I broke open a plastic toothbrush, half-expecting something like cocaine to come spilling out. But as far as I could tell, it was just a regular toothbrush. Frustrated and confused, I threw the evidence of my snooping into a garbage can and left the room, glimpsing more boxes, this time with packaged food like trail mix, nut bars, and dried fruit.
Was this some kind of processing center for the women and children he trafficked? And if so, where were they? Surely he kept them somewhere else in the Badlands . . . but then why hadn’t I seen a single one?
I turned to leave and came face to face with a whiteboard that took up half of one wall. It was divided into four sections—Missing, Taken, Found, and Belmonte-Ruiz.
I covered my mouth with one hand as my eyes roamed over myriad photos of women and children taped to the board under each section. The images had names scrawled beneath them except each column also had a subsection titled No photo.
I ripped off a printout of several stapled pages that had been taped to the board. Thumbnail photos filled each page. Some faces had been crossed out in red.
A door slammed, and I dropped the dossier. Footsteps on the stairs had me hurrying back into the cellar as quickly as my heart raced.
Alejandro jogged down the steps and stopped short at the base of the stairway. His eyes drifted from my head to my toes.
He knows.
Surely there were cameras everywhere, and that included down here. Someone had seen me snooping.
Alejandro was a friend, though—wasn’t he? As he tilted his head, my mouth went dry as a desert. Maybe the sun peeked through the clouds. Maybe its warmth was inviting. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t also scorch you.
I took a step back as Alejandro took one forward.
And his mouth twitched into a friendly grin. “Ready to panic?”
13
Cristiano
I leaned in the doorway of my spacious dining room as my delectable wife, completely oblivious to my presence, licked the tongs of her fork between bites of Black Forest cake. Her dark hair curled around her shoulders and arms, encircling her like dying black roots.
It’d been a few days, but my desire for her burned just as hot as it had in our bed. Back in her presence, I could sense my emotion overtaking my reason. How to stop it? And why?
Because attachments were dangerous. They blinded men. They exposed us. They hurt us. I’d learned that lesson early. And now, I’d relearned it. I wanted to trust Natalia, but I couldn’t yet. I’d thought to get what I wanted from her, I had to give the same. A safe space to speak the truth. It was the first thing I’d asked her for after we’d said our vows—honesty.
And my honest reaction to my security system picking up the signal of an unauthorized phone in Natalia’s things while I was away?
I possessed a deep-seated need to remind my wife whom she answered to, and that I’d been a far kinder and more generous husband than I needed to be.
Natalia Cruz—Natalia de la Rosa—was a handful. And she was a problem. She’d proven herself untrustworthy just by having the phone, not to mention all the system breaches it could cause.
But the bigger problem was that Natalia put me at odds with the one person I feared most—myself. I’d married her for purely selfish reasons. The things I wanted to do to her were everything I stood against. Everything I hated. They were part of a past I’d overcome.
I prided myself on having a code.
For her, I’d broken it.
Would I go even further than that? I’d resisted her the other night, but just barely. She knew my patience held on by a tenuous thread, and when tugging on it got her no reaction on it, she yanked on it.
The right thing would be to set her free—but the moment I’d let myself think of her as mine, I knew that wasn’t possible.
Did keeping her cancel out anything I’d accomplished the past several years?
Did my urges to defile her undermine those I’d helped?
Her fear both excited and calmed me. Her tears were mine to collect and soothe. Her pussy was mine to devastate and worship. And lick and explore and fuck. All in due time. But what did it make me that I wanted to do it now? That I had taken her in the first place and wouldn’t let her go?
She might never come around. I was not a patient man. I never waited for anything anymore. I took. If my self-discipline with her faltered, I worried I’d enjoy it, and that would make me as bad as those I sought to take down.
That made me my father.
But not even that knowledge was enough to make me walk away.
I strolled into the dining room, staying on the rug to mute my steps. When I reached her back, I wrapped my hands around her neck.
She froze in her chair. Wrong reaction, little girl.
After a moment, she tilted her head back all the way and met my eyes upside down.
“Haven’t you been training with Alejo?” I asked.
“He talks too much.”
I nearly laughed at the unexpected response but managed to maintain my composure. Her safety wasn’t a game. “Excuse me?”
“He won’t let me practice.” Her throat constricted against my palms as she swallowed. I refrained from tightening my grip around the slender column and shifted my focus to the chocolate frosting at each corner of her mouth. “I think he’s afraid to touch me,” she added.
“Then he’s smarter than I give him credit for.” I lowered my mouth to her forehead for a kiss. I wanted more. Was it so much to ask that a husband could kiss his wife’s lips? I moved down her cheek, but the tension in her body remained.
She’ll come around, I reminded myself. It was no victory to take from someone who didn’t want to give.
But then again, I’d been suffering for my lust for some time.
I slid my hands under her chin, tilting her mouth up to mine. She parted her lips for a gasp—or a sigh?—and clearly fought to keep her eyes from fluttering shut. One flicker of my tongue and I’d get that chocolate right off her lips.
