“Friends, por favor,” Papá said in a less jovial tone. “Show my compadre some respect so we can get on with it.”
People applauded as Diego and I stood frozen. He squeezed my hand until it hurt, but I couldn’t speak, even if I wanted to. I would not show dirt respect.
“If my wife were here, I know she would feel the same,” my father continued.
What? My gut smarted as if I’d been sucker punched.
“This cannot be,” Diego said, staring up at his brother. Cristiano watched us back, still as polished as a mannequin.
I had danced with him. Let him touch me, hold me, whisper in my ear. A crook, a ruthless monster, and a cold-blooded killer.
Did I know somewhere deep down it was him?
I silenced the thought. I wouldn’t have danced with him knowingly.
By the way he set unforgiving eyes on me, Cristiano knew exactly who I was—and he hadn’t forgotten anything about that day eleven years ago.
Diego followed Cristiano’s heated gaze to me, then pulled me possessively into the crook of his arm.
“Cristiano has come to me with new evidence in the death of my beloved wife,” Father said, passing his drink to a member of the staff. “Que su alma descanse eternamente en paz,” he added, making the sign of the cross as he wished eternal peace on her soul. “Cristiano de la Rosa did not kill my wife.”
I covered my mouth to silence my gasp, but it didn’t matter—everyone around me was just as shocked. What was my father saying? Why was he dishonoring my mother this way?
Cristiano looked out over the crowd. “It’s good to be welcomed back to a home I have missed,” he said. “But there’s a more pressing matter to address.” He held up a gun. The warm light of the chandeliers flashed off burnished gold, sleek silver, and milky pearl.
White Monarch.
I grabbed onto Diego’s arm. “What’s he doing?”
Cristiano handed it to my father, then disappeared behind the curtain. He returned dragging a bloodied-and-bruised older man whose hands were bound in front of him. He released the man’s bicep with a push, and he stumbled to the railing, next to my father. Blood soaked his light t-shirt.
Diego stepped backward. “Fuck.”
“Who is that?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Diego said without removing his eyes from the balcony. “Look away, Natalia.”
“This sicario, who doesn’t even deserve to be named, defiled and killed Bianca Cruz,” Cristiano said, “and he is my gift to her family.”
I covered my stomach. It wasn’t possible. I’d never seen that man—
My father put the gun to the hitman’s temple. To the thrilled screams and cheers of the crowd, he pulled the trigger and blew up his head like a firework.
5
Natalia
My bare feet sank into the soil of my mother’s garden as I emptied the contents of my stomach onto one of her rosebushes. Diego held my heels in one hand, dodging my wings as he tried to keep my hair off my face. Everything was a blur. I didn’t remember screaming with the crowd, running out, or ripping off my mask and shoes.
“Careful for the thorns,” Diego said about the bushes.
My eyes watered, blurring the roses’ blood-red color. A man’s head had exploded. His brains had splattered across the tarp. His body had crumpled at my father’s feet. I held onto Diego’s arm until I could stand without wobbling.
Loitering by the fountain, Tepic pushed his aviators to the top of his head and chuckled through the cigarette in his mouth. “You okay, Talia?” he asked. “What a show, eh?”
At least Diego still possessed enough compassion to look as ill as I felt, his face colorless and drawn. He smoothed my hair off my forehead gently but said to Tepic, “Shut the fuck up. Can’t you see she’s sick?”
“What’s the matter, Diego?” Tepic asked, getting another cigarette and his lighter from his fanny pack. “You look like you’ve never seen a man’s head blown off. Or blown it off yourself.”
Diego rubbed the inside corners of his eyes. “Not in front of Natalia.”
In front of me, my father had once dragged a drunk out of a restaurant by his hair for waving a gun near my family. My mom had told me to stop crying; that was how Papá handled his business. Dad had returned ten minutes later and ordered a towel and ice for his bloody knuckles followed by a slice of tres leches cake. Over the years here and there, I’d witnessed him knock his men around or order to have people “taken care of” and “made an example of.” I was no stranger to the stories about him, either—like the one where Papá had supposedly addressed a package with an army general’s fingers in it to the mayor and dropped it in a public mailbox.
