Cristiano and my father had decided Diego’s fate for him. Instead of inheriting the legacy his family had built, Diego would forever be a charge, second in command, “just another worker” as he’d once bitterly referred to himself. He’d lost his family and his empire, as had Cristiano—but at least Cristiano’d had a say in it.
But all of that was erased by the deliberate, calculated betrayal that had cost my mother her life. Diego’d made that choice when he could’ve easily gone to my father and saved her. So no, I couldn’t understand.
My jaw ached, molars grinding together. “You should’ve known, no matter how much I loved you—I would’ve never stood by your side and played with people’s lives.”
“You would’ve. You will,” he said resolutely. He held up the small envelope, then tucked it into the neckline of my dress, over my left breast. Close to my heart. “Just remember this if you’re tempted to do anything stupid.”
I’d been grateful for the duct tape a moment ago, but suddenly, it was excruciating that I couldn’t lash out at him or cover my stomach to protect what’d only just begun to grow inside me. “Cristiano won’t play your games. He knows I’d rather die than let that happen.”
“It’s not your choice.” He checked his watch, then walked to one of the large windows to look into the warehouse. “Costa, Cristiano, and I each love you, but we’ve all used you as a pawn.”
While his back was to me, I glanced at the surveillance screens. Two men guarded the inside of the warehouse, though I couldn’t tell where they were in relation to us. Two more milled out front, while one stood at the gated entrance. Five. Numbers six, seven, and eight held assault rifles and walked the perimeter, which was surrounded by large trees.
“Cristiano will comply,” Diego said, still looking off into the distance. “He loves you, and he of all people knows that being with me is a fate far better than the hell I could arrange for you.”
It took a moment for his threat to sink in. He could sell me. As his father had Angelina. I didn’t want to believe he was capable of it, but the truth was, I didn’t know the level of depravity I was dealing with. And the worst part was that Diego knew exactly what a threat like that would do to Cristiano. It may even be enough to convince him to cooperate.
With a series of beeps, Diego took his phone from his pocket and hit a button to speak into it. “Bueno.”
“Listos,” came a man’s voice through the speaker.
Ready.
Diego returned to the computer beneath the monitors and the security footage flickered off.
My insides twisted. Something was happening. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t worry. Cristiano will cooperate to keep you safe.” Diego opened a closet and removed a tripod. He set it up behind the desk, in front of the control panel. Next, he took a smartphone with a bulky case out of a desk drawer and swiped his thumb over the screen. “Knowing I have you will torture him. You saw the way he tried to feed me to the Maldonados. I couldn’t let that go, Natalia—you know that. Cristiano deliberately provokes his enemies, and he shouldn’t be surprised when that comes back around to him.”
I couldn’t argue that Cristiano was a good man, or even deserving of what he had. He, like Diego, my father, and myself, had committed many sins. But I loved him for who he was, flaws and all. I couldn’t ask for a better partner or for a better father to our future child.
When did one become a mother? I wasn’t sure, only that I already felt extremely protective. Maybe it had to do with what lay ahead more than anything. Since I’d suspected the pregnancy, I’d started to envision a new life with Cristiano. Our latest adventure—parenthood. Gruff, rough-around-the-edges Cristiano cradling a newborn son in both hands. Me, passing on the lessons I’d learned to a daughter and thereby honoring her grandmother and her father, who’d both taught me strength.
I had to do whatever I could to protect that.
Survival, no matter what.
Red lights flickered on the TV screens directly in front of me. Images flashed on and off.
Diego hummed with satisfaction, screwed the smartphone onto the tripod by its case, and stepped back before he spoke into his own phone. “We’re connected. Put them through.”
“What is this?” I asked hoarsely, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
He aimed a small remote at the smartphone and pushed a button. “We’re streaming. Look into the camera and say hello to your husband.”
24
Cristiano
It took me a moment to register what I was looking at.
A well-lit office. A metal chair in the center. My wife.
Blood rushed in my ears. My heart thrashed hard enough to deafen and disorient me.
My team and I had scoured the abandoned parade.
As soon as guns had come out, people had cleared the area quickly, except for a few bodies in the middle of the road who’d possibly tried to stop them. Who were they? Who’d taken my wife? All anyone could tell me was that men in black, some costumed, had put her into a van and vanished.
Just like that.
Costa’s and my choppers had been dispatched but had yet to find anything.
I’d trampled fallen crepe streamers, glitter, and plastic plates and forks looking for a clue—anything—until we’d received word that her abductors wanted to make contact, and we’d rushed back to the Badlands.
Now, Costa and I stood in the basement control center as Gabriel patched through a live video feed to our security monitors.
Natalia.
Her dress, colorful against a gray backdrop, remained intact—gracias a Dios. There were no injuries that I could see. Her hands appeared to be bound behind her back, but she wasn’t gagged.
“Natalia, mi amor,” I said, surprised at the even, calm tone of my voice. I may have learned to keep my composure in a threatening situation, but this was something else entirely. This was my entire fucking life. “Can you hear me? Where are you?”
She nodded almost imperceptibly, but her eyes shifted to the side of the camera. She wasn’t alone.
