Violent Delights (White Monarch Book 1)

by Jessica Hawkins

Diego put a hand back to stop me from reacting. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked Cristiano.

  Even Cristiano’s shrug was threatening. “I came outside to say hello to the brother I haven’t seen in years.”

  “You know what I mean,” Diego said. “Why are you in town?”

  Cristiano turned his glare on me. “It’s time for you to go home.”

  And leave Diego alone? “No.”

  “You haven’t changed.” Cristiano’s eyes scanned my body, lingering on my breasts and hips. “And in some ways, you’re entirely different.”

  “Fuck off,” Diego said, moving to block me from Cristiano. “She has nothing to do with this.”

  “So send her away, as she doesn’t seem to listen to me. Never did.” A whistle sounded over our heads, and I jumped with its visceral bang. A burst of shimmering gold lit up the sky. Cristiano shook his head at me, as if disappointed. “I can see your fear from our last encounter has worn off, Natalia. What a shame.”

  I bit my tongue to stop from retorting what a shame it was he’d lived to see anything at all. It was enough that Diego and I had his attention; it wouldn’t help to anger him.

  “Tell me,” Cristiano said, moving to see me better. “Have you learned how to shoot a gun yet?”

  When you aim, kill. “Hand me yours,” I said, “and let’s find out.”

  “Cuidado, Talia,” Diego said through his teeth. “You don’t know what he’s capable of. Go back to the party. I’ll find you.”

  I kept my eyes on Cristiano as his stayed on me. “What if he tries to hurt you?” I asked.

  “Not unless the traitor strikes first,” Cristiano said. “Go back to the house, and I promise you my brother’s safety.”

  A second firework sailed through the night sky and exploded blood red. “He’s not a traitor, and he’s not your brother. I don’t know what my father wants with you, but you’re not family.”

  I immediately wished I’d kept my mouth shut. Cristiano came closer, tilting his head as his black eyes took me in. “Natalia Lourdes,” he said, drawing out my full name in a way that made it sound sinful, like wisps of breath against a neck that didn’t belong to him, and dangerous, like sharpening a knife.

  With a sudden movement from Diego, Cristiano turned his head, focusing on his brother. “If you’re going to draw your gun on me like you did back then,” he said, “aim well. You’ll only have one shot, and this time, you’d better be willing to die for it.”

  Behind him, the shadows stirred. Two shapes with two sharp pairs of eyes took form. Were these the misfits Diego and Tepic had spoken of?

  Before anyone could make a move, voices from the lawn made me turn.

  Barto approached with two members of our security team. He looked between Cristiano and Diego. “Costa wants to see you both in the ballroom. Now.” Barto turned to me. “And you, Natalia. What are you doing here?”

  “I was just taking her back to the house,” Diego said.

  Barto frowned at him, shaking his head. “You’d do better with the truth, Diego.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Costa’s likely to be less angry that she snuck into the party on her own than that she came to spend time with you.”

  Diego licked his lips. “Had I been informed we were hosting a known murderer and rapist, I would’ve obviously sent Tali straight back.”

  Cristiano barely noticed the insult. Instead, he was watching me. Listening. He’d always been that way, taking in everything around him, processing it like a computer, keeping his observations to himself—to what end, God only knew. Was he plotting ways to terrorize me more? Reminiscing about the life he’d had here?

  Fantasizing about dancing in dark corners?

  Or worse?

  A small part of me couldn’t reconcile the human trafficker to the Cristiano I’d known before he’d fled. He’d been next to impossible to get to know back then, even putting aside our fourteen-year age difference. But having only ever been under his protection growing up, I’d never seen him as the vicious killer everyone else had.

  Until that day.

  Barto nodded at the brothers. “Costa is waiting. Tonight, he’s not feeling patient.”

  Cristiano and Barto exchanged an unfriendly look, which reminded me that before all this, they’d been close. They had come into the cartel around the same age and had risen in the ranks together. Barto, an important member of our security team even then, had been away on business with my father during Cristiano’s attack on my mom. Like Cristiano, Barto never said much, but I knew he constantly beat himself up over it.

