Violent Triumphs

by Jessica Hawkins

  A gurney appeared, transferred quickly from the chopper to the pavement. My heart dropped to my feet seeing the lifeless body strapped to it. Cristiano had never been so still. I didn’t remember running toward him, but suddenly he was within arm’s reach. Gloved hands restrained me. Men yelled at me to get back. Cristiano’s ripped-open dress shirt revealed blood-soaked bandages around a once elegant, now shredded, always powerful torso.

  Cristiano’s body bounced gracelessly on the gurney as they rushed him off the helipad.

  Beneath an oxygen mask, his pallor alarmed me. “Is he a-alive?” I heard myself ask.

  “You have to step back, señora,” one of the men said.

  Alejandro held the elevator doors for them. I started to board as well, but claws on my elbow tugged me back. “They told you to stay clear.”

  As the doors closed, I turned to face the sharp, female voice and acrylic nails that had kept me from Cristiano. Had she not been wearing heels tall enough to turn her into a tree in an obscenely short dress, we would’ve come face to face.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  She released my arm. “I am the reason Cristiano is alive.”

  He’s alive. Was she sure? How did she know? It didn’t matter. It was the only answer I’d gotten so far, and I’d take it. I made the sign of the cross and silently thanked Our Lady of Guadalupe.

  “You,” the woman said over my head to Alejandro. “Are you head of security?”

  “At the moment.” He hit a button to call the elevator back up. “I’m Alejandro.”

  “Ah, yes. You spoke to my pilot.” She held out a hand. “Natasha Sokolov-Flores. An old friend of Cristiano’s.”

  They shook, and Alejandro tilted his head in my direction. “This is Natalia, Cristiano’s wife. She’s as much the head of household as I am while Cristiano’s incapacitated.”

  I appreciated the vote of confidence, especially after Jaz’s earlier opinions.

  Natasha returned her eyes to me. Or to my rings, more specifically. “Is that wise?” she asked. “Cristiano made it seem like this was a marriage of convenience. I’m certain he would not like his business managed by a girl he can barely trust.”

  “And I’m certain he wouldn’t like you speaking to me that way,” I said.

  I was as surprised as she looked at my response. Mindset, Cristiano would remind me. Natasha had the wrong one about me. So did I. Cristiano would expect me to step up in a situation like this.

  “Mrs. de la Rosa has many advisors,” Alejandro assured her.

  Natasha’s eyes flitted over me then back to him. “I’m sure you want to know what happened. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

  She and Cristiano had been . . . together? Tonight? He hadn’t mentioned that on the phone—but why would he? In any case, I couldn’t let that bother me now. Cristiano’s condition was far more important. “We can talk here,” I said. “Now.”

  The elevator dinged, and we boarded. “Maybe it’s better you let us handle the business side of things,” Natasha said to me. “It isn’t pretty.”

  I’d own the ivory tower, and I’d rule from it. Cristiano had told me that once our vows had been exchanged. If I didn’t believe I could take over in his absence, nobody would. “I need to be included in any discussion.”

  She looked to Alejandro as if for permission. “Cristiano trusts her,” he said. “With all due respect, you’re the stranger here, Natasha.”

  The elevator stopped at the house, and the doors parted to the top floor. “Call me Tasha. Cristiano does,” she said, walking out.

  I tried to keep up with Alejandro as he strode down the hall to my bedroom—until he stopped abruptly at the doorway and turned back to me with a frown.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “You can’t let her or anyone intimidate you.” He glanced at the ground. “If Cristiano doesn’t make it . . . you’re in charge. All this is yours. And I don’t mean that figuratively—he was adamant that your marriage be legal.”

  To torture me, I would’ve once thought. Now, I wondered if Cristiano’s reasons ran deeper than that. A need to connect with me on some level when I’d wanted nothing to do with him. An attempt to protect me, even, if something should happen to him.

  “You have my loyalty, Natalia,” Alejandro said, reading my mind. “Cristiano would’ve wanted that.”

  I swallowed, glancing through the doorway. The broken mirror was gone. I assumed the body on the beach had disappeared as well. Alejandro and his team moved fast.

