Violent Triumphs (White Monarch Book 3)

by Jessica Hawkins

I nailed him in the chest with the flat of my foot, and my sneaker landed squarely between his pecs. He grabbed my ankle and twisted until I was forced to rotate around and face the opposite direction. Teetering on one leg, anyone else would’ve been dangerously close to falling flat on her face.

  Not me. I lifted my head and met a sea of wide-eyed women, their mouths agape. “A leg grab like this while fighting back is both common and dangerous,” I said. My shoulder-length hair fell forward, curtaining my face. “So in this scenario—”

  Fuck.

  A dark glare pinned me from the back of the room. Cristiano’s arms crossed over his wide chest, displaying the massive biceps that had lovingly hugged me just this morning.

  With the way his firmed jaw ticked like a time bomb about to blow, he looked more likely to kill me.

  He took one step forward into the room.

  “Let go, Dimitris,” I hissed to the man holding my ankle in a firm grip.

  “Huh?”

  Poor guy didn’t realize his life was on the line. Cristiano took another step.

  “Release my leg,” I said under my breath so I wouldn’t scare the women sitting on the mat in front of us. I was sure they were already horrified enough to see me up here, even though my fake last name was on the banner in the registration room. “Hurry.”

  He let go, and I lowered my foot to the ground gracefully to show Cristiano that my body was perfectly within my control. I straightened as I slipped my sandal back on and stepped back, gesturing for Dimitris to continue. “Sorry I interrupted your lesson,” I said, retreating. “Go ahead. Continue.”

  With a funny look, Dimitris turned back to the class.

  I gave Cristiano my best puppy-dog eyes since they’d served me well with him in the past. I held a finger to my lips to indicate we shouldn’t interrupt. The alternative was that these women, who we’d invited here to learn to defend themselves, would watch me get reamed out.

  When I met Cristiano at the door, he placed a hand on my upper back and guided me out of the small, mirrored room and into the office, where he shut the door behind himself.

  “Natalia,” he started.

  “Lourdes, my love,” I corrected him. Had I not been able to see his anger with my own eyes, my name, loaded with warning, would’ve been enough to tell me. “Or Jenny, of course—”

  “We’re alone.” His brows lowered. “Don’t change the subject.”

  I tried to look contrite. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just observing the class before our date, and I get so excited to demonstrate for the girls myself. And I feel great—”

  “And what if that pendejo out there had yanked on your foot and you’d lost your balance?”

  I walked to Cristiano, took his hands, and placed them on my thirty-three-weeks-pregnant belly. “Everything’s going to be okay, papi. We’re safe here. Nothing is happening to this baby.” I smiled up at him. “I’ve never been so sure of anything.”

  His shoulders loosened, if only a little. “I worry, mi amor.”

  I laughed. “That’s like saying the Pope prays. It’s very obvious.”

  “I’m not being unreasonable,” he cried. “Everyone in that room thought you were crazy. That an eight-month pregnant woman would teach self-defense . . .” He shook his head and uttered a profanity.

  His concern didn’t bother me; it made him who he was. But it was unnecessary. I squeezed his hands beneath mine. “Can’t you feel how strong our bebita is?”

  As if on cue, she kicked, but her timing wasn’t that strange. The baby was always moving around, always telling her mama she was ready to come out and throw some punches. I wanted that, too, considering my uterus had become a punching bag.

  Cristiano grunted, smoothing his hands under my blouse and over the warm, tight skin of my stomach. “I can’t wait any longer to meet her.” His demeanor lightened considerably, as it often did when he spoke of the future. “Do you think she’ll come early?”

  I nodded. “She’s very eager and persistent. Like her father.”

  He bent forward to place a sweet kiss on my lips. “Don’t think you’re off the hook. Since day one of this pregnancy, you’ve been strictly forbidden from teaching self-defense.”

  “And I have definitely abided by that rule,” I said, trying not to squirm from the obvious lie.

