Violent Ends (White Monarch Book 2)

by Jessica Hawkins

  “Why would he do that?” I asked. “And how is he getting away with it?”

  “He’s hard to get to. Hard to bring down. That’s where you come in. If you confront him, he’ll just spin it somehow.” Diego got a cigarette from his shirt pocket, then seemed to think better of lighting it. “Play dumb, but act smart. Listen. See. Hear. And report back to me what you find so Belmonte-Ruiz can do the dirty work.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not doing anything until you tell me exactly who they are.”

  “Belmonte-Ruiz?” He stuck the cigarette behind his ear. “The most successful traffickers of forced laborers and sex slaves in the country.”

  The contents of my stomach turned over. “Why would I want to help them?”

  “You don’t. But they have more reason than anyone to bring Cristiano down. He’s costing them money and resources and making them look like fools.” Diego looked over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “Nobody on Cristiano’s team can be bought. Trust me. They’re loyal dogs. But you’re in a better position than any of them. Be my eyes and ears on the inside, and I’ll handle getting Belmonte-Ruiz the information they need to take out Cristiano and his business—and to free you.”

  Diego wanted me to snitch. I didn’t need Cristiano to tell me not to go through his things and not to repeat anything I’d heard. Anyone who’d grown up around here, no matter how sheltered, knew that narcs were one of two things—undiscovered or dead.

  If Diego was willing to risk me getting caught going through Cristiano’s things, that told me two things.

  Whatever he felt for me, it wasn’t selfless, and that meant it wasn’t love.

  And that this wasn’t a plan to save me, but to save himself.

  “And then what?” I asked, to see what he’d say.

  “And then we go to California like we planned.”

  I would’ve laughed if it didn’t hurt so much. I’d wanted California and that life with Diego more than I’d wanted anything except my mother back. California seemed like a distant dream now, though. And if I was honest, it felt wrong. The perfect life I’d had there suddenly and starkly contrasted with the dire fates of the women whose lives were being played with by warring cartels.

  Diego checked the door again and reached into his back pocket. “Come here, Tali.”

  Curious, I inched closer to him. He hooked a finger into my waistband and tugged until we were face to face. “Diego,” I warned. If Cristiano caught us like this, we’d both be dead. “I told you not to touch me. I don’t want you to.”

  “I know you’re scared of how my brother will react, but don’t lie and tell me you don’t dream about our night together.”

  Even before all this had come to light, I hadn’t thought about the sex we’d had much at all—I was too busy trying to survive. And now, thinking of it only made my mouth sour. “I don’t think about it. I can’t.”

  “Then maybe I need to refresh your memory,” he said quietly, lowering his mouth to my cheek. “We could steal away into the closet for a kiss.”

  His hot breath on my cheek made my heart pound. It wasn’t exciting. It felt calculating, as if he were trying to get something from me. And even if I’d wanted to have a few final moments in fantasyland, the thought of Cristiano bursting in kept me firmly rooted in reality.

  “He will cut off your hands,” I said to Diego, trying to take a step back.

  “Wait.” He kept his finger hooked in my belt loop. Reaching between us, he slipped his hand into my pocket, where he deposited something small. “You’ll need this so we can stay in touch. A burner phone.”

  “Diego, I can’t,” I said, swallowing as my nerves flared. “Cristiano will find it.”

  “Then make sure he doesn’t. I’ve disabled the ringer. Delete any text conversations we have immediately. And if he does find it, it won’t reveal anything. It has only one number in it—mine. It’s saved under your dad’s name, though.”

  “He’ll never buy that.”

  “You’re smart and resourceful. Convince him, Tali. I’ve seen how he looks at you, and you don’t even realize the power you have over him. Over both of us.” He cupped my cheek, thumbing the corner of my mouth. “If he’s about to find the phone, if his hands wander somewhere you don’t want them—redirect them. Use his desire for you against him.”

  Diego was woefully naïve when it came to his brother’s prowess. Cristiano could not be misdirected or distracted when he set his mind to something. And if I were going to use my sexuality against anyone, it would be on my terms. Not Diego’s.

