Carrera Cartel: The Collection

by Kenborn, Cora

  Leaning back on one hand, I flipped my hair over my shoulder. “Don’t break your back rolling out the welcome mat.”

  “Ladies!” Brody groaned. “Can we take this down a few notches? You’re not going to be best friends; we get it. Will you at least agree to be civil and try not to kill each other for the next twelve hours?”

  Obviously, I had no intention of falling on my sword first, so I settled a hard stare toward the doorway and waited. The silence was deafening, and the longer it went on the more agitated Brody became. We were clearly taking too long to answer, evidenced by his clenched fists and the gaze that bounced angrily between us. Just as he opened his mouth again, Eden cut him off.

  “Fine.”

  Twisting around, he cocked an expectant eyebrow at me.

  I shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Adriana…”

  God, I hated it when he drew out my name like that. It made me feel like a petulant child. “Oh, all right. I’ll pretend to be nice to the bitch.”

  Brody threw his head back, exhaling hard as he stared at the ceiling.

  “Starting now,” I grumbled.

  I expected more arguing, but to my surprise, Eden let it drop. It was just as well. I’d only been here a little over an hour and I’d already provoked everyone in the house. Not exactly the best first impression. I had to find a way to keep my resentment compartmentalized if I hoped to have a chance of becoming a permanent fixture in the Carrera family.

  “It’s good to see you again, Brody.” She took six steps inside the room and stood in front of him, placing a hand against his chest. I knew. I counted them. “You know you’re welcome here any time.”

  Brody flinched at the contact. “I wish that were true.”

  I wanted to grab her hand and twist it until it snapped.

  I tensed at the bizarre surge of jealousy. Angry at my unwelcome reaction, I tore my eyes away, only to glance down and see my hand once again fisting the bedspread.

  Get a grip.

  Disgusted with myself, I released the material and swung my legs around until I faced the wall. Being alone in the room I knew belonged to my mother was the last thing I wanted to do, but it beat the hell out of watching whatever this was. However, just as I was about to make my exit, a faint but shrill cry filled the room.

  Eden smiled. “That’s my cue. We’ll talk soon, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Giving him one last pat on his chest, she took a few steps backward. “Well, then, I’ll see you both at dinner.”

  “She means la comida,” I interrupted, irritated at the way she bastardized my culture. Two sets of eyes turned my way, and I snorted. “It’s like your version of dinner only we have it in late afternoon. Americans are the only gluttons who stuff themselves like pigs right before bed.”

  Brody glanced at Eden for confirmation, and my blood boiled. As if the whitest woman in Mexico would know anything about tradition. For once, she didn’t argue, offering a slight dip of her chin as confirmation, and then slipped out the door as quietly as she’d slipped in.

  Oh, good. My first dysfunctional family meal.

  In the wake of Eden’s departure, an awkward silence filtered through the room. Brody and I argued with each other. We insulted each other. We threatened each other. We occasionally defended each other. And, in a surprising new twist, we inexplicably wanted each other. However, the one thing we never did was ignore each other.

  It unsettled me.

  I climbed off the bed, wracking my brain for something to say when out of the corner of my eye, I saw steam billowing out of the open door of the adjoined bathroom.

  Which of course reminded me he was standing in front of me half naked.

  “There’s probably no hot water left,” I mumbled, motioning behind him.

  Brody’s forehead wrinkled, and he blinked a few times before glancing over his shoulder. “Oh, yeah. Forgot about that. Guess I’ll be taking a cold shower.”

  That makes two of us.

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”

  Still, he didn’t move. “I guess I’ll see you in an hour for lunch.”

  “La comida.”

  “Right,” he said, a smirk teasing across his lips. “I’ll see you in an hour for la comida.”

  Nodding once, I turned just as he called my name.

  “Adriana?”

  Just let me go. Please.

