“Are you coming in?” the man asked Pilar behind me.
“Sí.”
“If you insist.” He grinned. There was something funny about the eye with a scar over it. He closed the door behind us as we entered a small antechamber that opened to the grand, high-ceilinged church.
Light spilled through the stained-glass windows, and candles lit the aisle to the altar, which was surrounded by fresh flowers, including the red roses and white lilies of my bouquet. I passed into the nave slowly, taking it all in. I would’ve never thought Diego could pull this together so quickly.
My heels echoed off the empty pews as I walked deeper into the church. Father Rios stood at the altar, his head bent as he murmured to himself, reading from the book in front of him. I would have to remember to thank him later for ending his services early to perform this without notice.
Three men in suits stood around the priest with their backs to me. My stomach dropped. I flattened my hand against it to quell my nerves, welcoming the coarse lace under my palm as I picked up my pace. I looked for Diego but stopped after only a few steps. My betrothed wasn’t amongst them. Two of the men had rifles strapped across their suit jackets. And the third, even from behind, was unmistakable. A constant presence in my nightmares, a monster even to monsters—the devil himself.
What was he doing here? I took a step back.
Cristiano turned his head over his shoulder, giving me his profile. His jaw sharpened as he paused there. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until I began to feel faint. Finally, he turned and faced me. “What a beautiful bride you make, Natalia,” he said, meeting my eyes. “Not that I expected anything less.”
He had no reason to expect me at all. How dare he show his face on my wedding day? The beads of my mother’s rosary dug into my palm. He looked wrong next to the elderly, homely priest—and at the altar, where Diego should’ve been.
The heavy door to the nave closed behind me with a click, causing candle flames to flicker and sigh. The distinct, pungent smell of marigolds invaded my nostrils.
Perhaps the monarch hadn’t come to deliver a wish or a message—but a warning.
Run.
20
Natalia
Sunshine streamed through the archways on both sides of the church, but it didn’t touch me in the center. The aisle that would lead a bride to her groom remained dim and candlelit.
The aisle that ended with Cristiano de la Rosa.
He stood in Diego’s spot wearing a perfectly cut suit and a satin tie as sleek and jet-black as his styled hair. His eyes trailed from my lace-adorned neck, to the rosary and bouquet in my hands, to my ankles. Even in such a modest dress, his perusal stripped me bare. Heat warmed my cheeks. He acted as if he had every right to linger his gaze on the curves of my breasts and hips. As if he was deciding where to start. As if he owned me.
The room had gone still, not even a breath exhaled.
A pit formed in my stomach. There was a chance Cristiano had come to stand for his brother, but with the way he looked at me—possessively, but with more satisfaction than longing—I knew he wasn’t here just to show support for the joining of our families.
“What have you done with Diego?” The panic in my voice reverberated off the pews around us.
Cristiano’s eyes shifted over my shoulder. I turned. Diego stood at the door, sagging under the weight of something I couldn’t name. It didn’t matter. He was here. I ran to him and threw my arms around his neck, breathing in the heady fragrance of my bouquet and Diego’s soapy scent.
He hugged me back until Cristiano barked a single warning that echoed off the high ceilings. “Diego.”
Diego moved his hands to my shoulders and peeled me off, separating us. He seemed to have aged years since I’d last seen him. “My dearest Talia,” he whispered, his green eyes searching mine. “My love. You know you are, don’t you? My only love?”
It felt like a good-bye. Since I’d stepped into the garden, dread had been slowly gathering in me like the dark clouds on the horizon—and a storm was about to hit. I moved back and stepped on the bouquet I hadn’t even realized I’d dropped. I held the rosary with both hands, as if in prayer. “Please tell me Cristiano is only here to see this merger through.”
Diego scrubbed both hands over his face, then smoothed back his hair. “Everything is gone, Talia. I can’t replace it, and I can’t pay for it. If the Maldonados aren’t already on their way, they will be soon, and they’ll come after all of us.”
“I know,” I said. “I know, but you said you had a plan—you said . . .”
