It had never been my strong suit.
“This is not a partnership.” Deep lines slatted across Papá’s tanned face. Each time I saw him, he appeared older, but his voice boomed, and his clear, molten brown eyes painted him as more youthful than his fifty years. He was as astute as ever, and his overbearing height defied how the bags under his eyes sometimes made him seem tired. “The Maldonado cartel is not a partner but a master,” he said. “With this deal, they’ll own us.”
I considered entering the room and cutting off the conversation, but the name stopped me short. Even I knew—and I made it my business not to know much anymore—doing business with the Maldonados was dangerous.
“Times have changed, Costa,” Diego said. “Eleven years ago, you reevaluated your business model, trading risk for security and violence for a quiet life—not that such a thing exists in this world. It’s time to adapt again.”
With my mother’s death, much had changed, and not just in the obvious ways. Father had scaled back his business as newer, more bloodthirsty cartels like the Maldonados had come up the ranks.
“My father would roll in his grave to know we’re not as feared as we once were,” my dad said, glancing out the window of his second-floor office.
Diego put a hand on his shoulder. “We’re still here, and we’re just as powerful, but in different ways.”
Diego spoke earnestly and with his hands. It was hard not to see his passion, intelligence, and charm, but that still wasn’t enough to convince Papá that Diego was the man for me. Nobody was good enough in my father’s eyes—especially not someone who belonged in this world. My father cared about Diego in his own way; he’d practically raised him. But unless I could convince him otherwise, Diego would always be a soldier, a right-hand man, a cartel member . . . and a threat to my safety.
“Many leaders of the old order have either been captured, killed, or forced out,” Diego continued. “Who of your former enemies remains? Not many. I’m going to ensure the Cruz cartel—and the de la Rosas—don’t fall to the same fate. We do that by moving forward with the times.”
“The de la Rosas don’t exist,” Father said, warning in his voice as he regarded Diego with heavy eyebrows. “You’re a Cruz. And while I know our success is as important to you as it is to me, there’s risk in wanting more. There’s much to be said for stability.”
“With new technology hitting the market each day, there’s more risk in staying still. We’re number one in shipping and logistics now, but that can always change.”
I leaned on the doorjamb, worried Diego was into something he shouldn’t be. If I asked either of them why they’d taken a meeting with the Maldonados in the first place, I’d get the same answer I always did.
Don’t worry. Todo bien. Everything’s fine.
My father rubbed his forehead as he frowned. “And making a risky deal is moving forward?”
“We’ll deliver,” Diego said, crossing his arms with a shrug. “Their requirements are no different than any of our other arrangements. They have a valuable shipment to get across the border. As the premier transportation option in México, we can make that happen. Simple.”
“The difference is who we’re dealing with. How much product are we moving?”
“More than we’re used to,” Diego admitted. “But I’m not concerned. As other cartels distract themselves battling each other, we’ve solidified a nearly flawless, strategic network. I’ve assured them an eighty-seven percent success rate.”
“Eighty-seven, eh?” Papá asked, slipping on his glasses to bend over and read his computer screen.
“Lower than our stellar average,” Diego said, pulling back his shoulders. “We’ve delivered better results countless times, and in less than the twenty-one days they’ve given us.”
“And after that?”
“We make a more permanent arrangement,” Diego said. “With the rate they’re growing, their business could take us to the next level.”
“I’ve been at that level,” Dad said. “It’s dangerous up there.”
“But those who were once your competitors are now your customers. You’ve neutralized.” Diego stuck his hands in his pockets and glanced out one of the study’s wide windows. “We’ll use the income the Maldonado deal generates to expand.”
Papá grunted. “You didn’t say how much we have to move.”
“Two-hundred million in product in three weeks.”
My father straightened up. “That’s almost four times what we normally do.”
“The amount doesn’t matter as much as—”
Papá held up a hand for Diego to stop when he saw me leaning in the doorway. “Mija,” he called, removing his glasses and opening his arms. “Ven aquí.”