  “I believe in you,” he said. “I’ll do everything I can on my end to make Cristiano pay for putting you in this position.”

  With one hand on my cheek, he slipped the other around my waist and leaned in.

  I pulled back, trying to wriggle free. “Stop,” I insisted. It felt strange to deny him when only days ago, I’d have done anything for a few minutes alone with him. “I told you not to touch me.”

  “That’s Cristiano talking, not you.” He tilted my chin up, waiting until I met his eyes. “You’re only giving them what they want. First your father, now my brother. They’re determined to keep us apart.”

  “Determined?” I heard behind me. My heart leapt into my throat as Diego’s eyes shot over my head. Slow, controlled footsteps echoed through the room. I closed my eyes, knowing what I’d find when I turned around. Knowing how bad this looked, and that I would pay the price, not Diego.

  “Determined is not the right word,” Cristiano said. “Try resolved. Hell-bent. Try this—I’ll stop at nothing to keep you two apart.”

  Slowly, with deliberate movements, I pushed the phone as deeply into my pocket as it would go. I didn’t even want it, but I couldn’t let Cristiano see it.

  I turned around. Everything about Cristiano was buttoned up—not just his suit jacket and perfectly knotted tie, but his tense frame and locked jaw betrayed his discontent.

  “We were just talking,” Diego said.

  “That’s not the way it looks to me.” He kept his eyes on Diego. “Come here, Natalia. Behind me.”

  Leaving Diego’s side would expose him to his brother’s wrath. Good. It was becoming apparent that Diego would use my body as his shield as long as I let him, but Cristiano used himself as mine now—just as he had that morning with Barto.

  I went to Cristiano, whose dark, endless eyes bored into mine a moment before he shifted them back to Diego. “And what did you talk about?” Cristiano asked him, dark, sinister amusement lacing his words as he moved in front of me. “The weather?”

  Diego smirked. “We spoke of the impossible.”

  Cristiano didn’t stop until they were face to face. “I’m not in the mood for riddles.”

  “I said there was no way you’d pleased her more than me,” Diego said, lengthening his spine. “And she said you had. That she’d never been so satisfied as she was on her wedding night because her groom never touched her.”

  “Diego,” I said, covering my mouth. I had shared that in confidence. I was already going to be in trouble—why make it worse for me?

  Cristiano grabbed Diego by the shirt. “I hope those ten minutes alone with her were worth it. Now tell me which hand you’d prefer to lose.”

  “Enough,” came a bark from the doorway. I turned as my father took a few measured paces, his expensive loafers silent on the wood floors.

  Cristiano released Diego with a shove.

  “Cristiano has attacked me.” Diego fixed his collar, looking to me for back up. I wouldn’t offer it—not to either man. “He has attacked your family,” he continued, “and proven what I’ve known all along—he isn’t the man we once knew.”

  “None of us are,” Papá said, pausing at my side.

  In that moment, they were two wards of the cartel, standing before their fed-up jefe.

  Papá sighed as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. “When night falls, I’m alone in the dark with only my character. The
choices I’ve made, if I’ve kept my word—and whether I’ve stayed true to myself and my instincts.”

  I looked up at my father as lines crinkled around his eyes. He wouldn’t end this. The deal was done. He was the man in my life, but today, my trust in him had eroded just a little.

  Cristiano gave a satisfied rumble from his chest. “What do your instincts tell you, don Costa?”

  Papá looked between the both of them. “Leave my home. And don’t return.”

  I didn’t have to see which brother his eyes had landed on, but my nerves flared nonetheless. A day ago, I would’ve fallen to my knees and begged my father to pardon and forgive the boy I loved, but Diego’s sins were too great—and his betrayal had cut this family too deep.

  “I am not the enemy here, Costa,” Diego said, a tremor of panic in his voice. “You’re alone at night because you lost your wife. We may never have hard evidence Cristiano was behind it, but you know in your heart he was.”