  Barto had lost not only my mother—a member of the family he’d been hired to protect—but Cristiano too, his closest friend and comrade.

  “Send someone back to the house with Talia,” Diego told Barto.

  “It’s okay,” I said, even though Cristiano still hadn’t removed his eyes from me. “I don’t need an escort.”

  As Cristiano passed me on his way toward the house, he stalled. “I’ll see you to your bedroom if you like,” he said so only I could hear.

  The suggestive offer, not made out of graciousness, made me think of our tango. Or perhaps it was more appropriate to call it a mind game than a dance. It was becoming clear Cristiano liked to play. With Father demanding his presence and Barto watching on, I was safe. Instead of cowering at his suggestion, I called his bluff and offered my elbow as I would to an escort. “Let’s go.”

  “Let’s go indeed,” he said with a hint of a smirk before he walked off with Diego and Barto.

  Apparently, my discomfort amused him—but so did my fight.

  That didn’t surprise me.

  Cristiano would pinch a butterfly’s wings together just to watch her struggle.

  7

  Natalia

  Aromas of coffee and cinnamon-raisin toast preceded the pop of a toaster as I entered the open, airy kitchen. Papá sat at the breakfast counter with a newspaper as Paz filled a mug with spicy café de olla from an orange enamel pot.

  “Buenos días, Natalia,” Paz said as she served him.

  “¿Cómo está?” I greeted, pulling my damp hair into a ponytail so it wouldn’t get my t-shirt wet. Despite my shower, I still had flecks of glitter embedded into my hairline and arms.

  Paz responded and nodded at my father’s half-eaten plate of eggs and pico de gallo and asked if I was hungry, but my stomach was still uneasy from the night before. When I told her that, she got a warm can of Coke Light for me.

  “Good morning, mi amor.” My father held up the front page to show me a picture of himself with the governor and his wife. Lower down the page, Papá shook hands with the head Calavera himself. I couldn’t even bring myself to think the devil’s name. “You wouldn’t believe the morning’s headlines,” he said. “Everyone says it was a great party.”

  No mention of the murder within its walls? Whatever “journalists” had been in attendance should be stripped of the designation.

  “¿Hace mucho calor, no?” he asked.

  With his complaint about the heat, Paz set to work opening windows.

  Papá sipped his coffee as I stared at his scabbed knuckles and slightly swollen right hand, remembering how he’d gripped the gun. I knew he’d killed before as sure as I knew my own name. That was no surprise. But to see it with my own eyes, and so carelessly, like plucking an orange off a tree or tossing aside a piece of junk mail. No warning or word of acknowledgment.

  A breeze passed through the room, alleviating the heat. “I saw what you did,” I said.

  “Hmm?” He looked up at me. “What?”

  “Last night, at the party. I was there.”

  He stared at me a moment, then stood and carried his silverware and plate of eggs across the kitchen. He threw them in the sink with a clatter. “Goddamn it, Natalia.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  He turned to the maid as she tried to salvage the cracked dish. “Gracias, Paz.”

  She hurried from the room.


  When it came to me, my father’s bark was much worse than his bite. I stood my ground. “How could you let that monster back into our lives?” I asked.

  “I was going to talk to you today. I didn’t want you to find out that way,” he said. I knew his scolding frown all too well. “I told you not to go to the party. You defied me.”

  “If I hadn’t, I’d be reading lies for headlines.” I picked up his picture with Cristiano and thrust it toward him. “My father, shaking hands with my mother’s murderer? How were you going to explain this?”

  “With the truth.” He came back for his coffee, took the paper from me, and looked at the photo. “Cristiano is innocent.”

  “It’s impossible.” My voice broke, but I did my best to swallow down my grief. If I got emotional, his instinct to protect me would prevent him from sharing anything beyond the fundamentals. “Cristiano killed her, stole from us, and left me in a tunnel to rot.”

  “I should belt you for doubting me. My father would’ve,” he said without any conviction. From my grandfather, that threat would’ve scared me. He’d had a temper. My dad wasn’t like that, though.