He shut his laptop as I went to him, then surrounded me in a strong, protective embrace.
Over his shoulder, I met Diego’s gaze. His face had been pinched, but it eased as his eyes cleared to emerald green. Neither video chatting nor photos did the color of them justice. “Welcome home,” he mouthed.
Home. It had been once, but I found no comfort in the word now. Diego schooled his expression for my dad, but I knew him well enough to read his happiness to see me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, reluctantly tearing my eyes from Diego to look up at Papá. “You were arguing.”
“Not at all. Don’t worry.” He kissed the top of my head, then turned to Diego. “Leave us.”
Diego didn’t flinch, though I knew the dismissal hurt. He yearned for my dad’s respect, but I could see age and experience had not fully earned him it. Yet. I didn’t doubt my father would one day see what I did, but I also knew it pained Diego that the approval he’d so desperately sought since his own father’s death continued to elude him.
I hoped during this trip I’d be able to open my dad’s eyes to who Diego really was—a sensitive, creative man who’d been trapped by circumstance. My father wanted me out of this life, and I wanted that too, but to Papá, Diego was this life. I had to show him the potential Diego had outside of it.
With a short bow and a brief, promising wink in my direction, Diego exited the room.
My father took my shoulders and held me at arm’s length. “Let me look at you. Qué bella. Turn for me.”
“Papá.” I blushed. “Please.”
“I don’t get to see you often enough and want to commit every visit to memory.”
“We were together at Christmas.”
“But that was in California, not here, where I watched you grow up. Indulge your old man.”
Rolling my eyes playfully, I turned in a circle. “All my limbs intact as previously reported,” I said. “Fingers and toes too.”
“Your hair has grown. Do they not have salons in Santa Clara?”
I smiled. “Of course, but long hair is always in style.”
“You’re taller too, no? You get that from me.”
I had taken after my father’s side of the family and was the tallest of my girlfriends at five-foot-seven. He was a sturdy six-foot-two, my grandpa even taller, which had suited his far more menacing temperament.
Father liked to tell the story of an eighteen-year-old girl named Bianca who’d flown down from northern Mexico “like a migrating butterfly.” She’d come for a cousin’s quinceañera and stayed for love, caught in my father’s net by the time dessert was served.
As romantic as it was, sometimes I wondered why she’d been stupid enough to trade a safe and happy life as a farmer’s daughter for this. It’d been foolish and risky, and it had gotten her killed. I wouldn’t share her fate, and neither would Diego.
I had to find a way to free him from the chains of the cartel so he could come to the States and start a life with me. I would convince my dad to let us go and live in peace rather than war, looking over the Pacific instead of over our shoulders.
Diego had been in my father’s grip too long, and I was the only one who could ask a favor like this.
Father sat back behind his
desk. “Tonight, we celebrate. What’re your plans while home?”
“I thought maybe you, me, and Diego could have dinner tonight,” I said.
He picked up his folded glasses and tapped them against his temple. “I’ve already arranged a feast in your honor.”
“Tomorrow then, or sometime this week.”
“What for? I’d rather just the two of us,” he said. “Anyway, my annual party is Thursday night as you know. I’ll have my hands full with that, and so will Diego.” He frowned. “Why don’t you visit the stables? It’s been so long since you’ve ridden.”
Eleven years to be exact. I would go see the horses, but I hadn’t gotten on one since my mother’s death. It’d been our thing, an activity we’d done together almost every day. I nodded so as not to start off my visit with an argument. “Maybe, but it’s hotter than Hades here. I’ll go to the beach, no doubt.”
“No doubt.” He patted my hip. “How was the trip?”
“Barto took great care as always. No attempted murders.”
“A joke,” he said. “I’m glad you see the humor. I don’t.”
It was important to remember to laugh when traveling with three guards and in bulletproof transportation.
