Violent Triumphs (White Monarch 3)

My stomach heaved as I froze.

Tell me you love me, Talia.

Tell me you’re still my girl.

“It’s not over!” Cristiano’s shouting jarred me.

Diego was still on his feet, doubled over as he spit out a tooth. He rushed at me. I stumbled backward, tripped over the cord of the lamp, and lost my footing. But I wouldn’t go down.

Diego came at me again, but he was leaning to one side, struggling to focus his eyes. I picked up the metal folding chair, raised it over my head, and brought it down as hard as I could. He grabbed it before I could land my blow, then used it as leverage to fling me into a wall.

“Talia—” He coughed, blood dripping into his eyes. He went to grab me, but I ducked out of the way and found myself back at the pile of bricks.

I grabbed another one and whirled around. This time, I aimed for his skull. The brick thudded against it. He staggered back, his eyes pleading with me, then fell to his knees. I kicked him onto his back, jumped on top of him, and raised the slab again.

He was hanging on by a thread.

I just had to do it one more time.

Don’t look at his face.

He groaned. My eyes jumped up. Covered in blood, his head dropped to one side, eyes half-open. I’d crushed one of the high cheekbones that made him so beautiful, one I used to touch with reverence.

“When I go, you’ll be my side, okay?” he said. “I’m with you, life or death.”

“Life or death.”

I had so much more to live for now, and everything to fight for. It was me or him.

I lifted the slab over my head with both hands and slammed it down. His skull collapsed. His eyes remained open but distant. One socket had caved in. My chest seized. Breath halted. I shook, and my hands loosened around the weapon.

There was no time to panic. It wasn’t over—the fight was never over.

I jolted into action, frisking his legs until I had his folding knife. Sticking it between my teeth, I found the gun tucked into his jacket pocket.

I got to my feet holding both weapons. Ears ringing, I turned around. Cristiano’s beautiful, ashen face filled the screen.

Home.

I stumbled toward him. “Cristiano.” My strangled voice sounded far away.

“I know, baby. I know,” he said, his jaw set, eyes shrewd as they darted around the room, then refocused on me. “You did good. But you’re not done yet.”

I held the weapons to my queasy stomach. “The baby. It’s true.”

He swallowed. His father had warned him young never to form emotional attachments—by severing the one he’d had to Angelina. This was the price of love. I couldn’t let him regret it.

My heart raced, but I willed it to slow and pulled myself together. “There are at least eight men outside with guns,” I said.

His eyes quickly scanned my face before he turned his head over his shoulder and called for Gabriel. “I’m coming for you,” Cristiano promised. “Do you know where you are?”

I shook my head. “Some kind of huge warehouse.”

“Get out of that room. Find a place to hide until I get there.”

“There are too many of them.”

“Listen, mi amor.” The calm in Cristiano’s voice settled my nerves a bit. “Turn around and cut Diego’s throat so you know he’s dead. Don’t use the gun unless you absolutely have to. Check his body for a different phone, then hide and call me from it so we can try to trace it. If you encounter anyone—fight, Natalia.”

I would fight. I had already. But me, with a knife, a pistol, and a baby to protect against all of them and their rifles?

Cristiano read the hesitation in my eyes. “Mindset, Natalia,” he said firmly. “You are the White Monarch. Don’t you see that? You’re the weapon, the survivor, the killer. You can do this.”

I had no other choice. I sucked in an inhale and nodded hard. “I couldn’t see anything as we came in—but the air pressure here is low. Thin,” I rushed out. I glanced over my shoulder, unnerved by the silence of the warehouse. “It’s like a forest. The ground is soft, lots of big trees—”

“What kinds of trees?” Gabe asked, entering the frame behind Cristiano.

“I don’t know. Pine? It’s dry—except, it almost sounded like it was raining outside. But it definitely wasn’t.”

Cristiano glanced back at Gabriel. He nodded slowly, his eyes on me, but his thoughts somewhere else. “The monarch butterfly migration,” he said finally. “Must be. Their colonies cluster together in certain winter habitats. The oyamel fir only grows in high altitudes—I can look up the range of meters to get a more specific location. There are so many butterflies, their wings sound like a rain shower.”

“God’s messengers,” I whispered. They were here.