Sotza gave a short nod. "It was illuminating. We’ve become complacent over here in the Americas; we don't pay enough attention to what's happening across the ocean. Though Italy has an old and steeped tradition in the Cosa Nostra, I believe that Giovanni is interested in innovating some of their trade. He believes it's time to start looking to the west for business associates."
Mateo nodded his head, tossed back his own drink and commented, "After spending time with Savino I believe that he’ll make a good ally."
Sotza lifted his drink in a toast. "To lucrative cross-border alliances. You, me, Reyes and now Savino. Between the four of us, we’ll own a good chunk of this world."
Mateo lifted his glass and toasted to that.
They talked for most of the afternoon, Mateo updating Sotza on each of his Miami contacts and giving the older man a clear rundown on his activities. For his part, Sotza seemed impressed with Mateo’s persistence and ingenuity. Miami was not an easy city to lock down, but it was too lucrative to allow it to fall into the wrong hands.
Sotza made a couple of suggestions that Mateo paid close attention to. Though Mateo had acted as Sotza's second-in-command for two decades, the other man was a born and bred leader. He slept, ate, and breathed organized crime. This was why he was Mateo's mentor.
Mateo left the club feeling good about things. He was now kingpin in one of the most lucrative organized crime cities in the world. He had connections all over the world and was in the process of cementing new ones. The woman of his dreams waited at home for him. She might be angry, but he would always want to see her, want to spend time with her. It didn't matter if she was screaming curse words at him, he would treasure every syllable.
When Mateo got back to the mansion, he decided to give Raina more time to herself and opened the door to his office, smiling, as he did each time he entered. Drop cloths and dust were his new normal when it came to this room. At first, he didn't see her standing among the plastic protectors covering the bookshelves. But then she turned when she heard him, her intense blue eyes piercing him as she tilted her head to the side, her blond hair spilling across her shoulder.
"You're back early," she said softly.
He was usually home around suppertime.
"Finished my meeting and decided I wanted to come home. See how you’re doing.” His words were spoken with the careful deference of the man who knew he'd hurt his lover and didn't want to cause further damage.
She set the tape measure she'd been holding down on the edge of his desk and leaned her hip against the wood. She crossed her arms over her chest and shrugged. A protective gesture he’d come to recognize.
"I'm okay now."
Mateo stepped toward her, somewhat hesitantly. If she still needed space, he would give it to her. For a time. But she allowed his approach, not even a frown flickering her fine brows.
He didn't speak, sensing that she had something to tell him. After a few moments of gathering her thoughts she looked up at him. "Maybe you're right, maybe I shouldn't have babies. I feel strong, I feel tough and sometimes even invincible. When I'm not being shot at anyway." Her tone was wry, though he sensed the underlying seriousness. "But I want the chance to decide these things myself. I don't want to be told something as huge as that I won’t be allowed to give birth to a child. It's unfair. You have to see how unfair it is, Mateo."
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, wrestling with his words and thoughts. He truly thought about simply apologizing and nothing more. He wouldn't reverse his vasectomy; that option wasn't on the table. But Raina deserved more than that. She deserved his entire truth even if it made her angry again.
"Yes, it's not fair to have decisions made about your own body. And I am sorry that you were hurt by this decision. But I would make the same choice all over again. What’s fair and what’s not doesn’t come into consideration when your health is on the line. Free will means nothing to me in the face of your continued survival. Do you understand?"
She nodded, still thoughtful. Not angry, which relaxed something inside him. He expected her fury, understood it even. Instead, she was attempting to see his side of things, though he refused to compromise.
"I do understand. And I think… I think that the way you love me is breathtaking." She stared at him, her eyes big blue pools of intelligence. "I may not agree with you. And I may actively take steps to defy you if we do have a similar disagreement in the future. But, for now, this isn't the thing that will break us."
