I shoot him right between the eyes.
He drops to the floor and I grab the gun from his hands as the blood starts to pool from the hole in his head.
I give Violet the gun and she stares at Parada’s dead body without much reaction. She’s changed so much already.
All because of my father.
I growl internally, vowing to find him, and start running down the hall, Violet right behind me.
We run up the stairs to the main level, both of us with our guns at the ready, looking back and forth down the upstairs hall. Violet starts toward the kitchen door, visible from where we are.
But I’m starting to move toward the front staircase at the other end of the hall. The one that leads straight up to my parent’s bedroom.
“Where are you going?” Violet hisses at me.
It’s dark in the house but the kitchen is casting enough light to show the fear in her eyes. “To find my father,” I tell her.
“Vicente, no. We’re leaving now.”
“I can’t let him get away with what he did to you,” I whisper harshly.
“If you don’t, then we won’t get away at all,” she says. “We have to go, now. Please. Before someone stops us. La Mueca.”
“I’ll kill him before he gets a chance.”
“Is that so?” La Mueca muses, his voice clear in the house.
I turn around to see him leaning outside the entrance to the living room, his gun trained on us. Jesus, was he there this whole time?
“Lower your gun, senorita,” he says quietly.
I look over my shoulder at Violet who is pointing it at his face, her arm shaking.
“Be a good girl or I will have to shoot you,” La Mueca says. He is staring at her so intently, so strangely, like pulling the trigger is the last thing he wants, I have to wonder if he feels anything for her at all.
I know he can and will shoot her before she even gets a chance to pull the trigger. I know he’ll do the same to me before I can get a shot off. If I’m lucky, I may be able to hit him somewhere but what does that matter if the both of us are dead.
It’s time to try and bargain with him.
Plead.
But before I can open my mouth, La Mueca is speaking again.
“There is a new development,” he says slowly, eying me over the gun. “Which makes things a great deal more complicated.”
“What development?” I ask.
He glances quickly at Violet. “Her mother is here.”
“What?!” Violet shrieks.
La Mueca raises his finger to his lips, shushing her, then points subtly to the ceiling. “They don’t know you’ve escaped. Yet.”
“Why is her mother here?” I whisper. “Ellie McQueen?”
He nods. “Yes. She came to the gates with her hands in the air. A trade for you, senorita.”
“Oh my god,” Violet cries out, her gun lowering, seeming beside herself. “Oh my god, she’s here. She actually came for me. Why would she…” She shakes her head, meets my eyes. “Did you know?”
“No, of course not.” I look to La Mueca. “But you knew.”
“I suspected,” he says. “But…”
“It wasn’t your place to ask.”
“Si.”
“Fuck,” I swear, knowing this is killing Violet and throwing a wrench in our wheels.
“He has her and he’s not about to let her go,” La Mueca says. “You understand? I don’t know if Javier will let you go either.”
“Will you?” I ask him.
La Mueca stares at me thoughtfully, his eyes shining dark in the dim light. “That depends.”
“La Mueca,” I say.
He cocks a brow. “Si?”
“When you work for me, it will be your place to ask questions. I want you to ask questions. I want your counsel. Your advice. And for you to have a greater piece of the pie.”
I can feel Violet’s eyes burning on me, wondering what the hell I’m doing.
But I know exactly what I’m doing.
And I’m not lying either.
“What makes you think I want to work for you instead of your father?” La Mueca asks. “After all, he has all of this. And what do you have?” He glances at Violet. “Other than her, of course.”
“You know what I have.”
He’s been hinting at this from the start. Watching how I play the game, watching how I keep advancing, no matter the obstacle. Doing what I have to do.
I knew it the moment he saw me downstairs, holding my father at gunpoint, after I’d already stabbed him.
He knew right then that I would be the winning team.
And as he said the other day, he follows orders of the best because he is the best at what he does.
I just hope he’s willing to slum it for a while first.
“Vicente,” Violet says. I look at her. I know she’s not thrilled at what I’m trying to do, that I should be trying to murder the man who broke her wrist. But I already know the right deals have to be made at the right times, and that might include working with someone you’d rather not.
But despite all La Mueca has done, I need him on my side.
And I’m praying, fucking praying, he’s just ambiguous enough to side with me.
He lowers his gun slightly but doesn’t put it away.
He’s weighing his options.
He holds all the cards now.
Not my father. Not me.
The sicario.
“I want in as a partner,” he says to me. “Equal share. Between the three of us.”
“What are you talking about?” Violet asks. It’s not like I’ve had the time to share my plans with her. At the moment she just wants to get out of here, to live. And now, rescue her mother. Talking about building a separate empire and ruling a cartel is saved for another day.
I ignore her, nod at Le Mueca. “You get a seat at the table.”
“And you know if you don’t make this happen, my friend…”
“You’ll probably kill me? Yeah, I know. But it will happen.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he says simply. “I never did.”
He sighs and sticks his gun in his waistband. “Okay. So where do we start?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Javier
Javier has never been so fucking turned on in his entire life.
