Chapter 51 – Alana
Chapter
Fifty-One
ALANA
Ihear the noise above us, the sound of something heavy being dropped to the floor. I look across at Lucia. Her eyes meet mine, and we share a look of half-fear and half-hope. This is either someone coming to rescue us, or someone finally coming to kill us.
I pray to God that it’s Alejandro.
Alejandro’s Uncle Carlos hears it too, glancing upwards at the ceiling and nodding. He doesn’t seem at all surprised. In fact, he seems pleased. He walks over to me and pushes his face against mine. He starts to laugh maniacally, and I wonder if he has finally become completely unhinged.
“Here’s your hero, puta!” He spits in my face. “Let’s see just how much he’s willing to sacrifice for his little whore, shall we?”
Carlos brought two more of his men into the basement with us a few hours ago, no doubt guessing that Alejandro was getting closer to finding out who betrayed him. He’s part of the inner circle, so he will have been kept up to date on everything.
The four other men in the room stand in the shadows with their guns trained on the door. I want to scream to whoever is about to come through it that they are walking into a trap, but Rafe stuffed a rag in my mouth earlier and it muffles the sound.
Carlos walks behind me, pressing the blade of his knife against my throat. The steel is cold, and I feel the biting scratch against my skin. My heartbeat thrums against it, aware that a simple slip would have me spilling my lifeblood all over the floor. This could all end right here, right now.
More noise, someone coming down the stairs. Someone who’s going to be facing four armed men.
Lucia lets out her own muffled scream and Carlos laughs again. He’s actually enjoying this, the crazy bastard.
A few seconds later, the door to the basement starts to open.
“I know you’re down there, Uncle,” Alejandro calls.
My heart almost bursts out of my chest at the sound of his voice.
Dear God, please let him and Lucia get out of this.
If I don’t make it, then so be it—but please just let me tell me how much I love him first. I scream again into the rag in my mouth, and Carlos presses the blade closer against my skin.
I feel the warmth of a trickle of blood running down my neck.
“Alana,” he calls then. “I’m here, princesa. I’m going to take you and Lucia home.”
Then he steps out of the shadows as he walks down the basement steps. I almost pass out at the sight of him. Is there any way he can save us from his lunatic uncle? There are four men facing him, each with a gun raised and trained.
“You came alone, Alejandro?” Carlos asked in surprise.
“Not quite,” Jax says from behind him as he steps out of the shadows, too.
“Ah, of course. Your loyal little puppy dog,” Carlos snarls.
“I want to keep this between family, Uncle. That’s what we all are, aren’t we? Why don’t you send these men out and we can talk? Just me, you and the girls? Just family?”
What is he talking about?
“You found out my little secret then?” Carlos snickers behind me.
I blink in shock. What secret?
“I did. But what I can’t figure out is what the hell any of this has to do with my fucking wife.” Alejandro snaps, unable to keep a lid on his anger any longer.
Carlos reaches down, pushing his hand beneath the collar of my t-shirt and squeezing my breast painfully, making me wince. He makes an appreciative noise. “I never used to know what you saw in her, nephew. But she does have great tits, I can’t deny.”
Alejandro takes a step closer. “Take your fucking hands off her!” he snarls. He’s furious now, and I suspect that was Carlos’s plan. To distract him, blind him with rage.
The four men with guns edge closer. “Careful, or they’ll take you out before you take another step, Alejandro. And once you are gone, who will protect your precious little princesa?” Carlos hisses, keeping the blade at my throat.
Alejandro holds up his hands in surrender, his eyes flashing across the room. “Okay. You win. I’m all yours. But please, Uncle, let my wife go. Let your daughter go,” he says as he looks across at Lucia.
Lucia blinks at me, her eyes wide in shock. I almost choke on the rag in my mouth. His daughter? What? Lucia is Carlos’s daughter? How can that be?
“Why would I do that, when they are the key to your downfall, Alejandro?”
I see the expression on Alejandro’s face change to one of pain and anguish. “Why do you want my downfall, Uncle?” he asks. “We’re family.”
“Why?” Carlos says with a maniacal grin. “You ask me why, you arrogant pup? Thirty years I have worked for your father. Doing his bidding. Cleaning up his messes. Killing on demand. Waiting for my time. Waiting for it to finally be my turn.”
I can hear the vitriol in his voice. He’s so mad his hand shakes, the knife brushing dangerously against my throat.
“Even when I did find happiness,” he goes on, “I had to let it go. I had to leave the woman I loved with that monster she was married to. I couldn’t have a family of my own.
No, that wasn’t my role, was it? I was the good worker bee.
The soldier ant. Always doing what your father asked of me.
Even when she had my child, I couldn’t go be with her. ”
Alejandro takes a step closer, frowning. “What do you mean? My father would never have stopped you having a family. He wanted that for you. Uncle Phillipe has Rachel and the girls. Why would he stop you from having that too?”
I feel Carlos’s grip loosen slightly. “It was different with me. He was different with me. Always watching me. Always controlling me. He always treated me like I was a mad dog he might have to put down. Maybe because of what happened once when we were kids. Did he ever tell you that I killed his mastiff, Biscotti?” he scoffs.
“No,” Alejandro says, his voice dark.
“I was eight. It was an accident. I only wanted to see if the dog was tough like the rest of us. We couldn’t get the blood out of the carpet.