I hoped she’d been stewing in her own juices since I’d left her wanting in our bed.
I hoped at that moment, she was questioning the wetness between her legs.
I reached by her and plucked the cherry off the top of her cake. Straightening, I popped it into my mouth, discarding the stem on her plate before I fell into the seat next to her. “You weren’t going to eat that, were you?”
She scowled, wiping her mouth with a napkin as she picked up her plate and stood. “I’ll just have to get another slice.”
I smiled. “Be my guest.”
I watched her until she’d disappeared into the kitchen. Who was I kidding? My attachment to her was already forming. It was hard to avoid that when she’d been under my protection as a child. Now that she was a woman, and my wife, the affection I’d once had was something else entirely.
Her vulnerability was also mine, though. She was my responsibility. Was I doing everything I could to ensure her safety? A week ago, I hadn’t known I’d be bringing her here. Now that it was more than the staff and me in the house—now that I was more exposed—it was time for a full security check-up.
Max and I had come to the conclusion that the only way Barto could’ve entered my bedroom that Monday morning was by scaling the cliff beneath my balcony. It seemed impossible. The beach below the house acted as a port and had its own robust defense in place, yet they’d never seen him. We’d inspected every camera and triple-checked each passageway in and out of the house to no avail.
While security had always been the top priority in the Badlands, it was also important to me that townspeople felt welcome and could take shelter in the house if they ever needed to, no questions asked.
But with Natalia under my care, and with a target on her back as my wife and Costa’s only daughter, it was becoming clear I’d have to take greater measures to protect the house.
Max had begun meeting with ex-military to get us up to date on biometric technology—fingerprint scans and voic
e and facial recognition, and new steel-fortified, bullet-resistant doors with automatic locks. I’d learned hand-to-hand combat and marksmanship as a boy growing up in a cartel, but I’d learned what it meant to fight for my life on the streets. I hated that I needed all the latest gadgets to protect myself and my people. I’d installed a large, open balcony in the first place so I could taste freedom at all hours of the day and night. I didn’t want to board myself up in a house. But I couldn’t be everywhere all the time.
I’d laughed Max out of the room when he’d tried insisting on installing cameras in my bedroom. If I needed men watching me as I slept, then I deserved whatever attack was coming to me.
But Natalia was in my bed now. I wanted the ability to lay eyes on her at all times if need be.
At the very least, I’d have to go overboard on our wing of the house and in the bedroom.
Natalia returned, not with cake, but with two plates full of food. She set one in front of me, avoiding my eyes as she sat. “You didn’t eat dinner yet?” I asked.
“I was going to skip it.”
In lieu of another multi-course dinner, I’d asked Fisker to prepare two balanced meals since we weren’t staying long. I’d assumed Natalia had already eaten hers.
“I can appreciate cake for dinner,” I said carefully, trying for amenable where I could afford it, “but the chef says you had mostly salad, wine, and dessert while I was away.”
“You’re keeping tabs on what I eat?”
“I want you to build strength.” If she noticed the pomegranate that I’d requested on her plate, she kept it to herself. I pointed my fork at her food. “So, eat your chicken. What else did you do while I was away?”
She took a bite. “I’m sure you watched from your ivory tower. I can’t imagine it was very entertaining, seeing as I mostly just wandered around the house.”
“You’re bored. Noted.” She needed company, and I’d get her some, though it might be a reminder she should be careful what she wished for.
“Alejandro showed me the panic room.” She hesitated, presumably deciding whether to ask about what she’d seen downstairs. “I saw what was in the basement. That . . . that warehouse room.”
I chewed, pleased with her honesty, even though it didn’t make up for the phone. I’d already known she’d snooped, but I hadn’t expected her to bring it up herself. “Great, isn’t it?” I asked. “It’s like a mini superstore down there.”
“How can you joke about something like that?” Her eyebrows cinched. “What was all that? And the whiteboard with the pictures? I want to know what goes on under this roof.”
“All you have to do is ask, Natalia. You don’t need to sneak around. This is your home. You can go where you please.”
“This is your home.”
“And you are my wife. What’s mine is yours. I trust that whatever you see, you’ll view with an investigative eye and an open mind.” I paused to let that sink in. She’d seen quite a bit down there, and based on the other rumors she’d brought to me, I had no doubt her mind was running wild with potential scenarios. I tilted my head. “I trust you in our home.”
At least, I had.
“I haven’t done anything to earn that trust,” she said.
“You haven’t done anything to break it . . . have you?”
She drew a short breath. I’d have to teach her how to perfect—or even begin to hone—her poker face. I knew she was thinking of how she’d stashed a phone Diego had surely given her. I was. Diego was the last person I needed knowing about the goings on of my home, because he wouldn’t hesitate to use them against me.
“No, I haven’t,” she said finally. “So how do you explain the food, clothing, and toiletries down there?”
“They’re for the women who arrive here. To make the transition smoother. Whether they choose to stay or go, there’s always an adjustment period. Most of them have nothing.”
She picked up a glass of water and peered at me over it. “But you’re why they have nothing. Aren’t you?”
