And if I never gained Natalia’s complete trust? If I came home empty-handed? What then? I’d be forced to choose between life as a celibate husband or an adulterous one.
It was a line of thinking I couldn’t afford to follow. I’d press forward to the south as The Owl had suggested, and if I didn’t find what I needed, I’d go deeper, harder, and more ruthlessly into the dark corners of this country, no matter the risk.
If I wanted Natalia to fall completely into me, without any reservations, then I had to be successful.
And I would be.
“It matters,” I said.
“Because she gives you a different kind of power than anyone else could,” Tasha concluded. “She’s your past. The things you lost. The people you failed. That doesn’t mean she can be your future, Cristiano. You should be careful.”
A chill passed over me despite the fact that it was a warm night. Her instincts hit too close to home, and I didn’t like it. “You’re warning me about my marriage?”
“If you’re putting the pressure of the past on her and expecting her to fill those voids, you’ll probably be disappointed. There are plenty of other women you could make a family with. Why does it have to be her?”
My heart thumped once. I’d asked myself the same thing over and over since Diego had begged for his life in my office.
Why did it have to be Natalia? Why couldn’t I have let her go and stayed on course to bring my brother down? Why did I still feel drawn to her, and protective—even after she’d betrayed me and she continued to turn her head when I tried to kiss her?
In weak moments as a young man, I’d confided things in my friend Tasha. I hadn’t seen her in at least a couple years and was surprised she could read me so easily. Then again, she’d been there from the start, when each side of her family had tapped their local and Eastern European connections to get me as close as possible to righting past wrongs. Wrongs that continued to plague me.
Was Tasha right? I missed the warmth and acceptance Bianca and Costa had given me after all I’d known was the dismissal of my own parents as they’d busied themselves playing with innocent lives.
I didn’t expect that from Natalia now, but I could be a persistent motherfucker when I wanted something. And I wanted the home, the contented life I’d once had before I’d been forced to give it up.
“By seeking out the Valverde ghosts, you’re plunging yourself into the past,” Tasha warned. “Whatever you want them for, it must be connected to her.”
I kept my mouth shut. I appreciated Tasha’s help, but I wasn’t about to share any more than I already had. “Enjoy the party,” I said.
She rose onto the tips of her toes and pressed her lips to my cheek. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to come back to my apartment?” She cupped her hand around my dick, and it twitched against her palm. “I’m wearing that invisible underwear you love so much.”
It would be so easy to lose myself in her for tonight. I couldn’t remember being so riled up in all my life as I was waiting for Natalia to invite me into her bed. Not even when I’d first fled the Cruz’s home and had gone an embarrassing amount of time without a woman. I was crazed for Natalia, evidenced by the fact that I’d broken down and fucked her mouth when I’d promised myself I’d wait until I knew for sure it was what she wanted.
But in Natalia, I saw the potential for so much. As Tasha had just said—it was a lot to put on one person’s shoulders, but I had faith. A night with another woman might not be much, especially around here, but to me, it was one small way of giving up hope in Natalia and me—and that, I wouldn’t do. Not yet.
I removed Tasha’s hand from my crotch. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m certain.”
She pouted. “I lied earlier. Every other cock I’ve met is better than yours, simply because they didn’t deny me.”
I laughed. “If it makes you feel better, it’s not my cock that denies you.”
“Your heart?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “The same thing that rules everything else—my reason.”
“Very well,” she said, backing away. “You know how to reach me if you change your mind.”
I longed to bury myself somewhere warm and wet, but whereas in the past, any woman would have been good enough, now, only one would do.
Natalia was a conquest that would undoubtedly conquer me back.
I had seeds of hope that I might yet earn her devotion. That hope drove me. It was why I stood here now.
I walked back into the party, motioning for Max and Daniel.
“What now, boss?” Daniel asked, plucking a mint from a glass bowl on our way through the lobby.
“We head south,” I said as we headed outside, passing under the bright lights of the hotel’s awning. “Start gathering satellite images of the terrain and mountain ranges,” I continued, stopping at the valet stand, “and putting out feelers for information from existing and potential sources.” I glanced around for one of the parking attendants, eager to move. “We have plenty of contacts at the México-Guatemala border, which—puta madre,” I cursed. “Why the fuck did they make us valet if nobody’s working?”
Due to the high-profile nature of the event, we’d been forced to hand over the keys to the Suburban, but for such a high-end hotel in this city, the service was shit.
“I’m on it,” Max said, sauntering into the small booth. He swiped our keys and took off running.
My phone buzzed, and I slipped it from my pocket to check the screen.
Natalia.
Twice in one night? Maybe one day, that would be the norm . . . but now, it wasn’t right. And it set off warning bells.
With a quick glance at Daniel, I said, “Get ahold of Alejo. Check on things at the house, yeah?”
“You already had me do that hours ago,” he said, snickering at my overprotectiveness of Natalia.
“Do it the fuck again or I’ll leave you in that party,” I threatened.
His eyes flew open. It was enough to get him on his phone. He stepped away to call Alejandro as I swiped my finger across the screen. “Natalia,” I answered. “What is it?”
