Violent Ends (White Monarch Book 2)

by Jessica Hawkins

  He talked a big game, but so far, he’d only smiled when it came time to bare his teeth. I needed him to break. To show his true colors.

  I couldn’t beat a monster I didn’t know.

  At dusk, the back patio glowed with strung white lights, and a square, candlelit table set for two. I’d found my way here on my own since Cristiano had disappeared while I was in the shower, and I hadn’t seen Jaz since that morning.

  A temperate evening with an air of romance suited the long, floral, strapless dress I’d bought in Mexico City a few summers earlier. I’d found it hanging on the back of the closet door after my shower. Cristiano sat at the table, an ankle crossed over one knee as he scrolled on his cell phone. His shoulders were as high as his eyebrows were low. This time, he definitely didn’t sense me standing there. I’d snuck up on him—a first.

  I recognized the tableware as fine china and silver, impeccably set in the organized manner my mother had tried to teach me as a girl. A bottle of white chilled in a marble wine cooler.

  “Are you expecting company?” I asked from the doorway.

  The frown he’d been wearing disappeared as he slipped his phone into the pocket of a white, linen dress shirt open at the collar. His eyes drifted over my dress. “Hermoso. It’s beautiful.”

  I smoothed my hands down the front of the dress. “The staff does all this for you?”

  “For us.” He stood and pulled out the chair next to him. “Sit.”

  I walked by him to the seat across his instead, to the only other place setting. “It seems someone prefers me to sit here.”

  He reached over and grabbed the corner of the placemat to slide it next to his. “Yet I have the final word.”

  In all things, I was sure. I took my place beside him.

  “Wine?” he asked, drawing out the frosty bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

  My mouth watered for a taste—not of the alcohol but of an escape. A way to dull my senses. But I had to be sharp as a tack to keep up with Cristiano. “No, thank you.”

  “It’s French. Or would you prefer something of the Russian variety?” His eyes twinkled the way they had the night at the club, when he’d pulled two shots of chilled Siberian vodka from nowhere.

  “I find myself suddenly on the wagon,” I said.

  “¿Qué significa?” He made a face. “What does it mean?”

  “Sober,” I explained.

  “Ah. Probably wise, but I hope you don’t mind if I partake.” He poured himself a glass and didn’t bother to look, smell, or swish before taking a gulp. “That was quite a show earlier,” he said, examining the glass. “I don’t know whether to thank you or spank you for it.”

  My breath caught in my throat. “Why would you spank me?”

  “You thought it would rattle me. And it did. I enjoyed it, but that doesn’t mean I condone it.”

  “It was only fair. You showed me yours, I showed you mine.” I put my napkin on my lap, averting my eyes. “Now we’re even.”

  He snorted. “Hardly. You didn’t even look.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “If you’d seen what I’ve got to offer, you’d either have dropped to your knees to give thanks—or fainted.”

  I gaped at him. “Your arrogance knows no bounds. Diego was—”

  “Nothing compared to me.” His mouth slid into a sinister smile.

  “Such humility,” I mocked.

  “I know when to be humble and when it isn’t necessary. In this case, I know what I have.” His eyes drifted over me. “But I have yet to know my own wife. Though I’m certain she has no reason to be humble, either.”

  “I’m not a piece of meat,” I said.

  He picked up his knife and scraped the blade across the tongs of a fork as if sharpening it. “Bon appétit, ma chérie.”

  Hunger glinted in his eyes, but not for food. It wasn’t the first time I’d pictured him devouring me like an animal.

  Fisker stepped onto the patio and set down a plate in front of each of us. “Escargot à la Bourguignonne in garlic-herb butter. Enjoy.”

  I frowned at the dish, confronted with the first of the many horrible rumors I’d heard about the Badlands. “Are these . . . ?”

  “Escargot,” Cristiano said blankly. “Have you been to France?”

