Violent Triumphs

by Jessica Hawkins

  I closed my eyes, and instead of fear, satisfaction washed over me. I’d spent so long fighting to distrust every word out of his mouth, especially when it came to the pain he could inflict. I chose to believe him now.

  “Your pussy, however,” he said, spreading my lips with his thumbs. He slid inside me from behind, his complete, staggering length impaling me slowly, until I’d taken him to the root. “That, I will use until I’ve filled you up with enough cum to make up for each night I’ve missed as your husband.”

  The bluntness of his words cut through my haze. “But I could get pregnant!”

  “Me vale verga. I don’t care. It’s too late. It’s already leaking out of me. And your sweet, thirsty pussy will swallow everything, won’t it?”

  I had never wanted anything so badly in my life. I knew no other response except one. “Yes, sir.”

  “Obedient little bride.”

  He put one foot on the mattress, held down my hips, and drove into me so deep, I whimpered. “That’s it,” he said, his voice full of gravel as he hammered me. “I can feel the end of you now, and I’m going to fuck you there until even that gives.”

  My face flushed. The utter and complete fullness of my pussy, the feeling of being more him than me in that moment, tapped into my basest needs. The pleasure intensified as he drilled away until all I could do was scream. I’d never heard myself do such a thing, but I was too gone to be embarrassed that my cries nearly shook the walls. “Yes!” The only words I could form spilled from me. “Yes, papi. Por favor—please.”

  I wanted his release as much as my own and I even tried to meet his penetrating thrusts as I was pinned down.

  Relief came quickly. He ground me against the mattress over and over until I came again.

  My fatigued muscles shook as I relaxed into the mattress. Cristiano took me until the very end, until he delivered on his promise and erupted into my wilting body, breathing life back into me.

  17

  Natalia

  Cristiano sat squarely in front of a large, majestic, burgundy velvet tapestry with golden thread that hung on one wall of the main room. At the head of the dining table, the open floor plan allowed him to see through the house, down the hall, and almost to the entryway. I couldn’t help thinking he’d designed it that way.

  Remnants of our small feast, prepared in honor of a visit from my father, littered the table. Papá had been quieter than usual since we’d returned from a horseback tour of the Badlands. We’d invited him to stay for a few days so we could introduce him to the business he’d become a part of with our . . . merger.

  And, in a way, it’d been an introduction for me, too. We’d made our way through the town square where Cristiano had bought my sandals, click-clacking down the road on our horses. From the outside, who would’ve thought the Badlands would have something as quaint as a Main Street? There were also fully functioning farms to keep residents fed—and even a distillery to keep them in good spirits. Doctor Sosa, who’d tended to Cristiano and me after Belmonte-Ruiz’s strike, ran a decent-sized medical clinic where she regularly saw patients.

  It awed me how well they operated as a society.

  I couldn’t quite read my father’s reaction, though. Today, he’d learned the truth about Cristiano’s business—that Calavera was involved in the flesh trade, but instead of trafficking in people, he was saving them.

  Seated to Cristiano’s right, I took the last bite of chicken mole I could possibly stuff into my stomach and deflated against the back of my seat, covering my tummy. “I’m so full.”

  “It was an excellent meal, Pilar,” Papá said from across the table. He always sat at the head, but there had been no confusion over who belonged there in Cristiano’s home.

  In our home. I suspected it would be a while before it really began to feel like mine. I hadn’t picked out any of these things, or, like Cristiano, overseen its construction from the ground up. It was the people who felt more like home than the Badlands.

  It was him, Cristiano.

  “Should I get the dessert?” Pilar asked and dabbed her mouth with a napkin. When she stood, Alejo and Barto did, too. Her face reddened. “Oh, no, don’t get up. I can handle it.”

  The men exchanged an unfriendly glance. Over Pilar? She and Alejandro had become close spending time together here at the house, but Barto had known her for most of her life as my friend. He’d been quieter than usual tonight, his eyes roaming the room and the company. He was obviously uncomfortable as a guest in the Badlands despite Cristiano’s invitation.