“Cristiano. I’m—I’m sorry to call again, and so late.”
“It’s not late.” Surveying the space around me, I stuck a hand in my pocket and paced toward the lawn for privacy. “Call me any hour of the night. I leave my phone on for you.”
She took a breath, and with that small inhale, I sensed some hesitation. Was it possible to read her just through respiration—tiny, sexy gasps, light exhales, heavy pants? Fuck. Perhaps I was descending into madness already . . .
“What is it?” I repeated. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” she said, but it wasn’t as resolute as I’d have liked. She almost hedged on fearful. “Everything’s fine, I just . . .”
With the ensuing silence, my hand sweat around the phone. Why the fuck was one damned phone call and a few simple words making my heart pound?
I felt . . . panicked. In a way I hadn’t in a long time.
And the only explanation was Natalia. My attachment to her was fully formed now, and that was a problem for me.
It was weakness.
And it was a problem for her, too, if she never came around to the idea of me. Because I had no plans to let her go.
“You don’t sound fine,” I said.
She sighed. “Where are you?”
“Not far. If you need me, I can get on a helicopter, just . . . ask.”
She wouldn’t. What reason would she have? Things between us had shifted, but not to the place where she could ask me for something like that.
More silence. The longer it spread over the line, the more uneasy I felt. What was going on? An ache pulsed at my temples, my thoughts jumbling. I felt like I was in a snow globe that’d just been shaken. “Why are you asking?”
“It’s just that you didn’t tell me you were leaving, not explicitly. And you didn’t say how far you were going. So I just feel like, as, you k
now, your . . . I should know where you are.”
As my wife. No longer my captive? Finally, the SUV pulled up. I glanced over my shoulder as the valet got out of the driver’s side. “Talk to me, mi amor,” I said, turning forward again. “What’s going on?”
“I’ve just been thinking a lot about our conversation at the nightclub last weekend,” she said softly.
“Why didn’t you bring it up earlier?”
“I didn’t realize . . . well, you said you were looking for something, and it might be dangerous.”
I racked my brain for what might cause Natalia to stumble over her words or beat around the bush. If she wasn’t in trouble, could she possibly just be . . . shy?
“What are you trying to ask?” I firmed my tone in case she needed to be told. “Tell me now.”
“I want to know if you’re in danger—for real. Like actual, real danger. And if so, are you sure this mission is worth it?”
Ah. I leaned back on my heels as a soothing, unfamiliar warmth bloomed in my chest. She was concerned? For me? In these last weeks, she’d been resisting me at every turn. The last eleven years, she’d hated me for what she’d thought I’d done. Even the smallest inquiry about my life was a breakthrough—and here, she was actually checking in on my wellbeing. I couldn’t help my small smile. “Natalia.”
“Cristiano,” she answered, and I heard her own smile over the phone. She knew she’d pleased me.
“Are you worried about me?” I asked.
“Well, if worrying about what the people here in your household, and in all of the Badlands would do without you . . . and if being concerned over the futures of the mistreated women and children your resources could help . . . if all that means I’m worried about you, then I suppose I am.”
I would take it. Every word of it. She couldn’t say the things she wanted to—it was too early for that. But the meaning behind her concern came through. And I appreciated it.
“I’m not in too much danger,” I said, downplaying the risk. Traveling farther and farther from my home would always expose me to enemies and potential threats.
“I don’t believe that,” she said, her voice rising to its normal tone.
“Any time I leave the Badlands, there’s a chance something could go wrong,” I admitted. “Especially since I’ve only got two men with me.”
“Why didn’t you take more?” she asked. “Is it because they’re here with me?”
Realizing I’d been strolling around the lawn, I stopped and looked around for Daniel. Where was he anyway? And Max? My eyes landed on the Suburban as it idled by the valet stand, unattended. Had I seen that a valet had pulled it around? Max was the one with the keys.
“Where are you?” Natalia asked.
I frowned, still scanning the area. A wave of uneasiness weirdly similar to nausea hit me. “At a political event, but that’s not important. I’m planning to go south from here.”
“Why?”
It wasn’t that I wanted to keep the details from Natalia, but I needed more information before I shared anything. If I told her what I was looking for and came up short, it could drive an even bigger wedge between us. And if my instincts about this were right, it could potentially break her heart—again. And like Costa, I didn’t take that lightly. I’d vowed to protect her, but if my suspicions proved true, it would be a deeply emotional betrayal I couldn’t shield her from. I wasn’t going to breathe a word until I was one-hundred-goddamn-percent sure.
“Does it have to do with politics?” she asked.
“No.”
“What then?” she asked. “Can’t you give me any more hints as to what you’re looking for?”
I shut my eyes briefly. Closure.
“I don’t need it,” she said immediately.
I blinked my eyes open against the awning’s bright lights. I hadn’t said the word aloud. Had I? What the fuck was wrong with me? Words never slipped out if I didn’t mean them to.
“If you’re doing all this to give me closure over something, don’t,” she practically pleaded.
Of course I was doing it for her—but I was no saint. I had my own selfish reasons too. I turned back for the hotel and jogged up the steps to check the lobby for Daniel. “You don’t even know what I’m trying to find.”