  “I know in my heart that he wasn’t,” my father said.

  He’d said it before, and his mind was made up. I hoped, for my sake, he was right.

  Diego narrowed his eyes. “You seem to forget Cristiano blew up one of our tunnels and killed a number of our men at the warehouse last week—an attack which almost took Natalia, too.”

  “A nearly inexcusable offense,” my father agreed. “But one you’re guilty of as well, since you made the deal in the first place. Cristiano has promised to make it up to me.”

  “I’m not the enemy,” Diego repeated with conviction.

  “No?” Papá asked, fisting his hands. “You never planned to fuck me over? Never thought about it?” His body seemed to grow bigger beside me. “Never wondered what it might be like to back me into a corner—and use my daughter to do it,”—his voice boomed so loudly, the windows nearly shook—“and break her heart and fuck her when I explicitly told you to stay away?” He thrust his finger at the door. “Get out!”

  Diego’s jaw looked painfully tight as he stared at us. My cheeks burned with the heat of a thousand suns, and I wished for a trapdoor in the ground to swallow me up just then.

  “You nearly got us all killed,” Papá said evenly, but no less threatening. “You went behind my back and tried to take Natalia from me.”

  “And I failed.” Diego seethed more quietly than my father. “But Cristiano succeeded. He’s the one who’s fucking her now—in more ways than one.”

  Cristiano turned his head, looking cool and collected, but his neck corded. For a moment, I thought he might make good on his promise to remove one of Diego’s body parts.

  “And that’s no longer your concern,” my father said. “My instincts—and those of my beloved wife, God rest her soul—tell me this is where you and I part ways, Diego.”

  And that was it—Papá’s word was the final one. Barto waited by the door, and Diego was forced to walk through his past—by his brother, his benefactor, and his lost love—and toward as uncertain a future as mine.

  “May God protect you when I can’t, my love,” Diego said softly to me as he passed. He glanced over his shoulder at Cristiano. “And may He protect you from the devil—as He has me.”

  I was beginning to learn it wasn’t God’s job to protect me, and it certainly wasn’t Diego’s. Even Papá hadn’t been able to reverse this. The job was mine. I wanted to go back to the way things were—to fall into Diego’s embrace and believe that he’d fix this. To let my trust in my father overflow as it always had. But they had both failed me, and the sting was fresh. Neither had given me any reason today to believe he wouldn’t fail me again.

  I was on my own.

  9

  Natalia

  Taking the terrain at a higher speed than we had yet, I jostled in the cab of Max’s pickup truck on our way back from my father’s house. We sailed over rocks and potholes right up until we entered the gates of the Badlands and Max slowed down.

  Cristiano had taken two calls during the ride home, neither of which had offered anything of value with his monosyllabic responses.

  When Max parked out front of the house, Cristiano spoke his first words to me since we’d left my father’s. “Wait there.”

  As he came around to my side of the car, he removed his jacket and undid his cuffs. He opened my door, rolling up his shirtsleeves and looking expectantly at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You will always sit in the car until I come to the door for you. It’s a show of respect.”

  “You can’t command respect,” I said. “It has to be earned.”

  He took my waist and spoke low in my ear as he lifted me from the truck. “Put your claws away. I’m the one showing you respect.”

  “I’m not a dog.” I took his hand and jumped out of the SUV into the dirt. “You don’t have to train me to stay until you tell me to come.”

  “Only time will tell,” he said.

  I wasn’t on my feet two seconds before Cristiano spun me around by my shoulders and yanked my back against his body. He wrapped an arm around my front and something cool and flat pressed against my neck.

  I lost my breath entirely, my body registering a millisecond before my mind that he was holding a knife. He knew. He’d seen Diego press his lips to mine. He’d seen him slip the cell phone into my pocket.

  “Wh-what are you doing?” I managed.

  “I’ll tell you what I’m not doing,” he said, his voice pure grit and gravel in my ear. “I’m not standing here shaking like a leaf, letting panic overtake me. That’s what you’re doing.”