I prayed she’d been taken for ransom by some recklessly stupid faction and that Belmonte-Ruiz hadn’t broken their truce.
But why should the devil’s prayers be answered?
“Brother.”
Chills spread over me at the all-too-familiar voice. One I’d never mistake. One I never thought I’d hear again.
A face resembling my own filled the screen, but it might as well have belonged to a stranger. My brother. Diego.
What the fuck. He was alive. Everything in my body ceased to function. I froze, and it was a good thing. I never wanted Diego to think he’d caught me off guard.
He blocked Natalia as he looked from me to Costa and back. “Good. You’re both here.”
My hands twitched with the urge to reach through the screen and wrap my hands around his neck, tighten them slowly so he’d experience the crush of every delicate bone, the collapse of his windpipe—
“You don’t know what you’re doing, boy,” Costa said from beside me, his voice reverberating through the room. If he was shocked to see his former charge, he didn’t show it. “Let her go. She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“She has everything to do with this.” Diego retreated until Natalia came back into view. She focused her eyes above the camera lens.
On me?
“Natalia.”
She closed her eyes, swallowed, and reopened them. I couldn’t miss the fire in them as my own stare bored into her.
You’ve got this, I silently told her. Be strong. We’ll get you out of this.
“This will be easier for all of us if Talia’s alive,” Diego said, removing a gun from the inside of his jacket. “I love her and don’t want to hurt her. But let’s get one thing straight—I will put a bullet in her pretty face if I have to, so don’t do anything I don’t explicitly instruct you to.”
Rage burned up my chest like heartburn of days past. Days
past—since Natalia had decided to change my lifestyle. She wanted me healthy. That was my fucking wife, taking command of me when I’d never let anyone tell me how to live. Anyone but her. The love of my goddamn life.
My throat closed. I breathed in and out, willing my fury away. Anger would only blind me.
Focus.
Diego had loved her in his own selfish way. I believed when he said he still did. But she was more than that to him. She was my weakness, and Diego had always known it.
I had to trust Natalia could get herself out of this after all the drills we’d run, the moves she’d perfected, and the countless hours I’d spent punishing her and myself for the fact that a man had come too close to taking her from me months ago.
A roll of duct tape on the desk gave me hope—she’d be able to free herself if that was what he’d used to bind her hands.
And I didn’t miss the way Diego stupidly turned his back to her.
He trusted her—that was good. But even better—he didn’t seem to consider the possibility that she could fight back. He’d never seen her as anything other than precious. Breakable. Compliant.
But she was none of those things, and if she ever had been, it’d been a product of her environment.
She could take him on.
She had to.
She just needed to free her hands, and I needed to keep his eyes on me and off of her.
Reluctantly, I tore my gaze from her and returned it to Diego, who was watching me with a hint of a smile. He knew this was killing me. “What do you want?”
“It wasn’t so long ago that I asked you the same thing.” Diego put a hand in his pocket and inspected the other, running his thumb along a tattoo on the inside of his ring finger. “You and I stood across from each other in your office as you stripped away my options until there was only one left—submit to the Maldonados and face death.”
Aren’t we a little old for story time, Diego? I bit my tongue. I could think of a thousand responses that would bruise Diego’s ego as I slowly worked my way under his skin. I had rattled him before, like that day at La Madrina. But Natalia could pay the price for provoking him. I had to grin and bear it.
“You thought you had me,” Diego continued. “You should’ve known not even my death would end this. Aren’t you curious how I’m still alive?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t give two shits about that or any other lie you’ve spun to justify the way you are.” Natalia jerked silently behind him. She was working her hands free. As Diego started to turn, I said, “Why are you doing this?”
There were plenty of things I wanted to say to him for his involvement in Bianca’s death, but none of it was more important than holding his attention. Keeping it off Natalia. Keeping her safe. And finding her.
Gabriel, Max, and Alejo monitored everything from the next room, searching for clues on the screen that might indicate a geographic location, listening for any valuable information Diego might slip up and reveal. He wasn’t stupid enough to make a traceable call, but this connection was all we had.
Diego crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve never met a man more willing to betray family—or turn his back on the world he was raised in. Everyone now knows you as a traitor. You continue to bring shame to our name long after our parents’ death.”
Good. I could think of no greater compliment.
“For Cristiano, blood doesn’t make family,” Costa said, seething beside me. “His loyalty to me has stood the test of time and circumstance. He is mi familia.”
I put my hand on Costa’s elbow to show my gratitude but also to warn him to control his reaction. It was torturous not to look at Natalia every few seconds, but if I did, Diego might, too.
“Costa,” Diego said, shifting his attention away from me, “you would’ve crumbled without me. Your cartel is what it is because of me. You were inconsolable after Bianca’s death, but I propped you up. After that, you only kept up with demand and the new order because of the technology and fresh ideas I introduced.” Diego leveled his unblinking stare on Costa. “I oversaw the development of our advanced tunnel system into the States myself,” he said simply. “I made most of the connections we needed at the border. I know your business better than anyone.” He stuck his hands into his pockets and shook his head. “And without so much as a second thought, after twenty years of loyalty, you kicked me out of the home where I’d spent the majority of my childhood.”
