What choice did she have, though?
“People who live in gilded cages,” Valeria said, tone soft, “often forget that’s where they are after a while. Or we learn we need to forget it to survive.”
Chris looked her way, but she was already staring ahead at the man who had come out to stand on the back steps. Like when Chris had joined her on the steps earlier, she sensed his presence the same way she did Jorge’s now. Except his had been fine, and her husband’s was not.
Jorge looked her way, his face a mask of calm, and his arms folded over his broad, silk-covered chest. He said nothing, but she saw the tilt of his head, a silent demand for her to come his way, and not to say a thing about it. He was famous for his silent commands, and she had learned to fear those more than his outbursts. It was when he was quiet she didn’t know what might come next.
“Thank you for the walk,” Valeria told Chris, “but I think this is the end for me tonight.”
Chris noticed Jorge then, too. “Thank you for indulging me.”
“Of course.”
As much as Val wanted to look over her shoulder as she left Chris behind to head for Jorge on the steps, she didn’t. Jorge hadn’t once looked away from her, after all. While he appeared fine outside, she doubted that he was on the inside.
“Head inside,” he told her as she climbed the stairs, “and stay there for the evening, Val.”
“I only needed a breather.”
She attempted to move past him, but his arm struck out fast, and he caught her at the elbow. To anyone else, she was sure his hand on her body would appear innocent from afar, but his fingers dug in hard, leaving marks behind. Tomorrow, she would have to wear something with longer sleeves to hide the bruises he was creating on her body, not that it was anything new. She had become good at hiding things Jorge didn’t want the rest of the surrounding people to see.
Valeria swallowed hard, knowing better than to tell him to let her go. He would only hurt her worse later. “Do you want me to go inside, or not?”
“Just a breather?”
His gaze burned into hers, searching for the lie.
He would find none.
Not yet, anyway.
“Just a breather,” she echoed. “The house was getting stuffy.”
Jorge let her go. “Head inside, as I told you.”
Like she had a choice?
Valeria went.
6.
“Papa.”
Chris slid in beside his father where Gian seemed comfortable to stand next to a window overlooking the garden on the north side of the property. Quite a large garden, too, and one his mother would appreciate, had she been here to see it.
“Chris,” Gian replied in kind.
“Did they leave you on your own?”
Gian raised his brows, and lifted the drink in his hand for a sip. “I wandered off, but no one bothered to follow me. I figured something else must have taken their attention for a time.”
Possibly.
Or, at least Jorge’s attention.
“I approached her outside,” Chris said, lowering his tone to above a murmur. If he believed Jorge to be paranoid, then even if they assumed they were alone, they likely were not. “We took a walk around the pool.”
Gian cleared his throat. “Do you think that’s smart at this moment?”
“We have to know, don’t we?”
“Know what?”
“Whether this is where she wants to be,” Chris said, shrugging. “I know all signs point to her being taken by force, given what we know, but there was still a possibility that she wanted to be here with him.”
“Was,” his father noted. “Past tense.”
Right.
“She’s controlled here, isn’t she?”
“To be fair, they all are,” Gian replied. “Fear is the first tactic a cartel uses to keep people in line, even their own.”
“Sure, but so much so that to take a short walk with me, she asked that we stay in view of the guards?”
“Some women don’t want even a suggestion of impropriety, Chris.”
His father wasn’t wrong, and he knew Gian was playing the devil’s advocate for him right now. Gian was of the mindset that Valeria didn’t want to be here, and there was nothing to figure out. Chris wasn’t as simple, and needed to be one-hundred percent sure before he started this plan of theirs, and did something crazy.
“I asked her if she liked it here,” Chris added, “and while her response was ... meant to distract me, I still heard what she didn’t say.”
“Hmm. What, then?”
“The husband came out. She went back in the house.”
Chris didn’t mention how, while it may have seemed like he was staring at the sky when Valeria joined Jorge on the steps earlier, he had been keeping one eye on them. He saw it all—the way Jorge grabbed her, like she was property to him, and even the flash of fear in Valeria’s face before she slipped inside the house.
“Tell me,” Gian said, turning to face Chris, but keeping his head tilted down, “why, even with all the details we had on this situation, that you thought the woman might be here willingly, son.”
That seemed obvious enough, didn’t it?
“I don’t pretend to understand the complexities of other people’s relationships,” Chris replied, “and if people think she would be the first woman to fall in love with her captor, then they would be wrong. I wanted to be sure.”
Gian sighed, nodding. “And you’re convinced now?”
“Undoubtedly. She’s not here because she wants to be.”
Which meant, it was time for them to get to work. Or rather, for Chris to get to work. He needed to get his father out of this country, and work out a plan to get Valeria, and little Maria, out of here, too.
Without Jorge coming after them.
That would be the hardest part.
Jorge chased after Valeria once—hunted her down like a dog. He took years to find her hiding out in New York, but patience and perseverance paid off. That’s what would happen the next time, too. Chris wanted to make sure that wasn’t a possibility for the man when it was all said and done.
So, what did that mean?
Someone would have to die, likely.
It was the approach of footsteps that had Gian and Chris turning to see who found them away from the rest of people at the mansion. Samuel, the youngest Lòpez son, came to stand at the end of the hallway, but didn’t come closer to intrude on their space. Out of the two brothers, Chris preferred this one.
In the single day they had been in the Lòpezs’ presence, Samuel seemed like the easier, more rational of the two that he would need to deal with. Appearances were also deceiving, and Chris wasn’t stupid enough to trust the man, either. He would also keep that in mind.
“Yes?” Gian asked him.
Samuel smiled. “Jorge made your accommodations for the night at a hotel in the city.”
“Thank him for me.”
“Of course. Jorge would like to complete any last details—he hears you want to head out tomorrow, Gian, and won’t have time to do it before you leave. So, if we could do that soon, then we can end this night on a good note.”
“Right, well, we’ll be out in a moment.”