“Yeah…” Brody grumbled.
I bent his finger even farther. “Try again.”
Sweat beaded his forehead, but like a true Carrera, he held my eye, gritting his teeth through the pain. “Yes, Val. I understand.” When I released my hold, he muttered under his breath, “Asshole.”
I’d ignore that. I was an asshole.
“Muy bien.” With curious eyes starting to turn our way, I dropped my hand by my side and stepped back. Brody busied himself with refilling his wineglass while I cataloged the whereabouts of our guests, my gaze darting away from the sight of the blood-red velvet wedding cake being served.
Fucking red.
“Santiago is testing my boundaries,” I confirmed without explanation. “You can’t seriously be surprised he stuck around to leave his stain all over your party.” I motioned my glass to where Joseph Grayson stood beside Rick Sanders. “Honestly, I’d be insulted if he didn’t. Surrounding himself with his shields in my presence proves he sees the Carreras as a threat.”
Brody mulled that around for a moment before shaking his head. “Having him here at the wedding wasn’t just about forging an alliance, was it?” To his credit, he kept his composure, an instinct that won him an explanation.
“At first? Yes. However, there’s a much bigger problem at stake, and waiting to solve it wasn’t a consideration.”
“Which is?”
“Santiago planned to take New York by force.” I paused, thinning my eyes at him. “Before Ava and Special Agent Peter Pan got the inside track on Ricci.”
“And you know this because…”
“Because I’m fucking Valentin Carrera, that’s why,” I growled. “Also because there’s a leak in his precious entourage.” Which happened to be one of the nameless few milling around like unwelcome ants. But Brody didn’t need to know that.
I had Cristiano to thank for that, and it was a bloody gift our temporary Colombian ally would receive upon his return to Santiago Island.
“So you’re using my wedding to your sister as ground zero to wine, dine, and fuck the enemy?”
I paused, reminding myself this man just put a ring on my sister’s finger in order to stop a knee-jerk reaction I knew I’d regret. “We’re not fucking the Santiagos,” I growled. “We’re distracting them.”
“What?” he asked, staring into his glass with similar disdain.
“The Feds are moving on Ricci in forty-eight hours.”
“So?”
“So, we move in twenty-four.”
Brody froze, the muscles in his forearms tightening as he glanced up at me in disbelief. “You’re kidding me, right?” When I didn’t answer, he cursed and slammed his glass down for the second time. “And you think Santiago is just going to sit back and let you piss your name on the streets of New York?”
I shrugged, not bothering to hide another grimace as I tossed back the last sip of the overpriced shitty red wine. “Santiago is flying to Monaco with his wife later tonight. Out of sight. Out of mind.”
“And you trust this leak?” he asked, steeling his expression as the lieutenant in him took over. “You’re moving in twenty-four hours? What makes you think Santiago didn’t come here to move in twelve?”
Because he’s a sadist, not a masochist, and he wants those contacts in Mexico too badly.
My eyes slid over to where Eden chatted quietly with Ava, two redheads seated on thrones of untold power. Trust. Of all the outsiders in attendance, the Miami Bratva queen held the most of mine, but that wasn’t saying a lot. Most of a crumb was still a crumb.
I didn’t believe in trust. I believed in actions.
“I have confidence in it.”
He tugged his bowtie loose while shaking his head. “I just think it’s a mistake to trust a man like Santiago to leave here quietly, Val. I’ve had a bad feeling all day.”
There was that word again—trust.
I wasn’t trusting him; I was using him. And if Santiago were half the legend I’d heard him to be, he was doing the same to me. The enemy of my enemy made for strange bedfellows.
While I had no intention of answering any more of Brody’s questions, he had no intention of relenting. Fortunately, as soon as he opened his mouth to offer another opinion, a flow of white material glided by me as my sister wrapped her hand around her new husband’s arm.
“It’s time for our first dance, Mr. Harcourt.”
War could have broken out all around us and Brody wouldn’t have noticed. His attention was firmly focused on Adriana, the face that scowled at me seconds ago, now melting into a lovesick smile. “I’m all yours, Mrs. Harcourt.”
They looked so happy, even the corner of my mouth started to turn up, so I shut that shit down fast with a hard roll of my eyes. “Dios mío, get a fucking room.”
Adriana laughed, flipping her middle finger at me while leading Brody away. “We did. Yours.”
“You’re disinherited!” I shouted, Adriana’s throaty laughter getting louder before fading away. Still, I couldn’t take my eyes off that damn red shawl she still had wrapped around her. An irrational part of me wanted to run after her and rip it to shreds.
But that was crazy.
It was just a shawl.
It was just wine.
And they were just petals.
They meant nothing.
As Brody and Adriana climbed onto the elevated dance floor, I forced the thoughts out of my head. I was serious when I told her I never thought I’d live to see this day, and I’d be damned if I’d allow my own paranoia to ruin it.
So, I watched one of the highest-ranking men in my cartel take my only sister in one arm and hold her hand in the other like it was his only lifeline.
He didn’t see dripping petals or warning shawls.
He saw his wife. His future. His entire world.
And with those three phrases, my gaze swung to my left where Eden still stood talking intently with Ava, her long bright red hair piled on top of her head and secured with dark red pins.
No, not pins.
Roses.
Red roses.
The dark petals splashed across her head in a dripping waterfall of red. They matched the red of her dress, flowing around her swollen belly. They matched her crimson-stained lips.
She was covered in red.
That gnawing sensation returned, and this time it brought an unease so heavy, my hand automatically reached under my tuxedo jacket for my gun. As music played in the background and the happy couple danced, lines blurred, blending the past and present into one indistinguishable memory.
With the cold metal searing into my palm, memories I hadn’t allowed outside a secured space in my mind broke free. Time spun backward, and that metallic smell burned my nose again as I grasped my chest.
Bending down, I traced a smear of blood that beaded on the cold tile floor. Somehow, I knew it was hers. Rubbing it between my fingers I brought my index finger to the left side of my white button-down shirt and drew an “x” over the muscle. Glancing down, the red from my fingers soaked into the white thread, staining the tiny lines a deep crimson color.
X marks the spot.
Cross my heart and hope to die.
Imprinted in blood.
Eden Lachey had branded her name on my heart and her soul in my blood for the rest of my life. However long that life lasted depended on the shape I found her in.