by Bethany-Kris
Valeria nodded. “When are you coming back, then?”
“When I feel like it, hermosa.”
Fine with her.
“Okay,” she said quietly, “I hope it’s a good trip.”
And that you never come back.
Valeria forced a smile on her face when Jorge looked her way again. He arched a brow, lifted a finger, and pointed at the doorway, saying, “Leave now.”
She didn’t need to told again.
Spinning on her heel, mind reeling over the fact she would have at least an entire week without this man looking over her shoulder, Valeria moved to leave Jorge’s sight.
“Well, wait a second,” he said behind her.
Valeria’s shoulders dropped.
She knew it was too good to be true.
All day, she had focused on keeping her emotions under control. From the moment Chris had disappeared down the road leading out of the ranch, she had all she could do to keep from having a mental breakdown. She distracted herself with her child, and work around the house. Not to mention, staying the hell out of Jorge’s way.
What could he want now?
Turning around, she asked, “What else can I do for you?”
He tipped his head to the side, his gaze roving over her slowly like he was drinking her up. Had that been another man looking at her that way—Chris—she would have shivered, filled with anticipation about what might come next. Not this man though.
It made her shiver, sure.
But in disgust.
“Maria,” Jorge said.
“What about her?”
“That private school I had mentioned. I think it’s time we—”
Valeria opened her mouth, ready to plead if that’s what this asshole wanted, to keep her daughter with her, but the ringing phone on the desk saved her the trouble. For now, anyway. There was no way in hell she was allowing him to send Maria away.
“A moment,” Jorge muttered, giving her a glare as he reached for the landline. He didn’t even bother to pick the phone up, instead hitting a button that put the call on speaker phone as he answered with, “Hola, casa de Lòpez.”
The man on the other end of the line spoke fast, his Spanish coming out jumbled, making it hard for Valeria to follow along. Although, she managed to catch a few bits and pieces. Not that she needed to.
The expression on Jorge’s face told it all.
He’d moved from annoyed with her to stunned in a blink. And then, just as fast, his gaze darkened as his lips pulled into a sneer when he snarled, “What?”
“Attacked, they attacked the car,” the man muttered.
“How?”
“I don’t know ... I—”
“You better figure it out!”
“Sorry, sorry,” the man rushed to say, stumbling over his Spanish yet again when he added, “T-the one, boss, they left him alive. The Canadian.”
“Christopher?”
“Yes, him. That one. He asked for a hospital, they told me. After the police arrived, and had called for an ambulance, he asked—”
“Which hospital?”
Valeria’s heart thundered in her chest. Her fingernails bit into the palms of her hands when she squeezed her fists into tight balls. All that relief she had over Jorge leaving fled in an instant. Instead, a fear replaced it—a fear like never before.
Chris, her heart whispered.
Chris, Chris ... Chris.
It had become a mantra.
Repeating with the beats of her heart.
God.
What happened?
She didn’t dare ask.
Really, she shouldn’t be standing there at all. The second Jorge realized she was still there listening to his conversation, he would snap at her to leave. Until then, however, she planned to stay right where she fucking was because she couldn’t move.
Her feet had become cemented to the floor with panic.
“Which hospital?” Jorge demanded again.
“Hospital de Jesús Nazareno,” the man said, “but I sent a man over, and they checked him out.”
“Where the fuck is he?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure?”
Jorge’s voice slithered across the room to Valeria’s spot in the doorway. Deathly calm, and a little too quiet. That tone meant violence was about to happen.
“Someone attacked the Canadian on the way to the airport, with my men inside the car, and now he is missing, but you don’t know where he is?”
“It was the Garcías, boss. They did it.”
Jorge stiffened behind his large desk. “Why—”
“The deal with the Canadians, I heard. Word is going around. They’re letting it be known they are aware you planned to use that deal to ruin the merger.”
“Fuck. Who let that information out?”
“I don’t—”
“I don’t care what you don’t know!”
Another day, and the sound of Jorge’s growing rage would have sent Valeria running. A part of her wasn’t as scared of it as she had used to be. Oh, she needed to be careful, and to watch her step when he was in a mood, but it didn’t leave her paralyzed with fear anymore.
“You best find out where the Canadian is, because if that man dies before we can get him the fuck out of Mexico, his father will never go through with the deal. As for the fucking Garcías, fuck the bastards. The deal is done, we don’t need the merger now. Let them have their tantrums.”
“It’s more than that ... they said something else, boss. The officials at the scene—one of them is on our payroll, and he said the Canadian told him the war with the Garcías is on. They’re coming for us. We have to get ready.”
Jorge noticed Valeria in the doorway, or rather, that she was still standing there. His glowering scowl landed on her before he snapped, “What are you still there for? Don’t you have a child to take care of? Get the fuck out of my face!”
She didn’t want to move.
She wanted to ask about Chris.