  “No,” I said, wondering how a half-dozen snails had made it onto my plate. Tepic had warned of satanic rituals like this—but compared to what my mind had conjured up, this was fairly ordinary. I couldn’t help it—I started to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” Cristiano asked. “Snails are a delicacy in France.”

  “I know. It’s just . . . I heard these rumors about Calavera.”

  He used a two-prong fork to remove the meat from its shell and dip it into the sauce. “Well?” he prompted.

  I pinched one between my tongs. “I heard your cartel is like a cult.”

  “What’s that got to do with snails?”

  “You eat them and other strange foods, then you speak in tongues, sacrifice virgins, and throw rotten fish at whores.”

  Cristiano chewed, nodded, and didn’t deny any of it. “I suppose to people who’d never been outside of México, likely those spreading these rumors, foreign foods like drunken shrimp, bratwurst, bird’s nest soup—or snails—would seem strange.”

  “So that’s all there is to it?” I asked. “What about the other rumors? Are they true?”

  “I know when to keep my mouth shut.” He swallowed and sat back in his seat. “So if I address them for you, you give me your word what I tell you doesn’t leave this house.”

  My laughter faded. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Surely not all the rumors were as innocuous as French food. That would mean facing the truth about my time here.

  “Oh, no,” he said, shaking his head as he read my expression. “You don’t get to back out now. Tell me you can keep my secrets. I intend to have all your secrets, too, so it’s only fair.”

  I thought of the mission Diego had charged me with. If I accepted, from this point on, I’d be passing along sensitive information I’d been sworn to keep. At least last night, I hadn’t yet agreed to anything.

  So who had my loyalty?

  After today, there could be only one answer. Me. I was loyal to myself. I couldn’t trust the reasons why Diego wanted the information, but I wasn’t going to kneel for Cristiano, either. Nor would I give up the phone just yet. As of now, it was my only communication with the outside world.

  I glanced at the table and back up. “You have my word.”

  “Fisker—oye,” he called out. “How many languages do you speak?”

  The chef sauntered onto the patio wiping his hands on a dishtowel. “Fluently? Cinco, señor.”

  “So that’s Danish, Spanish, English . . .?”

  “German and Swedish. And some French.” He turned to me. “You look surprised, madame. But it’s very common where I come from, and in the Badlands too.”

  “My men are from all over the world. They speak everything from Russian to Chinese to Swahili.” Cristiano gestured at Fisker. “In how many languages can you say snails?”

  “In more than I speak. Escargot, snegle, caragols de terra, slakken, caracoles—”

  “This is Natalia’s first experience with them.”

  “Ah, but you requested them?” he asked Cristiano, who nodded. Fisker turned to me and added, “Butter is the key. Dip generously.”

  Cristiano dismissed him with a “Merci.” When we were alone again, Cristiano said, “To an uncultured ear, some languages, especially all at once, might sound—”

  “Barbaric,” I finished.

  “But what’s barbaric,” he said, “is the Scottish wedding ritual I partook in last year.”

  I glanced up, my eyebrows cinched. “What was it?”

  “Our Scotsman found himself a lassie, and in his super rural part of the country, they have some outlandish customs. The bride and groom are blackened with soot, feathers, and more, and para
ded around the night before the wedding to ward off evil. We then covered the bride in the worst things we could find, like dead fish, sausages, and curdled milk . . . and tied her to a tree.”

  My jaw tingled as he sat there chewing his food like it was no big deal. “That’s disgusting,” I accused. “How can you allow that?”

  “Should I judge someone else’s culture? They have their ideology, and she was a willing participant. Some people might find it strange that you and I were lassoed.”

  “No one more than me,” I muttered.

  He chuckled. “The happy Scottish couple was married right here on the property, and they’re expecting a son next month.”

  “So how do people know what happens in here if nobody has lived to tell the tale?”

  “Rumors find a way, and that’s not true, anyway. People can leave any time they want, but most choose to stay.”

