As if plotting his route to me, Diego rubbed his jaw. He’d catch the blame if we were caught together. That didn’t stop my craving to feel Diego’s lips on mine. He started toward me, but after only a few steps, my father appeared, slapped him on the back, and pulled him away to introduce him to a couple.
I moved through the crowd, catching and losing Diego’s gaze as people passed between us. He shook the hand of an Elvis impersonator as I ducked by a man in a toga. He kissed Catwoman’s cheek but winked at me. I touched my neck in mock-offense and stopped short of face-planting into a wall of a security guard.
“Perdón,” I said as I went to go around him.
The guard moved to block me, and in an instant, the energy around me shifted. I tilted my head back until I was looking straight up at a monster of a man and into the face of a ghoulish black-and-white skull. The blackened eye sockets, rimmed in deep red, didn’t hide the menacing way his eyes focused on me. Nor did the drawn-on teeth, shaped in a sinister grin, disguise his frown—or the flawless bone structure beneath his veneer. Raven-black hair had been slicked back, as stark against the chalky face paint as his tie cutting down the center of a pressed white dress shirt.
He stood as still and straight-backed as a mannequin, looking as polished as one too. He inclined his head toward me. “May I have this dance?”
4
Natalia
It wasn’t a request.
The stranger costumed as a brooding calavera sugar skull wasn’t asking for a dance. There was more than simple bass and gravel weighing down his words—he spoke the way a lion growled, with a snarl and a gaze as powerful as the muscles rippling under what appeared to be an expensive custom suit.
May I have this dance?
No. Neither my gut nor my brain left any room for argument, but my body drew toward his, as if he were the sun pulling me into its orbit. I forced myself to step back. He wasn’t security; he wasn’t here to protect me, but the opposite. He was the danger my father had warned me of. This was a man who walked into a room and left with what he wanted—revenge, money, women . . .
Me.
No one in the room matched his obvious strength. It would take a bullet to stop him.
He’d asked my permission, and though I declined in a whisper, he put a large hand on my waist anyway, drawing me in, towering over me like a threat.
The dancers gave him a wide berth, staying just outside the span of his long arms—as if he might reach out and snatch one of them. He placed my hand on his solid bicep and engulfed my other with a gentleness that contradicted his hold on my side and the severity of his costume.
“I don’t know how to tango,” I said as a Gotan Project song started.
“You’ve been away from Latin men too long,” he said. “Follow my lead, mariposa.”
What made him think I’d been away at all? I’d lived in North America eight years, but the Latina in me would never fade. I did, in fact, have some basic knowledge of the dance and fell into step with him.
“We’re a match,” he said, his eyes drifting over the butterflies in my hair.
“I’m sorry?”
“Our costumes.”
There was no obvious correlation between a sugar skull and a butterfly, but I didn’t dare contradict him.
“Why the monarch?” he asked.
I turned my cheek. Beside us, a minotaur and a French maid danced a beat faster. I wasn’t going to tell this calavera what monarchs meant to me, so I resorted to facts. “It feeds on poison.”
“Milkweed—to render itself unpalatable to predators,” he said, sliding his hand to the center of my back where my leotard dipped. I stiffened as he dug his fingertips under the straps of my wings, into my exposed flesh. “One bitter taste, and the hunter backs off.”
His skin touched mine and stole my focus, just like that. It had taken Diego years to make his first move. Against my will, my nipples hardened between us. “I—I think it’s clever that they do that.”
“It’s just nature,” he said. “Monarchs also represent the souls of the departed. Like me.”
I looked up at him, unnerved at the way his black eyes drank me in. “You’re very much alive.”
Leaning in, he lowered his voice. “It’s said if you whisper your desire to one, it can deliver your wish to the gods on quick and soundless wings.”
I realized he was dancing me farther from the other partygoers. “I should get back,” I said.
“To?”
“My . . . fiancé,” I said, hoping it would fizzle his interest in me.
He stopped dancing. “Your fiancé? What about California?”
My mouth fell open, but I quickly closed it. I should’ve known better than to look caught off guard, having been raised by masters of schooling their emotions. “Do I know you?”
He hesitated before resuming our tango. He danced with precision and a peculiar grace, like a hunting lion. “I detect an American accent.”
Somehow, that didn’t give me any relief. “I have to go,” I said, trying to pull away.
He tightened his grip on me, and with what I suspected was hardly any effort on his part, kept me where I was. “But I haven’t whispered my wish in your ear yet.”
I swallowed dryly, wondering where Diego had gone. Surely, he wouldn’t like to find me pressed against another man. “People are waiting for me.”
His roughened hand constricted around mine. I followed his gaze to the diamond ring on my finger. “Which people?” he asked.
Would my father’s wrath be safer than where I stood now? The mystery around this man stopped me from telling him who I was. “People who would not like me to go missing.”
“Then perhaps they shouldn’t have left you all alone, mariposita.”
“Don’t call me that.” Sometimes, my parents had called me their little butterfly. Even my father knew better than to use that nickname anymore. I looked around the man, panic rising the more tightly he held me.
He drew me flush to him, the warmth of his body contradicting his cold stare. “Then what should I call you?”
