Chapter Twenty-Nine
Adriana
Chapala, Jalisco, Mexico
“You can’t put it off forever you know.” Brody’s eyes shifted to the unopened letter, still sitting in my lap.
We sat on the stairs in between the kitchen and the living room, just like when I tended to his injury. Only this time, he wasn’t the one who was bleeding. At least, not in the literal sense.
My wound went much deeper than the simple graze of a bullet, and there wasn’t enough vodka in the world to cleanse it. Its gnawing presence never left me. It kept me on edge, pulling me forward while pushing others away. Hiding its dark secrets while slowly destroying me.
The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children.
Sometimes I wondered if a part of me always knew things would end this way. That sins of the past would come full circle, and the one who was spared would be the one who ended the reign.
“Adriana?” Brody lightly bumped my shoulder, and I blinked away the burn behind my eyes. “Did you hear me?”
I picked up the envelope and ran my fingers along the edge. “Yeah, I heard you. Listen, before I open this, I need to say something, but I need you to not make it weird.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“When I came to Houston, I wasn’t lying. Adriana Carrera was the only name I had left, and I wasn’t going to sit by while some pinche cabrón ruined it. I never hid that I knew bargaining information would force Val to align with me.”
Brody’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “Bargaining? Is that what we’re calling it now?”
“Would you shut up and let me finish?” I growled, slapping the envelope across his injured arm.
“Ow! Jesus, okay!”
“I’m trying to apologize for what I said in the car. You’ve had every opportunity to turn on me, and if I’m being honest, every right to. I threatened to ruin your life, yet when shots were fired at El Palacio, your first instinct was to protect me.” I turned to him, the envelope crinkling in my hand. “Why?”
He stared with a widened curiosity. “No one has ever risked anything for you, have they?”
Flinching, I immediately started to argue, then remembered my own words to him. How I told him in detail how Cristiano left me once a rank was no longer on the table. I lowered my eyes and rubbed my chest, trying to relieve the suffocation slowly building behind it.
“Adriana, you fight me because you fear me.”
I snapped my head up, eyes blazing. “I don’t fear anyone.”
“See, that right there.” He blew out a heavy breath, his thumb leaving a trail of fire as it traced the corner of my mouth. “That’s your go-to response for everything. You talk a big game, and it’s pretty damn convincing to anyone who doesn’t know you.”
“And you think you know me?”
“I don’t think it. I know it. You keep people close enough to watch them, but far enough away that they don’t realize all this…” He waved a hand down the length of my body. “…is just an act. The real Adriana fears everyone.”
“You’re wrong.”
I’d perfected evasion into an art form. Hid behind it. Worn it as a suit of armor. There was no way he could’ve seen through it.
“You think if you let someone close enough to get to know the real you, they’ll reject you, and that’s worse than having the world hate you. That’s why I didn’t think twice to protect you at that club, Adriana. Because despite all that you’ve done, and as hard as you try to hide from me, I see you. And maybe for the first time in my life, I don’t feel like a placeholder.”
Stop it.
The words echoed in my head, taking root and refusing to let go. He was digging too deep. It felt too personal. My world was black and white, but the things he was saying dragged it into a muddled gray area.
“I think you see me too.”
I should’ve pulled away. As soon as his thumb slid across my bottom lip, drawing it open, I knew what he wanted. My breath hitched as he leaned forward, his hooded gaze on my mouth. I’d already given him my body, but I couldn’t deny how much I wanted to let him have the one thing I’d never allowed any man.
I craved it. I feared it.
I turned my cheek just before he kissed me. “Don’t.”
He pressed his forehead against my temple, a ghost of a smile on his face. “You have rules.” Sitting back, he scrubbed his hands down his face, discreetly adjusting his pants. Letting out a long, drawn out sigh, he nodded to the letter still clutched in my hand. “Open it. Time’s wasting.”
Slipping my finger underneath the seam of the envelope, I tore it open and pulled out the multiple pieces of paper tucked inside. Brody sat quietly, giving me space as I unfolded them, scanning the handwritten pages.
“It looks like pages ripped out of a diary.”
Brody cocked an eyebrow. “Does it say whose?”
It didn’t have to. “It’s my grandmother’s.” Then realizing what I said, I shook my head. “I mean, Esteban’s mother. It’s dated fifty-five years ago.” Scanning the pages, I read aloud, my hand shaking. “‘Today I followed Pablo to where he keeps his whore. He thinks I don’t know. Men with his power aren’t expected to be faithful, but he hasn’t been discreet with this one. I hid in an abandoned house across the street until he left then confronted the woman sleeping with my husband. I threatened her just like all the others. We both may lay with the same man, but we are not the same. Rosita can spread her legs for my husband, but I can break them. I gave her a choice, walk away from Pablo or never walk again. That was when she told me why she’d summoned him. Pablo’s infidelity has shamed our family, and the sins of the father are to be laid upon the children. Poison has infected our bloodline, and it will eat away at our souls for generations to come.’”
The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children.
Brody’s eyes flicked toward me. “He got her pregnant.”
I nodded a weak affirmation, and as I flipped the page, every bone in my body snapped to attention. Swallowing uneven breaths, I felt an inescapable coldness settle into my soul.
“Jesus, you’re shaking.” Brody’s concerned voice sounded far away as I stared at the paper in my hand. “What is it?”
“It’s a birth certificate,” I whispered.
“For who?”
“Ignacio Vergara.”
Holding up my phone, I pointed to the dusty road to my right. “The GPS says this is it. Turn here.”
Giving the wheel a sharp turn, Brody grumbled, “I don’t see why we’re bothering an old woman who may or may not have given birth to this asshole. We should be going back to Guadalajara and tracking down—”
“My ex,” I finished for him, rubbing my temples in frustration. “I know, you’ve said it six times already.” It was the same argument we’d had for the last hour, but apparently, one he wasn’t about to let die.
“You’d think maybe after the first couple of times, some common sense would’ve gotten through to you.”