  My gaze moved to Cristiano as he was transferred from the gurney to the bed. “We shouldn’t speak of him like he’s gone. Not yet.”

  The team of doctors worked so swiftly, I could hardly keep the four of them straight, much less get closer than a meter from his bed. In no time at all, Cristiano had been hooked up to a heart monitor that’d appeared out of nowhere, irrigated, prodded, and injected. White patches dotted his torso as IVs branched from his chest, arms, and hands.

  His dark, disheveled hair had fallen over his clammy forehead, and I resisted the urge to push the strands out of his eyes. “What happened?” I asked anyone who might respond. “Was he shot?”

  Tasha turned to me with her slender arms crossed. “Stabbed.”

  This close, I could see Cristiano’s blood had stained her red dress. She’d helped saved his life while I’d been accused of putting it at risk.

  If I had the energy, I’d hate her for having information about my husband that I wanted. And for a pointed chin that gave her a markedly heart-shaped face, her sultry, Eastern European features, and a smooth indistinct accent that made her sound exotic.

  Alejandro beckoned us toward the fireplace and away from the doctors. “Tell us what happened,” he said to Tasha.

  “Cristiano pissed off the wrong people with his little operation,” she said.

  She knew the truth of what went on here in the Badlands, then. She and Cristiano were close—but how close? Enough to have discussed my marriage, but not enough for her to know it wasn’t a complete sham.

  “Cristiano’s operation is anything but little,” I said.

  She lifted a manicured eyebrow. “You’re aware of it?”

  “My husband’s business? Yes.” Across the room, masked doctors convened near Cristiano’s head. I spun my diamond around my finger and added, “We’re already aware Belmonte-Ruiz is behind this.”

  “They hit us here, too,” Alejandro explained. “You said he’s alive because of you?”

  “Cristiano’s attacker is dead,” she said. “I didn’t have time to double-check, but my father’s men have confirmed it, and they’re taking care of the body now.”

  “I have men en route to look for Max and Daniel.” Alejandro glanced at his phone screen. I’d lost count of how many times he’d checked it. “Did you see them at all?”

  “Only at the event,” she said. “One of them guarded the door while Cristiano and I spoke privately on the balcony.” She licked her bottom lip, keeping her eyes on Alejo. “Cristiano left before I did. When I came out, I saw a valet attendant standing over him with a knife. Cristiano had been stabbed several times. The valet was about to finish him off.”

  “And?” I asked. “Then what?”

  Tasha took her time unsnapping her slim, snakeskin clutch. She pulled out a tiny handgun that just fit in her palm. “Elena. Named after my late grandmother. Neither lady has ever let me down.”

  “You shot him?” I asked.

  She tossed her chestnut-colored curls over one shoulder. “Wouldn’t you, darling?”

  My cheeks warmed. Cristiano wouldn’t even let me carry a gun. Where was the White Monarch now? Still in his office at La Madrina? I had the next best thing. My silver, gold, and pearl wedding ring, modeled after the elegant 9mm, had acted as a weapon hours ago.

  “We were talking when it happened,” I said. I’d heard his smile through the phone when he’d realized I was calling out of concern. To ask him to abandon such a risky missi
on. After weeks of resistance on my part, how horrible it must’ve been for him to think he finally had me on the hook—that the only danger was the usual minefield our conversations presented—only to be met with . . . a knife.

  “Did you see his phone, Tasha? It’s offline,” Alejandro said. “Was he holding it?”

  “Cristiano was barely conscious, slurring his words, unable to do much more than lie on the ground,” she said.

  “Slurring?” Alejandro asked. “If he was drugged, it would explain why he didn’t fight back, and why he didn’t alert us to trouble.” Alejandro unlocked his phone and began typing. “See if your men can locate and destroy his cell.”

  I tried to keep up without getting emotional. On the ground? Drugged? Cristiano loomed over everything, and not just physically. At the thought of him unable to defend himself, a lump formed in my throat. “How’d you get him here?” I asked to shift my focus.

