My dress inched up the backs of my thighs. He helped it along until my thong was almost exposed. I lifted up to readjust, and the length of him pressed solid between my legs, eliciting my gasp and his pained groan. He wanted me. He was ready for me.
Maybe it was being out in the open, but I was hit with the uneasy question of what my mother would think if she was looking down now. Would she understand Diego and I were meant to be as she and my father had been? They were younger than me when they married. And Diego’s optimism was contagious. Finally, I felt as if he wanted to start over in California more than he needed the constant threat of danger that made cartel life both treacherous and exhilarating.
He lowered me onto the cushion of a chaise lounge and kneeled at my feet to remove my shoes. He kissed the inside of my ankle, and I shivered as he grazed his five o’clock shadow up the inside of my leg. He climbed over me, and fixed his mouth on mine, his kiss becoming hungry as our tongues met fast and slippery. “I want you so bad, Tali,” he said, panting. “I can’t wait any longer to bury myself inside you.”
His bold words thrilled me, and as he kissed his way down my collarbone and chest, I doubted my decision to wait. Diego and I were destined. Tomorrow would go well, and he’d come to California.
If it didn’t, then I’d have bigger worries than my virginity.
If anything went wrong, wouldn’t I wish I’d had this night with him?
We were as good as committed to each other. Why wait for a ceremony?
Diego paused, lifting his head. “Where’d you go, princesa?”
“I’m here. I was just trying to remember why we’re waiting.”
“How much of that vodka did you drink?” he asked with a haphazard smile.
“It’s not that. I feel fine. I’m just . . .”
“Horny?”
I laughed. “That goes without saying.”
“You have no idea how much it turns me on to know that you’re turned on.” He sat back on his calves. “But if you have to think about whether you’re ready, then we shouldn’t go any further.”
I sat up on my elbows, awed by his restraint. By his gallantry. “Really?” I asked.
“Our first time isn’t going to be on top of a warehouse. Or any piece of property that belongs to my fucking brother.” He stretched out next to me, and I lifted my head to settle into the crook of his arm. “Damn,” he said. “It feels good to lie down.”
“Do you have to come back here after you drop me off?”
“Yeah I will, even though Jojo told me to go home and sleep since I need to be alert during the delivery.”
I glanced up at him. “You’re going with them tomorrow?”
“I have to.” With his eyes on the sky, his jaw squared as he swallowed. “It’s too important for me not to be there.”
My heart sank. The last shipment to attempt to cross the border had been blown up, killing two men. “Aren’t you more valuable here?” I asked. “Like those people in the movies who stay in the control center during a shuttle launch?”
Diego kissed my temple when I shuddered. “I’ll be all right. Don’t worry. I’m more resilient than you think, and I’m not planning to meet God any time soon.”
I let his resolve soothe me. Because it was that same determination in his voice that told me I wouldn’t be able to talk him out of going. A sense of duty ran almost as deeply as loyalty within the cartel. Diego would see this through to the end.
I wanted to be content to sit in peace with Diego and take in these rare moments we had alone, but because the past had crept up on me in the car, my mind kept flashing there. The nebulous shape of my mother’s blood on the cold tile. The black, cold-as-steel Glock engulfed by Cristiano’s hand. I smelled gunpowder and expensive perfume and heard my father’s sobs, as subdued as thunder, the night he’d returned home from his trip. My mother had struggled to warn me about Cristiano. If he hadn’t shot her, why had she looked so scared as she’d pleaded with him for my life?
I’d locked these memories away, but Cristiano’s presence dredged up more each day. His cryptic words earlier had wormed their way into my consciousness. I’d gotten good at pushing the darkness away, but tonight, it pushed back.
Were there other things about that day I hadn’t noticed? Could someone else have gotten into the house somehow? I’d spent almost half of my life seeing Cristiano as a protector—but I’d spent more of it thinking of him as my mother’s murderer. Diego, too, had believed the worst in his brother for a long time.
Diego squeezed me closer. “You got quiet. You all right?”
“Are you?” I asked.
His eyebrows drew together. “Why?”
“We’ve talked a lot about how I’m dealing with everything, but I haven’t really asked what it’s like for you to have Cristiano back—and to consider he might not have done this.”
He scratched the bridge of his nose. “I . . . I’m not sure it matters. Whether Cristiano murdered Bianca or not, too much damage has been done.” His chest expanded with a deep inhale. “There’s no chance Cristiano and I could repair our relationship.”
“Even if he’s proven innocent?” I asked. “I’ve spent a long time blaming him for this too, but as much as I don’t trust him, I do trust my father.”
“Cristiano’s not innocent,” Diego said without an ounce of doubt. “But neither am I.”
