Violent Triumphs

by Jessica Hawkins

  “With you.” Jaz’s jaw firmed. “Fine—let’s go.”

  We all tumbled through the door, into the garage, and down the staircase to the cellar. At the door to the panic room, I was shaking too hard to get my thumb on the fingerprint scanner, so Jaz took over. Within seconds, it lit up green, and the lock clicked open.

  I let Pilar and Jaz go in first. After the near complete darkness of the house, the safe room’s overhead lights seared my eyes and turned everyone a dull shade of gray. I pushed the door shut, and the slam echoed in the otherwise complete silence. Even Pilar had stopped crying. Locked in the vault, I pressed my forehead against the cool steel door.

  Cristiano.

  Even from a distance, he’d saved me. If it weren’t for my self-defense lessons, I wouldn’t be standing here. But where was he?

  I need you to save yourself and come home to me, he’d told me once.

  I was home. I’d saved myself.

  Had he?

  My breath stuttered.

  “Cristiano is dead. You have nothing to fight for. Go to sleep.”

  Taunting words as I’d been held down. No air. Barely enough hope to save myself. My throat constricted as ghost hands wrapped around it.

  I made two fists, fighting back sobs that rose fast and overwhelming in my chest. Cristiano hadn’t sounded right on the phone earlier. He’d called my name as if in slow motion, from a distance. And there’d been a man in the background. What had he said?

  My temples pounded as the back of my throat ached from holding in tears. We’d been talking . . . my heart rate quickening with an unfamiliar and scary kind of excitement.

  Come back.

  That was the important thing I’d been trying to find a way to tell him without betraying the person I’d been when I’d arrived here.

  If I’d known those were his final moments, I would’ve just said it.

  Come home.

  I turned and leaned back against the door. One of the walls opposite me had been slid open to reveal shelving, like the inside of a large locker. Jaz passed Pilar a blanket and water, even as she held her gun close in her other hand. In a corner, a TV monitor flickered with security footage of the house. Not that there was much to see when it was deathly still and silent.

  I opened my mouth to tell Jaz what had happened. Maybe I could connect the upstairs attack with what I’d heard on the phone with Cristiano. But Jaz’s words from earlier came back to me.

  If he doesn’t make it back, you won’t make it out.

  She’d warned me nobody in the Badlands would forgive Cristiano risking his life on my behalf. If Cristiano was in danger, I was in danger. Jaz had made herself clear not even hours ago.

  It would be my fault if he didn’t make it home.

  The cost of his life would be mine.

  Pilar was suddenly in front of me, trying to get me to move away from the door. “You don’t look well.”

  “She hit her head,” Jaz said, shifting brown, almond-shaped eyes to me. “Do you feel . . . ¿cómo se dice? How do you say in English? Sick to the stomach?”

  “Nauseous.” Pilar twisted her dark hair on top of her head, secured it in a knot, and took my elbow. “You should lie down.”

  “She should do anything but lie down,” Jaz said.

  “Where’s everyone else?” I asked Jaz. Pilar tugged on my arm, but I stayed put. The pounding in my head could wait. “Where’s Alejandro?”

  Jaz shook her head. “Fighting or dead.”

  “You saw him?”

  “No, but I know. Some cartel thinks it can come in and slaughter us, but nobody who enters will make it out alive. We can defend ourselves, and we will. They can’t know that every person in this home will fight to the death for what we’ve built.”

  The Badlands wasn’t Cristiano’s town. It belonged to all of them. And apparently, I wasn’t the only one Cristiano had equipped to defend herself—and this place—in the event of his absence.

  Pilar returned to the locker, searching the shelves. When the door beeped behind me, I moved, and Alejandro ushered in two women from the staff who ran into Jaz’s open arms.

  I grabbed Alejandro’s elbow. “Have you heard from Cristiano?”

  “I’ve been looking for you.” His eyes roamed my face as Jaz and the women talked over each other in Spanish. “What happened?”

  “Have you heard from him?” I repeated loudly, and the bunker went silent.

  Cristiano is dead.

  This is the price.

