by one.”

  “I didn’t take anyone from you.”

  “You took my mother away from me.”

  “You did that on your own.”

  “You turned her against me. She refused to see me. Now she is dead. She was the only person in this world who truly loved me.”

  “You should have thought of that before you tried to kill your sister,” Rose said taking another step closer.

  There was the sound of a car arriving.

  Standing, Lane eyed the side of the house.

  The crackle of the radio was now accompanied by voices.

  “Elana Paci, this is the police.”

  Rose reached for her gun.

  Lane gave her a wild look and then whirled, sprinting down a path into the woods, holding the rifle up high.

  Damn. Rose raced after her.