  As if Cristiano didn’t know. His full lips pressed into a line, displaying his skepticism. “I’m not trying to limit you—you know that.” He stepped closer and slipped his hands around the back of my neck to gather my long bob into a loose ponytail. “I’ve just come too close, too many times, to losing you.”

  I fought the urge to shut my eyes as his fingers tickled beneath my hairline. “But this last year has been quiet,” I reminded him. “Nobody knows we’re here but Max. And nobody’s losing anybody.”

  One year ago, Cristiano and I had died.

  Incinerated along with the Badlands.

  All of México knew it. For months, we’d holed up in tiny apartments throughout Europe, never staying in one place too long, keeping our faces from the public.

  The resulting baby was no surprise considering, without much else to do, we’d had sex for days on end.

  Officially, we were Joaquin and Jennifer Delgado now. Cristiano hated calling me by a fake name, so sometimes he used Lourdes in public. But always, in private, I was his Natalia.

  Fortunately, though we’d been major news in our home country, the story had never really made it outside of México.

  And I loved our new life, basking in each other every day, getting to know the very cores of ourselves, and of each other. But living a life indoors, under the radar, would never last for us—even if it meant we kept a little danger alive.

  Opening a business had been risky. We owned and funded a traveling girls’ school that taught self-defense to any and all women—or people—who wanted to attend. Once the course was complete, we’d pick up and change locations so we were never in one place too long.

  The little bit of risk suited us. We’d already survived the most dangerous situations possible.

  One year ago, we’d descended into the belly of the beast, the mountainside rumbling with its impending explosion. There’d always been a good chance we wouldn’t make it out in time, so when I’d told Cristiano I was ready to die by his side, I’d meant it.

  But fortunately, it hadn’t happened that way.

  Cristiano had had every intention of dying the day he’d thought he’d lost me to Heaven’s stairway. But my revival had changed his plan back to the one he and Max had originally put in place many years ago in case of an emergency like this.

  After Cristiano had pushed the button and we’d heard the underground roar, we’d passed through the tunnel system that led out of the Badlands, burrowing down into the mountain and under the ocean. We’d had to run. Fast. I’d never moved that quickly in my life, my hand locked in Cristiano’s as we’d pulled each other along.

  But we’d made it to the end of the tunnel before the explosion could catch us, where a submarine had waited complete with the documents to support our new life and coordinates already programmed into the GPS. Only Max knew the truth. To everyone else, we were nothing more than ashes, gone in the wind.

  I thanked Our Lady of Guadalupe every day that my love and I had survived, and that now, we’d finally form a family. And I thanked Cristiano, too, for the devil made his own destiny and crowned his own queen.

  Date night, my favorite time of week.

  Holding hands, Cristiano and I walked through the cobblestone streets of the small town in Greece where we’d chosen to settle for the next little while. Soon, either here or in our next spot, we’d have to stay put to have the baby.

  The sun made its way toward the horizon, casting late-afternoon light on the white plaster walls that broke up buildings the colors of blush, pistachio, and melon. We made our lazy way through the labyrinth toward upbeat music in the town center. Every Saturday night, residents gathered for
a street fair.

  Cristiano bought a bottle of locally distilled single malt and some baklava, feeding me a bite before his animalistic appetite possessed him to take a chunk out of it.

  We stopped by a wall to finish our pastries. One man had covered himself head to toe in gold spray-paint and stood still as a statue in front of a bowl for tips. Another played a hauntingly beautiful melody on the violin. A teen girl skulked around the booths in a skull-and-crossbones hoodie.

  A cool breeze passed through the square for a perfect November evening.

  Cristiano’s eyes roamed the area around us, and I knew he was thinking of his people in the Badlands, dispersed around the world now. I had complete faith they’d all made a home somewhere and were thriving, as did he.

  I hoped that was true for my friends, Pilar and Alejandro, wherever they were.

  For my father, I wished peace, though I knew he struggled with such an empty house. I shouldn’t have sent the rosary. Cristiano hadn’t wanted me to, but he hadn’t stopped me, either. I wasn’t sure if Papá would understand, but Cristiano had said Barto definitely would.