My gaze locked onto Diego as he separated from my father and scanned the room.
“And nobody left me alone,” I said, ignoring the man’s question. “I can take care of myself.”
“Is that so?” he asked. “Regardless, I wouldn’t take the chance if you were mine.”
If I was his. My chest rose and fell a little faster, but this time, it wasn’t in fear. His tight, possessive hold made it feel as if he already thought I belonged to him. For a split second, the thought of being at his mercy both scared and excited me. “But I’m not yours,” I said to gauge his reaction.
“I can fix that.”
How bold. Nobody in this world had ever come on to me like this. “You could try,” I said, “but I can promise it wouldn’t go well for you.”
“I like a challenge. Because it doesn’t sound to me as if your fiancé deserves you. He’d be wise to recognize that someone else might come along and show you that.”
I didn’t know many men around here who would speak so shamelessly about another man’s fiancée. “You’re worse than that hag of a fortune teller,” I bit out.
One dark eyebrow rose, his interest obviously piqued. “What’d she tell you?”
I looked around his shoulder and saw Diego wipe his temple as he started toward the dancefloor. He still hadn’t spotted me, but his movements became agitated. I tried frantically to make eye contact. “She told me not to dance with masked strangers.”
The man moved so I could see nothing but him. He had tango-ed us into a dark corner, away from anyone else, and my heart started to thump. He lowered his mouth to my ear. “What if I’m not a stranger?” he asked.
He was playing games. As he isolated me from the crowd, all I heard was Cristiano’s threats to my nine-year-old self. You don’t know true fear.
“What are you doing?” I asked, trying to see around him.
“Tell me. Are you
willing to die for your fiancé?”
The eerie echo of the soothsayer’s words made my face heat with anger. “Are you willing to die for me?”
“Excuse me?”
“If you don’t let me go,” I said, searching for the most menacing threat I could, “I’ll scream.”
“I thought you could take care of yourself.”
“I’m no match for your size. I wouldn’t scream to be rescued, but as the fastest means to get a gun in your face.”
“I see. Do you think they’ll hear you over the music?” he asked, sounding amused.
“I’ll scream as loud as I can, for as long as I can, until my vocal cords give out or I can no longer keep my mouth open.”
A disarmingly slow smile moved over his face, the teeth of his disguise spreading ear to ear. “I admit, I am curious to see how long you can keep your mouth open.”
I shivered at the insinuation and pulled back, this time unable to hide my shock. “You’ve threatened the wrong person. I can have you killed in seconds without lifting a finger.”
“Then I’d like to change my order. Please tell the heavens it is my dying wish to hear you scream.”
He spoke with a rumble so deep, I felt his voice between my legs. And I was sure, by the way his eyes bore into mine, he’d meant me to. He wanted my screams, and to scare me, but it didn’t come from a place of menace. I couldn’t put my finger on his intention, but it was something much more carnal.
We were no longer dancing, but his hand still clenched mine as his fingers buried into the skin of my back. He held me like I was an instrument to be played, one he would snap in half before he gave it up. Not even Diego held me so greedily.
“Then I’ll grant you your wish,” I threatened.
“Your loyalty to him is admirable if not baffling.” He checked over his shoulder, then released me with a bow. “We’ve been discovered anyway. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to take you with me.”
I’ll have to take you with me.
I’d heard those words in my nightmares and any place I was alone in the dark too long. “What?” I asked, my throat suddenly dry as I was transported back to the tunnel.
“I said, I’ll have to take my leave. Excuse me.”
He walked away, leaving me in darkness as I hung on his words, torn between never wanting to see him again and a temptation to call him back—in a way that felt all too familiar.
Diego pushed his way through the crowd. “Who was that?” he asked when he finally reached me.
“I don’t know,” I said, hugging myself. “I told him I didn’t want to dance.”
“And the bastard put his hands on you anyway? I should get Barto so we can hunt that cabrón down and teach him some manners.” Diego searched the space around us. “I told you not to come.”
“You knew I would anyway.”
He paused, then glanced over my costume, and his expression relaxed. “In a mask that didn’t fool me for a second. You make a liar of an innocent butterfly, Natalia.”
“I didn’t lie,” I said, cozying up to him, pulling gently on his bolo tie. The braided leather was held together by a metal shield with his family name in decorative script. “I said I’d stay home, and I did. This is my home.”
He drew his eyebrows together, something unfamiliar sparking in his eyes, but then he glanced away.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
I ducked my head to get him to look at me. “No, it’s something. Tell me.”
“I promise, it was a passing thought.”
I crossed my arms. “Diego.”
He took my shoulders and brought me close to kiss my forehead. “It’s nothing bad. I just had this weird . . . sense of joy hearing you call this place home again.”
His sense of joy was my sinking feeling. Diego’s attachment to this town was stronger than mine; he’d never lived anywhere else. There were times I questioned how devoted he was to leaving here. He said he wanted a life in California with me, yet he continued to embed himself in the cartel and ingratiate himself with my father.
“This place will always be part of me,” I said, “but I can’t call this home again. Not knowing that every day I’m here, every day you’re here, death is a possibility.”
