Cristiano took out a gun, and my back went straight as a rod. He’d found the phone—there was no question now. Holding the 9mm up to the light by its pearly white grip, silver and gold flashed.
I stepped forward, my heart pounding as I recognized the White Monarch. I looked down at my rings, and it clicked—the reason they’d felt so familiar. The two-toned metal and pearl inlay wedding band complement the gun. All it needed was a big, fat diamond in the middle.
The last time I’d seen the White Monarch was in the moments before it’d blown out a sicario’s brains. “Where’d you get that?” I asked.
“When you pulled this on me eleven years ago, my life didn’t flash before my eyes—yours did. The child I’d protected since before she could walk had turned on me. You know what else I saw?”
He didn’t wait for my answer.
“Your loyalty to Diego. You offered yourself up in his place. I saw Bianca in you that day. Your mother would’ve followed your father to the grave. You risked your life for my brother’s. I admired that.” Still holding the gun, he leaned his hands on his desk. “And I hated it.”
I pulled his jacket closed around me. “Why?”
“I already told you—because I wanted it. I’d pledged my loyalty to your family, and that included you. But in a moment, it all vanished into thin air. Nobody would risk their life for me, though I had for them, over and over.” He unknotted his bloody tie and discarded it on the desk. “So I left, built a steadfast cartel around me and made my own family,” he said, undoing the buttons at his throat. “Why, then, is it not enough? Why do I still think about that moment you pulled this on me?”
“Is that why I’m here?” It wasn’t the answer I wanted as to why he’d married me, but it was an answer nonetheless. “Some elaborate scheme for revenge on a scared nine-year-old girl?”
“No, mi corazón. My scheming is done. It didn’t go the way I’d planned—Diego’s still alive—but only because he knew what I wanted, even when I didn’t.” He gently slid the gun across the desk. “Just when I was about to throw him to the dogs, he stood where you are now and offered something I couldn’t take on my own.”
I released a breath I’d been holding. “Me.”
He nodded once. “You.”
“You could’ve taken me at any point. You didn’t need Diego to do it.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
Because Cristiano wouldn’t let himself take me. He’d needed Diego to give me. Maybe he’d thought that my loyalty was part of the bargain, but something like that couldn’t be forced.
“Diego is more cunning than you think,” he told me. “I didn’t even recognize my own want for you until he showed it to me. I’d never let myself think I could have you, so it was never an option in my mind. Diego gets credit for pinpointing a weakness and exploiting it. But he doesn’t get to keep any part of you.”
“Of me?” I asked. “He doesn’t have me. He doesn’t have anything anymore.”
“You can’t be loyal to both of us, Natalia. It’ll get one of the three of us killed, and it won’t be me.”
“He doesn’t have me.” Cristiano had to know that—didn’t he? Feeling short of breath, I walked a few steps toward him and steadied myself on a chair. “But neither do you. Do you honestly think loyalty can be demanded?”
“Yes. So tell me—who are you loyal to, Natalia?”
After this past week, the answer came easily. “Myself, and no one else.”
A vein in his forehead ticked, and he nodded at my bag. “Where’s the phone?”
My heart stopped, even though I’d known where this was going. “Diego gave it to me,” I said, focusing on keeping my voice firm and steady. “I didn’t ask for it.”
“Where is it?” he demanded.
I swallowed as his patience ran thin. “Sewed into the bottom,” I said.
He rifled through his drawer and slammed a pair of scissors on the desk. “Get it out.”
As I approached, he jerked his desk phone to his ear and punched a single digit.
I could see that I’d angered him—but did that mean what he’d said it would? Since I’d arrived, he’d been all bark and no bite. He’d warned me leaking information would lead to death—period. But Cristiano wouldn’t kill me.
I hadn’t shared any information. I was only guilty of accepting and hiding the phone.
He wouldn’t hurt me, I told myself.
What then? How would he punish me for hiding the phone? Did he have it in him to lock me away, chain me, starve me? The answer was easy—yes, he did. He hadn’t gotten where he was without ruthlessness. Torture, destruction, and murder. And you didn’t torture, destroy, and murder without having developed some degree of detachment from people.