  I didn’t know enough yet to say if that was true, but why would they stay?

  “And drones,” he added. “We capture or shoot them out of the sky on a regular basis, but occasionally I’ll allow one to spy on us—if I think it helps.”

  I was almost afraid to ask. “Helps . . .?”

  “Let the people talk,” he said, waving a hand. “That’s my logic. What the idle mind conceives is far worse than what I can do. If people want to believe we have no internal compass for right or wrong, and that we’ll brutalize intruders who would do us harm, I won’t correct them.”

  I blinked. Either he was fucking with me or he was fucking with the world. “You don’t brutalize intruders?”

  “Who’d do us harm?” he asked, sucking his teeth. “Of course we do.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What about the virgin rumor?”

  “Well.” He dipped another snail. “That I’m not sure about, although I have some ideas where it started.”

  I studied him a moment, then finally gave in to the aroma of garlic and butter and picked up a shell. I followed his lead, extracting the meat and dunking it in the sauce. It looked even slimier drenched in melted butter. I stared at it, steeling myself to put the creepy crawler in my mouth.

  “Are you sure you don’t want wine?” he asked with a hint of a smile.

  I tested the snail with my tongue, but all I tasted was the flavoring. “I’ll have a little,” I conceded.

  Cristiano eyed me as he poured Sauvignon Blanc into my glass. “I chose this meal for a reason.”

  “To rattle me?” I asked, mimicking his earlier accusation.

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “No. It’s a tribute to your mother, actually.”

  I froze with the tiny fork in front of my mouth. Hearing anyone talk about her was enough to catch my attention, but walks down memory lane were few and far between. Diego hadn’t known her very well, and Papá could be stingy where emotions were involved. Cristiano was one person with actual memories who I’d never been able to talk to about her. “What?”

  “The meal I had prepared for you tonight is one Bianca made for me once, start to finish, after a trip to Paris with your father. I had snails at your house—imagine the reactions of my brother and the others at the ranch when I told them that.”

  I could only imagine. Diego had often shared rice and beans from a community vat. “Was I there?”

  “Yes, but you were too young to remember.”

  Sadness tugged at my heart as I shook my head. “I don’t remember.”

  “There’s probably a lot you don’t.”

  As much as I wanted to hate Cristiano and anything to do with him, the food before me took on new meaning. I put it in my mouth and chewed, and though the gelatinous consistency was unnerving, it wasn’t nearly as gross as I’d thought. With warm butter and garlic, it resembled seafood.

  “Imported from California,” Cristiano murmured. “Like my young bride. I look forward to teaching you about the world.”

  I had to stop from warning him his arrogance was showing. Perhaps the women he normally dated weren’t very worldly, but he knew my parents had liked to travel. “I’ve been places,” I said smartly. “And I’ve spent more time than you in North America. I can show you some things, too.”

  “Of that I have no doubt.” His gaze darkened. “But I have fourteen years on you—and believe me, I intend to use them.”

  Fourteen years, several countries, and likely countless women in his repertoire. How was I the one who’d ended up here? “Do you have other wives?”

  His eyes nearly fell out of his head before he bellowed a laugh. He seemed more and more relaxed as the night went on—more than I’d ever seen him. Was it the wine, or something more? “That would make me a polygamist,” he said.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

  His smile faded instantly, and he blinked his gaze toward the pool a few moments. “Fear not. You are my one and only,” he said and cocked his head as I glanced at my plate. “You look disappointed to hear that. Do you want me to keep other women?”

  “I’m sure it doesn’t matter what I want,” I said. “You didn’t come to bed until, like, three or four this morning I think. When you left the room, you were suitably . . .” And without warning, I lost my breath remembering the ravenous way he’d trapped my body, whispered in my ear, and probed the aching spot between my legs. He must have gone to see another woman—and how had he treated her? With the same hot and cold regard? Had he pretended she was me? Had he wished she was? “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where you were,” I finished.