And considering it’s Javier, that says a lot.
It doesn’t matter that it’s the middle of the night.
It doesn’t matter that he has a freshly-stitched stab wound in his side.
Or the fact that it was his son that did the stabbing.
And it’s not that Ellie is as wickedly attractive as she was back then (okay, it’s a little bit of that).
It’s that he finally got what he wanted.
As crazy as it all seems, he got that sense of accomplishment.
The sense of winning.
He was surprised at how fulfilling it actually was, to watch Ellie come onto his property with her hands in the air, ready to bend to his every whim. Especially when he got her alone in the hut, was able to smell the fear off of her, revel in her humiliation.
It almost made up for what she did to him.
He remembers the moment the cops found him handcuffed to that fence. When they realized they had captured Javier Bernal and on their home turf. How happy they were. How utterly low Javier felt to be taken in, all because of Ellie.
It was even worse when he left prison and had to crawl back to Mexico with his tail between his legs and nearly start all over again.
All because of Ellie.
So to see her disgust as he tasted her neck, felt between her legs, touched her in places that only her husband is allowed to, that meant something to him.
To see how desperate she was to have her daughter back, to see the threat of loss in her eyes, that meant something to him, too.
It felt a lot like the world clicking into place.
Some would say karma, but Javier never much belie
ved in that.
What he did believe in was that sooner or later, everyone will be at the same level, everything will even out. It was just luck if you were alive to see it happen.
And this was his lucky fucking day.
In fact, his plans for Violet and Vicente are hanging in the balance.
He might just call the whole thing off.
Maybe.
First, he has his wife to fuck.
He goes to the bedroom and shuts the door, hoping the sound wakes her.
It does. Luisa stirs, sits up. “Javi?” she asks. “What are you doing? What time is it?”
She flicks on the bedroom lamp.
Looks at him standing by the door in a bloodstained shirt and with a massive erection.
Damn if Javier doesn’t see a look of hunger in her eyes at the sight of him.
Always surprising me, my queen, Javier thinks to himself.
And he knows he made the right choice with her.
Not that he ever doubts himself.
“What happened?” she says as he walks toward her, her eyes going between the imprint of his dick in his sweat pants and the blood on his shirt.
“I had an accident,” Javier tells her, taking off his shirt.
She gasps at the stitches. “Vicente?”
“Don’t worry, he’s with Violet now. Thought I would leave them together.”
She’s still staring at him in disbelief and he can tell she wants to ask more questions, questions that would no doubt kill this mood.
“I’ll explain all after,” he says, slipping off his pants.
Luisa’s eyes widen.
He grins.
Fucking hell is he going to give it to her.
He gets on the bed, prowling over to her and she’s stunned as he runs his hands roughly over her exquisite breasts, pinching at her nipples hard, sucking her neck into his mouth.
It takes her no time to adapt, relaxing under him, her nails going along his neck, shoulder, back, lightly scratching, just the way he likes it. Later she’ll dig her nails in deep and draw blood, or perhaps not. She might take it easy on him since he’s already bleeding.
And the wound doesn’t stop Javier from fucking her like a madman. It doesn’t slow down his rhythm, doesn’t hold back his thrusts. He thinks of all the things he said to Ellie earlier, things he had meant, and realizes how good he has it with his wife, the woman that embraces all her good and bad and the grey areas in between.
Ellie’s pussy might have been his back then, but Luisa’s is his now and forever. And it’s a fucking wonderful thing to claim.
When he’s done driving her to a climax, he pulls out and comes all over her chest, wiping his seed into his skin, as he likes to do. Then he buries his head between her legs to bring her to another orgasm.
Yes, this pussy is all his, all perfectly his.
When she’s come again, panting, writhing like he hasn’t seen in years, only then does he feel at peace.
With Ellie submissive and ruined in his hut, his wife happy and sated in his bed, he feels more at peace than he ever has.
It doesn’t take long to fall asleep, the kind of deep sleep you don’t ever want to wake up from.
He wakes up to a slap, clear across his face.
Stunned, he blinks, then sits straight up, reaching for his gun under the pillow, ready to fight whoever just struck him.
But it’s Luisa who is standing over him in her robe, looking furious in the low light, the bedside lamp turned on.
Now it’s his turn to ask what happened.
“You asshole,” Luisa sneers at him. “You come in here with that fucking big dick of yours and fuck my brains out but it’s only because she’s here.”
Ah, yes. Ellie. He expected this to happen.
He rubs the sleep from his eyes. “Luisa, dear, it’s not what you think.”
“Not what I think? You were doing who knows what to her and then you come here because clearly you needed to fuck someone.”
“The only person I clearly needed to fuck was you. And I did.”
“Because she turned you on!”
He gives her a pointed look. “She did not turn me on. I mean, yes, she’s obviously still attractive. Very attractive.”
Luisa slaps him across the face again.
Javier is growing less impressed by the second. “You do that again and there will be hell to pay.”
“She’s your ex-lover and she’s on our land. How the hell did she even get here? How did she find us?”
