28. Carmen
Chapter 28
Carmen
D ays have blurred into a shapeless void, marked only by the dwindling light through the high, barred window at the end of each day. No one has come. Not the guards. Not Dr. Alvarado. Not even my father.
I’m not sure I want to know what that means, but the possibilities circle my mind anyway, like unrelenting vultures.
They’re waiting, letting me rot here until I go mad enough to fall back in line.
Melissa didn’t find Dante. Worse, Dante didn’t care when he found out.
Lacruz knows the truth, and now he’s tormenting me.
I rest a hand against my stomach, fingers splayed protectively over the barely-there curve. My child. Dante’s child. The only thing left that I’m sure is real.
They want to take the baby away from me. They want to hurt us.
What is there left to do?
I close my eyes and let my mind drift to a dream I have no right to hold onto—a room bathed in golden light, somewhere far away, warm and safe. A garden that smells of familiar rosemary and warm earth.
I imagine sitting beneath the shade, my child laughing as they run barefoot through the grass. Strong hands settle on my shoulders from behind, familiar lips pressing a kiss to the side of my neck.
As sweet as it feels in the moment, it hurts like a bitch when I shake myself out of it. I swallow the lump in my throat, forcing myself not to cry.
I’ve done that enough.
All that’s left to do now is?—
BANG.
My tiny little world erupts.
Gunfire. Shouting.
A shrieking alarm splits through the walls, echoing down the stone corridors.
My heart hammers against my ribs as I scramble upright. An attack. Someone is attacking the mansion.
A foolish, reckless hope flares to life in my chest.
Dante.
I let myself believe it, just for a moment. That he’s come for me. That he’s tearing through these halls with fury in his eyes, the way I remember, the way I dreamed.
Footsteps pound outside my cell.
The door swings open.
And Hernando Lacruz steps inside.
Fuck.
The air is sucked from my lungs.
He fills the doorway, broad-shouldered and imposing, dressed in pristine white that looks almost blue under this shitty lighting.
I was thirteen the last time I saw him, just another man brought to heel by my father. Ambition had been evident in his gaudy rings, envy written in the wrinkles of his plastered-on smiles.
It doesn’t look like he’s aged a day.
Could be the botox, though.
“Well,” he murmurs, stepping forward as the cell door slams shut behind him. “Looks like I finally get to meet my future wife.”
I press myself back against the far wall to get away from him. “What the hell is going on out there?”
Lacruz steps further into the cell, his movements slow and deliberate, like a predator savoring the moment before the kill.
The dim light sharpens the lines of his face, deepening the creases at the corners of his mouth, the hollows beneath his sharp cheekbones. His dark eyes rake over me with something colder than disdain.
“I expected more,” he murmurs, ignoring my question entirely.
I say nothing.
His sneer deepens. “Amos always spoke of his daughter with such reverence. A perfect, untouched jewel of the Cartel, worthy of strengthening our empire. And yet?—”
His gaze drops to my stomach, the disgust in his expression twisting like a knife. “You are nothing but a common whore.”
The word slams into me, but I refuse to flinch.
I lift my chin instead, forcing steel into my spine, into my voice. “You know nothing about me.”
“You do not deny it?” His lips curl. “I had hoped the rumors were merely that. But your father couldn’t keep you hidden from me forever. That alone was enough for me to realize the truth: his daughter is a disgrace.”
He steps closer, the air between us growing tight, suffocating.
“Tell me, did you think that I would still take you as my bride?”
The bile rises in my throat, bitter and burning. “I never wanted to marry you.”
Lacruz chuckles, low and humorless. “No, I imagine you didn’t. You were too busy spreading your legs for an Italian.”
My stomach twists, but I force myself not to react. I won’t give him the satisfaction.
He studies me for a long, weighted moment. Then, with calculated ease, he reaches into his pocket and withdraws a single silver key. He turns it between his fingers, the dim light catching on its edges.
My throat tightens.
He holds the key to my cell.
He’s the only thing standing between me and the world beyond these walls. And he knows it.
Lacruz leans in, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Tell me, Carmen, what should I do with you?”
My body tenses, but he doesn’t lunge for me. He only stands there, watching me like a man savoring his last sip of wine before crushing the glass beneath his heel.
“There’s too much chaos upstairs,” he says as if discussing the weather. “No one will come looking for you. Not until it’s far too late.”
The words slither over my skin like a death sentence.
My fingers tighten into fists, nails biting into my palms. If I have to claw my way out of this, I will.
“You could have been great, Carmen. Respected. Instead, you chose to be nothing.” He tsks, shaking his head in mock disappointment. “I wonder, did the Italian even want you? Or did he merely enjoy ruining what was meant to be mine?”
I barely hear him anymore.
Something shifts in the shadows behind him.
My body stills, my spine straight, and suddenly, I know I am no longer alone.
A laugh bubbles up, slipping free before I can stop it. Light and breathless, almost hysterical.
Lacruz freezes. His dark eyes narrow. “What the hell is so funny?”
