Several days later…
Alberto had placed an entire MC, The Rebel Saints, around the estate to protect it. His whole family remained inside. No one liked this isolation but it was necessary. The Castillos had vowed to kill them all. By now, Santiago knew I was with Alberto Mancini. And I was about to become a Mancini when Alberto and I got married.
I had to face the fact that deep down I was a Castillo, no matter what happened. There were some family I still cared about…Carlos and Ignacio. They were my blood and I cherished them, but I wasn’t proud to be in the same family as them.
The thought of Carlos made my throat tighten. He had been in the hospital for months and it would be a miracle if he ever woke up. He might never wake up, leaving me without the brother I had known all of my life. If Ignacio didn’t gather the courage he needed to abandon the cartel and live his own life, I would have to leave him behind as well.
I had just arrived with Alberto for a family meal in the dining room when my phone rang. I checked to see that it was Ignacio, prompting me to flash everyone a sheepish look. I didn’t mean to halt our plans for a moment, but I needed to take his call. “Sorry, it’s my cousin,” I said before answering. “Sorry, I meant to call you.”
“Gabby, Carlos is gone.”
I gripped Alberto’s hand harder out of reflex, making him wince slightly. I quickly let go and took a step back from everyone. “What do you mean Carlos is gone? Y-you mean…h-he’s dead?” I asked as my heart thudded heavily in my chest. His words didn’t make any sense.
“No, not that…I asked everyone on the floor that I could find about him and he has disappeared!” Ignacio replied, sounding just as shocked as I felt.
“But he was in a coma!”
“I know!” Ignacio exclaimed.
I turned to look at the Mancinis, seeing their wide eyes and confused looks. I honestly didn’t expect Carlos to ever wake up. It had been months. I knew I was supposed to have hope for his recovery, but I was also a realist. He couldn’t have just disappeared. “No one knows where he is?” I asked. Something felt off and dread crept down the back of my neck. Carlos was always guarded by members of the cartel. What happened to them?
“No, I’ll ask around some more. I’ll call when I find out something,” Ignacio said then he ended the call.
I turned to Alberto with tears in my eyes. “I don’t know where my brother is,” I breathed out, unable to make my voice come out any louder. My throat and chest felt so tight like a snake was constricting me.
“It’s okay.” Alberto placed his hands on my upper arms. “He couldn’t have gotten far.”
“No…I think someone took him,” I replied while trying to fight off the dread I felt. Tears rolled down along my cheeks. “I don’t know where anyone is. My brother. My children. Everyone is gone!”
Chapter One:The Awakening
Selena
Six weeks later…
I had been by his bedside for more than a month.
When we first took him from the hospital he had been in, we kidnapped his doctor and a nurse as well. They assured us that his coma was very real. He and a few other Castillo Cartel members tried to kidnap Alessia Mancini. Two cartel members were killed and Carlos drove into a tree while trying to escape. Due to head injuries, he had been hospitalized and he had been in a coma for months.
Now he was my stake for the future.
A few times in the recent past, before the coma he was in, I had watched this man from a hidden vantage point. I had made it my business to find out everything I could about him. Back then, I took note that Carlos Castillo had radiated power as naturally as he breathed. It was reported by a few that he didn’t care for drugs or excessive drinking. He kept his mind sharp. His MBA from Wharton and his finance degree from UCLA only made him even smarter. He had been proof that brains and confidence could be as dangerous as a gun. Of course, he knew that about himself, so he’d been unafraid to express pride in himself. This made him mouthy and cocky. This also had rubbed many cartel leaders the wrong way.
However, despite the horror stories I heard about how intimidating and reckless he could be, I believed he was thesame pure soul that he had been when he was a teen. I remember him from my hometown in Mexico. He was about seven years older than I and that meant we didn’t run in the same circles so to speak. But I knewofhim. He had been a joking, happy young man back then.
I now worked for the Diego Cartel and despite being a female, I was a high-ranking member of my organization. One might say I was number two in this cartel. It had been my idea to kidnap Carlos Castillo and our leader, Quanto, always listened to my ideas as they had made our cartel very rich over the years. We intended to use him as a trade for two of our upper echelon members who were reportedly being held by the Castillo Cartel.
However, my intentions were more personal than that. I had chosen Carlos because of an old wound. An old injustice.
Then finally, Carlos had shown signs of awakening. He had moved his fingers after the doctor asked him what he had asked him every day for the last thirty days,“If you can hear me, move your fingers.”Only this time, instead of no response, he had actually moved his fingers. Then the next day, he shifted his body in his bed and he groaned. On the third day, he opened his eyes. The doctor announced that it was a true miracle. On day five, they removed his intubation tube and all but one monitor.
So I waited another week as he went through some physical therapy. Then finally today, I would find my answer. I would show him what I had been sent. A recording made by a woman I knew of but had never met. Then I could finally ask him the question that had burned a hole in my soul for many years.
The nurse had just left after they propped him up on pillows.
Staring at me, Carlos asked in a raspy voice, “So, who are you and what do you want?”
I paused as even though his voice was still weak it was deep and commanding. I shrugged and replied, “My name is Selena but that isn’t really important.”