  “Why?” I choked out. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Does anyone need a reason to hurt you? Scare you? Touch you against your will?” He marched me forward to the lawn in front of the house. My heart pounded painfully as I felt the phone against my thigh with each of our long strides.

  “I’m sorry,” I pleaded.

  “For what?”

  “For betraying you.”

  He paused, and I could’ve sworn I felt his heart beat against my back. “When did you betray me?”

  “Diego touched me, but I told him not to. I tried to stop him.”

  “And you think I’d punish you for his gutless actions?”

  When I swallowed, my throat moved against the blade. I was afraid to even speak. I sure as hell wasn’t going to nod.

  “Do something, Natalia.” When I didn’t respond, he growled. “I said fucking do something.”

  Tears filled my eyes. I didn’t know what he was asking. Did he mean something sexual? But I was firmly in his grip. I’d made a grave mistake dropping my guard with Cristiano for even a moment. Now, we were going to consummate the marriage as I’d wished—but with a knife to my throat.

  I closed my eyes and moved my hips back against him.

  He inhaled a sharp breath and threw the knife on the ground. “If that’s your move, then I won’t say no.” He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Get on the ground, facedown, so I can fuck you.”

  “No,” I cried, my throat protesting. “Not like this.”

  “You’re grinding against my dick, Natalia. What did you expect?” He tried pushing me to my knees. “Get down or fight back.”

  “I c-can’t,” I said. “I can’t fight you.”

  “Then I’ll teach you how,” he said, releasing my shoulder and stepping away.

  I clutched my throat, whirled around, and backed away as a tear slid down my cheek. “What?”

  “I wanted to see what you’d do in that situation, and I have to say, Natalia—I’m sorely disappointed. You wilted like a flower. I thought you were a survivor.”

  “Fuck you.” The unbidden words rasped from me as tears built in the back of my throat, but I wouldn’t take them back. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “I could’ve beaten you. Raped you. Slit your throat. And you didn’t even try to stop me.” He picked up the knife, wiped the blade along his pants, and sheathed it. “Nobody should ever be able to touch you against y
our will, Natalia.”

  “You’re the only one who would,” I shot back.

  “And you stand there and let me, trembling and freezing up the way you did last night.”

  I gritted my teeth, anger overtaking my fear. “What am I supposed to do?” I accused. “I’m half your size. You’re probably five times stronger than me.”

  “Yet I possess the same weak spots you do, mamacita. You just need to know where they are.” He looked almost amused as fury burned through me. With a smirk, he said, “Show me the self-defense moves you learned after I tried to kidnap you eleven years ago.”

  “What are you talking about? I don’t know any.”

  “As I suspected.” He shook his head at the ground. “Your father threw you on the ground. Diego tried to kiss you earlier when you told him not to. And me? I don’t have to tell you I could’ve done any number of things to you back in that tunnel—as I could right now. What’s it going to take to get you to fight back?”

  I shuddered as I stared at him, but not just with aftershocks of fear. He made me sound completely helpless while conveniently ignoring the circumstances. “I may never even see Diego again,” I sniped at him, “so you don’t need to worry about him touching me.”

  “Fuck him. This isn’t about Diego. It’s on you.” Cristiano’s chest rose and fell a little faster as he cracked his knuckles. “It never occurred to Costa to teach you how to sever a brachial artery or handle a handgun? It never occurred to you to learn to defend yourself?”

  I removed my fingers from my throat, but the ghost of the cold metal blade remained. “I did defend myself. I left this life. You’re the one who brought me back in.”

  “If your father had ever upset the wrong people . . . don’t you think they’d have been able to track you down in California? Did you think that precious, flimsy bubble you created for yourself would keep you hidden? You don’t know the simplest self-defense. Can you even operate a bottle of pepper spray?”

  “Is there more to it than point and spray?”

  “For fuck’s sake, Natalia.” He ran a hand through his black, normally smooth hair. Now that he’d disheveled it, it stuck up. “Given the malfunction rate, taking a few minutes to learn would behoove you.”