  “Is he blackmailing you?” I asked.

  He put down the newspaper and slid his toast toward him. “No—”

  “Papá.” I pleaded with him. “Tell me the truth. What does Cristiano have on you?”

  “Nothing.” Leaning one hand on the counter, he took a bite, then tossed the remaining bread back on the plate as if he couldn’t stomach it. “And spreading a rumor like that makes me vulnerable, so watch your mouth.”

  “What is it then?” I asked, undeterred.

  He sighed into his coffee. “If you’d let me get a word in, I’d tell you. You’re like your mother, storming in here yelling at me for things I didn’t do.”

  “You shot a man in the head,” I cried. “I saw it.”

  Even as his color drained, he straightened up. “Cristiano has proven his loyalty, Talia. For the last decade, he’s done more than built himself a strong, successful cartel—”

  “How can you say that?” I fell onto a breakfast stool. “I’ve heard the kind of ‘business’ he runs, and it’s vile.”

  “His business isn’t anything you should worry about. All you need to know is what Cristiano has done for your mother. For us.” Birds chirped outside, and a sparrow landed on the sill. Papá shooed it away. “When Cristiano left here,” he continued, “he ruthlessly and relentlessly hunted your mother’s murderer. He made it his mission to find the motherfucker who entered my house—my bedroom—and took almost everything from me. I’ve had dark moments since learning this. I question Our Lady for letting this stranger into my home, but I thank her you didn’t come into the room any earlier.”

  With my elbows on the counter, I put my head in my hands. I didn’t know what to think. “Who—”

  “Let me finish. Cristiano delivered the sicario, forced him to his knees, and made him beg me for his life. It took a lot of time and resources to find that man you saw up there. Shooting him in the head in front of everyone was probably the kindest way to kill him.”

  If Father believed that, I didn’t doubt a lack of mercy had been shown behind the curtains. It explained his battered hand this morning—and the man’s swollen face and blood-soaked clothing. “And you believe it?” I asked.

  “I heard it from the rat’s mouth.”

  “Of course the hitman would say anything Cristiano told him to if he thought it might save his life.” I nervously pinged the tab of my soda can. “Cristiano wants to clear his name and stop running.”

  “He doesn’t need to be protected from me. He’s built himself a cartel that surpasses my own. He has his own success, money, and status now. His network spans the world, and he could’ve built his business in Colombia, Russia, Bolivia—anywhere. But he returned.”

  He could’ve been anywhere, but he was here, turning my world upside down. I gritted my teeth, wishing he’d stayed lost. “Why?”

  “Because this is his home. There’s greater risk for Cristiano to return than to stay hidden. Dios mío, me duele la cabeza.” As he grumbled of a headache, he went to the fridge and removed leftover tostadas and a small talavera bowl of salsa. “If I hadn’t believed Cristiano about the sicario, I wouldn’t have hesitated to execute him on the spot. I almost did.”

  “Why even stop to let him explain?” I asked. “And what lies could he have possibly given to change your mind?”

  “Cristiano managed to track down some of your mother’s stolen jewelry. Each piece told its own story, and each ending eventually led him one place—to this sicario.”

  “It was jewelry Cristiano took,” I said, not bothering to keep my cynicism from my voice. “He didn’t need to look further than himself.”

  “If he’d taken the jewels, he would’ve sold them to survive, wouldn’t he?”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “No question he did.”

  “And then tracked all of it down again?” Papá shook his head as he stuffed his face with chicken and refried beans. “They were one-of-a-kind pieces,” he said as he chewed and swallowed. “The diamonds, rubies, and other precious gems Cristiano returned to me have unique settings I designed for your mother myself. He wouldn’t have kept them when he had nothing and could sell them.” He wiped his mouth with a paper towel. “The hitman was hired, Natalia. Someone wanted my wife dead.”