I had always known my father to be feared, but to me, he was just Papi. Now, because of him, I’d seen a man’s brains. I breathed through another urge to vomit.
Careful to avoid where I’d gotten sick, Diego stooped to pick up some of the butterflies that’d fallen out of my hair. “I’m sorry you saw that,” he said to me.
“Sorry?” Tepic asked. “She just watched her father take the sweetest kind of revenge. Anyone who’s lost a mother should be so lucky to witness what Talia just did.”
“It should’ve been Cristiano,” I heard myself say. It had been a long time since I’d wished death on him.
“Not if he didn't do it,” Tepic pointed out.
I quelled my shaking and tried to piece together my thoughts. “There’s no way he didn’t,” I said to Diego as he stood. “You were there. You saw. There has to be an explanation.”
“I know. Come on out of the dirt,” he said, extending a hand to me.
I took it, wiping my bare feet in the grass before I stepped over a row of tiny lanterns. Diego led me to the glowing fountain, set my delicate hair clips on the ledge with my mask, and helped me out of my wings.
“How is Cristiano back?” I asked. “And why does Father believe he didn’t do this?”
“I don’t know.” Diego crouched to strap my shoes back. “But I’m going to find out.”
I stood. “I want to hear it from my father.”
Diego pulled me into a hug, shushing me. “Just take a minute to calm down,” he said, rubbing my back. “Breathe.”
I buried my face in his chest, where it was familiar, where his shirt smelled like soap, suede, and cigars—where it was safe. Warm. I wanted to stay in his arms and pretend I hadn’t just watched my own father brutally murder a person. That Cristiano hadn’t just reentered our world. That everything I knew about my mother’s death hadn’t just been called into question.
How had Cristiano pulled this off?
How could my father shame my mother’s memory this way?
“I need to see my dad,” I said, disconnecting from Diego.
He held my elbow. “Not tonight, my love. You’re not even supposed to be here.”
“I don’t care.” I frowned up at him. “I want answers. I demand them.”
“Cool off. Let Costa do the same. Can you even look him in the eye right now?”
That hadn’t occurred to me, but Diego was right—even though I wanted answers, the thought of facing my dad made my stomach roil again. It would be too hard. Diego knew my mind better than I did in that moment, so I surrendered to the safety of his arms, deciding to wait until the morning to approach my father.
But I wouldn’t let him off the hook. Not for this.
I shifted my focus to the other side of the equation—Cristiano. Why was he back? Where had he gone? What had given him the confidence to return with a million-dollar bounty on his head?
“I didn’t even know Cristiano was still in the country,” I said.
Tepic ashed his cigarette. “Me neither.”
“Who are the Calaveras?” I asked.
Diego and Tepic exchanged looks. “You mind if I smoke?” Diego asked me. “I could use one.”
“I don’t care,” I said, drawing back. “Are they a cartel?”
“Stay,” Diego mu
rmured, one arm around my shoulders while Tepic passed him a cigarette. As he stuck it in his mouth and lit it, he nodded. “Calavera is a cartel that came to power while you were away,” he said, exhaling smoke, “and has been growing at an exponential rate. They move narcotics too, but they’re mainly in arms trafficking, like my father was, and extremely private—”
“As they are violent,” Tepic added.
“They’re like a gang of misfits from all over,” Diego said. “Tightly knit. Supposedly make big decisions as a whole. But also a little cultish over their leader.”
“Cristiano?” I asked. “And you didn’t know it was him?”
“I didn’t even know he was back.” Diego shook his head. “Their leader was anonymous until now. Most likely hiding behind a front to keep his identity secret.”
“Because of my family?” I guessed. “If we’d known where to find him, it would’ve been Cristiano up there just now.”