“I need to get back to work,” he said, opening his laptop. “Dress well for dinner.”
I stooped to kiss his cheek. Out of habit, I glanced at the computer screen for clues as to what he and Diego had been discussing, but I forced my eyes away. I didn’t want trouble. I just wanted to get Diego and myself the hell out of there before someone else I cared about got killed.
On my way out, Papá called me back. “One more thing. Don’t let me catch you trying to sneak into the ballroom again this year. It’s no place for a young girl.”
“I know many girls who’ve been to your parties.”
“None of which is my only daughter.”
My mom had hosted a legendary annual affair for clients and friends of the Cruz cartel in a ballroom on the property. I’d never made it into a party and had been forced to settle for hearing the music from my bedroom across the lawn, followed by weeks of gossip and folklore. Papá had tried his best to keep me isolated from this world since birth, but that’d bred curiosity.
Now that I knew better, I appreciated his intent. But it hadn’t saved me from witnessing my mother’s murder.
“I’m not a young girl anymore,” I said with a shrug. “I’m twenty.”
I left the room and tried not to think about the party. I’d once harbored a morbid curiosity about the life my parents led—until I’d learned firsthand the senseless violence, corruption, and evil that came with it. Since then, I’d been trying to tame the little girl in me who’d been fearless enough to draw a weapon on a man three times her size. The girl who’d equated danger with fun. The one who’d listened to the devil whispering in my ear that there was no escaping this life, not now, not ever.
I had run away from all this, but the devil still tempted that stupid little girl. She knew better than most what could come of that.
After all, she’d ended up locked in a pitch-dark hole for hours, senseless and defenseless, covered in her own mother’s blood.
Natalia
In the corridor on my way to the library, a figure sprang from the shadows and seized me from behind. I gasped, but the moment I caught Diego’s familiar scent, I relaxed in his arms.
“Buenas, princesa,” he murmured in my ear, stealing me toward the library.
As children, Diego and I had scoured almost every inch of the house with the exception of my parents’ bedroom. We knew it better than any member of the security team, likely better than my father himself, as he couldn’t fit in some of the spaces Diego and I had been known for folding ourselves into back then.
The library was one of the only surveillance-free spots. Papá had built it for my mother’s ever-curious mind, but hardly anyone went in it anymore. My dad claimed he wasn’t intelligent like my mother and had no use for books, but it was simply too painful for him to spend time in here.
My father was smart in other ways.
Diego left the door open behind us. Since we’d spent so much time together growing up, it wouldn’t be unusual for a guard or even my dad to find us alone together. But with the door closed? That would raise red flags.
He spun me around and pressed his lips to mine for a hasty kiss. “Are you really here?”
“I am.” I put my hands to the chiseled, lean jaw and high cheekbones of a face worthy of being immortalized on a statue. “Every time I see you, you’re less the boy I knew and more the man I love.”
He took my wrists and kissed the inside of one palm. “I was a man back then, Tali. I had to be.”
“I know.” His bravery in a world of danger and a life of loss continued to awe me. “Are you happy to see me?”
“You have no idea.” He went to the long window overlooking the grounds, then turned and perched on the sill. His eyes lingered on me. “Every time I see you, you’re less the girl I knew and more an alluring creature with wiles that could possess the devil.”
“You’d call me a creature?” I asked, smiling as I formed claws with my hands and stalked toward him in my leopard-print flats.
He held up his hands to form a square, looking at me through it. “When you’re back at school, I’ll remember you this way—a lioness.”
“You won’t have to remember,” I said. “You’ll be able to look up and see me with your own eyes.”
“I want that more than you know.” When I neared, he put his hands on my hips and drew me to him. “I just don’t want you to get your hopes up.”
“He’ll understand once I tell him how much you mean to me. How much you’ve always meant to me,” I said, smoothing away dark, golden strands that fell right back over his forehead. “My father adores you.”
