“Just take something from the garden,” she said.
I glanced out the window. “Do you think Father Rios will mind?”
“Without the money your family has donated, there’d be no garden at all.”
“There’s a flowerbed out there in my mother’s name.”
Pilar came up behind me and rubbed my back. “She’s here now. I’m sure of it. Anyway, without a bouquet, you’d be offending the Virgin of Guadalupe.”
“Ah, verdad. I need an offering in exchange for her blessing.” I removed my shoes, gathered up my dress, and walked across the lawn behind the church. Sparrows chirped in the trees as I entered the garden that bore roses, lilies, marigolds, dahlias . . .
I closed my eyes and breathed in their fragrance, curling my toes in the springy, freshly cut grass before I picked red roses and white lilies and arranged them into a small bouquet.
I glanced up at a hovering monarch butterfly. I’d never seen a rare, elusive white one, and likely never would, but nonetheless, I stopped to appreciate this one in all its colorful beauty. It passed over the roses and landed in a ray of sunshine atop a lone group of marigolds.
I smiled to myself until it hit me—marigolds were the flower of the dead. “Mami?” I whispered.
It wasn’t the season for monarchs, not like autumn. They’d been everywhere during my mother’s funeral, so close to Día de los Muertos. As a girl, I remembered each year when they’d migrate south from the States and Canada in awe-inspiring kaleidoscopes through town—especially dazzling in our yard where Mamá had planted milkweed. I regretted how she and I had captured them just to feel their wings flutter against our palms. How must it have felt to be trapped?
The same as my mother had in her final moments?
“Lo siento mucho, Mamá,” I said, my throat thick. “I’m sorry.”
I hated to admit that I understood what Diego had meant when he’d spoken of a deeply buried desire to avenge his parents’ deaths. It was the kind of thing I never poked at for fear of awakening a thirst for revenge only the life of my mother’s murderer could quench. And that was why I’d tried to leave this life behind. Family bonds, wealth, vengeance, and violence—it was a vicious cycle of sins and pain. I was still leaving, I told myself. Not now, not yet, but when things had settled, Diego and I would have our fresh start anywhere but here.
The butterfly fluttered her wings. “What is it?” I asked.
What wish was she trying to deliver? Or was it a message? A breeze passed through the garden, ruffling leaves. I realized I was gripping the stems of my bouquet, and a thorn had pricked me. I sucked my fingertip and tasted metallic just as I got the sudden sensation I was being watched. I glanced around, but nobody was there.
Thoughts of my mother, and hope that she was looking down on me, should’ve brought happiness, but suddenly, a sense of dread permeated the fragrant air.
The wind picked up, blowing my hair into my face as the monarch flew off through the trees. I watched until she was out of sight. In the distance, the sky had darkened to a deep blue-gray, the way it only did in the desert when a storm approached.
I wished my mother was here to see me exchange vows today, but since she wasn’t, I would carry her with me into the church. I squatted down to add the marigold the butterfly had landed on, the most brilliant of the bunch, to my bouquet.
I didn’t doubt she’d bless my union with Diego or that she’d be at the church today in whichever form she took. She would have understood my urgency, my passion. She had loved deeply too and had given up a family to gain one.
She had known Diego was worth saving as a child and had taken him in. She would approve, I knew it.
The bird above my head stopped chirping and flew away the same instant a shadow moved over me. Two dirt-sodden boots stopped beside me, inciting a memory from eleven years earlier I often tried to forget. Blood-splattered boots and a Glock in the devil’s grip. I raised my eyes, hoping to finally meet Diego, but half-expecting Cristiano. I dropped my bouquet with a gasp.
A man with pockmarked skin, scraggly, graying hair, and an angry, diagonal scar across his face looked back at me. “They’re ready for you in the church, Miss Natalia.”
He was hard to look at, ugly as sin, scowling even as he smiled—the stuff of nightmares. I swallowed dryly. “Who are you?”
In one hand, he held a gun at his hip. With the other, he ran a fingernail between two of his teeth and then inspected it. “I’m just s’posed to take you in.”
