His underlying threat couldn’t be missed.
It reminded Valeria of what she had heard Chris say about Alessio to her daughter. Spouse was the word he used, but to her, he had also told her that married was not the right way to describe his twin’s relationship.
“How long have you been with Corrado?”
Alessio’s stare darted back to the mirror. “Straight to the point, aren’t you?”
“I need to talk or I will fall over.”
“It’s okay to sleep.”
“It’s okay to talk, too.”
The man chuckled. “Many years—we have been together many years. However, we have only been with Ginevra for a little over a half a year.”
Valeria blinked.
He laughed.
“Wait, it’s three of you? Together? All of you?”
A part of her had thought Chris’s twin was gay. This man suggested something else, with an extra twist, and she had to process that to respond appropriately.
Alessio nodded. “Poly. New concept?”
She thought about that for a moment.
“Well, if it works for you.”
“It does,” he murmured. “For us, it is perfect.”
“That’s what counts.”
Silence drifted through the car for the rest of the drive. She was grateful that Alessio had been telling the truth, and the hotel wasn’t far away. Another ten minutes of driving, and he pulled the vehicle into the underground garage.
She would have carried Maria inside, but Alessio stepped forward to take the girl before she could even try to get her out of the car.
Valeria wouldn’t say it out loud, but she doubted she had the strength or energy to carry her daughter inside the building. She was happy to follow behind Alessio as he strolled through the main lobby of the hotel as though he knew where he was going, and he had been here before.
Maybe he had.
How long were they planning this?
Valeria knew better than to ask.
It didn’t matter.
She was free.
“We should get a call soon,” he said as they stepped into an elevator.
“From who?”
“Whoever is still alive at the ranch.”
Valeria stiffened.
A cold dread slipped down her spine.
Alessio chuckled, passing her a look. “Mmm, and now you know what I have been thinking for the last several hours. It was me, or Corrado, though, and since he is the only one who looks like Christopher, it made sense for him to go in. Which meant, no matter what, I had to stay behind ... our—Ginevra, well, at least one of us has to go home. That’s what we promised her. This time, it’s me.”
Valeria smiled, as faint as it was. “Him, too, I’m sure.”
“He better.”
She heard it loud and clear in his tone—that threat again. Only this time, she realized he wasn’t only making it for the woman in his life, but because he loved someone back at the ranch, too. She understood that feeling all too well.
It ached in her chest, too.
Soon, the elevator reached the floor that Alessio had chosen, the structure jumping before the doors slid open to expose a hallway that led to only one door at the end. At her questioning glance, he shrugged.
“Marcellos have expensive taste,” he said. “And he wanted the best for his wife while she waited. I guess she didn’t want to stay in New York ... she wanted to see you as soon as she could.”
Valeria froze. “Do you mean—”
“Val? Oh, my God, Val!”
Haven.
Valeria found her best friend coming out of the door down the hall. The person who had helped to protect her for years when she was hiding from Jorge, who helped to raise her daughter ... the woman who helped to teach Maria how to speak English, who read her daughter nighttime stories when Valeria had to work late nights, and couldn’t be there to put her child to bed.
Haven.
She hadn’t been able to think much about her friend after Jorge caught and took her back if only because she didn’t want to draw attention to Haven. God forbid the cartel go after Haven when all she had done was help.
“Haven,” Valeria said, her voice faint, locking gazes with the blonde-headed woman down the hall. “Why did you do all of this for me?”
Haven, in her skinny jeans and silk blouse, tall and confident, head high because she had always been proud, came forward with arms already opened. “It was nothing ... nothing you wouldn’t have done for me. I’m sorry it took so long.”
She shook her head.
“Don’t be sorry for that ... don’t be.”
It was all she said before her beautiful friend came all the way down the hall to wrap her in a hug that reminded her of home. That was the thing—Valeria never had a home for so many years, and then she stumbled upon this woman. Who gave her a place to live, fed her, taught her how to survive, and helped her raise her child.
She adored Haven.
Loved her so fucking much.
Valeria let out a hard breath when her friend’s arms tightened harder around her frame, but it was so fucking good, too. Down the hall, a man came to stand in the hotel’s doorway room. His familiar face, still stone cold, and his frame, filling up the doorway as though he should be on a defensive line for a football team and not the head of a major crime family, watched them from a distance without intruding.
Andino.
Haven’s new husband.
Valeria just kept hugging her friend.
“Come on,” Haven murmured in her ear, “we’ll get food into you. We have enough time for that before the jet will be ready for us to leave. It’s not safe to stay here—it won’t be long before people find out where we are. Apparently, bribes only last so long in this country before someone else’s bribe becomes more interesting. Maybe we can wake Maria up so she can eat, too? I miss her so much.”
She nodded, but Haven still hadn’t let go.
That was okay.
Home almost seemed like home again.
Except it was missing one person, now.
Chris.
• • •
The plan to remove Valeria and Maria from Mexico was in motion long before Chris came on the scene, she came to learn on the long flight back to New York. It was how they would retrieve the two from the clutches of Jorge and the rest of the cartel they needed help with.
Removing them from the country?
Protecting them after?
Easy, Andino explained.
Valeria had no reason not to believe them, although she didn’t think it was as easy as the man said in his dismissive way, but it still stunned her. They only stayed at the hotel long enough to get food in their stomachs before they were on the road again. A Marcello-owned jet waited at a private gate for them to board at an international airport with agents that barely glanced at the fake passports Andino gave her.
Although, they looked kindly upon the envelop of cash Andino passed to them when he walked through first. It worked the same way when they entered the states after landing in New York at a small airport outside of the city where apparently, the Marcellos had connections and didn’t mind pulling them to get their business handled.
It all happened so fast.
Simple.
Valeria still felt like she was floating.
Once in New York, they moved to a hall of suites in the Manhattan Waldorf where she found more people waiting. She tried to keep track of her daughter, but let Maria run freely amongst the rooms with Haven when she figured out that the woman looking her in the face was Chris’s mother.