I tried my best to keep my sadness from showing. And I glimpsed—barely—the pain Cristiano must’ve endured trying to send me away for my own good just now. The doubt that surely plagued him. The deep-seated need to protect me by making the decision for me.
As I’d do for my father now. “None of us knew the depth of Diego’s deception.”
“Cristiano did. I should’ve known he wouldn’t hurt Bianca, but Diego’s complete confidence, and your conviction as a child, convinced me of it.”
“Mija.” She fought to keep her eyes open, but they went glassy as her gaze shifted over my head. “Please, Cristiano,” she begged, her voice strangled. “Please don’t . . .” She shuddered with the effort. “My daughter . . .”
“I was wrong. I now know her dying words had been pleas to Cristiano to protect me—not her begging him to spare my life,” I said. I’d clung to the memory so many times growing up, and now I saw it for what it was . . .
“I should’ve trusted my gut and brought Cristiano home at once,” he said.
“All is well, Papá. We have made things right.”
“There will be other grandchildren,” he said. “You won’t make me wait long to hold them, will you, mi corazón?”
How could I lie to my own father, and about something like this? His heart would break with the truth.
I ground my teeth together, almost unable to hold back my tears. But I did—and I committed the same crime against him that he had against me for many years. The one for which I’d persecuted him.
I lied to protect him. “Yes, Papá. You will hold your grandchildren before long.”
With a satisfied smile, he looked past me. “Where’s Cristiano? We should already be gone.”
“I’ll go see.” I went to kiss his cheek but threw my arms around his neck instead. “I love you.”
“Te amo, mija.”
My resolve nearly broke remembering all the nights Papá had prayed for my mother’s soul and cried himself to sleep. The thought of putting him through that again was almost too much to handle.
Pray for me. I will pray for you.
All I had to do now was walk away. To say good-bye for good to the man who’d raised me.
“I understand why you ran back for him just now,” Papá whispered. “Your mother would’ve done the same.”
Emotion wracked me, threatening to take me down. I pulled back. The pride in his eyes was clear. It meant everything to me. I kissed his cheek and forced myself away before he became suspicious of my tears.
I wanted to say good-bye to Pilar. To see Alejandro’s smile light up a room once more. To kiss Barto’s cheek and thank him for his service to my family. To assure Gabriel he had the world at his fingertips. But it would be selfish. There was no more time. They needed to leave.
I left my father at the front of the ship and made my way back toward where Cristiano waited on the loading dock. He wore no expression as his dark eyes followed me, but I could read his torment. Maybe he doubted himself, but as painful as this would be—it was the right decision.
He’d made me a queen when others would’ve had me stay a princess forever. To have the choice to go and live or stay and die meant more to me than he knew. I would remain by my king’s side. Now. Always.
Cristiano helped me off the ship. As it prepared to leave, worry crept in, tensing my shoulders.
With a strong arm around me, Cristiano pulled me closer and kissed the top of my head. “They’re prepared,” he whispered. “They’ll be safe, Natalia.”
“And everyone else?” I sniffled, slipping my arms around his middle to hug him back. “Teresa and Felix? Jaz, Paula, the Zamora family—”
“They’re on to new lives. They’ll be okay.” The contentment in Cristiano’s voice comforted me until he loosened his embrace and looked down. “I have to say this one last time, Natalia. It’s not too late. I can call them back. You can still go with them.”
I shook my head hard. I was determined, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t scared.
He smoothed a hand over my hair and down my back. “This is it. Everyone you love and care about is on that ship.”
My dear, thick-skulled husband with anguished eyes. I reached up to run my palm along the stubble of his cheek. It was obvious he hadn’t shaved since the parade. His scratchiness was comforting in a way. It was real. “There is no possible scenario in which I leave your side. My place is here. With you.”
With my husband was where I stayed. Silence fell over us as we stood on our beach for the last time and watched our friends and family go. As we said our final farewell to everyone we cared about, and to this world.
32
Cristiano
In a black lace dress, Natalia turned in a circle in our closet. The same one I’d put her in at the church on our wedding day. She lifted the skirt and showed me her sneakers with Kevlar laces.
“In case you need to run in the afterlife?” I asked at the mirror where I fixed the cuff of my dress shirt.
I was perhaps overdressed for death as well—but we weren’t going to go down in anything less than the best.
“In case I need to fight,” she said, holding up la Monarca Blanca.
“That’s my girl.” I winked and bent my head. “Un beso.”
She obliged me with a quick kiss.
A hum sounded above our heads, and Natalia looked up. “Helicopters?”
As I nodded a bang echoed through the valley of the Badlands, rumbling like thunder.
“What’s that sound?” she asked.
I turned back to the mirror, tightening the knot of my black tie. “Tanks ramming the front gates,” I said.
“You know people call them las puertas del infierno?” she said.
Of course I did. The gates of hell. “For Belmonte-Ruiz, it will be true.”
She left the closet and headed for the balcony.
“It’s not safe out there in the open,” I called.
“I just want one last look.”
