“I understand better than you know, but it is what it is. Rafael has made a choice to protect you.”
“I don’t want protecting!” I shout, all my frustration and hurt bubbling to the surface.
For a brief second, a hint of sympathy crosses her features. “You have the love of a powerful man, Anna. What you want becomes of little consequence.”
I look at her, really look. “You have the love of a powerful man, but he doesn’t cast you aside.”
“I’m the Kiss of Death,” she says simply. She’s a weapon in her own right, a woman any man would fear. Rafael’s men would whisper my sister’s name in fear as though she were more myth than reality. Una is not Nero’s weakness, she’s his strength, and I envy her for it. “Do you really love him?” she asks.
“Of course I do.” What kind of question was that?
“Think about it, Anna. Do you really love him? Or was he just the first man to treat you kindly? The first man to love you?” I frown. “You’ve only ever been a slave. Love and gratitude are not the same things.”
“I love him,” I say, even as her words worm their way into my mind. She makes me feel like a foolish, naive child. “I need him.”
“No. You just think you do.”
“Why are you doing this?”
Her violet colored eyes lock with mine. “The world does not begin and end with Rafael D’Cruze. You now have to learn to live without him. Live your life.”
I say nothing for a moment, allowing her words to sink in. “I don’t know how,” I admit.
“You’ve been Anna the slave, and Rafael’s Anna. Now you need to figure out what independent Anna looks like.” I was happy being Rafael’s Anna, maybe I don’t want to be independent.
“What if this is as good as it gets?”
“It’s not. You’re stronger than you know.”
“I don’t feel strong.”
“Then I’ll make you strong, little sister. I’ll make you unbreakable.” I meet her gaze, finding the promise in her cold eyes. I find myself craving her icy self-discipline because my sister is nothing if not powerful.
“Okay.”
A small smile pulls at her lips, and I find myself wondering what the hell I’ve just agreed to. Either way, it’s a step forward, and I have to start walking at some point.
57
Rafael
I lean back in my office chair, watching the screens depicting the warehouse, humming with activity. Everything is going to plan. Almost everything. As always when I’m alone, my mind drifts to Anna. I’ve tried to call her. Every Friday like clockwork, because it’s as much as I allow myself. I need to focus, and without a degree of self-discipline, I’d be calling her every day. Not that it matters. She never answers, and each time, it fractures something in me, allowing this darkness in a little more. I want her to be happy, to be safe, but I also just want her, need her. Being without my little warrior is an ache I can’t soothe. The physical distance is something I put there, but this emotional distance is of her doing, and it’s a cut that wont stop bleeding.
The office door bursts open and Samuel storms inside looking far more disheveled than normal.
“Rafe, we are losing distributors left and right.”
“Good.”
“What?” He shakes his head. “You’ve lost it.”
“No. I haven’t.”
“Well, do you want to let me in on your game plan here, because I’m struggling to see how we aren’t going to fuck ourselves? Dominges is shitting all over our territory, killing our guys, taking our distributors. You know he’s taken two more?”
“I’m simply biding my time, Samuel.” For the first few weeks after Maria’s death and Anna’s absence, I painted the streets on my city red with Sinaloa blood. For every one of theirs we killed, they responded in kind. Until my blood lust cleared and I remembered that I am stronger because I’m smarter. Senseless blood and carnage is Dominges style, not mine.
I push to my feet and open the office door, stepping into the warehouse. There are girls packing coke into blocks, the production chain still in full swing, but it isn’t going anywhere. I have aircraft hangars and warehouses all over Juarez full of coke, a month’s worth to be exact.
I cross the warehouse and open the door that leads outside where the airstrip is. One of my heavy freight planes sits on the tarmac, it’s engines just winding down. When it comes to a halt, the back ramp lowers, and men scramble to unload the contents, one barrel at a time.
“What is that?” Sam asks.
“Ether. We’re doing things the old-fashioned way.”
He drags a hand down his face. “That’ll take three times as long to produce.”
“And it’ll be twice as pure.”
“The distributors won’t wait that long.”
I shrug. “Then we’ll get new distributors. Who isn’t going to want ninety-eight percent pure cocaine?” He says nothing and I smile. “It’ll be a war, Sam. Everyone will be scrambling to buy it. And Dominges will be out on his ass. We’ll take all his clients.”