I slapped a hand over his mouth, using all my weight to wrestle him back down. “Shh.”
He fought me, and without my bastard temper fuelling me, on an ordinary day, he might’ve won. But his depleted strength betrayed him and I kept him on the bed. “Don’t say it. Not here. Remember who we are.”
He gave in, physically at least. His eyes remained horror struck and tortured, a mirror image of how I’d felt when I’d learned he’d shot a man in the face in my name.
I didn’t feel like that anymore. I didn’t feel much at all about killing someone for the second time in my life. At least, not for my own sake. Esteban. Sambini. Sidorov. This mess ran deeper than I’d ever understand, but Esteban had held a hot poker to Mateo’s throat his whole life. He’d cut his face. Mother of God, he’d tried to trade Mateo’sdaughterfor who the fuck knew what. He had to die, and I could live with pulling the trigger.
With my hand still pressed to Mateo’s mouth, I brought my lips to his ear. “This is how it is, baby. How it’s always been. You kill for me, I kill for you. Youloveme, I love you. As long as we’re both alive, there’s nothing else.”
29
MATEO
I woke up in Embry’s bed, the smell of him grounding me the second I cracked my eyes, even though my gut knew he wasn’t there.
It was the first thing I’d been certain of in however long it had been since I’d watched him empty a converted pistol into Carlos Esteban’s head.
The second was that despite his absence, I wasn’t alone. Mixed with the lemon and mint scent filling my senses, I smelt charcoal and bubble gum.
Lili.I forced my eyes all the way open. My daughter sat beside me, drawing on the blue fibreglass cast on my wrist with a gold Sharpie.
Her face was a study in concentration, tongue caught between her teeth, button eyes laser focused.
She was so beautiful.
I tucked a wayward lock of hair behind her tiny ear. She didn’t blink, and my heart turned over, a sickening thud that brought tears to my eyes, veins icing over, body heavy with grief.
Then she glanced up. She smiled. And the weight left me floating on motherfucking air.
“Papá.”
“Lili.”
“You’ve been asleep for ages.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Her gaze darted between her drawing and my messed-up face. “Embry said it was better for you to sleep while your bruises hurt.”
“When did he say that?”
“When you came back and went to sleep on the stairs.”
I pursed my lips, torn between a laugh and a grimace. I didn’t remember much about coming home. Just Embry’s arm beneath my shoulders, holding me up, Liliana’s hair soft against my nose as I’d buried my face there, and Juana’s watery smile that said the simplest thing.We made it.
After that, it was a blur of my closest brothers and a fatigue so harsh I thought I was dying.
“Let it happen.” Saint crouched beside me. “It goes away quicker.”
Huh. Maybe I remembered more than I thought. “Where’s your mum?”
“In the big room. She was sleeping too.”
“What time is it?”
Liliana shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m still learning how to read it, remember?”
The bizarre decade she’d lived through suddenly hit home. She was sketching like fucking Banksy on my arm, but there were so many things she’d missed out on. School. Friends. A father who wasn’t an absent, broken mess. Fuck, we’d never donethis.Hung out without counting the hours under the threat of certain death. How many times had I dreamt of moments like these? Waking up to find herright there?