“Cristiano has admitted to the attacks. He sabotaged my deal with them.”
I knew it. It should’ve come as no great shock, but heat rose up my neck and cheeks as anger brewed inside me. I gritted my teeth. “Then let him pay for it.”
“I can’t prove it. I have no credibility or influence with them. But he does.” Diego nodded over my shoulder. “There’s only one way out, and it’s through him.”
The only way out was to form an alliance and stand against the Maldonados. We’d already figured that out, so what did Cristiano have to do with it? “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Cristiano will settle our debts and smooth things over with the Maldonados, but only if . . .” He trailed off as if he couldn’t bear to say more.
“Only if what?” I asked. “What about our plan? By marrying and uniting our families, we’ll—”
I froze.
Make an unworthy man happy.
Meet me at the church this Sunday.
Diego had never actually proposed.
He went to touch my face but stopped himself at the last second. “I swear to you, Natalia,” he said so softly, I almost didn’t hear him, “I will fix this. Trust me. Please.”
I reached out for something to steady myself as I became light-headed, but there was nothing. “This . . . you . . .”
Cristiano cleared his throat. “My patience grows thin, hermano.”
Diego glanced over my shoulder and wiped sweat from his forehead with the butt of his palm. “I told you there’d be a union of families today—”
“No.” I was shaking my head—slowly at first and then harder. I ripped off my veil as it came loose. “No.”
Diego gripped my shoulders. “It’s the only option. Cristiano will throw us at the mercy of the Maldonados unless you agree.”
I breathed out a shuddering gasp, and a laugh of disbelief escaped. The space around us sharpened into a distortion of reality, as if I’d been hit with déjà vu. “Unless I agree to . . . to what?”
Diego nodded once. “To marry Cristiano today.”
My heart thudded painfully. I dropped the veil and my rosary clattered on the wood floor. Marry Cristiano? I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I shifted my gaze over Diego’s shoulder to Pilar, whose eyes flitted from the men at the altar to us to the armed Russian next to her—guarding the door. Had this been planned? When? How long had Diego known?
My limbs weakened. The church’s grim atmosphere said it all. I wasn’t here for my wedding but for something much graver. “I can’t,” I whispered. “You can’t ask this of me.”
“That’s his condition to help us.” Diego glanced at the ground, and his brown hair eased around his cheeks. “I can’t save us. But you can.”
“Why?” I asked.
He squatted to pick up my rosary, clutching the beads in a fist as he spoke through his teeth. “He covets you, but he knows he cannot command you, or it would make him like my father.” He lifted his eyes. “He has refused my money, servitude, power—everything.” Diego stood and pressed the rosary back into my hand. “I offered to leave town so he’d never see me again, but he’s determined to see me dead.”
“He has refused power?” I asked, raising my voice. I couldn’t look at Cristiano, but I’d make sure he heard me. “This is a power play. He unites two families, consolidating power for himself while stripping you of yours.”
“The
only thing he wants is you—and for you to willingly go to him.”
I gaped at Diego, who wore a special-occasion gray suit as if he’d tried to look nice.
“This has nothing to do with me,” I said evenly. “There has to be another way.”
His jaw firmed as he swallowed. He pinched the inside corners of his eyes, and a tear escaped. “There isn’t, Talia,” he cried. “I’d never ask this of you if it wasn’t my last resort.”
“The Maldonados will come for us once they have their money,” I said, trying to get him to see. “You said they don’t forgive failure. That they’ll make an example of you.”
“They respect Cristiano. He can keep them at bay, and even if he couldn’t, they cannot come against him and your father.” His brows cinched. “Even they aren’t that powerful.”
I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew I hadn’t even begun to fathom the kind of havoc the Maldonados would wreak—not just on us, but those around us. I could almost sense them closing in now. I touched my throat as if El Polvo poured sand down it. That’s who I was to marry? I had to choose between the lesser of two evils—to be married to a vicious murderer or face a mob of them.