“I know, and of course, I’m in complete agreement that the U.S. is where we belong.” He pecked me briefly and ghosted his thumb over my bottom lip. “Let’s not argue about something we both agree on. We should move before someone recognizes you.”
I ran my fingertip over the curling, cursive letters of the de la Rosa engraved on his metal tie. “You won’t make me go back to the house, will you?”
“Not if you swear you’ll stay by my side every moment.”
“An easy promise to make.” I smiled as he guided me through the crowd by my shoulders until a friend waved at us from the main room.
“There’s an announcement coming,” Tepic called. Dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, fanny pack, and aviators, Tepic was as wild as the curls on his head and only as tall as me, but compact and mighty nonetheless. As we approached, he took an entire tray out of a waiter’s hands. “Come one, come all,” he called, showing us an assortment of narcotics. “What kind of night do you wish to have?”
“A sober one.” Diego waved a hand. “None for us, compa.”
I glanced around the room for the skull-faced stranger. There was something about him my mind tried to grasp on to, like a word at the tip of my tongue.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” Tepic eyed me when I looked back at him. “I’m Tepic, like the city I come from.”
“You don’t say.” I laughed and shook his hand. “Mucho gusto.”
“You must’ve missed the gossip,” Diego said, sliding an arm around my shoulders and looking into my eyes. “Should we let him in on our secret?”
Tepic lowered his sunglasses, gaping. “Talia? I didn’t recognize you in that mask.”
“That was the plan.”
“Costa will be happy to have you here for Easter,” he said, looking up as the music lowered. “Speak of the devil.”
On a large, wide balcony overlooking the main room, dancers stopped the can-can and parted, gathering on both sides of the gallery. My dad appeared through red velvet curtains and came to the railing, scanning the crowd and waving as his staff herded everyone into the same room. I moved behind Diego but kept my eyes on Papá, who looked almost cherubic with a cheeky grin, red face, and his crown tilted to one side. He tapped his scepter against the tile to get everyone’s attention, but the effect was muffled by a clear tarp on the ground. Soon, silence fell over his audience.
“Thank you all for coming to celebrate tonight,” he said almost drunkenly yet maintaining the sense of calm and composure he’d become known for in a world of chaos. “I know you’re all eager to get back to the party and to the drinking,”—he paused for some laughs—“as am I. But there’s a quick matter I want to resolve while all my closest friends and colleagues are in one place.”
Diego glanced over his shoulder at me, his eyebrows drawn in question. I shrugged.
A waiter handed Papá a champagne glass. “On this day, the Cruz cartel welcomes back an old friend.”
A murmur moved through the crowd as Tepic whispered to Diego, “¿Qué está pasando?”
Diego shook his head quizzically, his eyes up. “No sé.”
If Diego didn’t know what was going on, I wasn’t sure who would. I slipped my hand into his and squeezed.
“Years ago, a wrongdoing was committed, and I intend to make it right before all of you tonight.” Papá looked over his shoulder, into the wings. “Let it be known that a Cruz doesn’t cower from his mistakes or turn his back on familia.”
What family did he speak of? I looked to Diego, but his gaze was still trained on my father.
Papá turned forward again, and any belligerence vanished as he fell serious. “And that in the Cruz cartel, no betrayal goes unpunished.”
The audience clapped, ready for a show.
“It gives me great pleasure to present you the leader of the Calaveras,” my dad said. “But more importantly, to accept back into our lives a man who was once like a son to me and my wife.”
“Calavera?” Diego asked. “He can’t be serious.”
“Who are they?” I asked.
“One of the new order cartels that has come to power over the past few years,” Tepic explained quickly.
An “old friend” Diego knew nothing about—and an unknown cartel that had to do with my family? I struggled to connect the pieces. “Why would he . . . who is more like a son to him than you, Diego?”
Papá half-turned and beckoned the suited man in face paint I’d danced with. He stepped forward, surveying the room with black eyes that landed on Diego and me. My heart slammed against my chest as the pieces clicked and the puzzle finally revealed itself.
Father raised his champagne glass. “Welcome home, Cristiano de la Rosa.”
“Puta madre,” came Diego’s slow curse.
Fear flooded my limbs with the same force and speed it had in the closet eleven years earlier. My mind stripped away the face paint and I saw Cristiano clear as day. He was harder, angrier, an indisputable man who’d seen things. With a rippling red curtain at his back, he appeared like a devil looking down on us from hell.
No betrayal goes unpunished. My eyes fell to the tarp. Would he make an example of my mother’s murderer here in front of everyone?
Instead of putting a bullet in Cristiano—who’d had a considerable bounty on his head for more than half my life—my father shook his hand.
My stomach turned over.
Flashbulbs popped as reporters captured the moment.
My father drew his shoulders back. “The Calaveras have risen to success faster than any cartel in México’s history under the guidance of Cristiano.”
The crowd remained silent at first, as if unsure of how to react. Cristiano’s role was widely known in Bianca King Cruz’s death; Diego had led the charge to hunt Cristiano with the help of most people in this room for years.
Violent Delights (White Monarch Book 1) Page 5