Jesus fucking Christ. Now I had his niece’s gun in my face, as well.
I glared at her. “You’re becoming a real pain in my ass, you know that?”
“Says the man with my bullet aimed at his head.” However, her grin quickly faded as Brody appeared behind her and rammed his steel into the small of her back. “Big mistake, gringo,” she hissed.
Brody just smirked. “Carreras have a code against shooting women, but I think I’ll get a pass on this one. I’m fairly sure you have a dick anyway.”
“Kill him,” Dante ordered in a lethal tone.
Grayson’s head jerked up. His loaded question hung thick with the smoke.
“I said, kill him.”
“Dante, stop.”
The order came from a sweet, angelic voice that seemed to carry the fortitude of an army. The volatile tension flipped like a switch, and every eye turned to watch the graceful woman in white approaching. A trail of crimson divided one cheek, and her dark hair was streaked with ash.
Santiago’s entire demeanor changed again. “Mi alma,” he said roughly. “Where have you been?”
I watched her glance at Mateo and then at gun pointing at her husband’s head. “What’s happening here? What have you—?”
The rest of her words were drowned out by a single, devastating shot.
No one reacted. Maybe it was because there were so many fucking barrels aimed in our circle we were simply waiting for one of us to hit the ground first. But having a gun shoved in my hand at a young age taught me instinct, and my head was already swinging in the direction of this fresh mayhem.
My right.
Where the rest of Santiago’s entourage stood with loaded guns in their hands.
The red haze I’d been avoiding all day seared across my vision. I didn’t think, I pulled my gun and fired back as Dante dragged Eve to the ground to avoid the line of fire. Meanwhile, the rest of his men scattered like fucking atoms.
Again.
And again.
Followed by more guns. More shots. More bullets.
More screams.
Rivals scattered like roaches in a floodlit room. Familiar voices shouted names I knew but couldn’t process. The man who knew those names and cared to listen was locked away in a box. The only word the cartel boss knew was ‘kill.’
The tepid false calm finally gave way to the chaos that had been building as screams blotted out the pop, pop, pop of endless bullets. Eventually, I couldn’t tell which shot came from what gun.
But I saw red.
I saw people, who moments earlier had been laughing and dancing, lying lifeless on the ground. I saw my allies drowning in puddles of their own blood. Then I saw my sister and new brother-in-law face down and frozen.
The red shawl, now indistinguishable from the red staining her gown.
And that box inside me burst open.
“Adriana!” As I dove toward them, another round of shots rang out, and a lethal burn tore across my chest. Then as quickly as the fire seared, an icy cold spread through my limbs.
As I fell to my knees, one thought filled my head.
Brody was right. Trusting Santiago had been a mistake.
A red one.
Chapter Fourteen
Valentin
Death was never an ending.
It was the one thing people like me had in common with the good people of the world. The ones who looked at red and saw passion and love. The ones who followed rules, obeyed laws, and pretended the promises of their leaders weren’t tainted by our stain.
That we didn’t exist.
Because if we did, then that meant their whole lives had been a lie.
But they were anyway. Because although we both believed death wasn’t the final act, it was for two vastly different reasons. They clutched their pearls in one hand while the other held tight to their rosaries over the graves of the dearly departed. They prayed for the safe delivery of their loved ones’ souls to the gates of Heaven because their time on Earth had been a simple stepping stone on the path to the ever after.
While we, too, believed death not to be the final act, it wasn’t because we expected to spend eternity lounging on some cloud playing the harp. When Santa Muerte came for us, we knew damn well where our ticket was getting punched—on the same express train to Hell we’d damned thousands to already.
But here was the difference… That was where it ended for them. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, kick some dirt on top, and toss a rose. Done. But for men like me, it was never done. Somebody always had to pay, and if the fucker responsible happened to be on the train too, then whoever was left made sure their father or their brother or their son or their whole goddamn family paid.
They were ashes to ashes.
We were eye for an eye.
“Val! Dios mío! Val! Val, where are you!”
Her screams were what cleared the red haze. Gritting my teeth, I pressed my palm against the grass, a fucking bitch of a burn setting my left side on fire. I’d been shot too many times not to know I’d taken a bullet somewhere from my shoulder to my ribs, but I didn’t care enough to find out where.
My eyes were open, I had breath in my lungs, and I could stand. That was all that mattered.
“Val, please! Oh God, help!” Adriana’s voice pierced through what was left of the haze, and I staggered toward it. I didn’t look at the bodies on the ground. I couldn’t. Not yet. I stepped over them as shots still rang out around me, telling myself I’d come back to them to either assess the casualties or fire an assurance bullet.
All that mattered was my family. Once I knew they were safe, I’d find Santiago and make his wife watch as I tortured him into a slow and painful death.
As I neared them, I caught a black streak out of the corner of my eye. Without hesitation, I turned my gun and fired twice. Only afterward, did I turn and see two men I didn’t recognize lying slumped on their sides, staining my lawn with their blood.
I’ll figure it out later.
“Mateo!” I yelled, making my way toward the stage. “Where the fuck are you?”
If he’s dead, I’ll kill him.
But all thoughts of Mateo flew out of my head the minute I saw my sister. She was lying on her back under Brody, her flailing arms and screaming face, the only parts of her visible. By the time I made it to her side, she'd already pushed her way out from underneath her new husband, and at closer sight of her, I let out a howl.
Her beautiful wedding gown, the antique lace dress our mother wore to marry our bastard of a father, was no longer white. It was red.
My sister was covered in bright red blood.
“¡Maldición!” Cursing, I dropped my gun and took her in my arms, the monster in me clawing and raging for release. “Where are you hit?”
“No!” she screamed, the tears streaming down her face mixing with the blood smeared across her cheeks. “Not me! Brody! Dios mío, no! No! No, no, no!”
Shit. That’s not her blood.
Crawling back to the still form lying beside her, she repeated the words over and over as she rolled him onto his back and straddled him. “Baby, wake up! Oh God, please wake up! There’s so much blood. Why is there so much blood? Where is it coming from?”
Adriana tore at Brody’s tuxedo jacket, ripping it open and finding nothing. Dropping down beside her, I seized her hand, stopping her frantic search. “Move.”