“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 again 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 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 a
t 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—”
“Do you think this is a game?” he bellowed, throwing me into the foyer so I landed on my behind. Standing over me, he seethed, “It wasn’t enough I lost my wife and the love of my life? I should lose you too? You want me to spend the rest of my days mourning my entire family?”
While anger reddened his face, pain was clear in his eyes. My chest stuttered as I tried to hold in my breaking sobs. “No. I’m s-sorry.”
“I have enemies, Natalia. Do you know what they do to daughters like you? Kidnap, rape, and beat you half to death as—”
“Enough,” Cristiano said.
“As they videotape it all for me. Then they cut your neck. Is that the memory you want to leave me with?”
My throat closed hearing him talk more candidly than he ever had around me. “But I was with Diego—”
“You will never—ever—see him again. You’re forbidden.”
I closed my fist against the tile. “You can’t do that,” I said.
“Do not talk back to me.” He raised his hand, and I ducked to cover my head. “My father would’ve belted me a hundred times by your age for all the ways you’ve defied me.”
“Enough,” Cristiano repeated. It was the calmest, most controlled threat I’d ever heard. I peeked out from under my arms. Cristiano filled the doorway but said no more.
Papá started as if broken from a trance. He began to shake and lowered his arm before limping forward to steady himself on the foyer table. “I can’t lose you too,” he said shakily as tears filled his eyes. “Nothing scares me more than that possibility, Lourdesita.”
He hadn’t called me “Little Lourdes” since before I’d left for school. And he’d never even come close to laying a finger on me. He was in pain. I scrambled to my feet and hugged his waist. “I love you. I never want to hurt you.”
His heart pounded against my cheek. “I’m—I’m sorry, mija. You’re not the one I’m angry with, and you know I would never . . .”
“Yo sé, Papi. I know.” I buried my face in his chest and cried until he kissed the top of my head.
“All right, Talia. I have to deal with this fire. Go upstairs and get cleaned up.” He pulled away and said over my head, “Ride with me.”
“I have transportation,” Cristiano answered.
I’d almost forgotten he was there.
“I’ll see you at the warehouse then,” my father said on his way out the front door. He disappeared into a black car. Trucks rumbled and shuddered with power. The first in a line of cars tore down the winding road, and the rest followed, kicking up clouds of dust.
The house became eerily and unusually quiet. For everyone except a couple guards out front to leave, it had to be serious. For them to leave me alone with a killer, it had to be life or death.
And it was. Reality dawned. The warehouse . . . the goods inside. The damage done was enough to seal Diego’s fate. There was no escaping a loss of this magnitude.
“You’re responsible for this,” I said. Had Cristiano’s talk of games the night before been a warning? If so, he’d made a move that would put us all in the crosshairs of the Maldonados. “My father trusted you. Diego trusted you, and you tried to kill him.”
“If I had, he’d be dead.”
“Like your parents?”
He took a step toward me. “Meaning?”
“Diego told me everything. If you’d have your own parents killed, you wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to anyone else.”
As he advanced, I retreated until I was up against a wall. “And you think I’d destroy my own livelihood to do it?” he asked.
If it meant getting what he wanted, I wouldn’t put it past him. Which suggested he’d go to great lengths to grant his own wishes. To position himself at my father’s side and strike when Papá least expected it. To see Diego gone.
To take back what he thought he was owed.
What did loyalty mean to a man who’d betrayed and been betrayed by those he’d trusted? Even if he hadn’t committed the murder, what loyalty remained after eleven years on the run? A feral cat could be domesticated, but it would never stop looking over its shoulder.
If Diego’s suspicions were right, then Cristiano wouldn’t stop until he got what he’d come for.
The question was—did I fit into this somehow?
The answer, I feared, I was about to learn.
“My father’s expecting you at the warehouse,” I reminded him.
“I’m not going to the warehouse.” Cristiano wore no expression. He spoke with the ease and confidence of a predator who’d cornered its prey and had the time and proclivity to savor picking it apart. “I’m staying right where I am. Now, come here.”
15
Natalia
Was this how my mother had felt? Cornered by Cristiano with nobody in the house to protect her? No. It was worse for her. Cristiano wasn’t breaking my trust like he had hers. And he couldn’t destroy my sense of safety in my own home. He’d already done that years ago. It wasn’t the first time Cristiano and I had squared off under this roof.
His eyes lingered over my dress. “Did my brother do that?”
I followed his gaze to the blood and dirt smeared on my legs. As soon as I noticed the bruises on my forearm and
wrists, and the cuts on my ankles and feet, they began to throb. “I already told you, he isn’t like that.”
Cristiano came toward me, and I backed away, suddenly aware of the glass wedged in my feet. When he was close enough that I could inhale his smoky mix of sweat and burnt wood, he said, “You can limp to your bedroom, or I can carry you there.”
My breath caught in my throat. “My bedroom? Why?”
“Use your imagination.”
I could think of no reason Cristiano would want to take me upstairs except for the obvious one. What chance did I stand against him? He might as well have been made of marble for all his muscle. Resisting him would be like fighting a statue. He knew that. Maybe he wanted my struggle. If it was he who’d tried this with my mother, her fight had cost her her life.
But if he touched me, he’d lose any shot at uniting our families. I had to believe that was reason enough to stop him from hurting me.
“My father would murder you in cold blood,” I warned.
“Understood.” He moved aside to let me pass.
With Cristiano at my back, I crossed the foyer to the dining room and made my way to the stairs. On the second floor, I stopped at my closed door, remembering how I’d skipped down the hall to my mother’s room. He reached past me, turned the handle, and pushed it open. “Inside,” he said.
I took a breath and stepped over the threshold. With the curtains drawn, my room was dark. He shut the door behind himself, stood at my back, and moved my hair over my shoulder before lowering the zipper of my dress.
“Strip,” he said.
Fear and curiosity warred inside me. Was Cristiano so weak that he’d risk his chance at an empire just to have me? If he raped me, killed me, or both, there’d be no question as to his guilt for doing the same to my mother. He’d be back on the run.
My trust in him was buried somewhere deep, and I drew from it now. I was hit hard with a memory I hadn’t thought of in over a decade—my mother and I encountering a young Cristiano while gathering flowers in the garden for one of Mamá’s parties. I had to have been five or six, which would’ve made him almost twenty. He’d never picked flowers, he’d told us, and we’d giggled as Mamá had made him carry our baskets of bouquets around for the afternoon. It was one of the only instances I could remember him without a scowl. Even when he’d promised me he was a monster far worse than any that dared hide under my bed, he’d spoken gravely.
Violent Delights (White Monarch Book 1) Page 18
