Chapter 25 #2
I climb onto the bed beside Tre, still as awkward a fit as the last time.
She does her best to curl against me as we cry.
None of the side effects are a given, but the possibility tears us apart.
I barely notice when Kathleen and Tía Margherita step outside the curtains.
I hear the soft murmur of women’s voices, but I don’t care enough to strain to understand. I need Tre, and she needs me.
“Daddy, I’m so scared.”
“I know, chiquita. I am too. No matter what, we are one. You’ll never be alone again.”
She lifts her head and leans back, searching my gaze. She tucks her chin again and nods against my chest.
“You were always going to stay for me. Not just because of the baby.”
I tilt her chin up, so our gazes meet again. I press a kiss to her forehead, her nose, her cheek, her chin, then her lips.
“I’ve loved you since the night we met. You’re my soulmate, Tre. I can’t live without you.”
“I fell in love with you that night too. I never want to be without you. You’re my soulmate too, Joaco.”
While we’ve said the words before, this isn’t how either of us wanted to confess the depth of our love, but we need to say it as much as we need to hear it.
“Tre, the last thing I want to do is leave your side for even a second. But once I know you’re safely at Tío Enrique and Tía Elle’s house, I’ll need to be away from you for a while. I don’t know how long. I’m so, so sorry.”
I want to beg for her forgiveness before it even happens.
“Joaco, I understand. I don’t want you out of reach or out of sight, but this has to end. We need you to end this. The world needs to know our child is untouchable.”
“Not just our baby. You too, chica. No one comes near you and survives. My family’s been working on this since the car incident. We’ve made some headway, so I don’t want you to think we aren’t trying.”
“I never once thought that, cuore mio. I understand these things can take time.”
“I should’ve pushed harder. I should’ve been looking rather than?—”
“Don’t you dare tell me you’d trade time with me for this.”
“But it could’ve saved us all of this.”
“Or it could’ve left me more exposed. You didn’t want to keep me under house arrest. I didn’t want to be a prisoner in anyone’s home.
I know you worked through several nights.
You thought I was asleep, but I knew you were working.
Maybe you were catching up on stuff from your businesses, but I don’t think so. ”
“I wasn’t. I was hacking.”
That’s as much as I’ll admit. I shouldn’t have even said that much, but I feel compelled to make sure she understands I never slacked off.
“Daddy, whatever you do and wherever you go, promise me you won’t do any of it alone. I know the other men in your family have wives, so take double the guards.”
“Mi corazón, my family wouldn’t let me go without them even if I suggested it.
I’m certain they’ll all come. Tío Enrique won’t send us into anything he wouldn’t enter into first. If Tío Luis is in town, then he will too.
Normally, Tío Matías stays out of this since he’s the face of our largest legal ventures, but without our own dad, he’s helped my brothers and me when shit’s gone sideways.
All my tíos have stepped up since Papá died, but Tío Luis is often in Colombia, and Tío Enrique can’t always be there or make us his highest priority, even if that’s the only thing he wants to do.
He’s who I’ve gravitated to as I’ve grown older, but Tío Matías is the one who used to come over when my brothers and I would wake screaming. ”
“I’m glad you had that. I wondered but never wanted to ask.”
“Tía Catalina would tuck Alejandro next to her in their guest bedroom and cover his ears, so he wouldn’t wake up while Tío Matías comforted whoever woke in a panic.
Sometimes he had all three of us in bed with him.
Other times, he’d carry whoever was upset into Mamá’s room, so we could sleep with her.
He’s not Papá and has never tried to be, but he’s pretty damn close.
Tre, you can always ask about Papá. It’s a hurt that’ll never go away, but it’s a dull ache now.
I’d rather talk about him, even if it’s painful, than let his memory fade. ”
I don’t even want to imagine what Mamá’s been plotting this entire time.
She’s been at Pablo and Florencia’s house every day.
It’s just down the block from my childhood home.
She’s been an unobtrusive presence, giving Tre and me plenty of time with Frank and Kathleen.
But she’s been there every time I needed a hug or words of reassurance.
She survived raising three sons in Bogotá for several years after Papá died.
She proved hell hath no fury like a wife mourning.
When my tíos learned who killed Papá, she sent men to capture them.
She had them beheaded. My brothers and I don’t know for sure, but we’ve long suspected she swung the ax at least once.
“Just tell me if I ask too much. I want to know, but I don’t want to hurt you in the process.”
I knew none of this at the time because my brothers and I were too young, but I couldn’t avoid the story once I was a teenager and visiting my grandparents in Colombia.
Between Mamá’s revenge and how Tía Margherita defended my cousins during an ambush when they were a toddler and a baby, the Diaz women are legends.
Tía Catalina ensured no one in the States underestimated them either.
She went ballistic when Alejandro was accused of being a deadbeat dad.
She led my tías on a covert op that not only punished the man behind the rumor but made us a few million in product to boot.
And Tía Elle, well, she has a long history that’s only come to light since she met Tío Enrique.
Her litany of crimes is too long to list.
“How’re you doing?”
I don’t want to sound like a broken record with the same question, but I need to know.
Tears slide down her cheeks, but it’s not a constant stream anymore.
Talking helped me stop crying but just barely.
I’m struggling to hold it together, not just for Tre’s sake, but because once I start again, I might not stop.
“I’m okay. Now that the initial fear and dread have lessened, I think I can handle this more rationally.”
“It’s okay if you can’t. I don’t think I can.”
I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’m certain it’ll be a secret I can never let Tre know. I doubt she’d be able to reconcile the monster I’ll be with the man who climbs into bed beside her.
She grasps the front of my shirt and tugs. My gaze had drifted to my right, but I bring it back to her.
“I won’t think less of you if you do the most inhumane, cruel, perverted things you can come up with because I know you love us.
Commit the equivalent of war crimes. I don’t care.
Short of losing your soul, do whatever depraved thing you can devise to punish these people.
Then come home to me. I’ll make you dinner, fuck you until you can’t see straight, and fall asleep in your arms.”
I stare at her for a long, hard minute before responding.
“You truly are my soulmate.”
“I understood that look of doubt, how you withdrew in your own mind. I guessed what you were thinking. I’ve known the man you are and all that it means to be a syndicate man since the moment I met you.
I could’ve run for the hills to avoid returning to this life.
Instead, I suffered in silence until we figured shit out and realized we want to be together, and not just for the baby’s sake.
No matter what happens, I will keep coming back to you, Joaco. You better do the same.”
“In this life and all those to come.”