I meet his gaze, smiling now. A slow, knowing smile. “You’re not going to do anything to me.”
Confusion flickers across his face before rage overtakes it. He opens his mouth, ready to snarl another insult?—
But then a presence materializes behind him, solid and deadly.
Dante steps from the shadows, his expression carved from stone, his body thrumming with barely restrained violence. He looks like something out of a myth, like the wrathful god.
And he is furious.
Dante steps forward, his presence swallowing the room, but his voice is unbearably calm.
“Carmen,” he murmurs, his dark eyes locking onto mine. “Are you hurt?”
My lips part, but before I can answer, Lacruz spins on him, snarling, “Who the hell do you think you are?”
Dante tilts his head, considering him with a smirk that drips with venom. Then, as if this moment is nothing more than a casual introduction.
“Dante Grasso.” He pauses for effect, before delivering the killing blow. “The father of Carmen’s child.”
Silence crashes over the cell.
For a second, Lacruz just stares at him. And then he laughs, shaking his head in dark amusement.
“Well, well. You’ve just saved me the trouble of hunting you down, Grasso.”
Dante smirks. “Funny. I was about to say the same thing.”
Then he moves.
It happens too fast—I barely have time to flinch before Dante’s fist slams into Lacruz’s jaw. The crack of bone meeting bone echoes off the walls.
Lacruz stumbles back, spitting blood onto the grimy floor, but he recovers quickly, pulling a knife from his belt.
Dante is faster.
He dodges the blade with terrifying ease, stepping into Lacruz’s space and driving his knee into his gut.
Lacruz grunts, doubling over, but he’s a seasoned fighter. He lashes out with the knife again, forcing Dante to twist away. The blade slices through Dante’s sleeve, a thin line of red blooming against his forearm.
I suck in a breath, pressing myself against the cold stone wall, helpless to do anything but watch.
Dante doesn’t even flinch.
He catches Lacruz’s wrist in a brutal grip, twisting until the knife clatters to the floor. Then, with deadly precision, he slams his elbow into Lacruz’s face. The older man staggers, blood spurting from his nose.
Dante doesn’t let up.
He’s relentless, his movements smooth and controlled as he beats Lacruz down with an eerie kind of grace. He’s a predator playing with his prey. Lacruz tries to fight back, but it’s useless.
Dante is younger, faster, and furious.
The rage in his eyes is a storm, a violent tempest that Lacruz cannot escape.
I should look away. I should be terrified.
Instead, all I can feel is something breaking loose inside me.
I love him.
I love him so much it aches. He came.
Oh God, he actually came for me.
I never want to be apart from him again. Not now. Not ever.
Fuck. Mierda. Cazzo.
With one brutal uppercut, Lacruz stumbles and falls to his knees, face brutally bloodied as Dante stalks forward. There’s nothing but malice in his expression as he stares down at the older man.
“You disgust me,” he spits at him. “Tell me, what was your plan here? To scare her, to take her. Kill her even?”
Lacruz spits out a glob of blood before sneering back at him. “She’s mine to do what I please with.”
Dante snatches out a hand to grasp the older man by the collar and wrenches him close to his face. “She was never yours, you sick fuck. You don’t deserve to breathe the same air as her.”
Then those oh-so-familiar black eyes find mine. “Look away, princess.”
I just have enough time to jerk my head to one side before there’s an ominous snap.
Hernando Lacruz’s body slumps to the floor.
Dante stands over Lacruz’s unmoving body, his chest heaving with each breath. His fists, bruised and bloodied, hang loosely at his sides as the anger seeps out of him, draining away like a receding tide.
But something else takes its place. Hesitation. Fear.
Not of Lacruz. Not of the blaring alarm or the gunshots above.
Of me.
He turns to me slowly, his sharp, brutal edges softening as his dark eyes search mine. He approaches carefully, his hands slightly raised, as if afraid I might recoil from him.
“Carmen?” he murmurs, “You’re safe now, okay? I’m not going to hurt you.”
Safe.
I frown.
Of course, I’m safe. He’s here, isn’t he? Why would I think he would hurt me…
“I shouldn’t have done that, not in front of you.” He keeps talking as he takes another step forward. “I’m sorry.”
He’s worried I actually care about that?
“Y-you–”
“You don’t have to like me,” he says, carefully, gently. “You don’t have to forgive me. I don’t care if you never talk to me again. But I will get you out of here. I will make sure you and the baby get the care you need.”
He’s close now. Within reach.
I stare at him, at this man who stands before me with bruised knuckles and blood on his shirt. This man who killed another for the crime of wanting to claim me. This man came back to save me, even though we stood on opposite ends of the battlefield others have made.
“You absolute dickhead .”
And suddenly, I can’t hold back anymore.
I surge forward, closing the distance between us in an instant, and crush my lips against his.
Dante stiffens, just for a second, as if caught off guard. Then he melts into me, his hands coming up to cradle my face, his mouth moving against mine like this is the only thing keeping him breathing.
Maybe it is.
Maybe it’s the only thing keeping me breathing, too.