“Adores?” He arched an eyebrow. “He adores two things in this world—you, and the memory of your mother. The rest of us hope for his respect and his mercy.”
I wrinkled my nose. “You’re exaggerating. These days, he’s more forgiving than most. At least, more than my grandpa ever was. Papá is a fair man.”
“Fairest in all the land,” Diego agreed. “But nothing about the land is fair. Except for his daughter. She’s both her mother and her father, darkly beautiful with cunning eyes.”
My beloved was a poet—a side he only showed to me. I wanted to melt into him, but I could sense the tension in his forearms, the restraint in his touch. Diego followed my father’s example, though, and rarely volunteered when something was wrong. I would’ve happily ignored any problems, except that I didn’t want my time with Diego encumbered by the stresses of business. “What was your argument about?” I asked.
“Nothing, nothing, está bien.” He slid a hand under the hem of my top. I arched into the warmth of his skin on mine while acutely aware of the open door behind me. His green eyes danced as he looked up at me. “Tali?”
“Diego.”
“We have to talk about our future.”
I grinned. “That’s why I’m here.”
“I want nothing more than to be with you.” He sighed. “This town is a jail cell. A death sentence, even. I’m only alive today. Tomorrow is never guaranteed.”
When he talked like that, it hit too close to the truth. So many nights, I’d stared up at the ceiling of my dorm room waiting to hear from Diego, both craving and fearing news. Keeping in touch with someone whose life depended on staying under the radar hadn’t been easy. “It won’t be for much longer,” I said. “You’ll see.”
“But how can I leave?” He inched his fingertips a little higher. “I have responsibilities here.”
I bit my bottom lip as he approached the underwire of my bra. “You’ll get out of them.”
“This isn’t a job I can just quit. Your father took me in when he didn’t have to.” He removed his hand from my top to rest it on the outside of my thigh. “Costa brought me into this business and gave m
e a chance.”
I didn’t want him to stop touching me, but even though our self-control continued to hold, it was thin. “That doesn’t mean you’re indebted to him forever.”
“I’ll never be able to leave without your father’s blessing, and he won’t give me that.”
“He brought you and your brother in at my mother’s urging, out of a sense of duty for what he did to your parents.” I slipped my hand in his and squeezed. “And yes, he could’ve left you behind, or worse, killed both of you. But he’s also the reason you’re an orphan in the first place.”
Diego’s eyebrows knitted. “I’ve never heard you put it like that. Are you suggesting I hold that against him?”
“No,” I said. “He won’t feel any guilt. He did what he had to. If he hadn’t gone after your parents, they would’ve come for him. And I don’t think the de la Rosas would’ve taken me in if the situation had been reversed.”
“They wouldn’t have. I miss my mom and dad, but you’re right—they weren’t so merciful.” He glanced away. “Perhaps it would’ve ended up worse for you than death.”
What was worse for a young girl than death, I didn’t have to ask. Though our families had been rivals, they’d still abided by a code. Back then, the de la Rosas had trafficked weapons, and the Cruzes had dealt in narcotics. My father and grandfather had imposed a strict pact that neither family would enter into the vile space of human trafficking. And when Papá had discovered Diego’s parents had broken that pact, the de la Rosas had needed to be dealt with.
But it was plotting against my father that’d ultimately gotten them killed.
I sighed. “Maybe we should just smuggle you across the border like a brick of cocaine.” I leaned in conspiratorially. “After all, that’s what the Cruz cartel is known for, right? Our unusually high success rate at getting illegal goods into North America?”
The corner of Diego’s mouth quirked. “Where’d you hear that?”
“It’s true, isn’t it? My father’s instinct is unrivaled, but you’re the brains behind this business.”
“I’m hardly that,” he said, but deep dimples appeared with his smile. Once I’d been old enough to notice how sexy they were, they’d proven irresistible. “I just want him to see me as . . .”
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