He leaned down, and I flinched, shooting out my hand to catch myself before I fell back in the dirt. He picked up my bouquet, dusted soil from the lilies, and held it out to me. “Don’t wanna forget this.”
I brushed off my hands, clutched the bouquet to my breast, and hurried back to the church. Pilar waited out front with my shoes and a lace mantilla veil, looking uneasy.
“Who is that?” she asked, helping me back into my heels. “He came looking for you.”
“I don’t know,” I answered.
She held up the veil and draped the ivory Spanish lace over just my hair and shoulders. “I’ve never seen him before,” she whispered.
I glanced over my shoulder to where he waited by the door. “Diego sent you?” I asked.
“Da.”
Da. Yes.
Did my father have any Russians on his payroll? It could’ve been, though I didn’t recall one.
The man stepped forward and held out a small black box with a white satin bow. “From your intended.”
I exchanged a look with Pilar, and the pit in my stomach dissolved. What was Diego up to? With renewed excitement, I took the present, slid off the ribbon, removed the top—and inhaled a sharp breath at the familiar rosary inside.
“What is it?” Pilar asked.
My eyes watered as I handed her the box and held up the gold chain of rubies and pearls. I ran my fingers over the Sacred Heart center and intricate gilt crucifix. “It’s an exact replica of my mother’s.” I shook my head as a tear threatened to fall. “How did he remember it so well?”
“And when did he have time to make it?” Pilar pointed out.
That was an equally impressive feat. Perhaps he’d known for some time he would give it to me on our wedding day. I held it to my heart. “Thank you,” I said to the man, who just shrugged his wide shoulders.
I looked over myself once more in the mirror. The beads spilled from my hand, and for the first time, I glimpsed the grace Barto had said I’d inherited from my mother. I could think of no better way to meet my groom.
We hurried to the front of the church, me with my head bowed, Pilar on one side and the Russian on the other. When we climbed the steps and reached the carved wooden doors, he pulled one open for us.
Bells began to chime. I had only an hour before Barto was supposed to pick me up to meet the helicopter. One hour to meet my fiancé, return with my husband, and break the news to my father.
“Are you coming in?” the man asked Pilar behind me.
“Sí.”
“If you insist.” He grinned. There was something funny about the eye with a scar over it. He closed the door behind us as we entered a small antechamber that opened to the grand, high-ceilinged church.
Light spilled through the stained-glass windows, and candles lit the aisle to the altar, which was surrounded by fresh flowers, including the red roses and white lilies of my bouquet. I passed into the nave slowly, taking it all in. I would’ve never thought Diego could pull this together so quickly.
My heels echoed off the empty pews as I walked deeper into the church. Father Rios stood at the altar, his head bent as he murmured to himself, reading from the book in front of him. I would have to remember to thank him later for ending his services early to perform this without notice.
Three men in suits stood around the priest with their backs to me. My stomach dropped. I flattened my hand against it to quell my nerves, welcoming the coarse lace under my palm as I picked up my pace. I looked
for Diego but stopped after only a few steps. My betrothed wasn’t amongst them. Two of the men had rifles strapped across their suit jackets. And the third, even from behind, was unmistakable. A constant presence in my nightmares, a monster even to monsters—the devil himself.
What was he doing here? I took a step back.
Cristiano turned his head over his shoulder, giving me his profile. His jaw sharpened as he paused there. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until I began to feel faint. Finally, he turned and faced me. “What a beautiful bride you make, Natalia,” he said, meeting my eyes. “Not that I expected anything less.”
He had no reason to expect me at all. How dare he show his face on my wedding day? The beads of my mother’s rosary dug into my palm. He looked wrong next to the elderly, homely priest—and at the altar, where Diego should’ve been.
The heavy door to the nave closed behind me with a click, causing candle flames to flicker and sigh. The distinct, pungent smell of marigolds invaded my nostrils.
Perhaps the monarch hadn’t come to deliver a wish or a message—but a warning.