Mama had to throw it away, and Papa was so mad.
None of them ever looked at me the same way again.
Especially Mateo. He thought I was broken.
That’s why he didn’t want me to have a family.
I would pass on my defects. My flaws. He was happy to use them, when it suited him though… ”
Alejandro continues to edge closer while his uncle rages. “Did you even tell him? About the woman you loved? About Lucia? Did he forbid you to be with them?”
“I knew he would!” Carlos rants, spittle flying from his mouth.
“He never liked me being happy. He never saw me as his equal. I was just his tame monster. I went along with it. I did what I thought I should for the sake of the family. And now, after all these years, after I gave up everything, he just hands it all over to you, his weak little boy? Am I supposed to accept that?”
I have no idea how much of what he’s saying is true.
I can’t believe that Mateo would not have wanted his beloved baby brother to be happy.
No, I suspect this is all a delusion, built up in his twisted mind over the years.
He’s convinced himself that he’s been mistreated and cheated out of what should be his.
“Why didn’t you speak up?” Alejandro asks.
“Nobody ever listens to me, you little fool! About anything. And now here we are. Not only do you have everything I’ve worked for, you want my daughter, too.
You want Lucia for your own. You are a greedy, selfish hijo de puta,” he snarls.
“Did you know that it was my idea to start this business in the first place?”
“No,” Alejandro shakes his head. He seems very calm. Too calm.
“It was. I was the one who was always prepared to do whatever it took. And did you know that I once killed a woman because she wouldn’t let me fuck her?”
He’s spiraling now, thoughts coming out randomly with no logic or connection.
He is unraveling, and he is dangerous. He laughs as his grip tightens again and the blade digs in further.
“I fucked her anyway, and then I slit her throat. Your father got pretty mad about that too, the bastard! Nothing I ever did was good enough for him!”
“No, I didn’t know that,” Alejandro says softly as he looks at me for the briefest moment. He gives a subtle nod as though to tell me this is all going to be okay. I so want to believe him, but a raging madman is spouting his delirium while he holds a knife to my throat.
“Did you think that you could walk in here and just take her back?” Carlos asks. “Although I’m not sure you’d want her now. She screamed for more when my men fucked her like the puta that she is.”
I wince at Carlos’s lie. Alejandro’s fists clench at his sides. Then he looks up at his uncle; his body vibrating with anger while his face remains calm. “Did you know that Jax is ambidextrous?” he asks calmly.
“What?” Carlos snaps in confusion. “What did you say?”
“Ambidextrous,” he repeats as bullets whizz past my ears. “As skilled with his right hand as he is his left.”
In a matter of seconds, the four armed men are on the floor with blood pooling from their heads. It happens so quickly, leaving us all stunned.
“You know he’s from Dallas, right?” Alejandro says.
“Quickest draw in the West,” Jax smirks as he walks down the stairs of the basement. With everyone’s attention on Alejandro, nobody noticed Jax slipping back into the shadows and drawing his weapons.
Alejandro looks between the knife at my throat and his uncle. “Please let her go, Carlos. You can have everything. The business, anything you want. I don’t want any of it without her.”
“Fuck you, hijo de puta,” he growls viciously. “I would die before I give her back to you.”
Alejandro takes a deep breath before he speaks. “Ahora.” Now.
I hear another whizz of a gunshot as Alejandro lunges forward, grabbing the blade of the knife before it slices through my throat. Carlos drops to the floor.
“Jax, get Lucia,” Alejandro shouts, and Jax starts jogging down the stairs and over to Lucia.
He drops to his knees in front of me. He pulls the rag from my mouth with his bleeding hand and I gasp for air.
Then he works quickly, cutting the ties at my ankles before moving behind me and cutting my wrists free.
My arms burn with the pain of a thousand needles as I pull them toward my body.
Then he is on his knees before me again.
Brushing my hair from my face as the blood from the wound on his hand drips down his arm.
“Alana. I’m so sorry.”
I wrap my arms around his neck, clinging to him as though I’ll never let him go. I sob against his shirt, the shock and trauma of everything that’s happened finally catching up with me.
He runs his good hand over my hair and presses his mouth to my ear.
“I love you so much,” he breathes. “I need you to know that I have never regretted marrying you. Not even for a single breath. I would give up everything I have ever known if it meant not losing you. I couldn’t bear the thought of you being held prisoner, remembering that last conversation.
I love you, Alana, more than life itself. ”
My heart swells in my chest, and my sobs grow even more persistent. “I know, Alex. I love you too. I never doubted you. And I knew you’d come for me, for us.”
Then he is standing, lifting me into his arms. “I’ve got you, princesa. You’re safe now,” he says soothingly into my ear.
“What about you?” I ask. “Your hand?”
“It’s nothing,” he assures me.
We both look over at Lucia. She’s in Jax’s arms and has her head buried against his shoulder. “You okay, kid?” Alejandro asks.
She looks up at him. “Yes,” she sniffs as tears roll down her face. “What the hell Alejandro? That monster was my father?”
His face darkens. “We can talk about that later. Come on. Let’s get home.”
I nestle my head against his neck, breathing in his incredible scent and feeling such relief at being close to him again. Being in his arms, surrounded by his strength, feels as calming as being wrapped in a warm blanket. We could be anywhere in the world right now. I’m already home.