Total pages in book: 767
Estimated words: 732023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 3660(@200wpm)___ 2928(@250wpm)___ 2440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 732023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 3660(@200wpm)___ 2928(@250wpm)___ 2440(@300wpm)
Eleven years to be exact. I would go see the horses, but I hadn’t gotten on one since my mother’s death. It’d been our thing, an activity we’d done together almost every day. I nodded so as not to start off my visit with an argument. “Maybe, but it’s hotter than Hades here. I’ll go to the beach, no doubt.”
“No doubt.” He patted my hip. “How was the trip?”
“Barto took great care as always. No attempted murders.”
“A joke,” he said. “I’m glad you see the humor. I don’t.”
It was important to remember to laugh when traveling with three guards and in bulletproof transportation.
“I need to get back to work,” he said, opening his laptop. “Dress well for dinner.”
I stooped to kiss his cheek. Out of habit, I glanced at the computer screen for clues as to what he and Diego had been discussing, but I forced my eyes away. I didn’t want trouble. I just wanted to get Diego and myself the hell out of there before someone else I cared about got killed.
On my way out, Papá called me back. “One more thing. Don’t let me catch you trying to sneak into the ballroom again this year. It’s no place for a young girl.”
“I know many girls who’ve been to your parties.”
“None of which is my only daughter.”
My mom had hosted a legendary annual affair for clients and friends of the Cruz cartel in a ballroom on the property. I’d never made it into a party and had been forced to settle for hearing the music from my bedroom across the lawn, followed by weeks of gossip and folklore. Papá had tried his best to keep me isolated from this world since birth, but that’d bred curiosity.
Now that I knew better, I appreciated his intent. But it hadn’t saved me from witnessing my mother’s murder.
“I’m not a young girl anymore,” I said with a shrug. “I’m twenty.”
I left the room and tried not to think about the party. I’d once harbored a morbid curiosity about the life my parents led—until I’d learned firsthand the senseless violence, corruption, and evil that came with it. Since then, I’d been trying to tame the little girl in me who’d been fearless enough to draw a weapon on a man three times her size. The girl who’d equated danger with fun. The one who’d listened to the devil whispering in my ear that there was no escaping this life, not now, not ever.
I had run away from all this, but the devil still tempted that stupid little girl. She knew better than most what could come of that.
After all, she’d ended up locked in a pitch-dark hole for hours, senseless and defenseless, covered in her own mother’s blood.
Natalia
In the corridor on my way to the library, a figure sprang from the shadows and seized me from behind. I gasped, but the moment I caught Diego’s familiar scent, I relaxed in his arms.
“Buenas, princesa,” he murmured in my ear, stealing me toward the library.
As children, Diego and I had scoured almost every inch of the house with the exception of my parents’ bedroom. We knew it better than any member of the security team, likely better than my father himself, as he couldn’t fit in some of the spaces Diego and I had been known for folding ourselves into back then.
The library was one of the only surveillance-free spots. Papá had built it for my mother’s ever-curious mind, but hardly anyone went in it anymore. My dad claimed he wasn’t intelligent like my mother and had no use for books, but it was simply too painful for him to spend time in here.
My father was smart in other ways.
Diego left the door open behind us. Since we’d spent so much time together growing up, it wouldn’t be unusual for a guard or even my dad to find us alone together. But with the door closed? That would raise red flags.
He spun me around and pressed his lips to mine for a hasty kiss. “Are you really here?”
“I am.” I put my hands to the chiseled, lean jaw and high cheekbones of a face worthy of being immortalized on a statue. “Every time I see you, you’re less the boy I knew and more the man I love.”
He took my wrists and kissed the inside of one palm. “I was a man back then, Tali. I had to be.”
“I know.” His bravery in a world of danger and a life of loss continued to awe me. “Are you happy to see me?”
“You have no idea.” He went to the long window overlooking the grounds, then turned and perched on the sill. His eyes lingered on me. “Every time I see you, you’re less the girl I knew and more an alluring creature with wiles that could possess the devil.”