Jorge cocked an eyebrow at her, his stupid mouth already opening to bark at her again like she was a dog who couldn’t be trained. Valeria didn’t bother to give him that satisfaction before she turned on her heels and headed down the hallway. And even still, his rage continued to flow out of the office, chasing her even after she sat with Maria in the living room again to play.
Her daughter looked to her for an explanation to the man’s rage. Valeria said nothing. She couldn’t; her heart was still breaking.
She didn’t have answers, either.
• • •
Jorge said they would handle the Garcías.
He could not.
That had never been more apparent to Valeria as she watched the chaos between brothers unfurl in a mess of shoves and shouts between Jorge and Samuel.
“I told you—I fucking told you!” Samuel pointed a finger in his brother’s face, for once refusing to back down when he had always been willing to do it for Jorge before. “We lost two storage facilities the night after they attacked the Canadian on the way to the airport, and—”
“They attacked our father’s home,” Abril whispered, coming to stand beside Valeria on the porch. She tried to follow along with the newest fight between Jorge, and Samuel, but her curiosity peaked about what Abril had just told her. At her raised brow, the woman nodded. “This morning—he’s in bad shape, unlikely to come out of it.”
“No one told me.”
“Jorge doesn’t care,” Abril murmured, “that’s what he planned to do when all this was said and done, anyway. Kill our father and take over. Samuel tried to go along with other parts of the plan, but it didn’t work out.”
She sounded so cold.
So ... unbothered.
As though Abril expected this to happen.
It had only been a couple of days, but already, the García cartel was hitting them in every single place where it would hurt the most. Valeria had woken up the night before only to hear Jorge raging
down the hall about the fact police raided one of the Lòpez businesses they used as a front to smuggle, but also to launder dirty money. According to what she understood, those weren’t things the Garcías should be aware of without someone on the inside helping them.
So, who was it?
And what did it mean for her?
Or for Maria?
“Mamá?”
Valeria turned to find her daughter stood on the threshold of the front door. Her wide, tearful eyes stared up at her mother. She rushed to soothe her girl, not wanting her to see the mess happening outside.
Not that it mattered.
Maria was not stupid.
Something was happening. Things weren’t right. Jorge didn’t care who listened to his fits, or his phone calls.
“It’s all right,” Valeria told her daughter, kneeling to open her arms so she could bring her child in for a hug. Once Maria was in her arms, she felt like she might hide her from the rest of the word, and the unknowns. It was a wish, though, and not at all real. “It’ll be okay. Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”
It was a little early for bedtime, but it kept Maria out of trouble.
Her daughter shrugged. “I heard yelling.”
Valeria plastered on a smile. “They’re just having a disagreement, that’s all. Nothing to worry—”
“Open the gates! Open the fucking gates!”
At Jorge’s shouts, Valeria was quick to scoop her daughter up from the porch when she stood. Turning fast, she watched the whole group of gathered men head for the dirt road. Except Jorge, and his brother.
Abril, however, stayed on the porch.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
Her sister-in-law smiled. “Good things.”
“What?”
Abril glanced sideways, anticipation lighting up her gaze. “I said, good things are happening, Val.”
It terrified her to ask if Abril said that because she might have had her hand in causing this chaos. Had she? Was that even possible?
“Who is at the gates?”
Abril shrugged. “Chris, they said. Your Canadian.”
Valeria would have noted the your Canadian comment, but she was a little busy with the fact Abril said it was Chris.
“Are you sure?” she demanded.
“That’s what they said before they took off.”
Valeria stared out into the distance, watching the men disappear down the darkening dirt road. Jorge and Samuel stared in the same direction; their fight forgotten for the moment.
Was it him?
Was it Chris?
God.
She hoped so.
She needed it to be so.
Maria’s arms tightened around her mother’s neck. “Mamá?”
She couldn’t speak or smile for her child.
Valeria looked to Abril who was far calmer, and ready. Although, for what, she didn’t have a clue. “What do we do now?”
“We get a bag ready for you and her.”
“A bag—”
Abril nodded. “Quickly, before they get back or Jorge notices something is up. Wouldn’t want to ruin his part of the plan when mine went off without a hitch, no?”
What was happening?
Valeria didn’t dare ask.
Right now, it was just better to do what she was told.
• • •
Valeria came back out of the house, although she had to make Maria stay tucked away in her bedroom with the little pink book bag hidden under her bed, as the men appeared on the darkened road. They walked in a line, with one moving slower than the rest in front.
Her heart ached.
“Is that him?” Jorge asked. “Is it?”
Samuel grunted under his breath the closer the men came. “It looks like it.”
Abril, who had now taken a seat on the wicker chairs on the porch, stood and gave Valeria a quick nod. “You good?”
“Yeah, Abril.”
“Good. Keep up, okay?”
What?
Valeria didn’t get the chance to ask, her attention going back to the men as their boots crunched against the gravel road. One guard picked up his pace, jogging past the slower man heading the group to dart in Jorge and Samuel’s direction. Overhead, the blackened sky twinkled with stars, but for whatever reason, it seemed foreboding to Valeria.
Night always held secrets.
