28. Diego
28
DIEGO
I walked back toward the center of the compound, eyeing the grand mansion. I’d been in there before, but I didn’t know why.
It was time to find out.
Tense but excited about the prospect of this all being over, I walked up the steps and entered. A man positioned inside gave me clearance, and I frowned at him.
He knew who I was. But I didn’t.
“Diego!”
Oh, my God.
I knew that voice. I did.
I turned, watching the man who’d served as the only fatherly figure I’d ever had walk toward me.
The boss. My God. It was him. “Stefan!”
He smiled, holding his arms out as he approached. The sight of his easygoing smile triggered a flood of flashbacks and memories. One after one, like I’d been plugged and could reboot with an upgrade, my brain worked. I could recall it all.
The day I’d saved his life as a young teen. His offer to let me come live and work for him. The years of training I received and the years of servitude I’d given him.
I worked for the Cartel, and I did so to serve and protect this boss, this older man who wrapped me into a hug. He took me in as an orphan and showed me how to be a man.
“I knew you couldn’t be dead.” He held me tight, hugging me, then patted my back. “I knew that report had to be wrong.”
“I…” I laughed once, stunned and amazed that my identity was back. I was back. I was… more whole with the missing part of my past restored. I couldn’t be fully whole until I had my future with Sofia and Ramon, but now I had the freedom to go for that.
“Where have you been, my son?”
I smiled, hearing the endearment he gave me, only me, among all the men. I felt like a prodigal son returning, but without the intention to stay. “I was in the holding cells. Sebastian captured a boy he shouldn’t have, and I released him.” I looked at the guard, rattling off the number of the cell I’d dragged him into. “That’s where you’ll find him.”
Stefan rolled his eyes. “He’s getting too damn sloppy. A wastrel of a drunk.” He shook his head. “I’ll have him taken care of.” And by that, he meant killed.
Fine by me.
“ I will handle that. It would be my pleasure to kill him for what he’s done.”
Stefan furrowed his brow. “I’m confused. But first, where have you been? I sent my best soldier and spy to handle Rodriguez, and then you vanished without a trace.”
“Rodriguez!” I gaped at him. That was what I’d been doing the night I was knocked out. On a job to end that crooked cop.
“Yes! That was the last I saw of you. What happened?”
“That’s why I was dressed as a doctor and near the hospital.” It was all coming back to me, but not why I’d lost my memory in the first place. “I snuck in there and killed him.” I replayed the memories of searching for the corrupt cop who’d attacked the boss. Seeing the people, that woman with the earrings that I thought of when I saw Sofia’s necklace. All of it came back to me, and I told him.
“Before I could get out of Rodriguez’s room, though, someone hit me from behind. I was knocked out, and the next thing I remembered was waking up on someone’s couch. A nurse found me lying in an alley outside the hospital. She took me home to help me recover. That’s where I’ve been. With her and her son as I struggled with amnesia.”
Stefan gawked at me. “Amnesia.”
“Not anymore.” I looked around. “Coming back here triggered me to remember all of it. For the whole month, I had no clue who I was.”
Stefan paced, rubbing his chin. “Thank God you are all right. That I didn’t lose you.” He indicated for me to follow him through the huge mansion until we came to my room.
Seeing it confirmed my identity. This was where I lived. I didn’t have a family, but I had a crime family. I spotted a small photo of Maria, one of Stefan’s nieces whom I dated so long ago but didn’t truly love. She was killed years ago, and I didn’t date after her. She was the woman I vaguely thought of before, but she wasn’t a lover I’d left behind.
Stefan watched me pick up the small photo and set it back down. “Since you’ve been gone,” he said as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind us, “I’ve gotten word that Antonio might have been the one who’d killed her.”
“After all this time? Ten years ago?”
The boss nodded. “Antonio has always envied you. Wanting what you have. What he can’t have.”
“That would explain his killing Maria.”
“And it would explain his knocking you out and leaving you for dead on Alboradas, too.”
I growled. “You’re right. He was asking for that job.”
“He wanted the glory of killing Rodriguez. That was why I didn’t want him to handle it. He’d brag about it, and we needed to keep that one a secret for several reasons. I hadn’t wanted to give the job to you, either, because you needed a break, but I didn’t trust him.”
“That motherfucker.” No wonder I disliked him on sight.
“He was the one who spread the word that Rodriguez was dead.” Stefan set his lips in a thin line.
“And he’d know that he was dead because he saw me kill him. Trying to take the honor.” It had never been a matter of getting the glory for me. Just doing my job. Just appeasing the need to kill in the name of justice for my boss.
“But what is this about Sebastian?” He furrowed his brow. “If you’ve been gone all month, what is the matter with him?”
“The nurse who’s been caring for me has a son. Sebastian had her and another nurse kidnapped from the hospital where Sofia worked. And when she was here helping Sebastian with whatever wounds he had, he raped her. She has a son, Ramon, and she’s been terrified of losing him to the Cartel.”
Stefan waved that issue away. “What do I care about one more bastard son being here? It’s not like we don’t have enough recruits. Unless he wants to serve.”
“He’s only six, and I see him as my son. I love him, both of them. I see my future with Sofia.”
He grinned, pulling me in close to hug me again and pat my back. “Finally, my son. Finally, I can know you are content to start your own family. After a lifetime of saving my life and being my best man, I can finally see you have what you deserve. A family.”
“So if you don’t mind, I’d like the honor of killing him for ever touching her like that. For ever daring to take Ramon away from her.”
He cocked his head to the side. “You’re saying… Sebastian fathered this boy?”
“Yes. He raped her while she was forced to be his private nurse.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Sebastian is sterile. A botched infection or something. Many years ago. He couldn’t have fathered the boy.”
“Then why would he say he did?”
Stefan shrugged. “I recall that, though, after he was wounded and needed a nurse. Two nurses were here, I think. It was when I lived in the other compound.”
I nodded. “Me too.” He’d moved me to another location for several months while he dealt with deals in that region. Sebastian must have taken too many liberties without the boss here.
“Maybe Sebastian took her, but Antonio was also wounded then. He might have been near the nurses as well.”
The thought of Antonio raping Sofia was far, far worse.
“He’s been stationing himself near the hospital lately,” Stefan added.
“Probably because he tried to kill me. And he panicked when he couldn’t find my body.” I gripped my hair and yanked hard. “He had been doing surveillance over there, and that’s probably when they noticed Ramon.”
“Then go, Diego. Go. Go protect this boy if you see him as your son now.” He exited the room, hurrying out with me on his heels. “Finish him,” he said. “That’s your last order. Your last job. If you won’t retire, you’re getting a boring, safe job so you can be there to raise your son.”
“And my wife,” I added.
He almost tripped over his feet. “You married her?”
“Not yet. But when I do, she will have full protection. Both of them.”
He smiled and shook on it. “Just so long as I get to be Grandpa.”
I laughed once. Convincing Sofia to see a Cartel boss as Ramon’s grandpa would take some mighty persuasion.
But first, I had to hurry back to her and make sure Antonio could never try to ruin my life again.