Violent Triumphs (White Monarch 3)

“That was an order,” Alejandro said, looking down at him.

Barto fisted his napkin and rose to his full height, eye to eye with Alejandro. “I don’t take orders from him. Or you, pinche pendejo.”

“Please, stop,” Pilar said, touching Barto’s forearm, and drawing Alejo’s gaze there. “Alejandro is not an eff-ing a-hole, and I know you’re just being protective, but we’re all on the same side. Cristiano has been good to Natalia.”

“Thank you, Esmeralda,” Alejandro said, and Pilar blushed at her new name.

Barto’s brows drew together. “Esmeralda . . .?”

Cristiano addressed my father. “You can fill Barto in on everything later.”

Papá nodded once. With the dismissal, Barto threw his napkin on his plate of half-eaten cake and strode from the room with Alejandro and Pilar behind him. The last thing I heard was Alejandro’s taunt. “Try to keep up, Barto. Pilar goes by Esmeralda now.”

When we were alone, my father licked his fork clean. “Pilar really is a good baker, like her mother.” He sighed, setting the utensil on his plate as his expression cleared. “It’s a lot to take in, Cristiano, everything you showed me here.”

“It’s truly remarkable, isn’t it, Papá?” I really wanted him to like it here—to be as impressed by Cristiano as I was, and to feel welcome to visit whenever.

“I would feel a little claustrophobic,” he said.

“Beyond the walls, you have open desert on three sides and the whole sea behind you,” Cristiano pointed out.

“What good is that?” He shrugged. “The ocean traps you in.”

“No, señor,” Cristiano said. “We have a small naval fleet so that makes land, air, and sea wide open to us. The ships are stored inside the mountain, where we’ve hollowed it out.” He winked at me. “Did I mention there are jet skis?”

I suppressed a smile. No, he hadn’t. I discovered more of the Badlands’ secrets each day and had just learned about the mountainside that afternoon—but there’d been no mention of watersports. Was there anything they hadn’t thought of?

“What I love, is that it’s self-sustaining,” I told my father. “The woman who made my wedding rings, Teresa, is also an electrician thanks to education she received after her arrival. Another couple makes the smoothest tequila from blue agave grown right here.”

“Está buenísimo,” Cristiano agreed. “So good, we keep it on hand here.”

“Everyone has been trained in a trade or skill,” I said.

“That’s intentional.” Cristiano spun his tumbler on the table. “It gives me pleasure to see them well-fed, healthy, and happy, but should the Badlands dissolve tomorrow, its people would survive. And if something happens to me, Max knows . . .”

He stopped.

It wasn’t the first time Cristiano had referred to Max as if he was still around. And without fail, I’d see the moment Cristiano realized his mistake, pain flashing across his expression. As I’d learned with my mother’s death, one way to help ease grief was with memories. Max wasn’t dead that we knew of, but I was pretty sure Cristiano believed he wasn’t ever coming home. I couldn’t personally think of an instance in which a cartel had captured and then released a rival.

I covered Cristiano’s hand with mine. “How did you meet Max?”

“Like everyone else,” he said, blinking his dim gaze to me. “Each of us, down and out, were looking for a leg up. We made our own leg up and then helped the other. In the early days after I’d left the compound,” he said, looking to my father, “I’d gamble. Turn twenty pesos into forty, forty into a hundred.”

I eased back against my seat with my tequila, content to learn something new about Cristiano’s past. “I didn’t know that.”

With a nod, he continued, “Max was also scraping by. One night, I lost nearly everything. He’d had a winning streak. He let me stay with him until I was back on my feet, and when the tables turned, and he needed me, I was there. It’s been that way ever since.”

“So how come he wasn’t—isn’t Lord of the Badlands?” I asked.

Finally, I got a smile from Cristiano, albeit a crooked one. “Diplomacy doesn’t suit him. He’d rather do what needs to be done.”

“Ay, and you’re diplomatic?” I asked.

With a chuckle, he raised his glass. “To Max. Ugliest son-of-a-bitch I ever saw but with a beautiful heart.”

The three of us clinked glasses again. “Your camaraderie, your operation—it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen in my lifetime,” my father said. “But what’s perhaps most impressive of all is that you’ve managed to keep it a secret.”

“The secret’s getting out,” Cristiano said frankly. I knew it was anything but easy for him to say, but he wasn’t one to sugarcoat things. He cleared his throat. “There was . . . an attack.”

My father’s dark, bushy brows lowered as he set down his shot glass. “Here?”

“Sí. And Natalia was a target.”