  However, my body gravitated toward his voice, and I twisted back around, my gaze falling to where his hands were shoved in his pockets, the weight drawing his open pants farther down his hips.

  “You’re wrong,” he said, and the force of the two words snapped my eyes back to his, but it was too late. He sighed heavily. “You accused me of still being in love with Eden. I’m not. There’s no justification in holding on to something that was never yours. In the end, not only will you lose, you’ll answer for it for the rest of your life.”

  The room popped with the electricity of his confession. Or was it a warning? I didn’t know, and I had no desire to find out. My heart thundered harder in my chest until I was halfway down the hallway, far away from his probing eyes, seductive scent, and duplicitous words.

  Collapsing against the wall, I braced the heels of my hands against my temples, forcing myself to remember what Brody Harcourt had done. We didn’t have a connection. What happened in that room was two dominants engaging in sexual warfare.

  But I wasn’t about to win the battle just to lose the war.

  At the end of the day, Brody and I would never trust each other. Our paths had tangled in such destructive ways that anything other than a shared goal between us was implausible. But even I wasn’t stupid enough to deny the obvious physical attraction between us. The chemistry we shared wasn’t just palpable—it was combustible. One touch was like flicking a lit match into a puddle of gasoline.

  Brody fought it because he didn’t understand it, but I’d lived a life built on hypocrisy. It made perfect sense to me, which was why I knew eventually the storm would consume us.

  Everyone equated passion with love, but hatred was a much stronger and more volatile emotion. It drew out our most primal response—the human instinct to control and punish. Desire and hatred were separated by only a fraction of a degree, and that was why neither of us would be satisfied until we’d torn each other to pieces.

  We desired because we hated, and we hated because we resented.

  I resented him for what he stole from me, and he resented me for forcing him out of the dark hole he’d buried himself in. Come tomorrow morning, there would be no estate to separate this chaotic storm brewing between us. Nothing but a road leading me back to a place I once called home.

  And a choice to give up the man who claimed it, or give in to the man who destroyed it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Brody

  No one died during dinner.

  It sounded ridiculous, but when you sat at the table of a man whose wife you used to fuck and sister you resurrected from the dead, a closer inspection of the pozole he served seemed warranted. Not to mention his most trusted confidante had done the exact opposite of what I’d asked and showed up for dessert with my sister and niece in tow.

  So here we sat, three hours later, all gathered in what looked to be a botanical garden disguised as a backyard, still alive for the time being, assuming Adriana kept her mouth shut about my port deal with the Sinners and…other things.

  Speaking of which…

  Swirling the scotch in my hand, I sat back in the ornate hammock and took a long drink. “Are you serious about being a part of this family?”

  Adriana tensed beside me. “What kind of question is that?”

  “A valid one. You have to know that this hostility between you and Eden can’t continue. Val won’t stand for it.”

  “I was perfectly civil during la comida, just like you requested.”

  I shot her a cynical stare and snorted. Either she didn’t catch the blatant sarcasm, or she ch
ose to ignore it.

  “Come on,” she groaned. “I even asked her to pass the salt nicely.”

  “You said, ‘please pass the salt, whore.’”

  “What? I said, please.”

  She met my eye roll with a smirk and pushed her foot hard into the grass, all the muscles in her leg contracting. I tried not to look. Well, I tried not to let her see me look. After all, she was the woman who was threatening to ruin me, and I was the man trying to figure out a way to even the playing field. But I was still a man, and I dared any guy with blood still flowing to his dick to turn away from those long legs and curvy thighs that spilled out of tiny white shorts barely containing her ass.

  “You all right there, counselor?”

  I cleared my throat, shifting my eyes to her face. “Yeah. Just wondering what you plan on doing.”

  “This.” Leaving us suspended for a moment, she watched for a reaction. When I offered her nothing, she kicked out her foot, smiling as we free fell into a hard arc.