I looked down and released my fist. The rosary beads had made indents in my palm. “The Maldonados . . .” I said. “They’ll listen to Cristiano? You’re sure?”
“Yes. But not until he’s gotten what he wants.”
Me.
No. I couldn’t do it.
I took Diego’s hands. “You and I can get married. Cristiano will still be united with my father. We’ll leave. Let them have it all.”
I started to turn, but Diego pulled me back. “I tried. It won’t work. Walk down the aisle to him—or walk out. I’m desperate enough to beg you to do this for me”—his voice broke as his nose reddened—“but I will respect whatever you decide, Tali. I’ve always been willing to die for you. That hasn’t changed.”
“Please,” I said, looking at our intertwined hands. I held one up, showing him my initials on his ring finger, knowing it would say more than I could. “Please. There has to be another way.”
Diego didn’t speak, but another tear slid down his cheek. “We wouldn’t be standing here if there was an alternative,” he said finally, pulling his hands away. “This is it. The last option. To deny him what he wants is to put a bullet in all our heads.”
“Then let them kill us!” Frustration overwhelmed me, and a sob rose up my throat. If I left here with Cristiano, I’d be stripped of a future anyway. “What kind of life would I lead with him?”
Diego inclined toward me, speaking near my ear. “It’s only until I can get to you,” he whispered. “I’ll do anything to get you out. I’ll build an army against him. He won’t hurt you, Tali. If he wanted that, he would’ve done it by now.”
“No. He wants to hurt you, and he’ll use me to do it. What do you think he’ll do with me once we leave here? We’ll be married, Diego.”
He turned his face away, swallowing. “I can’t think of it. If I suspected he had any intention of hurting you, I’d die first. He won’t. I’m asking you to do this and hang on for me, Talia. Can you?”
Pressure built in my chest. I’d declared not days ago that I’d save him any way possible. This was what I’d been called to do to prevent us from meeting a gruesome death. “I . . .”
“You must understand—you’ll be safe with him while we settle things with the Maldonados. Safer than you’ll be anywhere else.”
My jaw tingled. I was safest in the grip of a devil. Nobody was willing to budge, negotiate, or listen to reason. I pressed my hand to my chest as my anger gave way to fear for what Diego and Cristiano truly believed was about to happen. I wasn’t sure Diego understood that once I belonged to Cristiano, he wasn’t going to share. I would be his to do with as he pleased.
“When he marries me,” I said quietly, “he’ll have only one use for me, if even that. I won’t be able to escape him.”
“That’s enough,” Cristiano said from the altar. I refused to turn and look at him. “Come to me now, Natalia, or I’m taking the deal off the table.”
“Life or death, Diego,” I begged. “I’m yours in either. Where you go, I will follow.”
“And they will hunt us like dogs.”
I swallowed through a painful lump in my throat. They would find us, but at least we’d be together. At least I wouldn’t be left at the mercy of Cristiano. He’d restrained himself around me so far, and hadn’t given me much reason to believe he’d hurt me—but I had no idea how he’d act once he thought he owned me like one of the women he kept behind Badlands’ gates. Except I would belong to the master himself. “Then we’ll face the Maldonados together,” I said.
“And Costa?” Diego asked.
My heart stopped. Papá. They would come for all of us. Me, Diego, my father. Tepic, Jojo, Pilar. My father’s family. Maybe even my mother’s, who were the only ones wise enough to stay far away from this life. And it would touch them anyway. Unless I did this.
I would do this for Diego, but I had to do it for the man who’d given me life, who’d loved and protected me always. If I didn’t, maybe I would find my father dead on the cold tile floor before they killed me too. Or took me. Was I better off enslaved to them or Cristiano? I hated that the answer was obvious.
My nose tingled, and I shut my eyes as resignation set in.
“The Cruz cartel will cease to exist,” Diego said. “They’ll execute those at the top to warn others, keep the ones they have use for, and discard the rest.”