Run.
Natalia
Sunshine streamed through the archways on both sides of the church, but it didn’t touch me in the center. The aisle that would lead a bride to her groom remained dim and candlelit.
The aisle that ended with Cristiano de la Rosa.
He stood in Diego’s spot wearing a perfectly cut suit and a satin tie as sleek and jet-black as his styled hair. His eyes trailed from my lace-adorned neck, to the rosary and bouquet in my hands, to my ankles. Even in such a modest dress, his perusal stripped me bare. Heat warmed my cheeks. He acted as if he had every right to linger his gaze on the curves of my breasts and hips. As if he was deciding where to start. As if he owned me.
The room had gone still, not even a breath exhaled.
A pit formed in my stomach. There was a chance Cristiano had come to stand for his brother, but with the way he looked at me—possessively, but with more satisfaction than longing—I knew he wasn’t here just to show support for the joining of our families.
“What have you done with Diego?” The panic in my voice reverberated off the pews around us.
Cristiano’s eyes shifted over my shoulder. I turned. Diego stood at the door, sagging under the weight of something I couldn’t name. It didn’t matter. He was here. I ran to him and threw my arms around his neck, breathing in the heady fragrance of my bouquet and Diego’s soapy scent.
He hugged me back until Cristiano barked a single warning that echoed off the high ceilings. “Diego.”
Diego moved his hands to my shoulders and peeled me off, separating us. He seemed to have aged years since I’d last seen him. “My dearest Talia,” he whispered, his green eyes searching mine. “My love. You know you are, don’t you? My only love?”
It felt like a good-bye. Since I’d stepped into the garden, dread had been slowly gathering in me like the dark clouds on the horizon—and a storm was about to hit. I moved back and stepped on the bouquet I hadn’t even realized I’d dropped. I held the rosary with both hands, as if in prayer. “Please tell me Cristiano is only here to see this merger through.”
Diego scrubbed both hands over his face, then smoothed back his hair. “Everything is gone, Talia. I can’t replace it, and I can’t pay for it. If the Maldonados aren’t already on their way, they will be soon, and they’ll come after all of us.”
“I know,” I said. “I know, but you said you had a plan—you said . . .”
“Cristiano has admitted to the attacks. He sabotaged my deal with them.”
I knew it. It should’ve come as no great shock, but heat rose up my neck and cheeks as anger brewed inside me. I gritted my teeth. “Then let him pay for it.”
“I can’t prove it. I have no credibility or influence with them. But he does.” Diego nodded over my shoulder. “There’s only one way out, and it’s through him.”
The only way out was to form an alliance and stand against the Maldonados. We’d already figured that out, so what did Cristiano have to do with it? “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Cristiano will settle our debts and smooth things over with the Maldonados, but only if . . .” He trailed off as if he couldn’t bear to say more.
“Only if what?” I asked. “What about our plan? By marrying and uniting our families, we’ll—”
I froze.
Make an unworthy man happy.
Meet me at the church this Sunday.
Diego had never actually proposed.
He went to touch my face but stopped himself at the last second. “I swear to you, Natalia,” he said so softly, I almost didn’t hear him, “I will fix this. Trust me. Please.”
I reached out for something to steady myself as I became light-headed, but there was nothing. “This . . . you . . .”
Cristiano cleared his throat. “My patience grows thin, hermano.”
Diego glanced over my shoulder and wiped sweat from his forehead with the butt of his palm. “I told you there’d be a union of families today—”
“No.” I was shaking my head—slowly at first and then harder. I ripped off my veil as it loosened. “No.”
Diego gripped my shoulders. “It’s the only option. Cristiano will throw us at the mercy of the Maldonados unless you agree.”
I breathed out a shuddering gasp, and a laugh of disbelief escaped. The space around us sharpened into a distortion of reality, as if I’d been hit with déjà vu. “Unless I agree to . . . to what?”
Diego nodded once. “To marry Cristiano today.”
