Red.
I remembered how dark her blood had been.
It was the night Manuel Muñoz took Eden from me. He’d wanted both of us dead and didn’t care who went first. I knew all day something had been wrong. For the second time in my life, I’d felt I was about to lose everything.
Something inside me told me I never should have brought her to Mexico that day.
Something inside me warned me not to leave her alone at my father’s estate.
Something inside me knew I’d find red.
Red. Red. Red. Red. Red.
“Cereza!” Her name barely made it past my lips when the world detonated in a simultaneous explosion of red, white, and black. Screams so loud they sounded like applause pierced my ears as the ground shook in violent anger. As another blast hit a fiery crescendo, a searing burn tore through what was left of my soul, sending sparks of hell and tattered pieces of my humanity raining down, along with the final curtain.
Chapter Thirteen
Valentin
Red, white, and black weren’t just colors. They were a sequence of events.
Before I could climb to my feet, there was another blinding flash, and then two more massive balls of fire belched upward, leaving geysers of white-hot ash spewing into the night sky like incandescent road flares.
What the fuck just happened?
Climbing to my feet, I surveyed the destruction, fighting against the roaring hum still echoing in my ears. It looked like a war zone. Tables were strewn about and knocked over onto their sides, red canopies lay broken and twisted across the lawn, and the one thing that kept looping through my head as stunned wedding guests rose from the ground one by one was that the music had stopped.
Someone had just tried to blow up my estate, and I was concerned it burned in silence instead of to the Nero’esque tune of a string quartet.
For a moment, I wondered if I’d taken a hit to the head, but then the wind whispered her name, and it all came slamming back in a wall of panic and fucking red.
Eden.
Before the blast I was going to find her. No! I needed to find her. Shit, where was she?
“Where the fuck are my guards?” I yelled, frantically searching through the unraveling chaos to find her familiar shock of cherry red hair, but it was nowhere to be found. My mouth formed her name silently at first as my gaze swung toward the stage, my heart seizing in my chest as I saw Brody on his knees, cradling Adriana’s face. It wasn’t until I watched him press his forehead to hers that I let out the breath I’d been holding. She’s safe.
But then I called Eden’s name again, louder this time. Then louder. Then louder. Until I was shouting, fucking roaring it. But there was no answer, and the louder I yelled, the more twisted the voice of truth became.
“You should never underestimate a man like Dante Santiago, Val. He’d burn down a forest before he’d let anyone steal his shade.”
“You’re moving in twenty-four hours? What makes you think Santiago didn’t come here to move in twelve?”
Grabbing a splintered table, I hurled it across the courtyard, roaring out my bitter resentment.
He did this. Fucking Santiago. I planned a backdoor blindside, but Mateo was right. He didn’t come here oblivious to it. He came here armed with his own.
“Eve!” roared a familiar voice behind me, causing my shoulders to stiffen and my fists to curl into my palms. Traces of the sharp-edged amusement from earlier had broken into cracked desperation that mirrored my own. I slowed my steps as he repeated the same strained word over and over. Eve. Eve. Eve. Eve. “Where the fuck are you?”
Acting on rage and adrenaline, I spun around and wrapped my hand around his throat. Kill. The word blotted my mind in thick layers of black rage as I squeezed harder, something inhuman inside me taking over.
“You son of a bitch! What have you done?”
Darkness exploded in Santiago’s eyes. Clamping one hand around my wrist, he prevented me from strangling him by grabbing my bow tie and twisting hard enough to cut off my own oxygen supply. “You think I’d sacrifice my own? With Eve here? This is on you, Carrera, and your shitty security setup. You better pray to God or the fucking devil that Eve doesn’t have a scratch on her.”
“Get your goddamn hands off me!” I roared. “You think I did this? Blow up my own sister’s wedding for you?”
“Where the fuck is she?” he shouted again.
“How the hell should I know?” He’d made his fucking bed; he could lie in it.
Baring my teeth, I threw all my weight forward, the heel of my palm attempting to crush his Adam’s apple. Santiago took a step backward in time and swung his fist at my head. It breezed past my cheek as I shoved hard at his chest.
Buying myself a few seconds, I frantically searched the sea of faces again—a vice clamping around my chest when all I witnessed was smoke and destruction.
I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder. “You’re a fucking dead—”
With a savage roar, I balled my fist to swing at Santiago myself and found a gun aimed at each temple instead.
Fuck.
“Great wedding, Carrera,” a voice drawled as I dropped my fist. “Do I get my slice of cake before or after your funeral?
I glared at the smiling asshole out of the corner of my eyes. “Either shoot or get out of my way, senator.”
“Dante,” I heard Grayson murmur.
Santiago’s vapid black eyes remained on me as he pulled his gun from his leather holster. “Keep him here until I find Eve.”
“Hola, fucker.”
As twisted up as my insides were, I couldn’t help but smile at the image of Mateo’s gun leveled at the back of Santiago’s head. The man looked like hell. He must have caught a canopy in the face because there was a bloody gash on his cheek, and the long hair he’d secured at his nape for the ceremony was now torn free and hanging wild around his shoulders like a lion’s mane.
A dangerous, bloodthirsty lion.
We locked eyes, as if he knew what was coming. “Is Leighton okay?”
I wasn’t completely heartless. Mateo was the closest thing I’d ever had to a friend. Besides Eden, he held more of my trust than anyone. While his wife may not be my favorite person in the world, she’d always have my protection. If it came down to it, I’d take a bullet for her.
That was familia.
And familia also understood silent questions.
He gave a slight nod, “She’s fine. She’s with Eden and Ava. Adriana’s fine too. They’re all fine.”
Fine.
The word flung my heart against my chest, kickstarting its stagnant beat. After exhaling the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding, I forced the husband and brother in a box and locked it. I’d deal with them later. Instead, I inhaled smoke and ash from my burning estate, allowing the cartel boss to fill every other crevice inside me.
I let him fuel my need for hate and hunger for blood.
I didn’t give a damn if Grayson or Sanders fired, I’d get my shot out first. I might take my last breath tonight, but so would the man responsible for this.
“You can pull the trigger, Cortes, but there’s more than one Santiago here,” came a female voice, as another gun joined in the festivities.