Until now.
“Someone give me a cigarette.”
“You quit,” Alejandro said.
“For Natalia. For my future. I have neither now.” My palms sweat. I ached to hold Natalia. It would be the last time. How could it be that I wouldn’t be able to touch her when I pleased, take comfort in her presence, her love? I turned my back to her body, glowing in the candle light as it waited for me at the end of the aisle. “Let me kill myself as slowly or as quickly as I see fit. Give me a fucking cigarette.”
Eduardo offered one up with a lighter. He’d always been a man of vice. I lit the thing and took a comforting drag. “You know the exit plan,” I said to them.
“It’s already in motion,” Max replied.
I nodded. For them to begin evacuations without consulting me had to mean it was truly the end. We’d always been prepared to die for this. And for the possibility that there’d come a time to leave the Badlands behind.
I exhaled a cloud of smoke. “The fleet is ready?”
“We’ve already sounded the alarms. People are boarding. They’ll have food, water, and money—enough to get them on their feet wherever each person settles.”
Nobody spoke for a moment. This was where it ended.
“You have served them well,” Alejo said. “And you’ve equipped them. Everyone in these walls will survive outside of them because of you. Many of them are only alive because of you.”
I nodded once. “Time’s not on our side—go.”
“And you?” Max asked.
I looked at the cigarette in my hand. It should’ve been a cigar enjoyed in celebration of good news. Of my first child on the way. Of the goodwill God had placed upon my wife and me.
Instead, I raised it toward the heavens before ashing it out on a pew. My life had been taken from me. There was nothing more for me here. “Once everyone is out safely, meet me back here,” I said to Max. “And bring Barto. Just the two of you. Until then, I’ll be alone with my wife.”
28
Cristiano
Dressed in a white nightgown, Natalia glowed at the end of the aisle in the dim chapel. Flickering candles made shadows of her body on the wall behind the altar. I walked toward her and ascended the steps to where she’d been laid on a bed of handmade blankets and cream silk sheets and pillows. The candle light brought color to her cheeks, creating a painful illusion of warmth and life.
I looked down on her. Hands folded over her stomach. Her dark thicket of hair around her pale face, arranged by Pilar to fall in curls over her slender shoulders.
I touched her cheek. Impossibly soft and smooth. Thumbing the corner of her mouth, I bent over to press my lips to hers—and stayed there. I couldn’t bear to pull away.
Wetness dripped from my eyes to her cheeks. What was this? The last time I’d cried, I’d shed one tear for Bianca’s death, and then I’d had to run for my life. Now, tears flowed down my cheeks, dropping onto Natalia’s lifeless lips.
I gripped the sides of her face, kissing her forehead, the corners of her mouth, remembering how they’d twitched early on when she’d fought her feelings for me. I sat on the makeshift bed and touched her hair. The tattoo on the back of her shoulder. I took her hands from her sides to bring them to my mouth, breathing on them long enough to warm them.
My mind played tricks on me. I was going mad. Perhaps I’d already gone. There was no question—I couldn’t go on without her, or my mind would surely go.
“I love you, Natalia Lourdes,” I said. “Mariposita. I love you.”
I lowered her hands and kissed her stomach. An all-too familiar metallic smell filled my nostrils. I pulled up her dress to find blood between her legs.
Fuck. I fisted the fabric.
Was it not enough to lose her? I had to witness my dead wife’s miscarriage?
I no longer wished for Natalia’s life but for my own death. And I couldn’t rely on anyone but myself to grant that wish. I buried my head against Natalia’s womb, gripping her sides as a sob wracked my body.
There was no God. No Virgin. They would not take my wife from me, and let me glimpse for a moment the family I could’ve had. They would not show me pure love only to sever it from me so suddenly and viciously—no higher power could be so brutal, not even to punish a man like myself.