  As Pilar exited the room, Jazmín entered with a tray of tall shot glasses and a liquor bottle that looked more like a piece of art. A pewter mermaid embraced the tequila, her tail gracefully wrapped around a decanter topped with a skeleton.

  “This is a two-thousand-dollar bottle of tequila,” Papá remarked as Jaz poured each of us a shot.

  “It’s aged three years in French oak barrels right here in our region—only a hundred bottles were produced,” Cristiano said. “Sirena del Deseo.”

  “Mermaid of desire,” I translated. Our eyes met. Cristiano and I had snuck down to the strip of beach below our balcony earlier. “Mi sirenita,” he’d called me—my little mermaid—as we’d swum and danced in the ocean, then fucked under the hot Mexican sun.

  As Jaz distributed the drinks, Cristiano brought the back of my hand to his mouth for a kiss. “With the decanter, the artist tells the love story of a Mexican warrior who traveled to the very depths of the sea in search of his beloved mermaid.”

  “How romantic,” Pilar said, crossing the room from the kitchen, her hands full with a cake. Behind her, one of the kitchen staff carried in a stack of plates and silverware. She set toothpicks on the table near Cristiano.

  “Ah, Pilar’s famous tres leches cake,” my father commented.

  She blushed, handing him the serving utensil. “As our guest, you get first slice, señor Cruz.”

  “I don’t think the tequila is meant to be romantic,” I said, back on the decanter. “The warrior on top is a skeleton.”

  “It is a love story, but a tragic one,” Cristiano said, “as he did not survive his quest.”

  The warmth of his palm against mine did nothing to stem the trail of chills up my arm, nor did the graveness of his frown.

  When we all had tequila and cake before us, I asked, “What’s the occasion?”

  Cristiano’s mood lifted with a smile. “Do I need one to celebrate my wife and her family? Salud.”

  We each raised our tequilas with a “¡Salud!” and sipped.

  “Though, if my calculations are correct,” Cristiano added, lowering his glass, “today does mark six weeks since we stood in the church and said our vows.”

  My eyes stayed locked with his. “Six weeks and a lifetime.”

  “Give your husband a kiss to celebrate,” he said.

  I pursed my lips, but not for a kiss. Everyone was watching, and Cristiano knew it. “When we’re alone.”

  “No. Now.” He leaned over. “Come. Un beso.”

  Drawn to him like a magnet, I inclined forward to meet him, balancing on his thigh as my mouth found his, the full, warm lips all at once new and familiar. I curled my fist against his leg. I knew him intimately and still had so much to discover. But I drew back quickly when I remembered we weren’t alone, lowering my eyes to the table as I blushed.

  “What happened to your neck?” Barto’s abrupt question and hardened tone made my eyes jump to his. “That looks like the beginning of a hypertrophic scar.”

  I covered the ugly imperfection as Cristiano and I exchanged a glance. I didn’t want to lie, but we hadn’t broached the subject of Belmonte-Ruiz’s strike with my father yet. The scar wasn’t overtly noticeable, but had started to become pink and raised. I’d originally put on a turtleneck for dinner, but on such a warm June night, Cristiano had said it looked suspicious—before reminding me to wear the symbol of my survival with pride.

  “It’s nothing,” I s
aid with my first bite of cake.

  “She fell into a mirror,” Pilar volunteered. “It broke.”

  Barto snorted, his knuckles whitening around his fork as he turned his glare on Cristiano. “She fell? You expect anyone to believe that?”

  “Barto,” my father warned, then turned to me. “Is that true?”

  “She can’t be honest,” Barto said. “If she is, she may ‘fall’ again. Or maybe it will be Pilar this time.”

  His statement hung as eerie silence descended over the room. All eyes drew to Cristiano. He ate a chunk of his cake, chewing slowly before swallowing it down with a gulp of tequila that must’ve cost thousands of pesos. Looking at Barto, he leaned back in his seat. “Fuck you.”

  Alejandro grabbed Barto’s arm as he tried to stand. “Tranquilo,” Alejo said. “Relax, friend. Cristiano hasn’t laid a hand on Natalia, and he never will.”

  “Why should I believe it?” Barto asked.