“It doesn’t matter, Cristiano.”
“It does to me.”
“But why?”
I massaged my jaw, thinking. “Tiny Dancer” played over the hotel speakers, and it was damn loud. When had I last put on a record and listened all the way through? And what kind of a thought was that right now? The song carried outside as I returned through the revolving doors and headed for the car.
If Natalia knew why I was gone and I came home empty-handed, she’d never fully open for me. Without this, there’d always be a part of her heart I’d never touch, no matter what happened. I knew it. She knew it. She was the one who’d sworn to me that without closure, she and I could never reach a level of complete trust.
“You don’t have to do anything for me,” she said. “Not if it, you know—not if you’re not safe.”
Her measured words spoke volumes. If Natalia didn’t want me to put myself in danger, that meant on some level, however deeply buried—she might . . . care about me.
And not only was it hard for her to say, but after eleven years of seeing me as the worst man in her life, it was probably impossible.
I was moving from monster to the man she’d call husband.
But that alone wasn’t enough. I wanted it all. I wanted her to ask for what she wanted. And I hoped what she wanted—was for me to come home. “Natalia. What are you trying to say?”
“I . . . I want you to—to—”
I missed the end of her sentence as my ears began to ring. I stretched my jaw, working it side to side . . . only to realize the sound was coming through the phone.
A piercing wail that drowned out Natalia as my spine went rod-straight.
My heart thudded in my chest as I strode to the car. I’d recognize that alarm anywhere.
“What is that?” Natalia yelled over what I knew was an earsplitting noise on her end.
“The house alarm. Where are you?”
“The bedroom—”
“Get down to the panic room, through the cellar—like Alejandro showed you, Natalia. Now!”
The ground under my feet turned to jelly, and I stumbled as I rushed to the Suburban.
When death strikes, don’t fall down.
I righted myself, ignoring the way my head swam.
“Your car, señor de la Rosa.” I turned and came face to face with one of the young valet parkers. I looked over his head for Max at the same moment the kid lunged into me full force. My shoulder flew into the Suburban’s side panel. Pain radiated from my bicep as I bounced off it, swung at him—and missed.
I never missed.
What the fuck?
Bright lights burned my vision. Whether the house alarm echoed in my ears or blared from my cell phone, I wasn’t sure. Natalia.
My back slammed up against the car door as I was pummeled again. The valet did the best he could to get in my face while I towered over him. I could easily pick up two of him and crack both skulls together—but my reflexes had slowed to the point that I could barely even push him off.
My mezcal. It’d been fucking drugged. I gritted my teeth and tried to propel myself forward. I had many lives depending on me—including Natalia’s.
With the bolstering thought, I managed to knee the valet in the balls, and a sharp pain burnt up my stomach to my chest.
He disappeared, but I couldn’t move my head fast enough to get him in my sight.
My muscles fatigued, and I had to steady myself against the car or I’d fall. My phone, still in my hand, vibrated and lit up with Natalia’s name for the third time in one night.
I stared at it, willing my hand to move so I could answer it. I swiped my finger across, but couldn’t get the phone to my ear. “Natalia,” I
managed to grate out.
And her piercing screams answered.
No. Fuck! No. The alarms. The cellar. Was she in there? I tried forcing the question from my mouth.
With a flash of motion at my side, the valet threw himself at me again. “A gift from Belmonte-Ruiz, cabrón,” he said. “You’ve fucked with us for the last time.”
Time slowed. I blinked against the blinding lights above the awning as they brightened and sharpened. Elton John’s crooning slowed to a deep, lethargic warble. My head fell forward, and I caught sight of a bloodied knife in the valet’s hand. Where was the blood coming from? And why was it dripping at my feet?
With a brutal thrust, he plunged it into my side, and searing pain followed.
As he withdrew it, I gasped for air and tried shooting out my hand out to grab his neck, but exhaustion weighted my movements.
The world undulated around me. My ears tuned back into the screams.
Natalia’s screams, as they mixed with the house alarm.
My vision blurred. I focused everything on getting the phone up to my ear.
I heard my name. I grasped for it. “Cristiano—” Her voice—small, terrified. “Cristiano!”
Get to the cellar. My knees buckled, and I fell onto them, but only one thing mattered—the shrieking of the woman I’d protected as a baby, a child, and now as my wife. They could not, would not, be the thing I heard as Hell pulled me under. I couldn’t go down in fear that she was being hurt. That another man had entered my bedroom. Cornered her when she needed me most. That he’d do all the unspeakable things I’d been fighting against. Put his fucking hands around the delicate throat I’d promised her only I would ever touch. My entire body burned at the thought that anyone would get close enough to her to broach the gates of Heaven—my goddamn Heaven—which I’d barely tasted and had never even breached.
Anger surged in me as the worst possibility of all hit me. I forced myself to my feet with everything I had and managed to wrap my hands around the fucker’s neck. Belmonte-Ruiz would not take my wife from the Badlands and into a worse hell than the one where I was headed.
Violent Ends (White Monarch Book 2) Page 30
