Beautiful Dangerous

by Michelle Betham

  Javier Delgado is alive. And I prayed for that, every night. Every morning, for a long, long time. I prayed for a miracle, and now my prayers have been answered, and yet, all I’m feeling is numbness and a creeping anger I can’t control.

  He lied to me.

  Lucca lied to me. Because Lucca knew, Javier told me. Which meant Lucca let me grieve for a man who had never died, and all along he fucking knew.

  The two men I loved most in the world.

  The only people I could trust. Thought I could trust. They both lied to me.

  “I can’t believe it, Señora Delgado, it truly is a miracle!”

  Celine is like a kid at Christmas, crossing herself constantly every time she glances in Javier’s direction. Her master is home, risen from the ashes like a phoenix, re-born and ready to take over a business that was never really mine. Was he running it all along, from his haven in Sinaloa, pulling the strings, controlling everything?

  “It must have been such a shock for you, when you saw him, no?”

  I nod at that understatement, reaching for a mug from the counter and filling it with strong, black coffee. It still feels like a dream when I look at him, sitting in his chair underneath the tree out there on the terrace. Like I’m still just seeing a vision of him, the one I’ve carried around in my head for so long, but this time he’s really there. He’s alive. My dead husband is alive.

  So why aren’t you happy?

  Why aren’t you celebrating?

  Why…?

  “But this is a time for celebration!” Celine claps her hands together, the biggest smile covering her face, she’s elated that Javier is back. She doesn’t even question what twisted reasons there might be behind his reappearance, or why he had to go in the first place; why he had to put me through hell, it’s all something he has yet to explain to me, too. His being here, it really is a full-blown miracle in Celine’s eyes, and I envy her that feeling. Because I’m still feeling nothing but numb. “I need to start getting everything prepared for the party tonight.”

  A party. To celebrate Javier’s return.

  A party to let people know that I’m no longer in charge, that I was only looking after things until the time was right for him to come home and retake his position as the head of this cartel, relegating me back down to being nothing more than his loyal and faithful wife.

  A party I don’t want to be a part of, it’s too soon, I’m still trying to get my head around it all. But it would appear that I have no say in this, not anymore, and I watch as Celine flits around the spacious kitchen issuing orders to her staff, sending them out to buy ingredients while she starts to gather together everything she needs to bake Javier his favourite cake. Date and walnut with cream cheese frosting. I lean back against the counter and sip my coffee, and as I continue to watch everything going on around me, it feels as if this is something I’m not even close to being a part of. Like it’s happening, but I’m watching it all playing out on a TV screen, it still doesn’t feel real.

  Because you don’t want it to be…?

  Someone else coming into the kitchen forces my attention toward the door, and my stomach twists into a painful knot at the sight of Lucca. I didn’t get to talk to him yesterday. As soon as he’d arrived back at the house he and Javier had disappeared into Javier’s office for I don’t know how long. It felt like hours, and it was obvious they were never going to include me so I’d gone upstairs; holed myself up in my – our – room, took a long bath and lay there, staring at the ceiling, trying to process it all. Lucca hadn’t seemed shocked at Javier’s sudden re-appearance, because he’d known all along that he’d never really gone away. How the lies had dripped from his mouth over the years, and I think that’s what hurt more than anything. That Lucca lied to me, so freely. He’d known all along what the plan was; how Javier had been preparing to come back from the very second he’d disappeared. And the numbness spreads further…

  “Hey.”

  I look up at him as he stands across the kitchen from me, the huge wood and marble island in the center of the room separating us, forming a barrier that he so obviously thinks we need.

  “You okay?”

  I stare at him over the rim of my mug, but I let a few beats pass before I answer him. “I’m fine.”

  I’m not, and he knows that. Javier knows that. I’m just not sure either of them care.

  “Look, Liv, I know all of this – it must be a shock.”

  There’s that understatement again.

  “I never wanted to keep secrets from you, not one that big…”

  “You had no choice.”

  His face tells me I’m right on that score.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  I trusted him, with my life. I trusted him full stop. He knew Javier was alive, and yet, what happened between us… he let that happen. And he shouldn’t have done that, he knows the consequences if Javier ever found out. He’d been willing to put his life in danger to get closer to me, why would he do that?

  Because he loves you?

  Because you love him?

  Yes. I do. I still do. I love him…

  I look away, because my head really doesn’t need all the shit it’s trying so hard to process right now, and this – him. Lucca Pérez is unfinished business, and that’s exactly what he has to stay now; what we have to be. Unfinished. Forgotten.

  He betrayed Javier.

  He lied to me.

  I’m not sure who I can trust anymore.

  “We need to be at the clubhouse in an hour, Lucca.”

  I turn around to see Javier hovering in the open doorway that leads out onto the terrace, his arms crossed, he’s smiling, but I’m still feeling nothing. Not a fucking thing. The numbness is too raw, it just won’t let up. And the fact he’s just walked back in here, and picked up as if the past two years never happened… How can he do that? How can he be so calm? Just slotting back into this life like he’s never been away…

  “There’s a lot we need to sort out with Eddie and the bikers. Can you have the car ready?”