  “And where was I?”

  “Is there a brothel in this ‘town’?”

  “I don’t pay for sex.”

  “Maybe Jazmín then,” I said. “She’s beautiful, and very loyal to you, it seems.”

  Cristiano rubbed his jaw, watching me. “I must say . . . if you’re wading into the waters of jealousy, I quite like it. I like it very much.”

  “Jealousy?” I mocked. “That a man who would rape me probably raped someone else instead?”

  “Jealousy,” he said in a corrective tone, “of a woman who doesn’t want her husband with anyone else. Even if she doesn’t want him.”

  I picked up my drink and took a sip that half drained it. “A tribute to my mother,” I said, shaking my head into the wineglass. “What a crock of shit.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I think you made all that up about my mom to toy with me.”

  The pocket of his light shirt lit up with a call. When he made no move to answer it, I said, “Your phone is ringing.”

  Fisker stepped onto the patio with our next dish. “Duck confit,” he announced, delivering an aromatic, beautifully presented duck leg with caramelized apples in front of me.

  Cristiano sat back in his seat, his eyes suddenly glued to me as he reached into his pocket and appeared to send the call to voicemail. “Don’t wait for me,” he said. “Go on.”

  I started to say it was impolite to eat until he’d also been served—but who cared about manners at a time like this? Politeness was almost a form of capitulation, of following rules set by someone with more authority than me. I picked up my fork and knife and took a bite.

  The rich, tender meat and crispy skin instantly transported me to my past. I’d eaten this before at my mother’s dinner table, right before she’d passed. “This is familiar.”

  “I suspect you haven’t had it since childhood,” Cristiano said.

  I looked up at him and took longer than necessary to chew so I wouldn’t have to admit I’d jumped to conclusions. Maybe he was taking me for a walk down memory lane—but why? Another mind game?

  And to what end? To make me feel safe?

  Even if it was a game, memories of my mother were more temptation than I could resist—they’d always been hard to come by. In the years following her death, my father had grieved fiercely but privately. At some point, that had changed, but it had always been rare to find him in a state that he could open up about her. Most other adults who’d known her weren’t t
he sort a young girl would pepper with questions.

  How much did Cristiano remember? How much was he willing to share?

  And what would each revelation cost me?

  “She made this for you?” I asked.

  “Everything Fisker will serve tonight, she made.” He looked down on me in a way that made me feel like he was imparting wise advice. “Who cooked for you in the years before you went to boarding school?”

  “The staff or myself,” I said. “But Papá wasn’t this adventurous. We mostly stuck to regional dishes. Things he grew up on.”

  “I figured as much.”

  It was strange to think he’d figured anything at all. “You wonder about my diet?” I asked with a hint of a smile.

  “Mostly how things were after her death. After I left,” he said. “What do you remember about her?”

  I frowned at him. “What do I remember?” I asked. “A lot. More than I can say by dessert.”

  “Then tell me about dinnertime.”

  Studying him, I used a napkin to pat sauce from the corner of my mouth. I wasn’t sure what he was getting at, but maybe my memories would trigger his. “She hummed when she plated the food. That’s how I could tell when it was time to eat.” I could still remember the tune, though I never hummed it aloud. It took me to a simple yet blissful point in time I’d never be able to get back to. “She always served herself last. I think she was lactose intolerant because I remember her getting stomachaches if we had cheesy meals, and she never liked ice cream.”

  “Sometimes she brought queso fundido to the ranch,” Cristiano said.

  “With chorizo.” I smiled sadly and took a sip of wine. I wanted these memories, but they were also little knives in my heart. What hurt the most was the time we’d lost. I would never completely know my mother, the kind of woman she was as an adult—the friend she would’ve been. Seeing her through others’ eyes was the best gift I could receive.

  I hoped Cristiano understood I was grateful, even if I couldn’t bring myself to show it. I suspected he did. “Why did she like you so much?” I asked.