Valentin
“No more! Kérem! Please, I’ll tell you everything.”
What a weak little bitch. I’d barely gotten started. Four cigar burns, two fingers, and a slice across the Achilles tendon, and this fucker was already tapping out.
We were in what had quickly become one of my favorite places—the Carrera Kitchen. It was a dark, dank hole in the wall on the outskirts of Mexico City, far away from my wife and children. It reeked of blood and death, a perfume I greedily inhaled like the freshest air. Inside, the walls were decorated with every horrific torture device a sadistic mind could dream up: knives, guns, pickaxes, clamps, power drills, blowtorches, vices, and a few good old-fashioned hammers.
It had become a sanctuary for me. A place I went to escape the life I used to covet. One I sought out to release the demon that had consumed every shred of morality I once possessed.
Because Eden was my morality.
And now Eden...Well, who knew where the hell she was these days. Most of the time she stayed locked in her room with her face shoved in her phone. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew what the hell she was searching on the internet, a suspicion confirmed when one of my hackers tapped into her browsing history.
Valentin Carrera.
Carrera Cartel.
El Muerte.
Eden Lachey kidnapping.
Lachey family murders.
The list went on. Three weeks after regaining consciousness, she still didn’t remember our life together, but she sure as hell could do a book report on all my sins.
The woman I married may still be locked somewhere in Eden’s mind, but unfortunately for Lajos Dalca, his ass was right here tied to a rickety chair. An unfortunate stop through Mexico’s own demented version of Hell’s Kitchen was the price he now paid for being one of the last remaining sons of bitches to try and smuggle young women through my territory. Even if Ava hadn’t offered a nice payout for his head, I would’ve carved up this motherfucker for free.
“It’s a little too late for that, Laj.” Spinning the blade in my hand, I allowed a vicious smile to crawl across my face before catching it mid-twirl. “I already gave you two chances to give up names and you pissed them away. Now, I’m afraid things have to get serious.”
I didn’t offer another opportunity for him to plead his case before sinking the blade straight into his right eye. The Romanian trafficker let out a scream so loud it fucking hurt my ears. Which luckily only lasted a few seconds before he was choking on his own blood.
Head wounds were messy motherfuckers.
My hand tightened around the blade as the memory of opening Dante Santiago’s “gift” flashed through my mind. Rafael’s decapitated head. He expected an immediate retaliation, but that proved he knew nothing about me. I loathed predictability.
I waited until that asshole got nice and comfortable in New York. Then I sent him a housewarming present.
One of his men’s hearts gift wrapped with his own intestines.
Once he sent that fucker across the border to check on his “investment,” I smelled blood and followed it straight to Red Hook Terminal. After all, I did own New Jersey.
“Calm down, pinche cabrón. It’s not like I pushed hard enough to hit that useless brain of yours.” I held out my palm and without asking, a brand-new knife appeared in it. “Gracias, Mateo,” I added before popping the blade.
Lajos’s eyes, well, now eye widened, and he tried squealing through mouthfuls of blood, succeeding only in spraying it all over my crisp white shirt. As I glanced down, a rage rumbled in my gut. It started as a curse and ended as a roar so loud even Mateo took a step back.
“You stupid motherfucker!” Grabbing him by the neck, I squeezed so hard I wouldn’t be surprised if the knife came flying out of his face. “My wife bought me this shirt.”
“Oh shit,” Mateo mumbled under his breath.
“You were always going to die, Lajos, but it was at least going to be mildly entertaining. But now,” I glanced down again at the dark stains, my blood boiling. “Now, you’re going to really wish you hadn’t done that.”
Every man who sat in that chair met his end with my name on his lips. Some I killed quickly, and some, like our friend, Lajos, I took my time inflicting as much pain as humanly possible. Not only in the name of the thousands of women and children he abducted, raped, and sold to slaughter, but in the name of my wife.
In the name of honor and vengeance.
And in my mind’s eye, every screaming face that met my wrath looked like Dante Santiago—seconds before I cut it off.
“Val…”
“Knives,” I said, ignoring him.
Mateo cleared his throat. “Val, don’t you think…”
I wasn’t in the mood for this bullshit. My body hissed for blood, and at the moment, I didn’t care whose body it spilled from. “I said knives!”
Without another word, Mateo disappeared across the room, returning with four more knives identical to the one lodged in Lajos’s eye. Turning toward the screaming man, I held one up in each hand, a sadistic smile pulling across my face.
“Now let’s have some fun, shall we?”
Eleven weeks.
That was how long I’d lived with a stranger. How long I’d walked on eggshells in my own house. How long I’d slept alone in a bed I once shared with the woman who now slept in a guest room down the hall.
I thought my life ended when I walked out of that hospital without Eden. Fuck being shot, fuck having a vital organ ripped out of my body, I knew that was it. There couldn’t be a more excruciating pain than being told your heart—the only shield keeping a dark prophecy from devouring your soul—would probably never regain consciousness.
Machines kept her alive. Machines kept her heart beating and her chest rising. For six goddamn months, they tried to make me accept their truth.
She’s gone. There’s nothing there. She wouldn’t want this. Let her go.
Well, fuck what they wanted. Fuck what they thought she wanted. And fuck what anyone who didn’t care what I wanted.
Eden Lachey stood in the courtyard of our estate with the wind blowing her wild red hair across her face and made a promise to me. And when I took her hand and slipped that ring on her finger, I made one back.
I, Valentin, love you, Eden, as a wife, and I give myself to you. I promise to be faithful to you in joys and sorrows, in health and illness, every day of my life.
In joys and sorrows, in health and illness.
I fucking promised.
It was something I didn’t take lightly. Nothing was guaranteed in life, but in cartel life, the best a man could give was his word that he’d fight. Born to fight, and raised to fight, any narco worth his steel would die fighting.
But on that day, I promised.
I’d only made one other promise in my life, and I failed to honor it.
“Valentin! Be a fireman, Valentin! Do as I say! Five alarm fire! Be a fireman now!”
My nod was my promise, and I saw the relief in her eyes. A fireman was a hero. He risked his own life to save the lives of others. My mother spoke to me in words a six-year-old boy would understand. Be a fireman now! She needed a fireman to run and get help, and instead, I hid in the cellar like a coward while she bled to death on our kitchen floor.