Exhausted and emotionally wrung out, I drifted in and out of consciousness. This was where it would end, and I had no strength to fight it.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d slept when the click of the chapel’s heavy front door roused me. Max and Barto stood at the entrance. I pressed a kiss to Natalia’s cheek and rose to meet them halfway down the aisle.
Barto’s eyes stayed narrowed on me. “You asked for me?”
“Is everyone out?” I asked Max.
“Every person. Every animal. Only we remain—Alejandro, Eduardo, Pilar, Jaz, and Costa are on the ship waiting for us. Doctor Sosa wanted to stay, too, in case she was needed.”
“Pilar should’ve gone earlier.”
“She refused,” Barto said. “She’s already lost her best friend. She has nobody else and feels safest with us.”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure this was the moment she should finally stand her ground, but there was no other option now. “Gabriel?” I asked.
“Haven’t seen him,” Max said. “I assume he went already.”
“When all this is over, find him if you can. Help him. He’s a good kid. He’ll be a good man.”
Max nodded.
“What’s this about? Why am I here?” Barto crossed himself. “To help with Natalia’s body?”
I looked to him, my ex-comrade, a man of his word, and someone who, despite our history, I could depend on in my youth and now, when I needed him most. Then to Max, my friend, my confidante, and right-hand man.
“You and I, we’ve been together a long time, Max.” I pinched the inside corners of my tired eyes. “I don’t need to tell you how the plan plays out.”
“I never truly believed it would come to this,” Max said.
I nodded. “But it has.”
I was silent a long time. There was only one option, but facing it meant coming to terms with the fact that Natalia was truly gone.
I turned to Barto. “Belmonte-Ruiz is here for blood. They won’t stop until they get it. Until someone pays—and I will. They’ll continue to hunt me. If they don’t make an example of me, someone else will. I’m no longer good to anyone—I’ll only bring danger wherever I go.”
Barto raised his chin. “Are you asking for my help to get you out of the country?”
“No.” I paused. “The Badlands is rigged so that in an emergency, it will detonate.”
Silence fell over the room. Max closed his eyes briefly but straightened his back.
Barto’s expression finally eased. “Smart. Better to perish than be captured.”
“Even better if you can take the enemy down with you,” I said.
Barto looked between us as my intent registered. “Anyone within the Badlands’ walls will go with it.”
I nodded. “Belmonte-Ruiz wants me—they’ll have to come into the Badlands and get me. And their entire cartel, plus any other faction that has joined them, will be wiped out. The explosion will completely level the town, the mountain—everything.”
My death would stop this. Belmonte-Ruiz could be obliterated, and Costa, Max, Alejandro, and the entire population of the Badlands would be safe from them.
In one fell swoop, I could end this war and make a considerable dent in human trafficking. It wouldn’t be forever, but every life held value, and many would be spared during the time it would take to rebuild the operation that would crumble with Belmonte-Ruiz’s fall.
Barto looked almost impressed. “You’d give all of this up?”
“To save lives, yes.”
Barto shifted feet, nodding slowly. “And Costa?”
“Say he was forced into this arrangement against his will. I had his daughter. He’s respected enough that once ou
r partnership is dissolved, he’ll be left alone.”
“It will be the end of BR and their operation,” Barto said. “But it won’t finish anything. One leader steps down, and another takes his place. There are others who’d like to see you dead.”
“And they will. My life in exchange for many others. It’s a sacrifice I’ve always been willing to make. Only my death will stop this.”
Barto glanced at the ceiling, then nodded with a sigh. “How does it work?”
Max widened his stance and crossed his arms, in full strategy mode. “There are two ways to detonate. From the control center in the basement, or remotely, within half a kilometer.”
“If you can push the button from the water, why would you stay?” Barto asked.
I took a breath. Not because I was hesitating—I had no reason to doubt my decision. But because once I said it, the life I’d known would truly be over. “Without Natalia, nothing’s keeping me here,” I said. “She’s gone. I’ll die today. You were good to her—” I cleared my throat to keep my voice even. “Even after all we’ve been through, I consider you a friend.”