  Neither of us spoke as we watched everyone scattering around the grounds, enjoying what was left of the sunlight. My gaze bounced from my sister and niece to a few of Val’s top lieutenants to the first family of Mexico’s underground. However, Adriana’s eyes never left her brother. If persuasion could be attained by sheer willpower, she would’ve had him in her pocket five minutes ago.

  “If you make him choose, Adriana, it won’t be you.”

  She shook her head, strands of her dark hair sticking to her red lipstick. “We share the same blood. I’m his sister.”

  “And she’s his wife,” I reminded her. “Not to mention the mother of his child. Besides their baby, there’s no one more important in his life. For Christ’s sake, he took a bullet for her.”

  “Why am I always the villain? Blowing my brother doesn’t absolve her of sin, you know. Have you forgotten that she strung you along for months until something better came along?”

  “That’s not true! She—”

  “And of course, there’s the fact that after Val took a bullet for her, as you were so kind to point out, she left him lying alone in a hospital bed because she…” rolling her eyes toward the darkening sky, she curled her fingers into air quotes, “…was too good to live the life of a cartel queen.”

  “Adriana…”

  “Oh, and let’s not forget that you risked your reputation and ruined my life just to remind her how the horrors of our world would clip her saintly wings, and she threw it in your face. Know why, Brody? Because underneath that sanctimonious exterior lies a soul just as ruthless as the rest of us. I just don’t get why I’m the only one who sees it.”

  She wasn’t. But giving credit to her already rabid contempt would only make things worse. I knew exactly who Eden had become since getting tangled up with Val. She’d always been headstrong, but there was a void nothing ever filled. Almost as if something inside her locked her away against her will. Becoming part of the most feared family in Mexico set it free, unleashing a ruthless side of her that consumed the girl I fought so hard to save.

  Who never wanted to be saved in the first place.

  However, the stone walls around the cartel queen’s heart cracked for her family—especially her two-month old son, Santiago. Across the immaculately manicured garden, Eden bounced the small bundle in her arms, a smile on her face as she talked with my sister. The visual was kind of comical. Santiago’s dark fuzzy hair stood out like a beacon next to the stark contrast of his mother’s long cherry red locks. The little prince peered over her shoulder, alternating chewing on his fist and her neck. I know nothing about babies, but I swore the kid saw me staring at his mother and scowled.

  “Santi!” Eden laughed, wedging a finger in between his slobbering lips to pry the suction hold his mouth had on her neck. “You’re going to give me a hickey.”

  I smirked at him.

  Yeah, have fun explaining that one to your dad, you mute little bastard.

  “What’s that smirk about?”

  No use denying it. Judging by her reclined position in the hammock, Adriana watched the entire thing play out across my face. Maybe I could use it to my advantage and use her own words against her.

  I shrugged, tipping my chin to where Eden cuddled Santi in her arms. “Think about what you’re doing, Adriana. If not for anyone else, at least for that innocent baby. You said it yourself, children are the only innocent things in this world.”

  As expected, she tensed, drawing her leg away from me and locking it against her chest with a tight grip. Adriana’s temper was like a powder keg, and I’d already lit a match and waved it over the barrel.

  I’d burn some fucking sense into her or ignite a hell storm.

  “Val’s not rational when it comes to Eden, and if you reveal what I did to keep her from him, there’s no telling what he might do. You know better than anyone that truth can destroy lives. Is that what you want for Santiago?”

  Adriana’s feet flew out from under her, slamming onto the grass as she spun around. “Don’t you dare use what you did to me as a crutch,” she warned. Dragging in a deep breath, she geared up to toss out what I anticipated to be some insult/threat hybrid when she stopped and narrowed her eyes, those plump lips curving into a wicked smile. “Oh, well played, counselor.”

  Christ, what now?

  She was supposed to knock the match out of my hand not blow it out. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m not stupid, Brody. This isn’t about the potential fallout if I continue fighting with Eden. This is about the potential fallout if I decide to rat you out to Val. You’re protecting yourself.”