I sighed and rubbed the inside corners of my eyes. If she would just ask before insulting me, I would answer honestly. But she continued to dig her heels into her assumptions, and she’d have to dig herself back out once she learned the truth.
It was my own fault she chose to think the worst of me, but that didn’t make it any easier to hear.
“If there’s any kind of abuse, I won’t live here,” she warned.
That warning tone was new, not quite an accusation, perhaps even cracking the door open to a real conversation. But it was too hard to resist watching her get riled up. “Where will you live?” I asked. “In the stable?”
She pursed her lips, reminding me of the petulant child I’d once known. That fiery attitude she’d had before Bianca’s death was returning, and I didn’t mind the burn. In fact, knowing me, I was pretty sure I’d be sticking my hands into the flame anytime the opportunity presented itself.
After a bite of chicken, I said, “Going downstairs into the panic room must’ve brought up some old memories, no?”
Her answering silence spoke volumes. I wasn’t wrong, but I was probably the last person she wanted to open up to about the day I’d locked her in a closet with me and threatened her life before Bianca’s body was even cold. But who understood better than me? We’d both stumbled across the body. We’d both loved and respected Bianca. We’d both descended into the darkness together.
“It was fine,” she said, but her body language told a different story. Her shoulders rose nearly to her ears. “Alejandro made me feel safe.”
Safer than I did. I ignored the jab and continued my thought. “I think about that day a lot. Especially lately. What it must’ve been like for Bianca. For Costa, when he got home. And for you.”
Had she talked through it with her father or a therapist? With Diego? All of it—every last detail? It was a heavy burden to carry, watching a parent die.
“Why were you so cruel that day?” she asked, her posture easing with her tone. “I was covered in my mother’s blood. I was in shock. And you had no sympathy.” She picked up her water again, and I noticed she’d pushed her wine away. “You made me think you were going to kill me,” she said, glancing into the glass. “Or worse, take me with you.”
I needed no reminder of the things I’d said. I didn’t regret any of them. It’d contributed to getting her out of there and off to California. I only regretted that I hadn’t scared her off Diego. “My life was on the line, Natalia. You and Diego were accusing me of murder. I was scared, too. But I was also angry. You ferociously defended Diego, but not me.”
“I was nine,” she said. “All I knew was what I saw.”
“I wanted to frighten you,” I added quietly.
She took a breath. “You succeeded.”
“I don’t think I did.” But given the night I had planned, I might. “I’ve been watching you closely ever since my return—as closely as I did when you were young.”
“You watched me then?”
“Of course. I was responsible for your life. And in a world as grim as ours, a child like you was a ray of sunshine in the dark.” She’d had a laugh that’d made murder and mayhem bearable. And Bianca had trusted me around her kid. Nobody else would’ve back then. Now, I was responsible for rays of sunshine all over the Badlands. “If anything had happened to your parents, I was supposed to get you out of the house and take you somewhere safe.”
“She told me once to go to you in an emergency,” Natalia said, slackening against her chair. “But you didn’t take me. You left me in the dark.”
“I couldn’t take you where I was going. Not as a fugitive. It would’ve been kidnapping.” My chest tightened. In the seconds before I’d left her down there, she wouldn’t let go of my neck. I’d scared her so badly, she’d actually wanted the monster. “At least in the tunnel, you were stowed away until Costa could get to you.”
“Like a doll on a shelf.”
An action figure mayb
e, though she had yet to own the role. “I don’t see a timid girl who was broken by her mother’s death,” I said. “I don’t see a porcelain doll who needs to be shelved for her own protection.”
She took her entire bottom lip into her mouth, seemed to think as she bit down, then released it. “What do you see?”
“A woman trying to break through the restraints placed on her—including the ones of her own making. I understand why you went to California—I’m glad you did. You needed the distance and protection from this world. But you’re not a girl anymore. Losing your mother the way you did is no longer an excuse to run away from the life you were destined to lead. I have forced your hand, but in time, if you’re the woman I think you are, you’ll come to see that you’re right where you belong.”
She blinked her gaze around the main room, her eyes drifting from the still fireplace to the pottery above it. But she understood I was talking beyond the literal. I could practically see the wheels turning in her head.
My chest tightened. I was getting through to her.
“And where do I belong?” she asked.
A sense of pride gathered inside me, tinged with a lust for the devotion I’d always wanted from her. “Next to me,” I said. “At the head of the Cruz-de la Rosa empire.”
“What if . . .” She glanced at her hands fidgeting in her lap. “What happens if I’m not the woman you think I am?”
“The same thing that happens to anyone who’s not cut out to rule. You’ll fall in line, or you’ll perish.”
“Then I’ll perish,” she said without inflection but raised her eyes to look upon me with renewed fire. “If you think for one moment I will rule a cartel responsible for bringing horror to human lives, then you will learn what I’m capable of.”
I couldn’t help my smile. That was exactly the woman I thought she was, and I looked forward to bringing out this ferocious, protective side of her. “I hope I do.”
Violent Ends (White Monarch Book 2) Page 17