My core seemed to have frozen. I wrapped my arms around myself as the cold hit, inciting a shiver deep inside me. “You can’t put their lives on me,” I said. “Maybe I can save them, but you did this. Father did this. Cristiano did this. I’m innocent.”
“Be that as it may,” Cristiano said from behind me, “I’ve named my price. Turn around, Natalia.”
No. No. I wouldn’t. I grabbed the lapels of Diego’s suit and pulled him close. “Please,” I implored one final time. “Find a better way. Don’t ask this of me.”
Defeat. That was what I’d seen in the slump of his shoulders earlier. I could name it now because he drew up, lengthening his spine. His resignation morphed into resolution. “Okay,” he said. He hesitated, then slowly enveloped me in a strong hug. He looked over my head to Cristiano. “I’m sorry. She won’t do it.”
I waited for relief, but it didn’t come. In the following silence, my insides tangled. Cristiano’s menacing presence pervaded the church. With the reality of what I’d just done, my head filled with visions of what came next. A massacre. Bloodshed. News stories that would never be reported. Deaths that would stand for nothing and happen in vain.
“I never truly thought she’d go through with it,” Cristiano said finally. “You’ve asked too much of her.”
Bastard. My teeth mashed together. Weak? Perhaps he didn’t know true love because he wasn’t capable of it. He was wrong. Life or death. I repeated it to myself, trying to bring my courage up to meet my indignation. Life or death.
“Put Natalia on her plane out of the country,” Cristiano continued. “Once Ángel Maldonado finds out, it’s out of my hands. I can’t protect even her, though I will try.”
Diego’s heart pounded against my cheek. “It’s all right,” he murmured in my ear. “I understand.”
“My offer is off the table,” Cristiano announced. “Max, pull the car around.”
I pressed my face into Diego’s chest as he smoothed my hair away and shushed my cries. I didn’t want to leave this spot, but I heard the resolve in Cristiano’s voice. In his footsteps down the aisle. These could be my last moments with Diego, and if I survived, I’d have to live with knowing I hadn’t saved him. I would rather die by Diego’s side than marry my enemy, but even death did not seem to be an option for me. Only for Diego. And I knew in my heart that Cristiano was wrong. My love for Diego was strong enough. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to save him.
&n
bsp; Clutching the rosary, I lifted my head and asked in a watery whisper, “You’ll come for me?”
He spoke into my hair, only for me. “As soon as I can. I just need time, and this is the only way to buy it.”
What awaited me when I turned and faced Cristiano? What unspeakable things did he have planned once I left with him? At least with the Maldonados, there was a chance they’d kill me quickly. Cristiano and his bucket of sand wouldn’t rush his torture.
Cristiano’s footsteps neared.
“Wait,” I said into Diego’s neck. “Espera. Wait.”
Diego tensed, then loosened, and he breathed a loud exhale near my ear. “My girl,” he said, ghosting his lips over my temple. “My savior. Thank you.” He rubbed my back briefly, then slid his hands to my upper arms. “Turn and go to him.”
“I can’t.” I hiccupped. “I can’t do it.”
“Strength, princesa.” Diego squeezed my shoulders affectionately, then spun me around.
Cristiano stood halfway down the aisle, tall and imposing, not a hair out of place—and utterly lacking in any softness, understanding, or empathy for what he demanded of me.
I stared at him from under wet lashes heavy with mascara. What a farce, getting made up. And in my mother’s dress. It was profane, a sin against her sacred day with my father. “Why?” I asked Cristiano.
“I believe the words you’re looking for are ‘thank you.’” Cristiano walked closer to us. “Diego would be halfway to the grave if not for me.”
“His life is in danger because of you. And you don’t need me to pardon him. Look inside yourself for forgiveness, Cristiano. You were human once—he is your brother.”
“He ceased to be anything to me long ago—and now, he is nothing to you. He deserves to die. All I did was push fate along.”
“You can stop it.”
“My price is very, very steep, Natalia. I can’t be expected to let him go unpunished, can I? So he can make an attempt on my life?”
Violent Delights (White Monarch Book 1) Page 24