Mateo's instincts screamed to life, telling him to lay down the law. He should deny her words, tell her that she will never be given the chance to defy him when it comes to her health. But he swallowed the words. He'd had enough truth for now, even though she would absolutely never be allowed to place herself in harm's way.
"What will break us?" he asked.
"I don't know." Her words were almost a whisper, they were wistful and hopeful at the same time.
Mateo closed the space between them, wrapping his hands around her waist and pulling her against his body for a hug. "The answer to that is nothing will break us. I won't let it happen."
She tipped her head back, her eyes shining and her lips stretching into a smile. He hadn't expected this from her, not today, maybe not for many days until she got over the shock of his earlier announcement.
"I won't let anything break us either." Her words were firm with conviction.
Mateo could do nothing other than kiss her. He lowered his head at the same time as lifting her up onto her toes, taking her lips in a kiss meant to convey all the feelings he couldn't express easily. Love, affection, awe, desire, admiration. This woman was the whole package and he was never going to let her go. They would grow old together, they would die together. He couldn't imagine a better life.
He deepened the kiss, his brain automatically searching for appropriate surfaces to lay her out on. He needed to seal this declaration with a solid fuck and he needed to do it now.
Unfortunately, he didn't get the chance. The whole world exploded around them in a deafening BOOM.
Chapter Fifty
Mateo came to first, his ears ringing fiercely, his body vibrating with tension. Adrenaline shot through his body and his fight or flight instinct kicked in. He rolled onto his hands and knees and swung his head around searching for Raina. Dust hung in the air, stinging his eyes, but after a few seconds he spotted her. She was laying on her side facing him, eyes closed, arms curled into her body and knees pulled up to her chest. She wasn't moving.
"Raina!" He bellowed, lunging for her. His legs were wobbly and he fell to his knees next to her body.
He brought a hand down on her hip and rolled her onto her back. She groaned and one of her arms jerked up protectively over her chest.
"Mateo?" The word was faint, and he feared she was injured. Her eyes fluttered open and after a few seconds focused on him, a deep frown etching her features. "Wh-what happened?"
"Bomb."
The word barely left his lips when another explosion rocked the mansion. Everything shook and a deafening cracking sound told Mateo that a loadbearing wall was probably going down. He grabbed Raina, cradled her against his chest and hurled them both underneath the big sturdy desk. He curled himself around her thanking god that she was small. His big body barely fit into the space. He was able to protect his back and head, but his legs were still outside the desk.
He counted seconds in his head, waiting to hear another explosion. When none came, he crawled out from under the desk and stood, pulling his guns from their holsters.
He reached under the desk and took hold of her arm, pulling Raina out. He dragged her to her feet and held a hand over her arm as she steadied herself.
"I'm okay, do what you have to do." Her voice came out in her croak.
He badly wanted to check her thoroughly for injuries, but they didn’t have time. He would have to get her to safety and for that he needed his hands free and Raina on her own two feet.
"Follow me, no more than a foot
behind; keep your hand on my back so I know where you are. We’re heading straight for the bunker. If you see anything questionable you hit the ground facedown and cover your head with your hands. You listen to everything I say. Got it?"
She nodded. “Let’s go.”
He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I love you.”
He unlatched the French doors that led out onto the pool patio and shoved them open. As though he was waiting for them to appear, a man came hurtling toward them, bullets spraying the side of the house. Mateo flung Raina back into the office and shot the man, one bullet to the head.
Whoever was targeting them weren’t professional killers. The man had wasted at least a dozen bullets and hadn’t hit anything important. Mateo felt marginally better once he realized this.
"Let's go." Mateo led Raina through the back doors. "Stay low."
Mateo spotted one of his men and shouted, "Cover us!"
"Got your back," he shouted back.
"Boss!" Angela's voice reached out to them as she rushed through a back door on the other side of the house.
"Meet us at the bunker," Mateo yelled at her.
As Mateo was glancing back to make sure Raina was following close behind him another explosion hit. He lifted his head in time to see the pool house go up in flames as it exploded out in all directions. A split second later the impact hit them.