“I assume so.” Diego took a drag, squinting ahead. “The question is why Cristiano’s back, what he wants, and how he pulled this off. I have no doubt he’s filled Costa’s head with lies.”
“Even with that display, you still think Cristiano’s guilty?” Tepic asked.
“I don’t think it.” Diego pressed his lips into a thin line. “I know it.”
“You would too if you’d seen what we did,” I told Tepic. Cristiano had killed my mother. If I’d walked in a couple minutes earlier, I probably would’ve witnessed it. Why was father denying it, and in front of such important people? “It must be blackmail.”
“Wow, Tali. Good thinking.” Tepic stopped pacing, looking from me to Diego. “That’s got to be it, hasn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t put it past my brother.” Diego nuzzled my hair. “He was always dangerous, but if the rumors are true, Cristiano became something else entirely after he fled here.”
I kissed Diego’s cheek. Sometimes I forgot that the day I’d lost my mom, he’d essentially lost a brother. “What rumors?” I asked. “The ones I heard were mostly in regard to his whereabouts.”
“It’s, ah,” Diego grimaced, “not really suitable for your ears.”
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll find out another way,” I said. It brought me no joy to hear graphic details about the man who continued to haunt me, but if he was back in our lives, then I had to know what I was dealing with.
“The Calaveras aren’t like us,” Diego said. “We grew up here. Our home is our identity. These transients from all over the world are here to take advantage of our market.” He waved smoke from around my head. “They have no loyalty and no home—literally. Since they didn’t have a location to operate out of, they took a town about an hour north of here.”
“What do you mean they took it?” I asked.
“Like a hostile takeover. The Calaveras seized it to run their operations. Raped the local women, pillaged and stole businesses, enslaved their people.” Diego checked my expression. “Now, the whole town is walled off on three sides, and the back abuts a mountainside. Some sadistic shit goes on in the Badlands, I’ll bet.”
“Badlands?” I asked.
“That’s what some people call it. Rough terrain.” Tepic wiggled his fingers like a witch. “Las puertas del infierno.”
The gates of hell. That sounded familiar. Suddenly, the designation Badlands rang a bell. I’d heard it before but couldn’t remember where. “He made his own town?”
“More or less. There are homes and businesses within its walls, but who knows what’s true or legitimate. As far I know, nobody has ever escaped, nor has anyone infiltrated and lived to tell the tale.”
“They’re like a cult,” Tepic said, waving his cigarette toward the house with a grimace. “Satanic rituals and shit. They eat snails, speak in tongues, sacrifice virgins, throw rotten fish at whores, that kind of stuff.”
I widened my eyes. I’d heard a lot of cartel-related fact that better resembled fiction, but nothing involving any of that. “How do you know all that if nobody’s ever escaped?”
“Who knows how rumors start?” Tepic said. “But I don’t doubt what I’ve heard. I just feel bad for the women trapped there who—”
“Tepic,” Diego warned. “Stop. You’re scaring her.”
I would’ve had to believe all that to be afraid, and I wasn’t sure I did. Rotten fish? Speaking in tongues? It sounded pretty far-fetched. Although, I started to vaguely recall a news story from years earlier about a foreign cartel that operated differently than others. Its boss had a long, international reach and an even longer rap sheet. It’d claimed he’d never been photographed or named and had taken more bullets than he had drugs in his lifetime—and survived.
I stared at the fountain, comforted by the sound of running water. Why were women trapped, and how come nobody had freed them? Did Cristiano really have something to do with that? Until the dark day in question, he’d always been respectful of my mother, and she had cared for him. As a girl, I’d caught Cristiano watching me many times with something that’d felt akin to affection. Nothing that’d made me fearful. Maybe I’d just been too young to know better, though.
“What about the women trapped there?” I asked to stop my mind from filling in the blanks.
“It’s terrible, Tali, really,” Diego said. “You don’t want to know. It’s my father all over again, which is why I don’t understand how Costa could go into business with Cristiano. He represents the same things my parents did.”
“Human trafficking?” I asked quietly.
