Violent Delights (White Monarch 1)

He grabbed my ankles and slid me out from under the bed. I screamed in a way I never had before, ear-splitting, throat-shredding, as I tried to kick him off.

He clamped a hand over my mouth as his other arm circled my body and pinned my arms to my sides. “Natalia, hush,” he said in his chillingly deep voice as he lifted me off the ground. “Let me handle this.”

I wailed against his hand, thrashing and trying to hit him with the gun, but my arms were trapped. I slammed my heels into his thigh and groin.

But Cristiano was the cartel’s most lethal soldier for a reason. It wouldn’t have mattered who I was—nobody could match his strength, which had to be that of two men. By the age of twenty-three, he had more kills under his belt than most in the cartel.

He’d been raised as a weapon.

His hands had taken the lives of our family’s enemies—but never any of our own.

Until now.

Footsteps sounded in the hall, and Diego rushed into the room with his gun drawn. He stopped short and sucked in a breath as he noticed the body. He shut his lids briefly. I tried to call for my best friend, but Cristiano’s hand muffled my words.

Diego’s eyes flew open and darted over Cristiano and me. He was dressed for the parade in a loose, white button-down and jeans. He scanned the room, his gaze shrewd as he tucked some loose strands of his brown hair behind his ear. “What the hell is this? What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Cristiano said. “I got here right before you did.”

Liar. I inhaled smoke and gunpowder as I squirmed against Cristiano’s hand, trying to convey to Diego what I’d seen.

Diego turned his attention on me, his forehead wrinkling as if he was trying to read my mind. He did this, I tried to tell him. Cristiano shot her.

After a moment, Diego swallowed. “Put Natalia down.”

“Holster the gun, and I will,” Cristiano answered.

Diego looked at his pistol as if he hadn’t realized he’d been holding it. He was no saint, either—he’d done things I wasn’t supposed to hear about at my age, according to Papá—but that didn’t make Diego anything like his brother. Diego was a lover, not a fighter. He was only sixteen, and he still had a chance to make something of his life. His eyes drifted from the firearm to my mother, then across the room. His expression eased as realization seemed to dawn on him. He turned back to Cristiano.

“After everything they’ve done for us?” Diego asked and gestured the gun toward my parents’ walk-in closet. “This is how you repay them?”

The safe lay open and empty except for scattered paperwork. The White Monarch had been in there, along with cash and my mother’s jewels. I tried to nod at the duffel bag but couldn’t move my head.

“Careful what you say, Diego,” Cristiano said evenly. “You know I didn’t do this.”

“Then who?” Diego asked. “The house is surrounded by security. Who else could get in here? In the safe?”

“It was already open,” Cristiano said in an increasingly frustrated voice. “As I said, I walked in right before you.”

Diego shoved his fingers through his hair, then spotted the duffel. “What’s that?” Diego would never hurt me, but when he raised his gun at us, my heartbeat quickened. He kept the weapon and his eyes on Cristiano as he moved toward the bed. With his free hand, Diego slid the bag across the comforter and glanced inside. “Cash and jewelry from the safe, but not much.”

“I know.” Cristiano readjusted his grip around my torso. “I found it discarded by the bed.”

“Where’s the rest of it?”

Cristiano hesitated. “Someone must’ve been here—”

“Impossible,” Diego said, and he was right. My father took no risks when it came to his family’s safety. “There are two ways in—through the guards out front or the guards at the tunnels.”

Diego took a two-way radio from his back pocket.

“Diego,” Cristiano said, warning clear in his voice. “Don’t.”

He pressed a button and spoke into the device. “Doña Bianca has been shot. By Cristiano. I need security in here now.”

Cristiano noticeably stiffened behind me. “Vete a la chingada,” he cursed. “You’re going to tell Costa I did this? I’m your blood, Diego.”

“And Bianca was just as much my family.” The anguish in Diego’s eyes conveyed what my mother meant to him. At her urging, my family had taken him in when he was only eight and Cristiano was fifteen. Tears leaked from my eyes and onto Cristiano’s hand as I looked anywhere but at her body.

“She was family to me, too,” Cristiano said through his teeth. He was so angry, his voice broke, and he forgot to keep my mouth covered. “You can’t accuse me of hurting her.”

“All you do is hurt people,” I screamed. “You’re a—”