“Emphasis on ex, Luisa. And I don’t know but she’s not an idiot, she’s smart as hell and a con artist and she’s a mother. What did you expect? That she would just let us take her daughter and not give everything to get her back?”
“You made her sound like a horrible person, one I assumed wouldn’t care if her daughter was taken.”
“Well she’s not a horrible person…” He stops himself, realizing he’s about to defend Ellie to his wife and nothing good can come from this. “She’s a good mother. I guess,” he quickly adds. “And the reason I came in here all hot and bothered was because I got what I wanted and I wanted to fuck you.”
“Your revenge?”
He shrugs. “What can I say. Maybe I’m easier to please than I thought.”
She stares at him for a moment, the wheels turning in her head, her nostrils flaring as she tries to calm down and put everything together.
Finally she says to him, “I want to see her.”
Javier raises his brows. “Ellie? Now?”
“Yes, now. I want to meet the woman who broke you. The woman you’ve been harping on about forever. I want to know why she was so special.”
“You’re sounding jealous, my dear.”
“I’m not jealous. I don’t give a fuck who you fucked in the past. But this puta is infamous in our lives and I want to meet her myself.”
He narrows his eyes at her. “You’re not going to do anything to her, are you?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” he says as he slowly swings his legs out of the bed, careful with the stab wound. “It’s four a.m. and you’ve slapped me twice already. Seems you might be in a fighting mood.”
“I’ll be good,” she says. “I just want to see her.”
He sighs, running his hand over his face. He gets the feeling that whatever peace he had is going to be lost pretty soon. He should have cut his losses when he had the chance.
“All right,” he says, putting on a pair of jeans and grey t-shirt.
“You’re not bringing a gun?” she asks.
He shakes his head. “You know what’s in the hut. There’s nothing she can hurt us with. We’ve never had an incident with anyone in there before. But if I bring a gun, there’s a chance she can get it off of me. And believe me, she’ll use it. She’s tried to kill me before.”
Together they leave the room. Out in the hallway he sees Frankie and Parada, tired on their feet, drinking hot coffee. Everyone is on night shift tonight. “Where’s Barrera?” he asks Parada.
He shrugs. “Watching Vicente I assume.” He clears his throat. “Sorry the missus found out about her. She overheard me and Frankie talking when she was getting some juice from the kitchen.”
Javier can’t be bothered with a response and takes Luisa down the hall. She would have found out sooner or later, he just would have rather it been during the daytime when he wasn’t exhausted. This is turning into the longest night of his fucking life.
Hand in hand they make the long walk along the meandering stone path that takes them from the backdoor by the kitchen, through the fruit trees and garden that Luisa tends to, through the groves of exotic palms, all lit by small lanterns.
Javier is struck by the fact he’s never really noticed these lights before, nor the deep sounds of the crickets, or the groomed beauty of the landscaping. He just focused before on what wasn’t there, like that fucking unfinished koi pond. Not seeing how normal and beautiful it all seems among
st so much chaos and dirtiness. His own house, his own property itself is something to take pride in. They built all this and they still have it. It’s still theirs.
And Luisa is still his as he is hers.
But their son…for once Javier is wondering if the damage might be irreversible.
One would think the stab wound was a clue.
It’s enough that Javier has to stop Luisa, just as they enter the fruit trees and pull her to him.
He cups her face in her hands, searching her eyes in the dim light.
“You’re mine, my queen, you know this,” he says gruffly.
She nods.
“No,” he says, shaking her slightly. “I love you. Only you. Always you. I don’t know what’s going to happen going forward. What Ellie is going to say. What you’re going to think. I just need you to know that I love you with every inch of my black heart and dirty soul and I will do everything I can to keep you.”
Tears well in her eyes. She nods again, her chin quivering. “Sometimes I don’t know. But I do now. Thank you, Javi.” She stands on her tip toes and kisses him softly on the lips.
“I know I’ve been…irrational, lately,” he admits, not letting go of her. “I just…I can’t bear to lose what we have. We’ve lost so much already with the cartel. I can’t stand to lose Vicente, too. I would rather have him hate me for the rest of my life than to raise someone weak. Someone who won’t be able to handle this life.”
“Our son is the opposite of weak, Javier,” Luisa says. “And he can handle this. He can handle more than you think.” She glances down at his wound. “I don’t think you can afford to underestimate him anymore.”
No, I can’t, he thinks grimly. It might be the death of me.
They resume walking and soon come to the hut. There is one light on inside, one outside, attracting an array of moths.
Javier knocks first, out of strange courtesy, and then swipes the keycard on the door. It beeps open.
He steps inside first, just in case Ellie tries to ambush him. He could fight her off but with his wound he’d rather avoid further pain if he could.
“Ellie,” he calls out, noting that only the kitchen light is on. “You have a visitor.”
He peers around the corner to the bedroom where the opened shuttered doors display Ellie sitting up in bed. Staring at him with cold eyes. Still very beautiful and, at this moment, looking like a ghost from his past.