“About five months.”Drina placed her hands on her rounded stomach.Her flouncy blouse and leggings barely concealed the swell of her pregnancy.Her brow furrowed.“We’ll find out the gender next week at the ultrasound.”
“I’m so happy for you.”She truly was.Drina deserved all the happiness she could get.Yet Lourdes couldn’t fathom why the woman would frown over getting the gender results.
Months earlier, Rubén had rescued Drina from a vicious cartel only to keep her captive himself.Despite the odds, they fell in love.Given that they had known each other years earlier and she had his child without him knowing, their road to reconciliation had been rocky at best.
Lourdes had only met Drina twice before—at a fundraiser back in May, and then later at Drina’s wedding.
After Lourdes followed Enrique through an open doorway past the stairs, she trailed behind him toward a door at the end of the long corridor, which branched into another part of the house.He knocked so hard on the barrier that she nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Enter!”Rubén called out, his voice unmistakable.
Enrique rolled his shoulders and strode into the jefe’s personal domain.
Lourdes joined him and shut the door.The familiar stench of her father’s cigar smoke churned her empty belly.Her father, her ex-fiancé, and her former brother-in-law turned toward her from the long rectangular conference table.The heat of condemnation blazed in their narrowed eyes as though all this was her fault.Perspiration beaded on her forehead.
“About damn time.”Rubén stubbed out his cigarillo in a crystal ashtray from the head of the table and rose to his feet.
The handsome man was the epitome of peacemaker and death bringer.The white line slashing through his eyebrow and the tattoo of wings embracing a crown on his neck added to his dangerous allure, though his casual cable-knit shirt, pleated navy slacks, and brushed-back hair softened his hard-worn edges.
Enrique guided her over and offered the Lozano jefe his hand.
After Rubén shook it, he pulled Lourdes into a light hug.“Be brave, sister,” he whispered and met her square in the eye, letting his words sink in.Then he pivoted to stand beside his chair.
She swallowed past her tight throat and dragged her gaze to the banes of her existence.
Gerardo Villegas—thick gray hair, bushy mustache, stone heart.His broad shoulders filled out his wrinkled suit jacket while his paunch pressed against his white button-down.
Diego Zayas—attractive in a hawkish sort of way with a long, hooked nose and sharp widow’s peak, the features inherited from his aristocratic Spanish European ancestry that he boasted about at every opportunity.Though he was only forty-some years old, he already had three ex-wives and a dozen children between them and his mistresses.
The last thing she wanted was to join the ranks of his breeding mares.
The men leaned back in a matching set of swivel chairs, giving off the ridiculous illusion of calm and control.If not for their livid gazes, they might’ve succeeded.
Walnut-paneled walls caged her in just as they had three years earlier when Ovidio Lozano, her monstrous father-in-law, shamed her for never giving him a grandson and demanded she return home.The now-deceased jefe glared at her from his portrait past the conference table, his painted image much younger than the brutish, grayed patriarch she’d feared.
Rubén’s sharp-eyed portrait hung beside those of his father and grandfather, the cartel founder, to commemorate the start of his reign.
“Take a seat.”Rubén swiped his hand at the nearest chairs.
Enrique flicked his gaze from the vacant chair on Rubén’s left, then to her father, who sat at the man’s right.He craned his neck until it popped.“You know I won’t do that, Rubén.”
Unspoken words passed between them.
“Cristo.”The jefe tunneled his fingers through his hair.“And you sayI’marrogant.”
As Enrique snorted, she bit back her own smile.Her father was sitting in Enrique’s chair.Arrogant was right, though she understood his refusal.This meeting was a show of power.Strength.If Enrique sat in a less important chair, he put himself at a disadvantage.
Lourdes reached for her lover’s hand, then paused as her father heaved himself up.If the older man had any indication of the reason for Enrique and Rubén’s byplay, he wouldn’t have stood.He stomped around the table, and his shiny black shoes thudded on the floor like nails in her coffin.Deep crow’s feet framed his lips and beady brown eyes as he sucked on his Cuban.His thick jowls wobbled, and smoke blew from his flaring nostrils like he was a raging beast.
To Lourdes, he was.
She blinked rapidly, fighting for control.She could do this.Handle whatever her father threw at her.Enrique had been right to stay the course.They had to take a stand even if they lost.
“Papá, hear me out,” she entreated and raised her hands to placate him.
Instead, he swung back his meaty arm.
She winced and tilted her head, bracing for the slap.
