A buzzing filled my head with warning. “What about him?”
“Alejandro is dead, jefe.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Eden
Together the words made sense, but with one glance in Val’s face, I knew he hadn’t begun to comprehend them.
“What do you mean he’s dead?”
“Gerardo found him this morning, sir.” Mateo shook his head, the perspiration on his lips beading faster. “In his office. They cut his throat.”
I knew the name. Alejandro Carrera was infamous. Countless documentaries and true crime shows had been made about him and his ruthless reign of terror across the border. He was a monster and a coldhearted killer.
He also fathered the man I’d been sleeping with for the past eleven days.
Releasing his hold on me, Val staggered backward against the base of the sofa, looking as if someone slapped him across the face. “Do they know…I mean…who…”
“Sir, you know the answer to that question.”
No one spoke. The mood in the room teetered in between shock and lethal reaction. Not daring to move, I watched Val for a reaction—any reaction.
Instead, he swallowed hard and nodded once. “Well, then. That’ll be all, Mateo.”
“Sir—”
“I said, that’ll be all!” Spitting fire at his second in command, we all watched dumbfounded as Val climbed to his feet and turned down the hallway. “I’ll be in my office. No one disturbs me unless we’re under attack. That’s a direct order.”
Tracking his every movement, I followed him until he disappeared into a room off to the left and slammed the door. Biting my top lip in frustration, I made a move to follow him when Mateo stopped me.
“Let him go, Eden. He needs to do this his own way.”
Dejected, I sat down amidst his pitying stare and Emilio’s scowl, realizing the same truth that took form in the back of my head when we were in the SUV.
I couldn’t claim something that didn’t want me.
By midnight, I’d had enough.
Mateo and Emilio took turns keeping watch while the other slept. Apparently neither had gotten much of the latter in the last few days, the evidence rimming their dark eyes.
But sleep had no place on my agenda. Val had been locked in his office for over six hours. One of the lower-ranking men had brought sandwiches and drinks to the house, and no one bothered to knock on his door to offer any.
When Val said to leave him alone, apparently his word served as gospel.
I’d given it as long as I could. I’d watched television, paced the floor, picked at a turkey sub while my stomach did flips. In the end, I couldn’t stand the silence any longer.
While Mateo watched the front door and Emilio snored on the couch, I grabbed a ham sandwich and bag of chips. Pressing my back against the wall, I moved quietly down the hallway toward Val’s office. Out of habit, I first tried the doorknob, not surprised when it didn’t budge.
Raising my knuckles, I gave a soft knock. “Val? It’s me.” Before he had a chance to reject me, I added, “I know you’re in there and you haven’t eaten all day. Fine, don’t talk, but at least take some food.”
After a few moments, a slight commotion ensued from within, and I took a step back as the door cracked. Val’s tired, frowning face emerged, his eyes cast down toward the plate in my hand. “I hate ham.” He moved to close the door. Reacting on pure adrenaline, I shoved my foot in between the door and the frame, catching it mid-slam.
“Oooof.” Wincing as pain shot up my shin, I shoved the plate into his chest. “Okay, then eat the damn bread.”
“Eden, I’m not in the mood to talk. Go away.”
I’d been so focused on getting him to open the door, I didn’t think beyond it. Flustered, I said the first thing that came to mind. “Emilio pulled a gun on me.”
Technically, it wasn’t a lie. He had.
When Val had been standing there.
Val’s eyes flared, and he swung the door open wide with a growl. “I’ll kill him.”
With catlike precision, I slipped under his arm and into the middle of his office. Turning to face him, I offered an apologetic smile. “Don’t bother. I handled it hours ago.”
“Eden, I don’t have time for this.” Swearing under his breath, he stomped back to his desk, flopping back into his oversized mahogany chair as it creaked with his weight. His desk stood littered with papers and a bottle of half-empty tequila.
“Val, you can’t just keep all this inside and not deal with it. Your father was murdered, for Christ’s sake!”
“Shit happens.”
“Shit happens? Excuse me, did you just say ‘shit happens?’” I tried to control my reaction, to no avail. “This is your father.”
“He was an evil son of a bitch.”
“He was your dad, Val.”
Curling his lip into a sneer, he cocked his chin toward me. “He was my father. The man was no dad. No dad would’ve brought a young boy into this life.”
“But, still—”
Swiping a stack of papers off his desk and onto the floor with a flick of his wrist, his eyes flashed with anger. “Still, nothing, Eden. You want me to say it? Fine, let’s just put on the table how much of my father’s blood runs through my veins.” Propping his feet up on the edge of his desk, he spread his arms wide. “I’m glad the bastard is dead. Okay? There, I said it. He terrorized my mother, he destroyed my family, and he…” Trailing off, he shifted a glance away.
“He what?”
“He ordered your execution.”
I swallowed the boulder in my throat. “By who?”
A sadistic grin crept along the seams of his mouth. “Me.”
I staggered backward at his confession. As twisted as mine and Val’s relationship was, something inside refused to let me believe he’d hurt me.
“Val…”
“Would I have done it?” His eyebrows shifted upward. “That’s what you want to ask, isn’t it?”
I nodded, my fingernails digging into my palms.
“I’d like to tell you no, Cereza, but I’ve got Carrera blood inside me. I don’t know what I’m capable of.”
“I don’t believe that.”
We stared at each other, our two opposing forces colliding with a ferocity neither of us could understand or rationalize. On paper and in conversation, Valentin Carrera and I made no sense. We were a Hollywood script, destined for an Oscar night win. In real life, we were two people, incapable of walking away, regardless of the mutual destruction we caused.
Val’s low laugh caught me off guard. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Somehow, the damn Muñoz bastards know where we are every minute of every day. We go somewhere,”—he threw his arms up—“boom, shit goes up in flames.”
Risking rejection, I sat on the edge of his desk. “Could you have a traitor in your organization?”
“No. Mateo’s cleared everyone.”
I crossed my feet at the ankles, hunching my shoulders in a protective move. “What about Mateo?”