  I pushed off the hammock. “Look, I brought you here on a mutual agreement. You give Val a name, and I convince him to give you a chance not to fuck it up. Well we both lived up to our word, and that was supposed to be it, but here we are.” I threw my hands out wide, barely missing clipping her chin. “So forgive me for being a little pissed that this mutual thing isn’t so damn mutual anymore. You have me by the balls, and because of it, I’m stuck with your crazy ass until we can find this Ignacio and shut this reorganization bullshit down.”

  She stared at me, blinking as if waiting for more. “That’s your idea of a motivational speech? You were a prosecutor. I thought you persuaded people for a living.”

  “Fuck off, Adriana.”

  “See, this is why you don’t have a girlfriend.”

  “And this is why you don’t have an argument. As much as it pains you to admit, princesa, you need me. We have a common enemy and taking him out is more important than tearing me down.”

  She turned her eyes away and brushed her hair over her shoulder. “There are always casualties of war, counselor.”

  There wasn’t much to say to that, so I didn’t. Instead, I followed her gaze to where my sister and Mateo chased my niece around as she shrieked with delight. Joy and peace radiated from them. This was what I wanted. I gave up the last piece of my soul and pushed them away, so they’d have a chance at a normal life. I should’ve been ecstatic.

  So why did seeing them happy make me so goddamn miserable?

  “You ever think about having one?”

  “One what?”

  She laughed, and if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears, I wouldn’t have believed it. It sounded light and airy, a pleasant change of pace from her usual demonic growls. “Kids, you idiot. You know, a wife, house, white picket fence, dog…the whole plastic package.”

  Now it was my turn to laugh, but it was neither light nor airy. It was an obstinate bark weighted in irony. “Hell, no. A kid is the last thing I need. I’m lucky to keep myself alive.” I raised my glass in a silent toast.

  “Speaking of which,” she noted, taking it out of my hand. “How about slowing down, por favor.”

  “I’ve only had two.”

  “You’ve had six.”

  I reached for my drink just as she tipped it upside down, pouring what was left of my scotch in the grass. Leaping forward,
I grabbed it out of her hands mid-stream, trying to salvage what was left, but it was too late.

  I glared at her while rolling the glass in my hand. “I don’t need another mother, Adriana.”

  “Not trying to be one. I just don’t want to have to carry your drunk ass upstairs. I’d hate to have to blow your dick off for chipping a nail.”

  I didn’t want to smile. I wanted to grab the bottom of the hammock and flip her ass upside down, but my brain and my face miscommunicated somewhere, and I grinned.

  I fucking grinned.

  “You really should back off the booze. Excessive drinking can kill you, you know.”

  “All the more reason.”

  She let out a sigh. I knew that sigh. I’d heard it so many times in the past year, it’d become an old friend. A lonely, old, asshole of a friend who showed up when others stopped trying to figure me out. I couldn’t blame them. Hell, I couldn’t even figure me out.

  “You should have a few. Maybe it would knock that chip off your shoulder.”

  She eyed the glass still rolling in my hand. “No, I can’t have…I don’t drink.”

  I could’ve called bullshit. Not twenty-four hours ago, she stood in a run-down motel room, taunting me with a bottle of cheap scotch. But something in her voice stopped me. A sliver of weakness that any other time I’d wedge my foot into and pry open. But now wasn’t the time.

  “No, I meant, do you think about having kids?”

  “I’m kind of tired,” she announced abruptly. Standing, she grabbed the glass out of my hand and tapped her nails against the side. “I’ll take this inside for you.”

  She was gone before I could point out that it was barely seven o’clock. Whatever. It was a moot point. Her excuse, while transparent, peeled back another layer of raw truth. I’d leave her alone to lick her wounds tonight.

  But the real Adriana was showing, and eventually there would be nowhere for her to run.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Adriana

  “Adriana, stop.”