  Lucca nods, grabs a mug of coffee, and leaves the kitchen.

  “Celine, por favor. May I have a moment alone with my wife?”

  Celine bows her head and shuffles out into the utility room, leaving Javier and I alone. An unnecessary action on his part, really, there was no need for him to send everyone out like that, this house is more than big enough for us to find some private space elsewhere. He’s just asserting his authority as quickly as he can, so we can all return to this new normal that seems to have materialized overnight.

  “Are you okay, Olivia?”

  Everyone keeps asking me that, I’m so tired of the question now. Of course I’m not okay, my dead husband is standing in front of me, and I still don’t know why or how or what the fucking hell is going on, and nobody, least of all Javier himself, seems to care.

  “Surely you didn’t expect me to wake up this morning and just slot right back into the life we were living before you – before you disappeared? Your return, Javier. Where does that leave me?”

  He steps further into the room, keeping his arms crossed, his eyes fixed on mine. “You are my wife, Olivia.”

  “And yesterday I was your widow. The head of the Delgado cartel. So, what happens now, hmm? Do I just get tossed aside, thanks for looking after everything but we don’t need you anymore, is that where we are?”

  He smiles and ventures closer still, dropping his arms and sliding his hands into his pockets. “There are reasons why we had to do what we did. I would never have put you under so much pressure if it were not necessary. And you, Olivia, have done a remarkable job in very difficult circumstances.”

  It's hard to tell whether he’s praising me or whether he’s being slightly condescending, I think it may be a bit of both. Was he always that way? Was I so blinded by my love for him before that I just never saw that side of him?

  “
I did what I had to do, for you.”

  He’s right in front of me now, I’m breathing him in, and for a moment I’m lost in memories of this man. Happy memories. Beautiful, heart-breaking, happy memories.

  “I didn’t want you put in any more danger, my darling. That’s why I came home earlier than planned, because you were close to putting yourself in the kind of danger I never wanted for you. And now the war with the Pino cartel has intensified… I had to be here, to protect you. To stop you from doing something you didn’t need to do.”

  “Stop me from killing the men I thought had killed you? And I don’t need your protection, Javier.”

  His face hardens for the briefest of seconds, but the smile quickly returns as he reaches out and cups my face, his thumb gently stroking my cheek. “They will never stop coming after us, mi amor. They are our rivals, our biggest threat, and yesterday was just the beginning of our plan to bring that family down. All of them. It’s been going on for far too long, there isn’t room for both of us, not anymore. And I refuse to lose. Anything.”

  “So you, what? Came back from the dead a little earlier than planned to stop me from acting impulsively?”

  He leans in to me, his thumb digging lightly into my cheek, his mouth almost touching my ear as he whispers, “Exactly.”

  I take hold of his wrist and pull his hand away from me, stepping back from him.

  “I have been consumed by this need to avenge your death, since the moment Lucca told me you’d died. It’s all I’ve been able to think about, the moment their filthy bodies fall to the ground, all breath wiped out of them. It’s what’s kept me going, because I missed you so much, Javier. So fucking much.”

  “I know, baby. I know.”

  “You don’t know a fucking thing. You haven’t been here…” I stop, and I shake my head, a cynical laugh escaping, and he frowns. “You have been here, though. Right? Lucca, he’s been your eyes and ears, your messenger.”

  “If I’d stayed here, Olivia, what’s happening now, it wouldn’t have been so easy. I had to go, to make the Pino brothers think they’d won another round. Getting me out of the way meant that things could move on, before that all our time was spent trying to protect me while theirs had been spent trying to take me out. We were going round and round in this perpetual circle that had no end. So we had to create one. It was the only way.”

  There’s a part of me – the part that’s had to become the woman I needed to be in order to run this cartel – that understands what he’s saying. The part that knows he’s right, but there’s another part of me – the part that is still his wife – that is so fucking angry that he left me the way he did. And I’m trying really hard to put her back in her box, I refuse to play the wronged party, this weak woman who should just be happy her husband’s back.

  Are you happy he’s back?

  I really don’t know…

  “You understand, Olivia? What needed to be done?”

  That video he sent me, the one I received just hours after I’d thought he was gone; the one I’ve watched every single day, I get it now. I get the message.

  You won’t survive, if you don’t remember me…

  Was that a veiled threat of some kind? I don’t know. This man here, he looks like my husband, but the Javier I knew before, I’m not sure how much of him is here anymore.

  “Olivia, please, the one thing you have to believe is that I never, not once, stopped loving you. Not once.” He takes a step toward me, and I let him. I stay rooted to the spot, but when his hand connects with the side of my neck I flinch, and he quickly drops it. “It broke my heart, what I had to do, and I understand that me being here…” He looks right into my eyes, and I am desperate to feel something, anything, but I’m not. I can’t. The numbness is still winning over every other emotion. “It’s a shock, of course it is. And I understand that you need time to get your head around everything…”

  “I do. Need time.”

