The other two men, Dante and Andino Marcello, he knew from the business—Cosa Nostra. Rarely were they known to leave New York, but especially not to come to Nevada, so he figured this job was important to them.
“Gian, and Chris, right?” Dante asked, looking his way.
Chris nodded. “That’s me.”
“Not to be confused with his twin, who—”
“Isn’t here,” Chris interjected, giving Andino Marcello a stare that would silence the devil. He understood this man had issues with his twin, and he didn’t care to hear them. Fucking nobody, regardless of what their last name happened to be, would bad mouth his twin, but not to his damn face. “And we have things to do, don’t we?”
“We do,” Dare said from behind his desk, “and we’re waiting on you all before we start.”
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Gian said, giving Chris a wave to enter the office first, “shall we get started?”
Dare picked up the remote on his desk and pointed it at the screen once Chris and his father entered the office. The picture changed when he pressed a button, showcasing Andino in a tux, a woman in a white wedding dress, and a little girl between them being held by a black-haired, beautiful woman with a wide smile.
And God, yeah, beautiful didn’t do the woman justice. Her joyful smile brightened her delicate features, and her black hair had a glossy sheen under the sunlight. Tall, and curvy, the lavender dress she had picked for the day hugged her body and showed off all kinds of leg.
With only a picture, Chris thought whoever had taken it had captured the woman’s beauty, her confidence, and her womanly appeal all at the same time.
Quite a feat.
“Valeria Lòpez,” Cree said when Dare stayed quiet. “Formerly Gomez, but she changed it after a forced marriage to Jorge Lòpez at fifteen when the cartel killed her mother down in Mexico, it became a means to blackmail her father. Or, those are the details we have.”
“That’s all we had,” Andino muttered.
“Right,” Dare said, nodding at Andino, “and so this is what we’re working on. Somehow, around sixteen from what we understand, Valeria was pregnant, and ran away from her husband, and the cartel. She found her way to the States, and we don’t know how. What we do know is her daughter was born in the States, and at some point, she met Haven Murphy.”
“Marcello, now,” Andino added under his breath.
That name rang a bell.
Chris looked to Andino. “Your new wife?”
Andino nodded. “The two happened to be roommates for quite a while before I came along, Valeria worked for Haven, and one night she came home ... seemed like Val up and left and so did—”
Dare pressed a button, and the screen changed to a single picture of the little girl Valeria had been holding in the wedding picture. “Her daughter, Maria. Who is six. We cannot find anything for this little girl anywhere at the moment. No school records in Mexico, nothing for a doctor, and ... yeah.”
Chris let out a heavy breath as he took in the black-haired, brown-eyed child. She looked all of maybe five on the screen if that. Cute, with a wide, toothy smile, and her arms high in the air as her yellow summer dress spun around her legs.
“Jorge Lòpez is her father,” Dare said, “but what’s important is ... Valeria ran from the cartel, we’re aware she was forced into marriage, and at some point, they took her again. We have every reason to believe she is back with the cartel.”
“Might she want to be there?” Chris asked.
“Possibly,” the man returned, “but you must figure that out when you get inside, won’t you?”
Gian hummed under his breath beside his son. “And that’s why you want me here, isn’t it? Being the boss of the Guzzis, I’m not affiliated to the Marcellos on paper as a business partner, they wouldn’t expect me to go there for her, and I could use my status and territory as a transaction for them, correct?”
“They wouldn’t suspect something’s up, no.”
Chris looked to the two Marcello men as this was their job. They had come here with it, and they wanted to retrieve the woman. “Why is she important? A cartel wife ... that’s playing with fire. I’m familiar with details about the Lòpez cartel. Jorge, he’s the oldest son, and has taken over more now that his father took a step back years ago. And you want to ... what, take his wife and child from him?”
Andino arched a brow, replying, “I respect the hesitance, but the woman never asked for the life they gave her. From what my wife explained, and I understood, Val stayed on the run and had been for years, which meant she had to be running from something.”
“Or someone,” Chris finished.
“Jorge, likely,” Andino agreed. “Val and Haven ... she needs to know if Val is where she wants to be, is safe, and happy. And if she is, fine, we leave it alone. But if she isn’t, and if she needs help, that’s what you’re here to do.”
Chris cleared his throat and nodded once. “All right.”
Dare passed him a glance. “The job’s a go?”
“The job is a go.”
3.
“Mamá, watch me!”
Valeria already had one eye on her daughter, but she tipped the rim of her large, pink summer hat higher so that Maria could see her. She smiled, refusing to allow her six-year-old to see her discomfort about where they were staying. Maria liked the pool at her grandfather, Martín’s, mansion in Mexico City, but Valeria hated it.
Or better yet, she hated the people here.
Most of them.
“When did she learn to swim?”
The soft voice at Valeria’s left didn’t take her attention away from her daughter in the pool—safety first, and all—but she still answered Abril on the lounger. “Last summer. A friend and I took her twice a week to an indoor pool for lessons.”
“A friend?”
Valeria did her best not to roll her eyes at her sister-in-law. Six years on the run, and Jorge had caught up to her. It wasn’t Abril’s fault, and no one had ever found out the truth about how she helped Valeria all those years ago. She had been back in Mexico, under Jorge’s thumb, for a year now ... and life was worse.
“Haven Murphy,” Valeria said, her gaze darting to the marble steps leading to the back of the mansion’s patio doors. It was a habit for her now—she looked for Jorge if she dared mention anything about her time when she ran away because if he was within hearing distance, or if someone else was that would tell on her, she would suffer for it later. “She thought it was a good idea.”
In her stark white, one-piece bathing suit that contrasted against her deeply tanned skin, Abril shifted to face Valeria more on her lounger. Valeria still kept one eye on her little girl in the water, just in case Maria became tired, and needed her ma to jump in after her.
“I would think you might be ... furioso—angry—with her, after everything.”
Val blinked. “Why?”
“It was because of her that he found you, no?”
“I don’t blame her. It wasn’t her fault that someone leaked a picture from the private wedding to the public, and it was the one that Maria and I were also in, Abril. It was the circumstance, and nothing more.”