  “My bodyguards,” Tasha said. “I didn’t know what else was coming, so we got him into my car. Maksim didn’t pick up, and I didn’t have anyone else’s number, so I called my father. He sent a helicopter for us. We did our best to stem the bleeding.”

  “He could’ve died on the way,” I said. “He should’ve gone to a hospital.”

  Tasha snorted. “Don’t be naïve. They’d have sewn him up and turned him over to the authorities.”

  “Do you think I care as long as he’d lived?” I asked, heat rising up my neck. “It wouldn’t matter anyway if he was detained—Cristiano de la Rosa can get himself out of any situation.”

  “Assuming he survives,” she said, taking a compact from her clutch, “he may not be able to much longer.”

  Alejo paused and looked up from his phone. “What do you mean?”

  “If Belmonte-Ruiz is on to Calavera’s games, others will be soon, too.” She checked her lipstick in the handheld mirror and ran a finger along one corner of her mouth. “Rumor is, Cristiano has stopped supplying arms to those who do business with BR.”

  “And any syndicate heavily involved with human trafficking of any sort,” Alejandro said with a nod. “It’s not a rumor.”

  She glanced sidelong at him and snapped her compact shut. “That’s a big enough number to ruffle some feathers.”

  “It is,” Alejandro agreed. “Especially if the truth about the Badlands gets out. But it’s what we all decided as a team.”

  I bit my lip, struggling to keep up, but still following. The truth about the Badlands . . .

  Gruesome rumors surrounded the Calavera cartel, a reputation Cristiano and his men had cultivated in order to insulate themselves. Calavera was a top dealer in weaponry worldwide, and that made them nearly untouchable. But would it be enough to protect them if word spread that the Badlands actually acted as a rehabilitation hub for those the other cartels had sold into slavery?

  The leaders of this underground world I’d grown up in could justify and support nearly anything. But the disruption of the way things were, theft that dearly cost Cristiano’s rivals, and the unraveling of decades’ worth of industry . . .

  That was business nobody around here would support.

  But it wasn’t anything I could worry about now. Cristiano’s life was on the line.

  And I didn’t want to think of what could happen to all of this without him.

  3

  Natalia

  The balcony doors had been shut, and the curtains drawn, but through the sheer white fabric, the night sky lightened to royal blue as dawn began to break.

  Doctor Sosa stepped away from Cristiano’s bed to make notes on a clipboard. It was the first time she’d separated from the trauma team, and I didn’t waste my opportunity to try to get answers. “Doctor Sosa? I’m Natalia,” I said as I approached her, and added, “de la Rosa. Cristiano’s wife. Is he—will he live?”

  She stuck the clipboard under her arm. As she pulled her surgical mask’s straps from behind her ears, pieces of her light brown hair fell around her face. Judging by her haphazard bun and the puffiness around her eyes, she’d been asleep when she’d gotten the call. “Sí.”

  Air rushed out of my chest. I hadn’t expected a simple “yes” for an answer. I opened my mouth but couldn’t find the words. “He—really?”

  “Cristiano was stabbed three times,” she said. “Two deep but clean lacerations in his abdomen, and one that just missed his heart.”

  I covered my mouth. Hearing his brush with death put so bluntly, my chin wobbled.

  A hand on my shoulder alerted me to Alejandro. “‘Just missed’ is a good thing, Natalia,” he said.

  “Cristiano is very lucky,” Doctor Sosa agreed. “Well, either that or the attacker was extremely skilled.”

  “I . . . what?” I asked. “I’m sorry, it’s been a long night. It sounded like you said he was skilled.”

  “I heard the same,” Alejandro said. “What does that mean?”

  “He didn’t hit any vital organs,” she explained, pointing to her own abdomen. “With three tries, it’s almost as if he was trying not to kill him.”

  “That makes no sense,” Alejandro said. “But it sounds like good news?”

  She nodded. “He’s lost blood, but he’s smart—or foolish—in that he banks some before each major trip outside the Badlands. There are matches within the town who are donating, too.” She reviewed her clipboard and sighed. “Someone less stubborn likely would’ve gone into hypovolemic shock by now, but fortunately, we’re prepared to do a transfusion. I have to observe the wounds for a bit, then once I’m sure there’s no infection, we’ll sew him up.”