  Alejandro glanced at the ground. “I have to get back up there. Stay here until I come for you.”

  “Max?” Jaz asked from across the room. “Daniel?”

  Hearing the names of the two men who’d gone with Cristiano on his mission, Alejandro turned his face away. Grease smeared his cheek. “Nothing.”

  My heart missed a beat as panic rose in me. “Nothing?” I asked.

  “Nobody’s answering my calls.”

  “Maybe they’re not able to,” Pilar said. “They could’ve put their phones down or gone to sleep—”

  “They were attacked, too.” Alejandro sighed, clearly torn about whether to stay or go back up, and maybe even how much he should say. “And in an emergency like this—danger out in the field, an intruder or attack within the walls—we always check in within ten minutes. No matter what,” Alejandro said. “It’s a rule.”

  The air around me constricted. My vision narrowed on a bloody smear on Alejandro’s green, long-sleeved shirt. I could still hear Cristiano’s deep, alive voice over the phone. His hard-earned laugh. His controlled, unnerving command for me to get down to the cellar when the sirens had sounded. There’d been no alarm on his end. Only my name. And the voice in the background.

  “A gift from Belmonte-Ruiz, cabrón. You’ve fucked with us for the last time.”

  “Belmonte-Ruiz,” I whispered. Mexico’s most pervasive human trafficking ring. They wanted Cristiano dead, and with good reason. He’d stolen from them. Evaded their attempts to stop him. Taken pride in hurting them, and in the fact that he was still standing.

  It was only a matter of time before it would catch up with him, though. And yet, even knowing it put his home, his people, his wife, and himself in danger—he’d persisted. He wouldn’t be deterred from helping those who couldn’t help themselves.

  I wanted to be mad at him for it, but it only showed the kind of man he was. A man I had doubted and maligned every chance I’d gotten. Some good in this garden of evil. And I hadn’t gotten the chance to tell him before they . . .

  I choked back a sob. “They tried to kill him.”

  “They might’ve succeeded,” Alejandro said.

  A wave of nausea hit me. I touched the blood-caked gash on my throat. All at once, everything throbbed. My neck. My hand. My forehead where I’d smacked it against the glass, my cheek from hitting the floor.

  “Check her head,” Alejandro said to Jaz. “She looks too pale.”

  “I’m fine.” I had to be. I needed answers, not more problems. I grabbed Alejandro’s rumpled shirt. “You have to find Cristiano. His phone could be broken,” I said. “They could’ve lost signal. Or been forced to leave their things behind. He can’t be . . . he needs us.”

  “I’ve deployed a team to find them,” Alejandro said, a failed attempt to sound reassuring. “According to GPS, Cristiano and Daniel haven’t moved. I think that’s good. But Max . . . his phone is offline.”

  I frowned. “Why?”

  “Hell if I know, but he’d answer if he could.”

  “What happens if you don’t hear from them within ten minutes of an emergency?” Pilar asked.

  “It’s never happened,” Jaz answered.

  “Never?” I looked to Alejandro for confirmation. “In all the years you’ve known Cristiano, there was never once a miscommunication, an accident, a—”

  “Never.” He checked his watch. “We always find a way to make contact, even if we have to find a phone somehow. It’s been over half a
n hour.” Alejo sniffed and grabbed the door handle. “I have to get—”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Pilar said, her voice rising as she glared at Alejandro. “Phones fail all the time. And you need to work on your bedside manner.”

  “I’m just trying to prepare Natalia.” Despite his brusque tone, worry etched the lines around Alejo’s eyes. “Even putting aside the ten-minute rule, if Cristiano was alive, he never would’ve let this long pass without checking on Natalia.”

  Oh, God. My limbs weakened, and I grabbed Pilar’s arm. Alejo was right. Cristiano’s silence spoke louder than anything. He and I had a turbulent history, a marriage that better resembled a battlefield, and we’d been sparring for weeks—but my gut knew. He would’ve done anything in his power to make sure I was safe.

  And even though I’d wished him out my life more times than I could count, I wanted safety for him, too. I wanted him back.