I offered my hand. Barto looked at it a moment. Perhaps now he finally realized how deep my love for Natalia ran, but whether he did or didn’t was no longer important. We shook.
“If you’re willing to do this to avenge her,” he said, “and to save the rest of us—then the feeling is mutual.”
“This is why I asked you here. I appeal to your logic, not your emotion, and Costa would’ve tried to talk me out of it. I . . .” The next part didn’t come easily. I wanted Natalia here with me for the end. It wouldn’t make a difference in the afterlife—if there was one, I’d find her. Selfishly, I wanted to hold her until my final breath, but I’d been greedy enough when it came to her. The right thing to do was to give her a peaceful final resting place, not incinerate her with the rest of us.
“Take Natalia with you,” I said. “Costa shouldn’t go back until things have settled, but I’m counting on you to leave here and take her home. To bury her where she belongs—with her mother.”
A hint of despair softened his features. “You have my word.”
That was it, then. There was nothing left to stay, and time was up. The longer the final ship remained in port, the more everyone on it would be at risk. They were counting on me to be strong.
A deep ache pounded in my stomach, but I ignored it and turned to walk back up the aisle to Natalia. I had to pause at the top of the steps to force breath in and out of my lungs.
There was no other way, though.
Only my wife would be so beautiful in death. I could almost convince myself that her pallor had lifted. That her cheeks had pinked. As I slid my arms underneath her body and lifted her, I felt warmth, not death—self-preservation allowing me to look upon her for the last time as I had always known her.
Beautiful, vivacious, as stubborn in death as she’d been in life.
Butterfly in the sky, monarch in my arms as we’d danced the night of the costume party. She’d buzzed against my body with fear, trepidation, and excitement as our wits had sparred and our feet had tangoed.
Mermaid in the water, showing me how the curves of a woman could soften my hard, sharpened edges.
Owner of my cold, black heart.
I pressed a final kiss against her lips.
“Mi amor. Mi vida.”
My love. My wife.
My need for her was so willful, so gripping, that I felt her soft breath caress my lips. I drank in her sweet sigh into my mouth. My descent into madness had begun, and its timing was perfect. I forced my mouth away from hers and my feet down the stairs.
It was the hardest thing I’d ever do. Even lighting dynamite under my own feet would be easier, I knew.
I handed Natalia’s body over to Barto.
Reaching into the holster at my side, I removed the White Monarch I’d brought for her, opened her hand, and curled her fingers around the grip. My tired eyes hallucinated her thumb twitch against the pearl. “Bury her with it. For protection.”
Barto nodded once, a promise to see my command through, and took her away.
“Suerte. Be prosperous, be good,” I told Max. “Don’t return to México ever again.”
“I hope you’ll change your mind,” he said as we shook hands. “If you do, I’ll be waiting for you.”
I wouldn’t. I wasn’t leaving any chance Belmonte-Ruiz would get to walk away from what they’d done, and what they’d stolen from me.
I took comfort in the fact that eradicating them would save even one life. Every life held value.
But Natalia’s life had been worth everything. And in the end, it was worth my own.
29
Cristiano
In the moments before dawn broke, I blew out the candles in the chapel, not that it mattered if it burned down. Belmonte-Ruiz would be here any moment, and once they were inside the gates, I’d lay waste to all of this.
The Badlands had been home, but without its people, it was a shell. I made my way toward the house through the empty streets. The quiet brought a sense of peace I could only recognize knowing my pain would end soon, and with purpose. I wound up the mountain path for the final time, across the driveway, and started up the steps to the front door.
At a sound from inside the house, I froze mid-stride.
Hurried footsteps beat against the entryway tile.
Everyone was supposed to be gone.
It could only be one of my men, but I took out my gun anyway and leveled it at the front door as it flew open.