“It’s fucked up.” He tapped ash from his cigarette, looking somewhere over my head. “But not all that surprising, I guess. Cristiano and my dad are a lot alike, which is why they never got along.”
“The women are mostly foreigners if that makes you feel any safer, Tals,” Tepic said.
Who could feel anything but disgusted hearing that? My stomach churned. Had there ever been anything redeemable about Cristiano? Why had my mother not only taken him in, but, as I remembered it, treated him with tenderness?
“It makes me feel like shit,” Diego said, glancing down at me. “I don’t want you anywhere near him. If he ever gets you alone, you scream, hear me?”
I had screamed—and screamed and screamed. And nobody had been able to stop him. Not in my parents’ bedroom, nor their closet, nor the tunnel beneath it.
I removed my arms from around Diego, suddenly warm. “He can’t get away with this,” I said. “If any women, from my country or another, are being held by Cristiano, my father wouldn’t accept him back.”
“And yet it seems he has,” Diego said. “It’s just another business to Cristiano. He traffics some, and other women are there for him and his gang’s use.”
I couldn’t keep my disgust at bay any longer. Bile rose in my throat, even as I tried not to let my imagination wander down that path. This was the side of my father’s world he tried to shield me from, but I was in it nonetheless. Did that make me complicit? What about Diego? Could either of them even stop someone like Cristiano?
“Are you sure?” I asked.
Diego glanced at me and flicked his cigarette butt away. “Jesus,” he said, taking my shoulders to hold me at arm’s length. “You’re pale again. I told you not to ask.”
“It’s okay,” I said. These were things I had decided long ago I didn’t want to know about. But now that I did know, I was less frightened than I thought I’d be and more quietly enraged. What about the millions of women in my country who didn’t have access to the defenses I did? Who was on their side?
Cristiano had always been a calculating killer, that was no shock—but apparently, he’d grown into a disloyal degenerate, a callous crook, a master of mind games. Hades of the Badlands.
Diego massaged my shoulders. “Relax. This is not something you need to worry about. I will always protect my sun—without you, I’d live in the dark. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“Cristiano can’t get away with all the things he has,” I sai
d. What did he have over Papá? It had to be big for him to ignore the horrors I’d just heard. After all, he’d taken down Cristiano and Diego’s father for similar offenses. “He must have a reason.”
“Who, Costa? He has none. He’s lost his mind,” Diego said and gestured at Tepic. “¿Tienes otro?”
Tepic passed him another cigarette, then dropped his and used his heel to stamp out the butt. “I’ll see what I can find out from Barto and the guys.”
Diego nodded him on. “Go.”
I tried to wrap my head around why Papá would do this to us. To himself. Just seeing Cristiano brought back scores of memories better left to rest.
Had he manipulated my father? Or could there be any truth to his claims?
Was there even a sliver of possibility that Cristiano was innocent?
It was a thought I knew I should ignore, because if he was or wasn’t, either answer would only incite more questions. And if my curiosity was an affliction, then my curiosity about a man like Cristiano could be of the fatal sort indeed.
6
Natalia
Some details from the Day of the Dead eleven years earlier were hazy, and some crystal clear, but I’d never doubted that Cristiano had left my mother for dead and had been about to take off with our valuables.
As Tepic returned to the ballroom on a quest for information, and Diego removed his arm from me to light a fresh cigarette, I paced by the fountain and tried to figure out the riddle before me.
Cristiano had forgotten the duffel on the bed, but enough cash and jewelry had gone missing from the safe to set him up for a long time.
Then there was the fact that nobody else could’ve come or gone from my mother’s bedroom that day without being seen. And that the mansion’s security system, including the cameras, had been magically disabled, which Barto claimed could only be done quickly and by someone familiar with it. Cristiano, who’d been one of the only guards with the highest security clearance at the time, had known it intimately. Then, getting access to my parents’ safe was nearly impossible—it would’ve taken someone close enough to the inside to find out that information.
Violent Delights (White Monarch Book 1) Page 6