  The world began to swim. I slid down a wall and dropped my head between my knees.

  If I’d had any doubts, they vanished before my eyes.

  Something he’d said at the costume gala came back to me . . .

  It had been Cristiano’s dying wish to hear me scream.

  And the heavens had granted him that.

  2

  Natalia

  My world shook, and I startled awake. Jaz hunched over me, backlit by the humming white lights that seemed as bright as the sun. “What month is it?” Jaz asked.

  “What?” I sat up slowly. I didn’t remember lying on the ground or curling up with a blanket.

  “Do you know your age?”

  “I . . . twenty. Why—”

  “Good enough.” Jaz stood abruptly and moved back to her side of the room. She sat in a corner, pulled her legs to her chest, and held her gun on the tops of her knees.

  I pressed the butt of my palm to my throbbing head to find it bandaged. My hand had been wrapped, too, from the shard of glass. “What happened?”

  She kept her eyes on the door. “You passed out.”

  My vision doubled. Blankets and pillows had been arranged around the room. More women had appeared. Everyone slept except for Jaz.

  “How long was I out?” The question came out as a scratchy whisper, my traumatized throat protesting.

  “I don’t know. A couple hours?” She heaved a sigh. “Alejandro says upstairs is clear, but they’re handling the bodies.”

  “Bodies? Plural? Is there news about . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to say his name. Cristiano. Even thinking it made my heart sink.

  “All the women who survived are in this room.” She shifted. “Nothing from Cristiano.”

  I fought back another wave of nausea. Nothing was the worst possible scenario. All signs pointed to his death. I had to believe he was alive, though. That he, like I, had fought back as hard as possible. For all the faith he’d placed in me over my lifetime, I owed him the same.

  “No one checked in—not Max, Daniel, or Cristiano. They’re dead.” Her small, pointed nose twitched. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “What?”

  “They killed your husband. Not just any man—the leader of a powerful crime syndicate. Our savior. Our protector.”

  I lifted my head. She expected me to take on Belmonte-Ruiz? No. She expected me to cower and fall, or to run away. Maybe that would be wise. If Cristiano de la Rosa couldn’t beat them, neither could I. Then again, I’d just taken down an attacker who’d had every advantage against me.

  But I couldn’t think of something so daunting now. I rubbed my elbows, the newest, but not only, aching spots. “Did you bandage me up?” I asked Jaz, noticing the open first-aid kit by her side.

  “I woke you up to make sure you don’t have a concussion,” she answered. “I don’t think you do.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve done this lots of times for Cristiano and the guys. You’ll probably be fine.” Jaz pulled her knees more tightly to her chest. “Which is too bad. It would’ve saved me some trouble. I told you the price of Cristiano’s life.”

  Mine.

  Pilar sat up from her makeshift bed in the corner, rubbing her eyes. “What does that mean?”

  “Your fate is linked to his.” Jaz looked to Pilar. “Yours too.”

  “Cristiano put himself in danger for me,” I told Pilar. “According to Jaz, it’s my fault if he dies.”

  Pilar raised her unsteady hands to her mouth. “And they’ll kill us?”

  I had always tried to protect Pilar, but if Cristiano had taught me anything, it was that no weapon could match the truth. The more she knew, the better chance she’d have of making it out of here alive. “They’ll try.”

  I held Jaz’s gaze. She didn’t scare me. Her threats only came from concern—I knew, because we were both afraid of the same thing.

  Losing Cristiano.

  And she wanted what I did—his survival.

  The question was why I cared? I’d fought Cristiano at every turn. Stripped down, with no indignation to hide behind, only my basic, unadulterated, inexplicable hope remained.

  That he’d live.

  That he’d come back to me.

  That I’d get the chance to tell him I wasn’t the same girl who’d arrived here. And that I didn’t see him as the same man.

  Time passed differently in the vault. I had no concept of how much of it had gone by when Alejandro finally reappeared.

  I jumped to my feet, steadying myself on the wall when I got woozy. “Well?” I asked.