A piercing pain stabbed Mateo in the chest, to the left of his heart, under his collarbone. He was flung back so hard that he took out the entire patio table set. The metal screeched and then crumpled under his weight as it collapsed into the concrete below. Mateo's head was ringing and his body didn't want to obey him as he shouted internally to get up and find Raina. All he could do was turn his head to the side, eyes narrowed against the smoke in the air and search for her body.
At first, he didn't see her, and panic began to set in. He forced himself to roll off the table, hitting a metal chair in the process and knocking it aside. He landed on his hands and knees on the concrete. The stabbing pain in his chest became nearly unbearable, but not as unbearable as not knowing what happened to Raina.
He swung his head to the side, searching for her as he struggled to regain his feet.
"I got her!" The shout came right before he heard a splash as a body hit the pool.
Mateo watched in agonized confusion as someone swam toward an object floating in the pool. Mateo realized it was Raina as the man flipped her over onto her back and swam her to the edge of the pool towards Mateo.
Mateo dropped to his knees and reached for her, his heart thudding in his chest, each beat causing more and more pain as blood pumped out of his wound. But through the pain, relief shone like a weak ray of light as Raina's pale arm reached out from the pool towards him. She was alive and she was conscious.
He gritted his teeth against the pain as he wrapped his hands underneath her armpits and pulled her up next to him on the edge of the pool. Water poured off her as reached up to swipe at her glasses.
"Got to get to the bunker." His voice came out in a harsh rasp.
Mateo wasn't sure if he was reminding himself or telling Raina. Giovanni pulled himself out of the pool, kneeling next to Raina, his hand on her shoulder, his concerned gaze on Mateo.
"You're hurt."
Giovanni's observation woke Raina up and she craned her head around to stare at Mateo. Her eyes landed on his wound and she cried out as she reached for him.
Giovanni caught her wrist. "Don't touch it. We don't know if it's severed an artery. We have to leave it in there."
She made a pained whimpering sound but dropped her hand to Mateo’s arm. Mateo looked down, only now realizing that there was shrapnel in his wound. A jagged piece of metal stuck out of his chest about four inches.
Raina slid her arm under his right shoulder and looked up at him. "I'll help you. Stand slowly. We'll go to the bunker together."
Mateo thought about telling her to let go of him so she could protect herself but realized quickly he was too weak to continue without her help. He nodded sharply and looked at Giovanni. "My guns… should be over by the table."
Giovanni lurched toward the table, searching for Mateo's guns as Raina helped Mateo stand. He was losing blood too quickly. If he didn't get help, he would die, and he couldn't die before he made sure Raina was safe. They had to get to the bunker. He had to get her into the bolthole.
"Got it." Giovanni came back towards them holding one of Mateo's guns. "I'll lead the way, you two stay behind me."
"Behind the pool house… what used to be the pool house."
"I know where we’re going; I’ve wandered all over this property. I've seen your torture shed."
Of course he had. There was no chance a man of Giovanni’s position wouldn't at least suspect that Mateo had a building on the property for security and interrogation.
As they shuffled towards the back of the property, they could hear a cacophony of noise coming from the house. It seemed like the people who were targeting them outside the house, were now scouting around inside. Good news for Mateo, Raina and Giovanni if the enemy didn't realize that they were no longer in the mansion.
As they lurched toward the outbuilding, Giovanni asked, "Do you know who's targeting you?"
Mateo thought about it. "Could be any number of people."
"It's Desi." Raina's voice held both conviction and a terrible kind of anger that Mateo had never heard from her before. It was a killing anger.
"Desi?" Giovanni asked as they approached the back door of the building.
Mateo gave Giovanni the code and heaved a sigh of relief as the three of them shuffled into the building, slamming the door shut behind them. All was quiet within the bunker. This building hadn’t been penetrated yet. The walls were reinforced, built to withstand bomb blasts that were much bigger than the pipe bombs being blown up around the property.