  I slipped my hand in Cristiano’s, and he turned to smile down at me. “More fine, handmade clothing here than we’ve seen in a while. What do you need?” he asked. “Aren’t your pants getting too small?”

  “Never ask a woman who can shatter your kneecap with a swift kick whether she can fit into her pants.”

  “Ay, pero you’re pregnant, mi corazón,” he said, as if I needed reminding.

  “And do you know what pregnant women like?” I asked.

  “Ice cream,” he answered.

  He knew me so well. Either that, or I’d been milking the cravings too hard. Either way, I got my gelato. Cristiano bought me a cup with a tiny spoon, and we made our way around the square, stopping to purchase little things we didn’t really need, mostly to support the residents, and accepting the occasional gift for our future daughter.

  As we stood at one booth admiring wooden jewelry boxes, the hair on the back of my neck rose. The steady tap of nails on glass, over and over, made a simple beat that somehow became chilling.

  “Cristiano,” I whispered.

  He squeezed my hand. “¿Qué pasa?”

  Slowly, I turned my head over my shoulder and met the dark, cunning eyes of an elderly woman sitting across the way. She drummed her nails on a glass ball centered atop the purple crushed velvet fabric covering her table.

  My mouth dried. Shimmering gold headdress. A mélange of rings in silver and gold topped with pearls and gemstones. Veiny, feminine hands.

  It had been over a year-and-a-half, but I hadn’t forgotten the woman with the slender, wrinkled fingers, haunting eyes, and floral perfume from my father’s annual costume gala. And rarely a few days went by that I didn’t remember the fortune teller’s words from that night.

  “You will die for him, your love.”

  I had died. I’d been pronounced dead, my body so devoid of life that it had terminated my first child.

  No good could come from this.

  I stepped back and hit Cristiano’s wall of a body. He squeezed my shoulders. “What is it, Lourdes?” he asked. “Do you need—”

  He stopped speaking. I turned around to see why. His gaze was also trained on the old woman staring back at us.

  “Who wants to know their future?” she called out in that same craggy voice. Her cackle turned into a hacking cough.

  “She gives me a bad feeling,” I said.

  “And me,” he agreed.

  “Do you know her?”

  He nodded. “I believe we met once.”

  And had she told Cristiano his future?

  This soothsayer had said I’d die for the love of my life, and I had. Not just once, but twice. I’d come clawing back to life once for Cristiano, and we were strong and healthy now. I couldn’t take any more despair.

  I grabbed Cristiano’s hand and started to pull him away.

  This woman could bring nothing but bad news.

  Cristiano

  “Lovely young couple,” the old woman said, slowing us in our tracks as we made for a getaway. “And with a chiquita on the way.”

  Clever woman. She knew the sex of my child. Any other time, I’d have called it a lucky guess. Now? I wasn’t sure. I still didn’t believe in this kind of hocus pocus. But my fortune had been eerily spot on.

  Was it premonition that my drink had been drugged at the political event? Or something more?

  I soothed my wife with a hand up and down her biceps, bringing her closer to my body. “What did she tell you?” I whispered over Natalia’s head.

  Her back went rigid. “That I would die,” she said and wriggled away from me to march toward the woman’s table.

  I followed, staying at Natalia’s back as she accused, “What do you want, vieja? Am I supposed to die a third time? My husband and I are happy. Enough harm has been done.”

  The woman pressed a hand to the base of her neck. “I simply deliver messages. I’m not so different from your beloved monarch.”

  All right, that was a bit too far. The monarch was private between Natalia and me. I gripped Natalia’s elbow to pull her back. “Let’s go.”

  But she couldn’t be moved. “That was just a silly costume,” she said.

  “And yet you’re considering naming your baby after . . .” Her eyes traveled up to mine. “Well, I won’t spoil it. I’ll let you tell your husband the name you’ve chosen.”

  Natalia’s face drained of blood. I had no idea that the woman meant, though. Had Natalia picked a name and not told me?

