“You don’t need to. We’re all family, now.” Axe watched in horror as his father’s elbow bent, and he pointed the gun…
A single gunshot reverberated through the room. Axe’s father’s head exploded with a fountain of blood.
Three guns dropped, as if in slow motion, onto the wooden floor.
“No!” Axe shouted. “Father, Father.”
“No!” Leanna screamed, and she was on her knees, crawling toward Axe.
Axe collapsed over his father’s body, desperately trying to put his head back together.
Leanna’s body covered him, hugging from behind, and her hair fell over his face, veiling the grief and tears he didn’t want anyone to see.
* * *
The heat and hot sun gave way to clouds and a light drizzle of rain on the day of Ana and Eduardo’s funeral.
Leanna hugged Soledad and ran her hand down the girl’s hair, comforting her while Axe held a golf-sized umbrella over them. Carmelita held Soledad’s hand as the two girls wept for their adoptive and foster parents.
It turned out that Ana and Eduardo had faked Carmelita’s death to keep Joshua from finding her after Axe’s father shot off his testicles. Leanna found a letter from Ana apologizing to her and her family for keeping Carmelita a secret. She knew that the more people who knew the real Carmelita existed, the more dangerous it would be for the girl.
Eduardo’s brother, Jorge, agreed to adopt the real Carmelita, and they shortened her nickname to Lita. Carmelita still lived on and off with Ana and Eduardo, but as a niece, not a daughter.
Later on, Joshua, believing his Carmelita was dead, decided to park Soledad Garcia, Axe’s daughter, at Ana and Eduardo’s house so he could keep better track of her whenever he was in Mexico doing business.
She’d lived as Carmelita Bandera, and she became friends with Gabriel and his family. When Juan heard that El Bardo discovered that Carmelita was still alive, he warned Ana and Eduardo since they worked together in minor smuggling operations.
To protect Soledad, who El Bardo believed was Cano’s Carmelita, Ana and Eduardo contacted Leanna, knowing she would be protected by her father, Tomas, the famous hitman.
At the same time, they spread word that Carmelita had run away, going door to door to look for her. Gabriel thought it was his friend, but it was the real Carmelita who was put into the hands of Los Osos brothers, famous smugglers, who helped her make her way to the United States. They were paid the ten thousand dollars Leanna had sent.
Gabriel and the Tres Amigos, worrying about the disappearance of their Carmelita, lied to everyone and deflected Leanna as best as they could, while trying to find her. They finally figured out, after Axe’s father let them know she was really Soledad, that Cano had taken her to his castle to be his next mistress.
The graveside service was somber and well-attended by all of the Banderas’s friends and neighbors. Sobs and weeping filtered through the crowd as the pastor of their church delivered the eulogy. Ana had been a popular school teacher, and she’d sheltered migrant children who needed a hot meal. Eduardo was an engineer, but the company he worked for had trouble making payroll. To supplement his income and buy insulin for Leanna’s Carmelita, he’d turned to creating fake IDs.
They’d been killed by Joshua Cano when he kidnapped Soledad from their house—not by the supposed cartel they owed money to. That had been a false rumor to dispel suspicion from Cano.
Leanna glanced over to Gabriel, standing with his head down in a suit too large. Juan’s grave was still fresh with mounds of wilted flowers strewn over it, and Gabriel had camped in a tent next to it all week. Fortunately, with Leanna’s father running the Cano cartel, no retribution came to Juan’s family for his supposed role of killing the former capo.
A tear trailed down Leanna’s face when an usher handed each of them a rose. She peeked at Axe whose face was stone-faced stern. He was taking his father’s death hard and arranging for his body to be sent back to San Francisco.
Leanna suppressed a shudder at the thought it could have been her father’s body. Tomas Rivera had blood on his hands, but he also loved and took care of his family. Vincenzo Salvadori also had blood on his hands, and he believed he’d failed his family.
Leanna reached for Axe’s hand, the one holding the rose and threaded her fingers through his. He squeezed her hand in acknowledgment, rubbing his thumb over the opal on her ring finger, reaffirming his place in her heart.
Together, they would face the future as a family, bonded together and strong. There would be no place for vengeance, only love and forgiveness.
They bowed their heads in prayer, and then the strains of mariachi music, singingDe Colores, signaled the time to say their final goodbyes.
One by one, Ana and Eduardo’s relatives and friends walked by the two coffins laid side by side and dropped their roses. Leanna kissed her rose and said her farewell. “Ana and Eduardo, dear cousins. I can never repay you for your sacrifices, but I know you’re proud of these two dear girls. They’ve given you much joy, and you’ve been their parents for which Axe and I are grateful. We promise you we shall never forget your courage, and we will love and cherish the beautiful gifts God has granted to us. Goodbye for now, and I’ll see you someday.”
She placed the rose on the coffin, and Axe placed his next to hers. He kissed the side of her head, and said, his voice gravelly, “Your family is mine, and my family is complete.Muchas gracias.”