  Cristiano sucked his teeth. “Natalia and I need to speak to Costa in private.”

  Alejandro and Pilar stood with their dishes, but Barto stayed where he was. “I’m here to protect and support Costa,” Barto said. “You can say anything in front of me.”

  “That was an order,” Alejandro said, looking down at him.

  Barto fisted his napkin and rose to his full height, eye to eye with Alejandro. “I don’t take orders from him. Or you, pinche pendejo.”

  “Please, stop,” Pilar said, touching Barto’s forearm and drawing Alejo’s gaze there. “Alejandro is not an eff-ing a-hole, and I know you’re just being protective, but we’re all on the same side. Cristiano has been good to Natalia.”

  “Thank you, Esmeralda,” Alejandro said, and Pilar blushed at her new name.

  Barto’s brows drew together. “Esmeralda . . .?”

  Cristiano addressed my father. “You can fill Barto in on everything later.”

  Papá nodded once. With the dismissal, Barto threw his napkin on his plate of half-eaten cake and strode from the room with Alejandro and Pilar behind him. The last thing I heard was Alejandro’s taunt. “Try to keep up, Barto. Pilar goes by Esmeralda now.”

  When we were alone, my father licked his fork clean. “Pilar really is a good baker, like her mother.” He sighed, setting the utensil on his plate as his expression cleared. “It’s a lot to take in, Cristiano, everything you showed me here.”

  “It’s truly remarkable, isn’t it, Papá?” I really wanted him to like it here—to be as impressed by Cristiano as I was, and to feel welcome to visit whenever.

  “I would feel a little claustrophobic,” he said.

  “Beyond the walls, you have open desert on three sides and the whole sea behind you,” Cristiano pointed out.

  “What good is that?” He shrugged. “The ocean traps you in.”

  “No, señor,” Cristiano said. “We have a small naval fleet so that makes land, air, and sea wide open to us. The ships are stored inside the mountain, where we’ve hollowed it out.” He winked at me. “Did I mention there are jet skis?”

  I suppressed a smile. No, he hadn’t. I discovered more of the Badlands’ secrets each day and had just learned about the mountainside that afternoon—but there’d been no mention of watersports. Was there anything they hadn’t thought of?

  “What I love, is that it’s self-sustaining,” I told my father. “The woman who made my wedding rings, Teresa, is also an electrician thanks to education she received after her arrival. Another couple makes the smoothest tequila from blue agave grown right here.”

  “Está buenísimo,” Cristiano agreed. “So good, we keep it on hand here.”

  “Everyone has been trained in a trade or skill,” I said.

  “That’s intentional.” Cristiano spun his tumbler on the table. “It gives me pleasure to see them well-fed, healthy, and happy, but should the Badlands dissolve tomorrow, its people would survive. And if something happens to me, Max knows . . .”

  He stopped.

  It wasn’t the first time Cristiano had referred to Max as if he was still around. And without fail, I’d see the moment Cristiano realized his mistake, pain flashing across his expression. As I’d learned with my mother’s death, one way to help ease grief was with memories. Max wasn’t dead that we knew of, but I was pretty sure Cristiano believed he wasn’t ever coming home. I couldn’t personally think of an instance in which a cartel had captured and then released a rival.

  I covered Cristiano’s hand with mine. “How did you meet Max?”

  “Like everyone else,” he said, blinking his dim gaze to me. “Each of us, down and out, were looking for a leg up. We made our own leg up and then helped the other. In the early days after I’d left the compound,” he said, looking to my father, “I’d gamble. Turn twenty pesos into forty, forty into a hundred.”

  I eased back against my seat with my tequila, content to learn something new about Cristiano’s past. “I didn’t know that.”

  With a nod, he continued, “Max was also scraping by. One night, I lost nearly everything. He’d had a winning streak. He let me stay with him until I was back on my feet, and when the tables turned, and he needed me, I was there. It’s been that way ever since.”

  “So how come he wasn’t—isn’t Lord of the Badlands?” I asked.

  Finally, I got a smile from Cristiano, albeit a crooked one. “Diplomacy doesn’t suit him. He’d rather do what needs to be done.”