Didn’t it?
“Chris says they’re coming, boss,” the man told Jorge. “Here—the Garcías got a hold of him and then let him go to send us a message. They will storm the ranch.”
Valeria went cold all over.
They were secluded.
It was a strength as much as it was a weakness out here. There was no way out of this fucking ranch except the road. The miles and miles of desolate land surrounding them only led to the cliffs, or more fucking land.
How were they supposed to get out?
Or ... was that the point?
Jorge stared over his shoulder to the women on the porch. “So, we fight back. We’ve got the artillery, and—”
“The girls need to go,” Samuel muttered. “They can’t be here for a fucking gun fight, Jorge. You were the one who demanded we stay on the ranch while the Garcías were tearing us apart outside of here because it would be safer. That’s what you said, but it’s not fucking safe anymore. They need to go if the Garcías are coming here. Don’t be stupid.”
“I’m not, I’m—”
“You won’t have time,” came a quiet, yet still strong, voice.
Valeria’s gaze drifted to the bruised, sore-looking man approaching the group with the rest of the guards at his back. He looked like Chris, sure. From the browns of his eyes, to the shape of his face. He wore the same clothes, although now they were dirty, tattered, and bloodied, that he had when he left. Everything about him reflected a man she fell in love with through stolen moments and heated stares. With only a passing glance, one wouldn’t be able to see he wasn’t Chris.
She sensed it in her heart.
His raising hand, empty of a familiar woven leather band, only confirmed what her heart and soul already recognized. He swore to Maria he wouldn’t take that band off his wrist, and he didn’t break his promises. Ever. The man standing in front, the one who sounded and looked just like Chris, was not Chris at all.
His twin, she realized.
Valeria was looking at Corrado Guzzi.
She had another striking understanding. She was the only one who saw the difference. He had never mentioned his twin to anyone else there—never spoke about his life, family, or siblings.
The man—Corrado—passed her a glance, but didn’t linger. There was no familiarity in his stare beyond recognizing her face, perhaps because someone had told him who she was. She wasn’t sure, but he didn’t stare at her the way Christopher did.
His eyes didn’t hold love for her.
Because this man didn’t love her.
“What does that mean?” Jorge snapped.
“They dropped me off just far enough away to walk in,” Corrado said, wiping at the blood on the corner of his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket, “but they weren’t waiting. If they’re not already coming in on the ranch, they will be soon. You won’t have time to get out of here. And not the women, or your daughter.”
Abril stepped forward, taking the front stairs on the porch two at a time until she reached the ground, interjecting herself into the conversation with, “The horses. We can take the horses out with a couple of men, yes? We’ll be safe as long as we’re away—they won’t think to search for us out there, Jorge.”
“I don’t kn—”
“Let them take the fucking horses,” Samuel snarled. “We don’t have time for this shit!”
The roar of an engine punctuated Samuel’s statement in the distance. Following that came the sound of rapid fire shattering the silent night.
Pat, pat, pat, pat.
Jorge was already turning to head for one guard homes where the
y kept the guns, and whatever else they needed to defend the land. “Take the horses, then. And a man for Val, and one for Abril. Go.”
He didn’t glance back as he left.
Because he didn’t care, Valeria realized.
Jorge never had.
It didn’t even sting.
Abril wasted no time looking Valeria’s way. “Get Maria ... the horses are already tacked up.”
Right.
Because anyone who had been to this place would understand that there was no way out ... without a horse, and a fucking boat. Someone like Abril.
That should have been another clue.
Nothing here was as it seemed.
• • •
“What’s happening, Mamá? Why is it so loud?”
Valeria hushed her daughter as she shoved the girl up into the saddle. “Just hold tight, okay. We’re going to go on a little—” Gunfire cut through the air, far enough away from the stables, sure, but loud enough to take her breath away. Maria’s eyes widened further, but she was determined to get on these horses, and leave, now. “Come on, move up for me.”
Maria did.
Valeria mounted the horse, too.
“Abril—”
“Let’s go! We don’t have time to fuck around in here!”
One of the two guards that had been waiting out by the stable doors came around the corner just as Valeria turned to tell her sister-in-law to hurry. She saw the way Abril bent down, her fingers sliding into the leg of her riding boot—she had already been dressed to ride, although Valeria only noticed it now—before standing straight with a knife in her hands.
That blade swung around and embedded deep into the neck of the guard. Valeria sucked in a sharp breath, her arm swinging around to cover Maria’s eyes as the man dropped to the ground, and Abril yanked the blade out.
Blood sprayed.
The man choked.
Abril looked her way. “Go.”
“Not without you,” she said just as fast.
“What the fuck was that back there?”
Abril’s attention flew around the corner of the stable, the knife in her hand flipping around so she had a good grasp on the hilt. “Valeria, go.”
“But—”
They already had the two horses ready for her, and Abril to ride. Standing in the stable’s middle floor, the horses tacked up, and edgy because of the noise of gunfire and shouting men outside the building, but ready to go.