“Loyalty?” Costa boomed. “You killed my wife.” Costa barreled toward the camera, gripping it with both hands. “Your betrayal cost us everything, and me las vas a pagar—I will rip your balls off for it,” he said, spittle covering the lens. “I won’t let you take my daughter, too.”
Diego ran his tongue along his upper teeth. He’d finally gotten the reaction he’d come for.
“You’ve only paid half the price for killing both my parents, don Costa,” Diego responded coolly. “An eye for an eye means you owe me a life still.”
“Then take mine,” Costa said.
“Too easy. I’m willing to negotiate, though. I won’t kill Natalia as long as you do what I say.” He glanced at me. “I should like to have her by my side in this next venture.”
Over my dead and rotting body. My hands throbbed from clenching them, but I couldn’t get myself to release my fists. Couldn’t let my anger drown out my reason. Revenge blinded Diego to the fact that Natalia was not the weak girl she’d once been. I couldn’t let it distract me, too.
She needed my entire focus.
Keep her safe. Get her the fuck out.
I glanced over my shoulder as Maksim entered the room. His haggard face turned sheet-white as he crossed himself and uttered something in Russian. “I saw your corpse,” he said to Diego.
“You saw what I wanted you to see.” Diego cleared his throat. “Get out.”
Max and I met eyes briefly. Did he know anything? Not yet, it seemed. He walked out.
“How’d you learn about the tunnel in my home?” Costa asked, his tone level now. “Nobody knew but Bianca, Natalia, and me.”
Diego glanced briefly at the ground and back up. “With an abundance of patience. I watched. I waited. I learned the security codes, I learned about your underground secrets. I left the door open for the sicario when I knew you’d be out of town.”
“What about the safe?” I asked.
Diego smirked. “The valuables and cash in there totaled well over a million dollars. In exchange for the contents, the hitman provided me a weapon, bank account transfer info, and hidden camera footage linking Vicente Valverde to Bianca’s murder.”
“Which you used to run them out of town,” I said. “And Natalia was supposed to be at the parade, but what about me?”
“I was as shocked as both of you when I walked into the bedroom. I knew what was supposed to happen, but seeing her there was still difficult.” He paced to one side of the room, glancing through a window into the warehouse, then turned to me. “You found Bianca, Cristiano, and I found you, gun in hand,” he said. “It wasn’t part of the plan, but it worked out well. I would’ve killed you if I could’ve. Either way, I would’ve been the hero.”
Natalia stilled. Her lips twitched. She wanted to speak. To rail. To protect me when she was the one in danger.
Stay calm. I had to will it to her without looking at her for more than a couple seconds.
It couldn’t be easy for her to hear all this, but she needed to keep her mouth shut and focus on escape.
“Get to the point, rata,” Costa said on a growl. “Why are we here?”
Diego’s jaw ticked. He didn’t like being called a rat, especially by the man who’d murdered his parents. Costa needed to stop poking him. If Diego took his anger out on Natalia, I would find a way to get in that room, even if it meant climbing through the camera lens. But his pinched expression quickly returned to neutral.
“You work for me now. Comply, and Natalia will be safe. She’s angry with me now—I have you to blame for
that, brother.” Diego rolled his shoulders. “But once your spell has worn off, we’ll return to the way we were. If you care for her, too, you’ll accept it, because she’ll be happy here. She will be loved—by me.” He bit his bottom lip and added, “Every night, to make up for all the time you stole from us.”
No.
My heart pounded as I fought off the image of them together.
Don’t react.
This wasn’t about me.
I wiped beads of sweat from my upper lip. I had to focus on her, but she seemed so far away. I couldn’t see her as well as I wanted. I didn’t know if she sweat, too, or if she shivered instead. If her rage heated her, or if icy hatred took over. She needed me. My warmth.
My breathing grew more ragged. Don’t think of Diego’s hands on her.
Did she feel strong? Or did she struggle to separate the person in front of her from the boy she’d known?
“We’ll get to her before you ever touch her,” Costa said. “I promise you that.”
Whether he promised Diego, Natalia, or me, I wasn’t sure, but he was leveling threats that could only hurt us. I looked over at him. His corded neck and beet-red face said it all. He was trying to fight off the same images as I was.
“Tranquilo,” I said to him under my breath to remind him to stay calm, but he kept his eyes laser focused on the screen.
“Is it worth losing Natalia?” Diego asked, his nostrils flaring. “Because if I hear even a whisper that you’re trying to find our location, I will take her life, and then you and I will be at all-out war. Your armies together are strong—but Belmonte-Ruiz’s is now three times the size it used to be, and it’s growing every day as word spreads about how you’re working for the wrong side.”
I didn’t doubt that now. I hadn’t blindly trusted Belmonte-Ruiz’s truce, but the more time that’d passed, the less concerned I’d become. They’d held up their end of the bargain by moving on to other ventures. Our informant had been killed; we hadn’t replaced him. And foolishly . . . I’d wanted to believe we could all live in peace. Because Natalia and I were ready to start a family, but we wouldn’t during a war.
Violent Triumphs Page 23