I cocked my head into the nook of his shoulder. “What?”
“It’s beginning to hit me that Cristiano and I . . .” He shifted in the chair. “We’re more similar than I’d like to admit.”
Diego and Cristiano—similar? Aside from sharing some physical attributes, they were night and day to me. “You’re not like him,” I said, tracing my index finger over the stubble shading his chin. “Not in a million years.”
I lifted my head when Diego repositioned his arm under me, as if he couldn’t get comfortable. “He betrayed our family,” Diego said, “and I betrayed him.”
“You mean Cristiano betrayed my father . . .?”
“No. Mine.” He paused, lowering his eyes from the sky to the desert. “When Costa killed my parents, I didn’t fully grasp the business they were in. I do now. I understand why they couldn’t continue down that path.” His face screwed up as if he’d bitten into something sour. “But they didn’t need to die for it.”
Diego didn’t talk about his parents much, but when he did, he got pensive. Still, I’d never questioned that he understood why their death had to happen.
“Our families had a pact not to get into human trafficking. Your parents broke it,” I reminded him, flattening my hand over his chest. His heart beat strong against my palm. “But the real reason Papá did what he did was because they plotted against him.”
“I know. I get it. But they’re my blood, Natalia.”
“That doesn’t excuse everything under the sun. It can’t.”
“I thought it did. Cristiano went against my parents because he didn’t agree with how they ran their business. At the time, I thought him a traitor—and I still do.” He wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve and blew out a breath. “I didn’t think anything should ever break the bonds of family. But then I did that exact thing to Cristiano.”
“It takes courage to resist blind loyalty,” I said soothingly, trying to comfort him.
“Or does it take courage to stick by family no matter what?” he asked. I heard the struggle in his voice and wondered how long he’d been thinking all this. “As Cristiano couldn’t excuse my parents for getting involved in things like forced labor or sex slavery, I couldn’t excuse him for taking your mother’s life—and I turned on him. My own blood.”
“You had no other choice, Diego.” When he didn’t respond, I added, “There has to be a line somewhere, even for family.”
“I’m not sure I agree. Sometimes, I get overwhelmed by helplessness wondering if I betrayed my family by joining yours. I hate Cristiano for what he did to Bianca, but perhaps doing nothing was
just as bad.”
Doing something would’ve meant retaliation. “Did you ever think of taking vengeance for their death?”
He didn’t answer right away. As seconds ticked by, I grew uneasy. There was only one person Diego would take revenge on. My father.
“In my darkest moments, yes,” he admitted.
My heart thumped once. I’d never heard Diego mention a desire for retribution, but I supposed that was human nature. It wasn’t as if I’d never wondered how things might’ve turned out differently if I’d actually known how to operate the gun I’d pulled on Cristiano all those years ago.
“But that’s how you and Cristiano are different,” I said, balling his shirt in my fist. “You are good. You never would’ve acted on those feelings.”
“At the core of it, though, Tali—we’ve each committed the highest sin in this world. We turned against family, and that’s how we’re alike.” His body depressed into the chair with a long exhale. “It’s why we can never repair what’s left between us. Even if we’re forced to do business together as Costa wants, even if we find a way to make things right again—the distrust between us will never go away.”
“You keep saying Cristiano turned against family,” I said, trying to decipher what exactly he meant. Did he mean because Cristiano had joined our cartel? “When he hurt my mom, he was close enough to my parents to be like family, but they weren’t blood as you continue to point out.”
“I’m not talking about what he did to your family. I’m talking about what he did to mine.”
What? I furrowed my eyebrows. I didn’t understand what he meant, but as Cristiano had warned me hours earlier—I was starting to believe there was more to my mother’s murder than I knew.
I sat up on one elbow to look down at him. “What are you saying?” I asked.
“You asked if I ever think of vengeance,” he said slowly. “I do. But not against your father. He may have pulled the trigger, but Cristiano is the one who told Costa what my parents were doing, and what they were planning.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in. I’d never questioned how my father had learned that the de la Rosas were conspiring against him. I wouldn’t have guessed the information that would get them killed would come from within their own family. “Cristiano had your parents killed?”
“Yes. That’s the betrayal I mean.” Diego glanced away. “My brother has no loyalty. He never has. It’s what I’ve been trying to tell Costa. I can’t trust him . . . but I can trust a man’s motivations.”
“What are his motivations?” I asked. My mind raced as this new door opened. Could this help reconcile any holes in my past? “Why is he back? I thought it was to avenge his parents’ death, but if he caused it, then Papá was right. He’s not here for revenge. So what does he want?”
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.”
14
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 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. Aft
er 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.
Violent Delights (White Monarch Book 1) Page 17