  “Ay, and you’re diplomatic?” I asked.

  With a chuckle, he raised his glass. “To Max. Ugliest son-of-a-bitch I ever saw but with a beautiful heart.”

  The three of us clinked glasses again. “Your camaraderie, your operation—it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen in my lifetime,” my father said. “But what’s perhaps most impressive of all is that you’ve managed to keep it a secret.”

  “The secret’s getting out,” Cristiano said frankly. I knew it was anything but easy for him to say, but he wasn’t one to sugarcoat things. He cleared his throat. “There was . . . an attack.”

  My father’s dark, bushy brows lowered as he set down his shot glass. “Here?”

  “Sí. And Natalia was a target.”

  “¿Qué?” His voice, which had become more sonorous with age, was the only one I’d heard go deeper and gruffer than Cristiano’s. “When was this? Why didn’t I know?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Cristiano was the one who got hurt, but we couldn’t say anything because nobody outside of here could know he was injured.”

  Papá leaned over the table, his hands two fists on the wood surface. “When was this?”

  “About a month ago,” Cristiano said.

  “A month! You should’ve told me as soon as I walked in the door.” He slapped the table. “Sooner.”

  “Your blood pressure, Papá,” I said.

  He drew back. “Eh? What about it?”

  I had no idea of my father’s vitals, that wasn’t something he was inclined to share with me. But it sounded like the right thing to say, and he looked confused enough to forget his anger for a moment.

  Apparently, the art of distraction worked in more scenarios than hand-to-hand combat.

  “Is that where you got the scar?” he asked me. “You lied to Barto.”

  “Because I knew how he’d react.”

  He waved a hand dismissively, sat back in his seat, and pinned us each with a look. I couldn’t help feeling like a student in the principal’s office. “What happened?”

  My father listened silently and unflinchingly as we told him the details of the strike, right up to the aftermath, including how Alejandro and his team had been out in the field, but had come up empty-handed so far.

  “Are you asking for my help with an army?” Papá finally asked.

  “No—this leads me to other news,” Cristiano said. “I mentioned I spoke with Natasha Sokolov-Flores at Senator Sanchez’s event. You know how powerful her family is. Together with Alejandro, they were able to find Vicente Valverde.”

&nbs
p; At the mention of his old enemy, my father’s face changed, his only reaction in minutes, aside from asking for clarification or sipping tequila. “Vicente Valverde is dead.” He looked to Cristiano and laced his fingers on the table. “I would’ve hunted him down and killed him after what the sicario told us, but many confirmed he died of a stroke.”

  “A stroke of good luck to get away with it so long, perhaps,” Cristiano grumbled. “But his luck has run out. Vicente is very much alive and waiting to see you.”

  He stilled, his wrinkles easing as a frown slowly overtook his face. “What are you talking about?”

  “The Valverdes vanished too easily,” Cristiano explained. “I wondered why, and simply bringing you a hitman wasn’t enough.” He extended his arm toward me on the table. “I wanted you both to be able to face those responsible for Bianca’s attack, and now I have brought you all but one.”

  My father’s weighty stare shifted from my husband to me and back. “Let’s move somewhere private, Cristiano. Bring those Honduran cigars you’ve been going on about.”

  Cristiano shifted in his seat. “Natalia already knows everything.”

  “We shouldn’t discuss such violent and traumatic things in front of—”

  “I’ve faced Valverde myself,” I said. My father needed to start understanding I wasn’t Cristiano’s cartel princess. Like my mother, I was learning how to be a partner in this. “I’ve seen his battered face, heard his vile excuses and admissions—including, for the first time, that my mother was raped. I knew it happened, but nobody ever told me. I had to wonder for years, then hear it from Vicente Valverde.”

  My father’s face paled. “Why would I tell you that? Learning of Bianca’s final moments nearly finished me all those years ago. I kept it from you to protect you.”

  Cristiano flipped up his palm on the table and gestured for mine. I took his hand. “She’s tougher than you know, don Costa,” he said. “Keeping her in the dark does nothing but harm her.”