“Excuse me?”
“Did I stutter?” Rising to his feet, my brother crosses the room, all six foot four inches of him looming over me like a warden. “You’re leaving for Mexico tonight.”
I stare up at him, blinking rapidly as if the movement will force clarity into those five words. “What?”
“You heard what I said.”
“I have a life here, Santi!” I shout, my panic escalating as I move in front of him, blocking his path. “My own life with my own friends. I don’t want to leave it.”
“I didn’t ask what you wanted, chaparrita. You’re leaving and that’s final.”
Final. He growls the word like papá. As if his word is the fucking gospel. As if I’m not an adult with a brain and free will. Granted, an adult who got herself roofied and branded, but that’s beside the point…
I fling my arms around like a broken windmill. “Do I not get a say in this?”
“No.” I want him to yell. Instead, he remains rigid and stoic.
“Santi!”
“This is not up for discussion.” He steps forward, and I automatically step back. “I warned you to stay away from Sam Colton, and you wouldn’t listen. Now they know.”
“Know what?” I demand. “And who’s they?” He’s talking in circles. Maybe if my family would clue me in once in a while, I wouldn’t be on the outside constantly trying to decipher all their fucking cryptic talk.
“Dante Santiago,” he bites out between clenched teeth. “My contacts in New York saw him pay a visit to Senator Sanders a few days ago. Care to guess the main topic of conversation?”
My stomach plummets to my feet. “Me?”
He doesn’t confirm or deny. Instead, he paces in front of me, another trait he inherited from our father. The more he paces, the faster he talks. “Your cover is blown, chaparrita. They know María Diaz is an alias. They know who you are, and now they’re going to use you to get to me and papá. We can’t take that chance, so you’re going back to Mexico where the cartel can protect you.”
I can’t stop staring at the dark circles flashing under his eyes every time he passes me. Jesus, it looks like he hasn’t slept in days…maybe weeks. I noticed it at the pizzeria, but in the last week, it’s gotten worse. His obsession with this feud between our family and the Santiagos is consuming him.
“There’s nothing I can do to change your mind?” I ask weakly.
“No.” When he faces me, I recoil. The brother I grew up with, the one who used to laugh with me as we snuck cookies from the kitchen in the middle of the night, disappears behind the hardened mask of a criminal. “You’re in over your head, Lola. You’re fucking drowning, and you don’t even know it.”
A surge of fury courses through me, prompting me to hurl my purse against the wall. “Goddamn it, Santi! I’m eighteen, not eight! You can’t force me to leave the country. I’m just as much of a Carrera as you are. For fuck’s sake, I just punched a guy in the face for trying to get into my pants.”
Which was absolutely the wrong thing to say.
Santi’s dark eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “You what?”
“Focus, please,” I huff, redirecting the conversation. “The point is that you can’t keep ordering me around like this. You’re my brother, not my father.”
He gets deathly quiet. The strained kind of quiet where you know you’ve fucked up. The kind that fills the air with so much static it crackles. “You’re right,” he says calmly. “I’m not.” His jaw tics as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. Without a word, he presses a single button.
“What are you doing?” I whisper.
His narrowed eyes snap to mine. “Proving a point.”
Within seconds Santi is speaking into the phone in rapid Spanish. It’s my native language, so, of course, I understand every word, yet somehow it all gets muddled in my brain, hovering in that space between willful ignorance and denied truth.
Before the fog in my head can clear, he presses another button and holds the phone between us.
“Cielito,” a deep, heavily accented voice rumbles.
Oh fuck.
“Papá?” I have no idea why his name exits my mouth as a question. There’s no mistaking Valentin Carrera’s voice. I’ve witnessed grown men piss themselves at the mere sound of it.
“We had a deal, cielito.”
“I know, papá, but—”
“No buts,” he clips, cutting off my protest. “Your mamá and I allowed you to attend school under the direct supervision and discretion of your brother. Santi has informed me that your alias and safety have been compromised.”
I glare at my brother. Snitch. “But, papá…”
“¡Silencio!” I jump at the harsh command in his tone. My father has never raised his hand to me, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t terrifying. I may be papá’s little girl, but even I know when to shut the fuck up. “I almost lost you once at the hands of Dante Santiago,” he continues. “I will not risk my daughter’s life again. Your brother and I have many enemies, cielito. Enemies who would love nothing more than to see you suffer for our sins. So, you will pack your shit, and you will board my jet with Tito and return to Mexico City immediately.”
Oh goody, a traveling companion.
I don’t know what possesses me to ask, “And if I don’t?”
Dumb, Lola. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Even Santi lifts an eyebrow.
“Lola…” It’s a grave warning. My father only uses my given name when I’m about to fall out of his good graces. It’s a dark place no one wants to find themselves, whether family, friend, or foe.
I swallow hard. “Sí, papá.”
“Santi,” he growls. “Take me off speaker phone.”
Obeying, my brother disappears into the kitchen to resume his cartel business discussion with our father in an unnecessary hushed tone. He could act out their entire battle strategy in an interpretive dance for all I care. I’m not interested in anything they have to say. I’m