  Hearing it in such certain terms, I touched the base of my neck. At the time, Costa Cruz had been a feared drug lord. It would’ve been no small thing to hire a hit on a family like ours. I only knew of one other cartel who’d tried that, and the de la Rosas no longer existed, considering the leaders were dead. There was something as sinister about that as there was Cristiano killing the woman who’d acted as a second mother to him. “Hired by who?”

  He massaged his temples with one hand. “A rival cartel, apparently.”

  “But why? Who? And how did the man get in? How would he have disabled the—”

  “Slow down, Tali.” He shut his eyes and took a breath. “Your old man can’t drink like he used to. I have a hell of a hangover.”

  I went to a junk drawer, found painkillers, and tossed him the bottle. “Which cartel?”

  “They’re no longer in existence.” He fiddled with the childproof cap until it popped open. “I’d deal with them if I could, but they’ve disbanded already.”

  “How convenient you can’t confirm Cristiano’s story.” I got him a water bottle from the fridge. “It could be an elaborate scheme.”

  “To what end?” He shook some pills into his palm and tossed them back. I placed the water in front of him, but he washed down the drugs with a gulp of coffee. “I know you were young and may have forgotten,” he said, “but your mother trusted Cristiano above anyone except me, and he cared for her. You too.”

  I hadn’t forgotten. Cristiano had been her protector, but that didn’t mean her instincts couldn’t have been wrong about him. “He knew how much you loved her, and he wanted revenge for what you did to his parents.”

  “It wasn’t revenge. Take my word for it.” He replaced the cap on the pill bottle and looked at it pensively, as if lost in a thought. “It was a confusing time. I fell prey to my rage,” he said finally. “I needed someone to blame, and Cristiano had fled, so it was easy to convince myself he’d run out of guilt. There was no other possibility, no evidence but what I had in front of me, and what you and Diego saw. But looking back, deep down, I questioned how it was possible he’d done what he’d been accused of. To assault Bianca and steal from us—it was out of character for him.”

  “But he did that for a living—he was a hitman.”

  “For us. Not against us. Never did he so much as raise his voice toward either me or her.”

  My throat thickened. Why couldn’t he recognize that his devotion to Cristiano might be misguided? I could admit there was a sliver of possibility another explanation existed for that day—but to blindly trust him after all th
is time? “I know what I saw. I know what felt. I see it in my nightmares, Papá—please.”

  “I’m sorry, mija.” He reached out for my hand and squeezed it. “It must be hard to see him again, and maybe I should’ve warned you, but I was trying to—”

  “Protect me, I know.” I took back my hand and covered my face. “He put a gun under my chin. He shot Diego. He left me in a tunnel.”

  “He knew I would find you,” Dad said. “He was desperate. He understood I would’ve had no choice but to kill him with the evidence I had at the time.”

  “I don’t know if I can believe any of it,” I said, my throat thick as I tried to control my emotions. “I don’t trust him.”

  “You don’t have to. You just have to trust me.” He returned to the sink for the clay pot and refilled his drink. “I’m sorry for what you saw last night,” he said with his back to me. “If I’d known you were watching . . .”

  “You wouldn’t have done it?”

  He turned his head over his shoulder, giving me his profile. “I would’ve had you removed from the party.”

  I swallowed. He didn’t regret it.

  A question I’d been fighting since the night before struggled to surface. If I’d believed that was the man who’d brutally attacked and killed my mother, would I have been as horrified?

  If it’d been Cristiano up there with his hands tied and face beaten, would I have tried to stop it?

  Or would I have reveled in his murder?

  “You were there with Diego last night?” he asked.

  Papá had heard my questions—now I’d have to answer some of his. I’d implicated both Diego and myself. “Yes.”

  He dumped sugar into his coffee. “I’ll have to have a little chat with him then,” he muttered.

  “Have the chat with me,” I said. “I want to talk to you about Diego anyway.”

  “Don’t bother.” His spoon clinked the sides of the mug as he stirred. “My answer is no.”

  “Papi, por favor—escúchame. You can’t tell me what to do anymore. You have to listen.”

  “Bueno. Go ahead,” he said, with an inviting gesture. “But it will fall on deaf ears.”