  To get used to my diminished role. To being nothing more than his wife… No. I’m not taking that shit. I’m not. The woman he left behind, I’m only realizing now how very different she was to the woman he came back to.

  “I can’t just go back to the way it was, Javier. You can’t just snap your fingers and expect me to be okay with this.”

  “I know. I do, I know that.”

  Does he? Really?

  I’d started to move on.

  Started to believe there was a life worth living without him.

  Started to fall in love with another man.

  Started to…?

  “I just need some time, Javier. That’s all.” I try to smile, to show him something that might tell him we’ll come through this, but I’m not convinced that we can.

  Not convinced that you want to…?

  “Everything is going to be okay, mi amor. I promise.”

  His promises mean nothing now. And his idea of okay, is it the same as mine?

  He once again reaches out to cup my cheek, tilting my face up as he kisses me slowly.

  What are you feeling now?

  Still nothing… And does he sense that? Can he feel my resistance? Because when he pulls back from me his smile is a little more strained, falling slowly from his deep, dark eyes. “We’ve been a long time apart, Olivia.”

  He wants to sleep with me. Wants the sex he’s missed, the closeness he might be craving, and I say might because I don’t believe for one second that he’s been alone all this time. That he’s been faithful, all this time. A man like Javier, he can have anything he wants, anyone he wants, whenever he wants, all he has to do is ask. And I find it hard to believe that he’s been two years without any form of physical contact, I know these men.

  “It won’t be forever,” I reply, putting my mug in the sink and crossing my arms against myself, creating the kind of barrier I have never felt the need to put up against this man. Until now. “I promise.”

  And how much weight do my promises carry now…?

  “Have you ever broken a promise to me?” he asks, holding my gaze, and when he smiles it doesn’t reach his eyes. They remain dark. Guarded, even.

  “No.”

  And that’s the truth. Up until now I have never broken a promise to him. Up until now…

  “Good. Because so many others have.”

  He narrows his eyes slightly, holds my gaze for another moment or two, and then he turns around and heads out of the kitchen.

  “Javier?”

  He stops and turns back to face me. “Yes?”

  “Tonight, at the party, I’ll be right by your side.”

  Because that’s my job. My role. For now…

  “I never had any doubt that you would be.”

  Another smile, and he’s out the door, and I lean back against the counter and drag a hand through my hair, sighing heavily, a sigh laced with apprehension, frustration, and fear. And that’s what worries me most. The fear. I’ve never, not once, felt any need to be scared around Javier. But now – now, I do…

  Lucca

  Today, my world became a far more dangerous place. One where I will have to be on my guard, twenty-four-seven, just one, tiny lapse could kill me. What I did, it was reckless. An urge I could’ve fought – should’ve fought, I’m not that weak.

  Except, you are.

  You were.

  You can’t afford to be, ever again.

  “Are we ready to go?”

  Javier approaches the Jaguar, dressed in a dark suit and open-necked white shirt, his black hair swept back off his face, his beard neatly trimmed, dark glasses covering his eyes.

  I open the passenger door, and he smiles at me, giving my shoulder a friendly pat before pulling me in for a hug.

  “What would I have done without you, brother?” He holds me at arm’s length, his eyes fixed on mine, although I can’t see his, thanks to those dark glasses. Is he wearing them for a reason? So I can’t see what he knows? Or am I just being
unnecessarily paranoid? Which could give far more away than if I just acted as though everything was normal. But everything isn’t normal, not even for this world. Everything’s changed, I’ve changed. But Javier can’t know that. “I know I said all of this last night, but I really do owe you, Lucca. I owe you so much, for keeping Olivia safe. For making sure she kept our business alive, this side of the border.”

  “She knew what she was doing.”

  “Yes. She did.”

  “You taught her well.”

  “She’s a very smart woman. She knows how to live this life now.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  He smiles again, sliding his hands into his pockets. “I played my part. But so did you, Lucca.”

  I lean back against the car and light up a cigarette. “So, that’s it? She no longer plays a part in the running of the cartel?”

  “I don’t know.” Javier drops his head for a moment, as if mulling some idea over, and then he raises it; looks around at the perfectly neat grounds that surround this sprawling estate; the gardeners hard at work maintaining the vast outdoor spaces. “I’ve missed this place,” he sighs, taking a deep breath before turning his attention back to me. “I don’t want Olivia put in any more danger.”

  “She can handle herself.”

  “I’ve no doubt she can. But she doesn’t need to be front and center anymore, not now I’m back. It’s my duty to keep her safe, until we’re sure the threat from the Pino cartel is over. With me back, she’ll be an even bigger target than she was before.”

  He’s right. She will be.

  “Come on. Let’s go. I’m sure Eddie is desperate to see for himself what a dead man risen looks like.”

  He climbs into the car and I take one final drag on my cigarette before tossing it onto the ground, grinding it into the gravel with the heel of my boot.