  “A chopper is inbound. It’s not one of ours, but we’ve made contact.” Alejandro looked from Jaz and the women waking up on the floor to me. “Cristiano is on it.”

  I covered my mouth and released an unexpected sob. “He’s alive?”

  “No sé.” Unsure, Alejandro shook his head. “But we’ve got great doctors on hand to receive him.”

  I’d get to lay eyes on him. Touch him. Tell him I wanted him to stay. That I no longer wanted to leave. “I should be there when he lands,” I said, pushing through a sore throat.

  Alejandro hesitated. “Respectfully . . . you’d probably be in the way. We have it under control. Might be best if you stay down here.”

  “Might be best if I don’t,” I shot back.

  Alejandro arched an eyebrow. Up until now, I hadn’t given him—or anyone—reason to believe I’d want Cristiano to return alive. But despite my best efforts, my feelings for Cristiano had been building. I hadn’t wanted to admit it, but now, I had no choice. I had nothing left to hide behind. My soul ached to my core at the thought of losing him, of never hearing his deep, solid voice again, of things left unsaid.

  “You said yourself Cristiano will want to know that I’m safe,” I said. “Maybe having me there will—will give him hope.”

  Alejandro nodded behind him. “Come on, then.”

  Outside the metal box, my chest loosened. I could breathe again. I was taking action. We made our way briskly upstairs to the garage.

  Alejandro drew his gun as we entered the house through a back door. “Stay by my side.”

  Though some of the lights had come back on, my skin crawled with the eerie stillness, as if the house had been deserted for months. Alejandro stayed close to me, his posture stick-straight.

  “I thought you said the coast was clear,” I whispered.

  He didn’t respond. According to Cristiano, a hundred percent confidence in anything was a death wish.

  We entered a wing of the house I’d rarely had a chance to explore on our way to an elevator I’d only heard mentioned in passing.

  Once we were inside, I asked, “Where does this go?”

  “To the helipad on the roof.”

  We exited the elevator and stepped onto an open, brightly lit landing pad. It wasn’t even the roof—the top floor of the house was well below us. It was just the endless, black night on the top of a mountain. I had looked up into the same sky earlier and reveled in the array of stars. Now, they were in h
iding, drowned out by floodlights.

  We walked toward a raised concrete circle outlined in white paint with an “H” in the center. A team of men in jeans and t-shirts waited, hands in their pockets, furrows in their brows.

  “Who are they?” I asked.

  “The trauma team. Other medical professionals are downstairs tending to the staff.” Alejo pointed to the only woman. “She’s leading the charge and has worked on Cristiano before.”

  I bit my thumbnail, looking them over. I’d only ever known sterile hospitals, white lab coats, stethoscopes, high-tech machines. Even when Papá or my grandfather had needed medical attention, the doctors looked professional. And they never would’ve accepted a female physician at the helm, as senseless as that was.

  “Are you sure about this?” I asked. “I could call my father. He’ll know where to find the country’s most capable people.”

  “Doctor Sosa is highly regarded. Cristiano trusts her.” Alejandro clasped his hands behind his back with an inhalation, searching the sky. “If he’s alive when he lands, he’ll be in good hands.”

  With a whir in the distance, we each whipped our gazes behind us. A blinking dot in the skyline came into view. I laced my fingers over my breastbone as it neared.

  I just wanted to see his chest rise and fall, his lips and hands warm and pink with life, his long lashes flutter as he opened dark, ruthless eyes that would soften at the sight of me.

  Was that so much to ask?

  Please, I prayed.

  I held my hair down as the helicopter hovered in front of us. As soon as the landing skids touched down, the team was moving, opening the door, reaching in, helping out a woman in a short, slinky red dress with legs for days . . .

  The unexpected sight of a siren with curled, auburn hair and fire-engine red lips left my mouth hanging open. Freshly applied makeup made it seem as if she’d come straight from a dinner party.

  “Who is that?” I asked.

  Alejandro followed my line of sight. “If I had to guess . . . could be Natasha.”

  Natasha?

  The name set off warning bells. Cristiano had mentioned a Natasha before, but he’d made her sound fleeting, like a one-night stand.