Violent Delights (White Monarch 1)

My father put the gun to the hitman’s temple. To the thrilled screams and cheers of the crowd, he pulled the trigger and blew up his head like a firework.

5

Natalia

My bare feet sank into the soil of my mother’s garden as I emptied the contents of my stomach onto one of her rosebushes. Diego held my heels in one hand, dodging my wings as he tried to keep my hair off my face. Everything was a blur. I didn’t remember screaming with the crowd, running out, or ripping off my mask and shoes.

“Careful for the thorns,” Diego said about the bushes.

My eyes watered, blurring the roses’ blood-red color. A man’s head had exploded. His brains had splattered across the tarp. His body had crumpled at my father’s feet. I held onto Diego’s arm until I could stand without wobbling.

Loitering by the fountain, Tepic pushed his aviators to the top of his head and chuckled through the cigarette in his mouth. “You okay, Talia?” he asked. “What a show, eh?”

At least Diego still possessed enough compassion to look as ill as I felt, his face colorless and drawn. He smoothed my hair off my forehead gently but said to Tepic, “Shut the fuck up. Can’t you see she’s sick?”

“What’s the matter, Diego?” Tepic asked, getting another cigarette and his lighter from his fanny pack. “You look like you’ve never seen a man’s head blown off. Or blown it off yourself.”

Diego rubbed the inside corners of his eyes. “Not in front of Natalia.”

In front of me, my father had once dragged a drunk out of a restaurant by his hair for waving a gun near my family. My mom had told me to stop crying; that was how Papá handled his business. Dad had returned ten minutes later and ordered a towel and ice for his bloody knuckles followed by a slice of tres leches cake. Over the years here and there, I’d witnessed him knock his men around or order to have people “taken care of” and “made an example of.” I was no stranger to the stories about him, either—like the one where Papá had supposedly addressed a package with an army general’s fingers in it to the mayor and dropped it in a public mailbox.

I had always known my father to be feared, but to me, he was just Papi. Now, because of him, I’d seen a man’s brains. I breathed through another urge to vomit.

Careful to avoid where I’d gotten sick, Diego stooped to pick up some of the butterflies that’d fallen out of my hair. “I’m sorry you saw that,” he said to me.

“Sorry?” Tepic asked. “She just watched her father take the sweetest kind of revenge. Anyone who’s lost a mother should be so lucky to witness what Talia just did.”

“It should’ve been Cristiano,” I heard myself say. It had been a long time since I’d wished death on him.

“Not if he didn’t do it,” Tepic pointed out.

I quelled my shaking and tried to piece together my thoughts. “There’s no way he didn’t,” I said to Diego as he stood. “You were there. You saw. There has to be an explanation.”

“I know. Come on out of the dirt,” he said, extending a hand to me.

I took it, wiping my bare feet in the grass before I stepped over a row of tiny lanterns. Diego led me to the glowing fountain, set my delicate hair clips on the ledge with my mask, and helped me out of my wings.

“How is Cristiano back?” I asked. “And why does Father believe he didn’t do this?”

“I don’t know.” Diego crouched to strap my shoes back. “But I’m going to find out.”

I stood. “I want to hear it from my father.”

Diego pulled me into a hug, shushing me. “Just take a minute to calm down,” he said, rubbing my back. “Breathe.”

I buried my face in his chest, where it was familiar, where his shirt smelled like soap, suede, and cigars—where it was safe. Warm. I wanted to stay in his arms and pretend I hadn’t just watched my own father brutally murder a person. That Cristiano hadn’t just reentered our world. That everything I knew about my mother’s death hadn’t just been called into question.

How had Cristiano pulled this off?

How could my father shame my mother’s memory this way?

“I need to see my dad,” I said, disconnecting from Diego.

He held my elbow. “Not tonight, my love. You’re not even supposed to be here.”

“I don’t care.” I frowned up at him. “I want answers. I demand them.”

“Cool off. Let Costa do the same. Can you even look him in the eye right now?”

That hadn’t occurred to me, but Diego was right—even though I wanted answers, the thought of facing my dad made my stomach roil again. It would be too hard. Diego knew my mind better than I did in that moment, so I surrendered to the safety of his arms, deciding to wait until the morning to approach my father.