Mateo knew exactly what his enemy was using as he had spent a few of his formative years under the tutorship of a hired bomber. Sotza had footed the bill for his education, believing that one day the knowledge would come in handy. Ironic that Mateo was now on the receiving end of that education. He didn't believe this had been Sotza’s intention at all.
"Desi hates all of us," Raina explained to Giovanni as they made their way into the bowels of the building. "She was second-in-command to a Mexican cartel. Her boss attacked my mom and stepdad, trying to kill them so they could take the Venezuelan business. But Mateo stopped them and killed Garza. We think it's his girlfriend who's targeting us. She attacked me a few weeks ago."
Mateo hadn’t realized that Raina knew he’d killed Garza. He certainly hadn’t spoken to her about it. Had to be her mother. Fucking woman didn’t know how to mind her own business. Mateo didn’t need Raina getting to know the killer in him; might spook her.
"Nicolás Garza," Giovanni said musingly. "I’ve heard of him. My son attempted to do business with him shortly before he disappeared. I take it that was your handiwork?"
Mateo nodded grimly, unable to concentrate on almost anything besides the pain radiating through him. His body had been through a lot. Gunshot wounds, stab wounds, head wounds. Nothing he’d experienced in the past had made him doubt his ability to pull through. Until now. He feared that this piece of shrapnel was too close to his heart, that he might not survive.
"Through… there." Mateo lifted a bloody finger, pointing down the corridor that led to the bolthole he built for Raina. He mumbled the code before they reached the door, fearful that he was about to pass out. He needed Raina inside that room. That room would protect her from everything, including a nuclear blast.
Giovanni punched the code into the panel and shoved the door open, looking back at Mateo and Raina as he did so. It was a mistake. A shot rang out, Giovanni's head burst into a spray of red, his body hit the doorframe and slid to the ground.
Raina's scream of terror was the last thing Mateo heard before he was shot. His body was flung backward and the world wen
t black before he hit the floor.
He had failed.
Chapter Fifty-One
Raina refused to allow shock to freeze her responses, taking away the precious second she needed to avenge the two men at her feet. She didn't know if they were alive or dead, but she was going to do her best to take down the threat for their sake.
She was going to fucking kill Desi with her bare hands.
Raina dropped to her knees, scooping up the gun that Giovanni had been holding. It was wet with blood. She didn't know whose and she didn't have time to care. She was facing a woman determined to kill her and everyone she loved. Raina rolled to the side of the door as bullets thumped into the wall behind and beside her. The second the shooting stopped, Raina swung her arm around the doorframe and shot at random.
A grunt of pain told her that she'd actually scored a hit. Impressive considering she'd never used a gun in her life. She wasn't about to waste a single second though. She flung herself into the room, crouching low and scanning as quickly as she could. Desi was bent over on the other side of the bed, clutching her thigh where blood was pouring freely. When Desi caught the movement of Raina out of the corner of her eye, she lifted her gun.
Raina got her first, shooting as rapidly as she could until the chamber of her gun was empty and Desi was flung backwards as she took a bullet to the shoulder. Raina was starting to think she was a shooting prodigy, impressed with herself for managing to hit Desi twice.
Raina threw herself across the bed, rolling as she flung her gun at Desi's head, cracking her in the side of the skull with it. Raina smiled grimly as Desi cried out in pain and grabbed her head.
Desi staggered away from Raina, her hand moving to her belt where she pulled a knife, her movements slow and clumsy. Despite Desi having a good four or five inches on her, Raina was able to grab Desi by the throat and swing her into the concrete wall.
Desi’s head hit with a sickening crack. She flinched and shook her head as if trying to clear it. Desi struck out blindly with her knife, finally scoring a hit on Raina. Raina cried out as fire slice through her upper bicep, but she was sure the wound wasn't that bad considering her grip on Desi’s neck remained tight. Raina grasped Desi’s knife hand, slamming her wrist into the wall next to her head.
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