  “Stay away from us,” Natalia said.

  The woman sighed. “I don’t create anyone’s fates. I warned you, didn’t I? You should listen next time.”

  Next time.

  She had warned us—Natalia that she would die, apparently—and me, to get back up when I fell. Moments after I’d seen her, I’d literally fallen to my knees.

  And now she was here again.

  To give us a warning.

  “What is it?” I narrowed my eyes on la bruja. “What did you come here to tell us?”

  Her sparkling eyes fell to Natalia’s stomach. I put my arms around my wife, spreading my hands over her belly, shielding it.

  “It’s hard to see the future of a dead man. And you are, aren’t you?” Her gaze bounced to Natalia as she smiled and squinted. “However . . .”

  This didn’t mean a damn thing. And yet, I found myself leaning in, my heart thumping against Natalia’s back.

  “I see nothing.”

  I released a breath. After a lifetime of non-stop violence and death in the name of revenge, love, and sex, I muttered, “Nothing would be fucking great. For a while.”

  “For a while,” the sorceress agreed, nodding. “But not forever. I see light and love, too. Well into old age.” She lifted up and resettled in her seat, a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth. “And a daughter,” she added.

  “That we know,” Natalia said.

  “I’m speaking of the one after this.”

  Huh. Two daughters. I was glad for it. I deserved it, and so did Natalia. No girls would be loved more in the world.

  The woman sat back with a sigh. “Then again, I’ve been wrong before.” She glanced at her crystal ball. “I can look a little harder if you like? I may see something after all . . .”

  “No,” Natalia and I answered at the same time.

  “Well. I’ll be here next weekend, too.” She took a pack of cigarettes from somewhere under her table. “Do you have a light?”

  “I quit,” I said.

  “Right.”

  I put my arm around Natalia and guided her away as she cast a final glance over her shoulder at the woman. “Feel better?” I asked.

  “Me?” Natalia’s brows lifted. “I could’ve knocked you over with a feather, you were so interested in what she’d say.”

  I chuckled. “Nah. I don’t believe in any of that.”

  “Su
re.” She rolled her eyes. “So you don’t think we’ll have a second girl?”

  The thought put a smile on my face all the way back to the third-floor apartment we’d rented for now.

  As Natalia changed, I opened all the windows overlooking a small courtyard. Fresh, cool air breezed in. I turned on the record player, sat on the edge of our bed to remove my shoes, and leaned back on the mattress with an arm behind my head. Something I hadn’t gotten to do very much in my old life—sit and listen to music.

  I thought of the Badlands often—I couldn’t help it. It had been my life for twelve years. But between my childhood with my parents, my service at Costa’s compound, and the Calavera cartel, I’d lived several lifetimes. This one, with Natalia, would be just another adventure, and there was nobody I wanted by my side more.

  Speak of the she-devil, she strolled out of the bathroom in a black silk slip with lacy red edges that stopped just below the tops of her thighs. She smoothed her palms over her belly, curving her hands underneath and turning to the side so I could see how far along she was. I liked to watch her grow. To look at her as much as possible and commit these days to memory. Once the baby came, things would be a little more chaotic. Traveling around wouldn’t be as easy. I’d have to keep looking over my shoulder everywhere we went, with even more on the line.

  But it was a good problem to have. After the life we’d led, I was confident there wasn’t anything my wife and I couldn’t take on.

  She poured me a whisky neat from the bottle we’d picked up during our trip to the square and brought the glass and a lit candle to my bedside. “It’s Day of the Dead, and we didn’t do anything,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “I think we should be thankful for an uneventful holiday for once.” I winked. “But yes, we honor those we’ve lost. Your mother. Our baby. My men, your father’s, too, and our friends.”

  She nodded and glanced at her purse, where she kept the sonogram she’d received this time last year.

  I took her hand, brought it to my mouth and pressed a kiss to the back of it.

  With a smile, she passed me my drink. “How is it?”

  I took a sip. “Not like the Zamora’s blue agave,” I said. “But very nice.”