My mistake. If I wanted her to stay indoors, I should’ve told her to do the opposite.
I stepped out with her and checked the sky to make sure we were alone. When I determined it was safe enough for now, I joined her at the short wall overlooking the water.
In my bespoke suit, Natalia in her black lace evening gown, our hands locked between us, we took in the endless ocean. For those moments, it was calm, but it wouldn’t last.
“We’d better get downstairs,” she finally said. “Our time is up.”
The calm in her voice mildly surprised me. I hoped that was due to her faith in me and the choices we’d made.
I turned, scooped her into my arms, and tipped her back to kiss her with everything I had. We had time for that, at least. There would always be time for that.
I took my wife down into the bowels of the mountain, through the tunnel that connected the house to the control center humming with the data, communication, and files we’d been collecting for years to protect others. Intelligence Belmonte-Ruiz would love to get their hands on for the opposite purpose. The precise reasons we hadn’t made it explosion-proof.
We crossed that room, making our way through a maze of hallways, passed two iron-clad security systems where only one fingerprint—mine—would work. Because under any other circumstance, I would’ve burned, mutilated, or carved off my own flesh to prevent the wrong person from entering this space.
Once inside, I closed the door, sat at the computer system, and followed the same steps I had a million times—all but the final step, a phase I’d never entered until now.
I put in my credentials, clicked all the systems into place, pressed my thumb to the final fingerprint scan, and waited for the facial recognition software to identify and approve my face.
We got the green light.
“Now what?” Natalia asked.
“Now, we wait.”
I pulled up security drone feed to monitor the progress of Belmonte-Ruiz and any other faction dumb enough to join them. I w
anted as many of these motherfuckers as I could get inside the walls before I hit the button.
Natalia stood behind me, her hand on my shoulder, as the footage filled the screen.
They’d broken through the gates. They flooded the town, teeming into the alleys, filling up the arteries of the Badlands like blood.
“They move like a swarm of lame bees,” Natalia muttered.
They drove tanks through abandoned homes, stores and marketplaces, and set fire to structures and farms.
Watching proved difficult. No matter my gratitude for the fact that every human life in my care except Natalia’s had made it out, a piece of history would die today.
I chose the present over the past, instead, and stood from the chair to find my true home in Natalia’s eyes. I pulled her into my arms. Her heart slammed against her chest. She was scared. I couldn’t blame her. I was more terrified than I’d ever been. If I’d miscalculated anything, if the button didn’t work, if these fuckers survived—then all of this could be for nothing. It could go fatally, irrevocably wrong.
I tilted Natalia’s chin up and pressed my lips to hers. “We were lucky to have you. You have been everything I could’ve ever hoped for—and so much more.”
She slid her arms around my neck, whispering. “I was only getting started. I’m sorry that . . .”
I put my forehead to hers. “What?”
“I’m so sorry you have to watch it all burn, and that your family has been displaced.” A frown tugged the corners of Natalia’s mouth. She thought of them during her own imminent end. It was sad to know there’d be no rebuilding this tightknit community exactly as it had been—or, most likely, at all. Most of them would never see one another again. “What you did for these people will never be forgotten,” she said, “no matter that only ashes will remain.”
“None of it means anything without them. Without you.” I thumbed the corner of her mouth. “I promised I’d follow you anywhere, and I would’ve, mariposa. I thought you were gone. Forever. And I was right behind you.”
She tightened her hold around my neck, rising onto the tips of her toes. “Now we’ll go together.”
As the horde closed in and more and more of the enemy flooded our home, I took a breath. “What was it like to die?”
She tilted her head as if remembering, then shook her head. “I didn’t like it.”
“You don’t say.” I smiled at her. “But I heard the drug was supposed to be pure bliss.”
“It’s far better to be with you,” she said thickly.
Both of our hearts were slamming now, but at least it was against the other’s chest. I cupped her cheek. “You will be. This is not an ending, but the start of an eternity together. No one else. Just you and me.”
“Just you and me,” she said, but with less hope in her tone than mine. “I should’ve told you about the baby the moment I suspected—but I wanted to be sure.” She reached into her neckline and pulled out the sonogram. “To show you this and watch your eyes light up.”
I took it as my jaw tingled with emotion. “How?”
“Max picked it up with the syringe.” Her voice faltered. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to experience the bliss of fatherhood, even for a little while.”
“I’m sorry it was taken from both of us.” I tucked the image in my jacket pocket and smoothed back her hair, falling more in love with her for how deeply she felt my pain. “You redeemed your child. Diego murdered our baby, and he paid the price.”
“We will carry the loss with us when we go.”
“And it is time to go,” I said. “Are you ready?”
She bit her bottom lip. “I’m scared.”
“I’ve got you. We fall together.”
“We fall together.” She nodded, running her hand along my jaw, her thumb over the hollow of my cheekbone, smoothing my eyebrows as if we had all the time in the world. “I’m ready.”
I focused on the beautiful violet eyes in front of me. I’d fallen for them at the gala when she’d looked back at me from behind her mask. I’d fought against it. I’d lost.