  “So he’s going to be okay?” I asked slowly.

  “It’s never wise to make guarantees in this kind of situation, but the outlook is good. There’s some tissue and muscle damage, plus the sutures, so I’ll need him to stay in bed for a couple weeks or so.”

  “He won’t like that,” Alejandro said. “He’s been confined to bed in the past—we all have for one reason or another, and I know him. He’s too impatient. You remember the last time he was shot.”

  I frowned. “The last time? How many times . . .?”

  “He was back in the field soon after,” Doctor Sosa answered. “Just remind him that if he makes this worse, it could result in surgery. Or an infection. Keep his wounds clean, make sure he takes his antibiotics, and keep him off his feet for as long as you can. He should be on the road to normal soon.”

  Normal.

  Did I want that?

  My body answered for me. I didn’t even know how to handle the relief flooding me. I hadn’t prepared myself for good news. My limbs fatigued as exhaustion set in, but I held myself together. “Thank God,” I said. “No—thank you, Doctor.”

  “Of course, but my work isn’t done yet.”

  “Far from it,” Alejandro agreed, looking me over. “Would you take a look at Natalia next?”

  “I feel fine,” I said to the doctor. “Cristiano needs you more.”

  “My colleagues can handle him for the moment. Come. Sit,” she said, guiding me by the elbow toward the couch in front of the fireplace. “I see you have some battle wounds of your own. Headache?”

  “A little, yes.”

  “That’s to be expected. But your speech sounds fine, which is good. Let’s take a look.” She sat me down, unwrapped my bandages, and inspected the cuts. “They look worse than they are,” she observed. “Surface wounds, though the neck and this one on your cheek are likely to leave a scar.”

  I glanced at Alejandro. “At least I’ll have proof I defended myself when Cristiano wakes up.”

  He smiled. “He’ll be in need of some good news.”

  After Doctor Sosa stitched me up, I curled up on the couch, watching them do the same to Cristiano.

  Fingers sifted through my hair. I basked in the comforting touch. Cristiano. He was here. He was . . .

  Injured.

  I opened my eyes. Pilar perched on the edge of the sofa in Cristiano’s bedroom where I’d fallen asleep
in front of the fireplace.

  “How do you feel?” she asked, tucking me in with a throw blanket.

  “Is Cristiano awake?” I asked, sitting up.

  “Not yet.”

  I glanced over at him. The room had emptied out. Only the heart rate monitor’s steady beep indicated any life.

  Pilar glanced at the bedroom’s closed door and whispered, “We could go, you know.”

  I rubbed the remnants of my headache from my left temple. “What?”

  “I . . . about what Jaz said in the panic room . . .” She moved her loose ponytail over one shoulder and curled the ends around her hand. “I know Cristiano is supposed to recover, but anything could happen. You and I could be in serious trouble if he doesn’t. Or even if he does. We could run. Now. Before he wakes up.”

  Had Pilar been paying attention at all? “Nobody runs from Cristiano,” I said. “Especially me. If that were an option, I would’ve tried weeks ago.”

  “It’s probably the last thing you want to think about right now, but this may be our only chance. He’s unconscious. Two of his best men are missing. And the others are distracted looking for them.” She gripped one edge of my blanket. “We can go to your father and Barto. Barto will help us, I know he will.”

  “Cristiano is as strong as he looks.” I shook my head, looking her in the eye. “When he wakes up, and I’m not here, he’ll come after me.”

  With her shirt sleeve, she wiped sweat from her temple. “You could . . . you could kill him.” She winced and rushed out, “We could find a way—poison, overdose, smothering him in his sleep—and escape before they know it was us.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. I understood where Pilar was coming from. In the last twenty-four hours, she’d been kidnapped by Alejandro, ferried to a place rumored to exploit women—run by a man she’d feared ever since childhood, when she’d witnessed him beat up her cousin—and endured an attack that could’ve easily ended her life.

  Since Cristiano’s return to town, the man she’d known as El Polvo had chased her off the dancefloor at La Madrina, made her watch us marry against my will, then ordered her brought here.