Violent Delights (White Monarch 1)

I cocked my head into the nook of his shoulder. “What?”

“It’s beginning to hit me that Cristiano and I . . .” He shifted in the chair. “We’re more similar than I’d like to admit.”

Diego and Cristiano—similar? Aside from sharing some physical attributes, they were night and day to me. “You’re not like him,” I said, tracing my index finger over the stubble shading his chin. “Not in a million years.”

I lifted my head when Diego repositioned his arm under me, as if he couldn’t get comfortable. “He betrayed our family,” Diego said, “and I betrayed him.”

“You mean Cristiano betrayed my father . . .?”

“No. Mine.” He paused, lowering his eyes from the sky to the desert. “When Costa killed my parents, I didn’t fully grasp the business they were in. I do now. I understand why they couldn’t continue down that path.” His face screwed up as if he’d bitten into something sour. “But they didn’t need to die for it.”

Diego didn’t talk about his parents much, but when he did, he got pensive. Still, I’d never questioned that he understood why their death had to happen.

“Our families had a pact not to get into human trafficking. Your parents broke it,” I reminded him, flattening my hand over his chest. His heart beat strong against my palm. “But the real reason Papá did what he did was because they plotted against him.”

“I know. I get it. But they’re my blood, Natalia.”

“That doesn’t excuse everything under the sun. It can’t.”

“I thought it did. Cristiano went against my parents because he didn’t agree with how they ran their business. At the time, I thought him a traitor—and I still do.” He wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve and blew out a breath. “I didn’t think anything should ever break the bonds of family. But then I did that exact thing to Cristiano.”

“It takes courage to resist blind loyalty,” I said soothingly, trying to comfort him.

“Or does it take courage to stick by family no matter what?” he asked. I heard the struggle in his voice and wondered how long he’d been thinking all this. “As Cristiano couldn’t excuse my parents for getting involved in things like forced labor or sex slavery, I couldn’t excuse him for taking your mother’s life—and I turned on him. My own blood.”

“You had no other choice, Diego.” When he didn’t respond, I added, “There has to be a line somewhere, even for family.”

“I’m not sure I agree. Sometimes, I get overwhelmed by helplessness wondering if I betrayed my family by joining yours. I hate Cristiano for what he did to Bianca, but perhaps doing nothing was just as bad.”

Doing something would’ve meant retaliation. “Did you ever think of taking vengeance for their death?”

He didn’t answer right away. As seconds ticked by, I grew uneasy. There was only one person Diego would take revenge on. My father.

“In my darkest moments, yes,” he admitted.

My heart thumped once. I’d never heard Diego mention a desire for retribution, but I supposed that was human nature. It wasn’t as if I’d never wondered how things might’ve turned out differently if I’d actually known how to operate the gun I’d pulled on Cristiano all those years ago.

“But that’s how you and Cristiano are different,” I said, balling his shirt in my fist. “You are good. You never would’ve acted on those feelings.”

“At the core of it, though, Tali—we’ve each committed the highest sin in this world. We turned against family, and that’s how we’re alike.” His body depressed into the chair with a long exhale. “It’s why we can never repair what’s left between us. Even if we’re forced to do business together as Costa wants, even if we find a way to make things right again—the distrust between us will never go away.”

“You keep saying Cristiano turned against family,” I said, trying to decipher what exactly he meant. Did he mean because Cristiano had joined our cartel? “When he hurt my mom, he was close enough to my parents to be like family, but they weren’t blood as you continue to point out.”

“I’m not talking about what he did to your family. I’m talking about what he did to mine.”

What? I furrowed my eyebrows. I didn’t understand what he meant, but as Cristiano had warned me hours earlier—I was starting to believe there was more to my mother’s murder than I knew.

I sat up on one elbow to look down at him. “What are you saying?” I asked.

“You asked if I ever think of vengeance,” he said slowly. “I do. But not against your father. He may have pulled the trigger, but Cristiano is the one who told Costa what my parents were doing, and what they were planning.”

It took a moment for his words to sink in. I’d never questioned how my father had learned that the de la Rosas were conspiring against him. I wouldn’t have guessed the information that would get them killed would come from within their own family. “Cristiano had your parents killed?”