There was no question I’d won.
Nothing else mattered now. I already knew I wouldn’t stay here without her. She didn’t want that for herself, either. We’d leave this life together, and I couldn’t ask for more than that.
I kissed my Natalia once more. “I love you, my wife. My mariposita.”
“I love you, mi esposo. Cristiano, my husband.”
All that remained now was to push the button and detonate. So that’s what I did.
A rumble started in the depths of the Badlands, the angry beat of the ground shaking beneath our feet.
The underworld called us home.
33
Costa Cruz
“It was the explosion heard round the world—or México, at least. One year ago tomorrow, a mysterious, cartel-run town known as ‘the Badlands’ imploded, taking out its own residents, plus some of México’s most pervasive crime syndicates. But none more famous, or dangerous, than two which have become household names since the explosion.
“Belmonte-Ruiz, known for their extensive trafficking ring and the development of a drug rumored to take its users as ‘close to Heaven as humanly possible.’ The explosion incinerated nine-tenths of their cartel, a large portion of two other factions, and two of the three kingpins the United States government had on the FBI Most Wanted list.
“There are no good guys here, but since its destruction, the Calavera cartel’s legend has grown amongst the people. Once feared as an international cartel with an anonymous leader renowned for his merciless ways, narcocorridos tell a different story. It’s one our station can’t confirm, but these ballads canonize the leaders of Calavera cartel for their fight to curb human trafficking in a way the government never could.
“During this Día de los Muertos, we remember the innocent lives lost that day—if there were any. But what makes this a tragic tale, and one that has fascinated the public, is the love story between Natalia Cruz, the stunning daughter of Bianca King and businessman Costa Cruz—”
I shut off the television and tossed the remote on my desk. I’d heard enough the past year. It never got any easier. The way the they glorified Natalia and Cristiano—didn’t the media know they had a grieving father? I respected Cristiano’s passion, and if he saw to it to kill himself over principle, fine. But to take my daughter with him.
I hadn’t yet forgiven it.
“Legend says the explosion shook the earth to its core, changing México’s geography forever,” I heard behind me.
I turned to Barto as he stood in the doorway. “Legend exaggerates.”
But it hadn’t exaggerated my daughter’s beauty. Nor my son-in-law’s determination to do things his way. Determination that would get them both killed.
Narcocorridos—Mexican ballads—idolized drug lords, traffickers, and cartels, romanticizing our wins and losses. They told the story right. Natalia and Cristiano had possessed a great love, like mine with Bianca. At one time, it was all I’d wished for my daughter.
I set my elbows on my desk and put my head in my hands. “Senseless.”
“But noble,” Barto said, entering the room. “They certainly made a difference in the world, which you know is what they wanted. They’re at peace, now, Costa.”
I grumbled my agreement. The rest of the year, I could be understanding of the sacrifice they’d made for a better world. But on the anniversary of not just their deaths, but Bianca’s, too, I only wanted to grieve.
I was about to tell Barto to leave when the maid knocked at the door of my study.
“Mail, señor,” she said, hanging off a stack of envelopes and catalogues to Barto before she disappeared again.
Barto walked to the desk, sifting through everything until he stopped on the final item—a bulky, padded manila envelope. “What’s this?” he asked.
I lifted my head and craned my neck to see better.
Handwriting that looked vaguely f
amiliar. No return address, though.
The only handwriting I knew as well as my own belonged to those who were no longer with me. Bianca and Natalia. Both gone.
“Give it to me,” I said.
“It could be dangerous,” Barto said, turning over the envelope. “Let me—”
I stood, came around the desk, and took it from him. Danger meant something different these days. It meant nothing. I had little left of importance to lose. I tore open the envelope and a rosary fell out.
Not just any rosary, though. One centered by a polished gilt Sacred Heart and matching crucifix. Red rubies, milky pearls on a gold chain. I’d had it commissioned myself.
I’d know it anywhere.
It had been Bianca’s.
“What the . . . fuck?” I muttered.
Barto was at my side immediately. “What is it?”
Well-loved, with some scratches in the gold and wear on the gemstones, this wasn’t a replica.
I pushed the beads through my fingers as my throat thickened with emotion. “Where did it come from?” I looked up at Barto. “Who sent it—and why now?”
Barto’s eyes widened as something passed over his face.
Alarm made me straighten. Any reaction was rare with him—especially one of surprise. “I . . .”
“What is it?” I demanded.
Barto met my eyes and slowly shook his head. “I don’t know, don Costa. I’m sorry.” His gaze returned to the precious piece of jewelry clutched in my hand. Barto’s tone softened. “Perhaps just a simple sign from God that your wife is at peace, and that . . .” Barto crossed himself. “That both her and your daughter are in good hands.”
Epilogue
Natalia
We were warned, and so were you. In the end, death took what it wanted—Cristiano and Natalia de la Rosa. But in their place, Joaquin and Jenny Delgado were born.
My attacker had no idea who he was dealing with.
Violent Triumphs (White Monarch Book 3) Page 28