My heart thudded painfully. I dropped the veil and my rosary clattered on the wood floor. Marry Cristiano? I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I shifted my gaze over Diego’s shoulder to Pilar, whose eyes flitted from the men at the altar to us to the armed Russian next to her—guarding the door. Had this been planned? When? How long had Diego known?
My limbs weakened. The church’s grim atmosphere said it all. I wasn’t here for my wedding but for something much graver. “I can’t,” I whispered. “You can’t ask this of me.”
“That’s his condition to help us.” Diego glanced at the ground, and his brown hair eased around his cheeks. “I can’t save us. But you can.”
“Why?” I asked.
He squatted to pick up my rosary, clutching the beads in a fist as he spoke through his teeth. “He covets you, but he knows he cannot command you, or it would make him like my father.” He lifted his eyes. “He has refused my money, servitude, power—everything.” Diego stood and pressed the rosary back into my hand. “I offered to leave town so he’d never see me again, but he’s determined to see me dead.”
“He has refused power?” I asked, raising my voice. I couldn’t look at Cristiano, but I’d make sure he heard me. “This is a power play. He unites two families, consolidating power for himself while stripping you of yours.”
“The only thing he wants is you—and for you to willingly go to him.”
I gaped at Diego, who wore a special-occasion gray suit as if he’d tried to look nice.
“This has nothing to do with me,” I said evenly. “There has to be another way.”
His jaw firmed as he swallowed. He pinched the inside corners of his eyes, and a tear escaped. “There isn’t, Talia,” he cried. “I’d never ask this of you if it wasn’t my last resort.”
“The Maldonados will come for us once they have their money,” I said, trying to get him to see. “You said they don’t forgive failure. That they’ll make an example of you.”
“They respect Cristiano. He can keep them at bay, and even if he couldn’t, they cannot come against him and your father.” His brows cinched. “Even they aren’t that powerful.”
I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew I hadn’t even begun to fathom the kind of havoc the Maldonados would wreak—not just on us, but those around us. I could almost sense them closing in now. I touched my throat as if El Polvo poured sand down it. That’s who I was to marry?
I had to choose between the lesser of two evils—to be married to a vicious murderer or face a mob of them.
I looked down and released my fist. The rosary beads had made indents in my palm. “The Maldonados . . .” I said. “They’ll listen to Cristiano? You’re sure?”
“Yes. But not until he’s gotten what he wants.”
Me.
No. I couldn’t do it.
I took Diego’s hands. “You and I can get married. Cristiano will still be united with my father. We’ll leave. Let them have it all.”
I started to turn, but Diego pulled me back. “I tried. It won’t work. Walk down the aisle to him—or walk out. I’m desperate enough to beg you to do this for me”—his voice broke as his nose reddened—“but I will respect whatever you decide, Tali. I’ve always been willing to die for you. That hasn’t changed.”
“Please,” I said, looking at our intertwined hands. I held one up, showing him my initials on his ring finger, knowing it would say more than I could. “Please. There has to be another way.”
Diego didn’t speak, but another tear slid down his cheek. “We wouldn’t be standing here if there was an alternative,” he said finally, pulling his hands away. “This is it. The last option. To deny him what he wants is to put a bullet in all our heads.”
“Then let them kill us!” Frustration overwhelmed me, and a sob rose up my throat. If I left here with Cristiano, I’d be stripped of a future anyway. “What kind of life would I lead with him?”
Diego inclined toward me, speaking near my ear. “It’s only until I can get to you,” he whispered. “I’ll do anything to free you. I’ll build an army against him. He won’t hurt you, Tali. If he wanted that, he would’ve done it by now.”
“No. He wants to hurt you, and he’ll use me to do it. What do you think he’ll do with me once we leave here? We’ll be married, Diego.”
He turned his face away, swallowing. “I can’t think of it. If I suspected he had any intention of hurting you, I’d die first. He won’t. I’m asking you to do this and hang on for me, Talia. Can you?”
Falling for the Forbidden: 10 Full-Length Novels Page 77