Chapter 36 – Alejandro
Chapter
Thirty-Six
ALEJANDRO
Iwait until she is asleep, her perfect face finally at rest. I allow myself a few more moments to look at her, to hold her. To enjoy the closeness. It feels like we see so little of each other these days, and I know she’s missing me.
Fuck, I feel the same, but there’s no getting away from it. I need to do what must be done, and if that cuts into time with my wife, we’ll both have to deal with it.
On the whole she’s been great about it. But I know, especially since Kelsey left, that it hasn’t been easy for her. That prick Bobby Conroy didn’t help and threw yet another roadblock in our way at a time when I needed to be focused on my family and our enemies.
The other day, she called me to ask if it was me who’d blocked the asshole being involved in the shelter.
She caught me right in the middle of another interesting but ultimately doomed conversation down at the docks.
This has been a regular occurrence recently, a parade of sad sacks tied to the chair waiting to get their balls sliced off.
Together with my men, I have been raining terror on the streets of LA.
The word is out that anybody who knows anything about the attempted hit on my father must come forward or pay the price.
I’ve also let it be known that if someone willingly provides information we need, they will also be handsomely rewarded.
Despite offering both the carrot and the fucking stick, or in this case the long nose pliers, nobody has said a damn thing.
I don’t especially enjoy torturing people, but I have no qualms at all about doing it when it’s necessary. I’d never ask my men to do a job I wasn’t willing to do myself.
But…I will admit it is all starting to weigh on me. I still have the legitimate Montoya business to run, which is a full-time job by itself, in addition to tracking down the shooter and whoever paid them.
I gently slide Alana’s head from my arms, lay it on the pillow.
Her curls spill over the sheets, and she murmurs my name in her sleep.
Fuck. She really is perfection. I didn’t mean to come home and do what we just did.
I had in mind a romantic dinner, maybe a movie.
Something to try and remind her of what our normal life can look like.
If we ever have such a thing as a normal life.
Instead, I ended up fucking her in her perfect ass, that vibrator in her perfect pussy. Fuck, the sounds she made! She is spectacular. I suspect that even now, while she sleeps, I could let my hand drift below the sheets, down between her legs, and find her already wet…
No. I snatch my hand away as it starts to do exactly that.
That would lead to more sex, and while I’m already hard at the thought, I don’t have the time. We’ve spent some quality time together, admittedly the filthy kind, and now I need to leave her in peace and get back to work.
I climb silently out of the bed and dress in some sweatpants and a T-shirt.
I give her one last glance before I leave, and my heart contracts at the sight of her.
Arms splayed out wide, plump lips parted, one rounded breast spilling from the covers to tempt me.
I’ve never seen anything quite so beautiful, so sweet.
Despite her high sex drive and her willingness to try anything in the bedroom, there really is a kind of innocence to my wife.
She’s good and pure, and that sometimes gives me pause for thought.
Makes me wonder if she’d have had a better life away from all the Montoya drama.
No, I tell myself, shaking my head as I leave the room. I’m being self-indulgent. She loves me as much as I love her, and this is the kind of love you can never turn your back on.
I pad quietly down the stairs, seeing a light on in Lucia’s room. Magda is done for the day, and the house feels quiet and settled. Guards are outside, and all is well. We’re safe.
Except I never feel like we’re safe these days, and I won’t until that shooter is found.
I head into my office and immediately boot up my laptop.
I deal with the business emails I’ve been ignoring, give Samuel some instructions, and read through the various reports that Jax has sent to me.
More and more, we’re convinced that my father’s attack was an inside job.
There are too many factors for it to be coincidence.
Jax has been doing deep dives on everybody, including those closest to me.
Ones I trust with not only my life, but the lives of those who mean the world to me.
The guards at Phillipe’s house, my aunt, and my mama.
The team my father uses in San Diego. Even my own hand-picked elite, Hank and Hugo.
Not even Jacob and Magda are spared Jax’s probe.
It makes me feel guilty, investigating their lives like this. But not guilty enough to stop. I can trust no one outside my family.
So far, nothing, which is both a relief and a frustration.
My phone buzzes, and predictably enough it’s another pile of messages landing from my Uncle Carlos.
All of them basically say the same thing: why haven’t you found the man who tried to kill your father?
He might use different words and ask different questions, but at the heart of it, he’s furious with me.
For being away when my papa needed me, for failing to track down the shooter.
I sigh and lean back in my chair. My back is sore, my head is pounding, and for fuck’s sake, I kind of agree with him. I always say I’m doing everything I can, but am I doing enough?
My father is still lying in his hospital bed, with a long recovery ahead of him.
He almost fucking died. Someone, somewhere is laughing at us and possibly planning a further attack.
Papa is guarded in hospital, but no system is perfect.
What if the shooter comes back to finish the job?
What if his employers change tack, and go for someone else instead?
How could we survive it if my mama was taken, or Alana?
Even my asshole Uncle Carlos might not be safe, and he’s blood.
I need to protect him. I need to protect everyone.
So far, I’m doing a shit job of it. And today I came home early and fucked my wife in the ass. It was great, but I really didn’t have the time. I should have stayed at the hotel. It’s impossible for me to be around her and not want to fuck her. She is the ultimate distraction.
I stare at the framed photo of her on my desk. It was taken while we were away at my beach house, and she is radiant. I soften, reach out, and stroke the picture. “Ti quiero, princesa,” I murmur.
I love her. But to keep her safe, to keep everyone safe, I need to get my head out of my ass, or hers, and really focus. I can’t rest until I’ve finished this job. I will work through the night, this night and all the others, until I succeed.