Her body was the only confessional I needed, but it would be a mighty long session to absolve all the sins I’d planned on committing tonight.
The Italian broke first.
Strung up by his hands, his naked torso streaked with gore and blood from the five missing teeth and his missing left ear lobe, his words were indistinguishable from his pleas and screams at first. It was only after I took a step closer to remove his right ear lobe—partly to appease a desire to send him straight to hell as a symmetrical bastard—that I caught the tail end of his own confession. I paused and made him repeat it, and then I sliced through his carotid in one, savage arc. His time in the back room of my ammunition warehouse was done.
So, the Italians had gotten the inside scoop that Don Ricci had been singing like a fucking canary to the Feds. As a result, they’d wanted to make the jump on us before we made the jump on them. More importantly, Val Carrera had been in on it from the start and given them full access to his estate. The wedding had all been a front.
Wiping my bloody knife on the stained blue jeans of the dead man, I turned to my enemy’s head of security, Rafael Suárez, and smiled at him grimly. “Care to confirm that asshole’s last words on this earth?”
“Fuck you, Santiago,” he spat back, twisting violently at his restraints. Joseph had strung him up by his hands too, but so far, he’d gotten off lightly in the torture stakes. All his teeth and fingers were still intact, but his chest hadn’t fared so well. The marks of my second’s fists had made some pretty marks on his skin, and his broken ribs must hurt like hell. “You’re perpetuating a war that neither you nor Señor Carrera wanted.”
“Maybe he should have considered that before he tried to blow me and my entourage all the way back to the Pacific.”
“The Italian was lying,” he gasped as Joseph’s fist connected with his jaw. “Someone is playing you both.”
“Dying men will say anything to delay the inevitable.” My voice was low and dangerous as I grabbed the back of his hair and jerked his head level with mine. “There’s no room for your loyalty or your bullshit justifications in this place, Suárez. Carrera will always be guilty of attempting to kill my wife, and you’ll always be the piece of shit who died with his lies on your lips.” At this, I drove my knife into his stomach and wrenched it upward, feeling the rush of hot liquid on my hand and his cold death rattle on my skin as his head fell forward onto my shoulder.
“Send Suárez’s head back to Mexico in a fucking box,” I said to Joseph as I stepped back to admire my handiwork. “Attach a thank you note to Carrera for his hospitality. Tell him I’ll be returning the favor very soon. And then send a message to every man we have on the ground in the US. By midnight tomorrow, I want New York back under my control. The Italians think we’re wounded and shaken. This is the time for the Santiago scorpion tail to sting hard.”
“And the Mexican trafficking links?”
The carrot that had tempted me all the way to Mexico in the first place.
“Tell Roman to find out what the fuck is going on from Chernova. I’m betting she’s just as pissed with Carrera as we are right now. If I didn’t want to kill the bastard so much, we could’ve employed her husband to do the dirty work for us.”
“And if the links do exist?”
“Then we hunt them down ourselves. No more shortcuts.” I backed away from the bodies and headed for the door. Eve was waiting for me. My daughters needed me. I’d eliminated another threat to their precious world, but more would come.
Carrera would seek out his own vengeance.
Others would try to tear my family apart.
And when they did, I’d be ready.
Chapter Seventeen
Valentin
I read a quote years ago that said love meant giving someone the power to destroy you but trusting them not to.
I trusted Eden Lachey.
And then she destroyed me.
But I didn’t feel the impact. Nothing twisted in my chest from the pain of betrayal. My heart didn’t ache because it was gone. There was nothing inside me but hate and rage and fury. Even as I stared through the thick glass window at the tiny human with bronze skin, hair the color of midnight, and eyes I knew in my soul would remain the palest of blue, I couldn’t bring myself to give another female that kind of power again.
I’d protect her.
I’d kill for her.
I’d die for her.
But I wasn’t sure I was capable of love anymore.
I watched with a stoned expression as an older nurse bathed my daughter and checked her vitals again with a warm motherly smile. Seeing the affection in her eyes made me want to sink a blade into her chest. My child had a mother. She didn’t need some middle-aged bitch trying to take her place.
On instinct, I reached for my gun, only to have my arm restrained by the sling these pendejos insisted I wear. Cursing, I grabbed the fabric resting on my shoulder and gave it a sharp tug, ripping it in half.
I owned this fucking hospital and everyone in it—the doctors, the staff, and the board. The minute we landed, all of them flew around me like worker bees, insisting I allow them to treat my shoulder. After watching a team of surgeons and pediatric staff rush every shred of my morality away, I preferred shooting them all in the face and tending to myself with a rusty kitchen knife and a stapler than to have anyone touch me.
But then they informed me that until I was cleansed and properly sanitized, I would pose a threat to my daughter.
I was Valentin Carrera. I did whatever the hell I wanted. If I wanted to go anywhere in this hospital, I fucking went gun in hand and dared anyone to stop me. But even soulless monsters had limits. Mine was endangering the health of my children.
Still, it didn’t stop me from threatening to murder everyone and their mothers while they stitched me up.
Finished with her tasks, the nurse offered me a timid smile as she rolled the bassinet closer to the window. I didn’t look away, but I didn’t move either. My limbs felt encased in concrete, rooting me to this one spot where I’d stood for what seemed like an eternity.
I hadn’t held her. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I couldn’t. Not yet. Not with all this rage thrumming through my fingers. Hands thirsting for blood would never touch my child.
Instead, I stared, and in doing so, I swore this innocent, newborn baby stared right back at me. Eyes too intense to be new dug a hole inside my chest and peered inside. An old soul, my mother would have called her. I didn’t buy into all that rebirth bullshit, but I couldn’t deny the instant connection that fused our gazes. I couldn’t have looked away even if I’d wanted to.
She was there.
I saw Eden in her delicate features. Those pursed heart-shaped lips, that wrinkled nose, and those damn piercing eyes. In looking at her, I couldn’t help but wonder what Eden had been like as a child. Before her mother left. Before her father turned down the dark path that ruined her family. Before she married too young to an asshole who didn’t appreciate the gift he had.
Had she once been timid? Unjaded? Untainted? Would our daughter be soft-spoken, or would she inherit the fiery Carrera genes Eden loved to hate.