Gabriel Valverde threw both of his hands up. “Ay. It’s just me.”
I holstered the gun. “What the fuck are you still doing here?” I asked, wiping my dusty hands on my pants. “I ordered everyone out of the Badlands. The last boat is leaving if it’s not already gone.”
“I couldn’t leave. Not until I knew everything I could find out about this,” he said, opening his hand to show me . . .
“A syringe?” I asked with a frown.
“Escalera al Cielo.”
“Stairway to Heaven? That’s a Zeppelin song. You’ve gone mad,” I said, nearly laughing. “Both of us. You’re going to die here if—”
“Max picked it up in the warehouse by Natalia’s body,” he rushed out. “He said you didn’t know how she died, so I’ve been researching all night.” As if that fact had only just occurred to him, he blinked hard, removed his glasses with his free hand, and rubbed his red eyes with the back of his fist. “This is why Belmonte-Ruiz wanted your help.” He replaced his glasses and pinched the barrel between his fingers. “To take this drug to the international market—”
“It doesn’t matter anymore, Gabriel.”
“It does—just listen. The drug only kills with the wrong dosage, Cristiano. Otherwise, it just puts the user into a trance. This is how Diego faked his death—well, clinically, he was dead, but—”
“You’ve been a better soldier than I gave you credit for.” I walked up the front steps and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Run. You may still be able to catch the boat out of here. Get your share of the money and go. Start a new life.”
I walked by him into the house.
“You’re staying?” Gabe asked, panic threading his voice as he followed me through the foyer.
“Another few seconds, and you may have to swim to the boat if you want to catch it.”
“Where’s Natalia’s body?”
“Gone!” I snapped over my shoulder, my nerves fraying at the mention of her name. “Get out of here before I—”
“And if she wakes up and you’re not there? What then?”
I froze in my tracks, my scalp tingling. I turned around slowly. “What?” My eyes darted between his. “If who wakes up?”
“What I’ve been trying to tell you,” Gabe said, tripping over his words. “I think Diego injected her with this—a tetrodotoxin that could’ve put her into a cataleptic trance.”
I balled my fists. “
Speak English.”
“Diego used Stairway to Heaven to fake his death. Too much of this could kill her, but the right amount would only put her into a state that mimics death. It could take twelve hours, maybe more, until the drug wears off.”
My throat dried like my eyes. Couldn’t swallow. Blink. Function. Think. It was taking me longer than it should to calculate how much time had passed, but we were definitely somewhere close to that. “You’re saying she could still . . .”
He was insane. I’d listened to her chest for a heartbeat. Waited for her breath. I’d felt neither.
“You’ve really gone mad,” I said. “What game are you playing with me? I don’t care if you get on the boat, but if you don’t get out of my sight—”
“It’s no game.” I’d seen Gabriel scared shitless before, and he wasn’t now. He took a breath. “She could still be alive, Cristiano.”
I turned and stalked away. “You’re wrong.”
“I could be,” he admitted. “But what if I’m not?”
It hit me then. She’d stirred in my arms.
It hadn’t been an illusion.
My mind hadn’t been playing tricks on me.
The ache in my gut hadn’t been despair but an instinct I’d ignored. The warmth I’d felt in her lips . . . the final wisps of her breath—they hadn’t been final at all. They hadn’t been conjured by my mind out of desperation to will her back to life.
“She’s . . . she is alive,” I whispered.
Relief exploded in me, sending pure, unadulterated joy coursing through my veins. I knew the truth without a doubt. “She’s alive,” I told Gabe.
Gabriel’s mouth broke into a grin. “You said yourself the boat might still be here. Go. Apúrese. ¡Corra!”
Hurry. Run. I could catch her. I would dive into the sea and swim as long and as hard as necessary to do it.
Heaven or Hell, land, air, or sea, I will find you, mi amor, and I will . . .
Violent Triumphs (White Monarch Book 3) Page 26
