جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 40

Who the hell are you?"The voice hit like a bullet to the spine. I froze, my hand still reaching for the railing of the Miami Royal Yacht Club docks. I turned slowly. Camila Cruz stood there, leaning against a pilaster with a cigarette dangling from her blood-red lips. She looked like a ghost that had clawed its way out of a shallow grave."Hi, cousin," she purred.The dockside bar was dead, but the back of my neck prickled. I pointed toward a corner booth, shadowed and smelling of stale brine. Camila didn't rush. She moved with the jagged grace of a junkie, sliding into the seat opposite me. Her oversized shades and silk headscarf were a pathetic attempt at a disguise."What are you doing in Miami?" I kept my voice a low snarl. "You're supposed to be dead or drying out.""Can't a girl check on her favorite relative? There are only three Cruzes left, and Eduardo is halfway in the dirt.""You ignored my existence for twenty years. Now you're showing up? You're setting me up for a hit,

"Is the contract inked?" I demanded, slamming the double doors of the boardroom open.The air in the Rivera Global Headquarters was thick with expensive tobacco and the stench of anxiety. My soldiers had started the strategy session without me. I was three hours behind—a cardinal sin for a man who ran his family with a stopwatch—but the memory of the morning’s heat in the Manhattan residence was worth every black mark on my reputation. At the far end of the table, Rafael was mid-sentence, tapping a gold pen against a map of the Miami shipping docks. Six capos turned their heads in unison, their expressions hardening as I took my place.Rafael shook his head, his jaw tight. "The old man claimed a sudden collapse. Eduardo Cruz is playing the 'deathbed' card again to dodge the signature.""Eduardo didn't send word to me." What was the snake coiled up for? I’d met every demand of the Cruz family, including taking his 'granddaughter' off his hands. "He’s stalling.""Can the cousin sign in

"You’re eating for three, Lanka. Slow down."Valentina’s celebration for the coming heir wasn't the blowout I’d braced for. She’d kept the circle tight—Rivera blood, the Torres associates, and a handful of survivors from the old neighborhood. I’d considered every exit strategy. Faking a migraine. Claiming a shipment needed my eyes at the docks. Anything to avoid the stench of baby powder and the weight of what I was hiding. But I showed up. Santiago and I were still locked in a cold war, a silence so thick it felt like a physical bruise, yet we had to play the happy couple for the capos. Acting like a Cruz was a nightmare; acting like everything was perfect was a slow-motion execution. I spent the hour drifting away from him like a ghost.Valentina and Gabriel had turned their Rivera Manhattan Residence into a monochromatic spread of white and navy. A fortress of lace. Her bakery provided enough sugar to rot the teeth of every soldier in the city. I didn't mingle. I anchored myself to

"Expect him to be a killer, not a saint."The car was a tomb on the ride back to the Rivera Manhattan Residence. Santiago gripped the wheel until his knuckles went white. A father. He was going to be a father. The concept hadn't been real until the doctor tossed that plastic box on the bed. Now, it was a physical weight in his chest. He wanted this. He wanted a son to inherit the Rivera throne, but someone who wouldn't have to bleed as early as he did. He’d be different from his own old man. He’d provide the loyalty he never felt. He finally understood the look in Gabriel’s eyes when he looked at Mateo Jr.But the mother? Lanka was a parasite. A grifter who’d replaced Camila in his bed and in the marriage contract. He was a complication wrapped in a beautiful, lying shell. The hit on the Cruz family—the legal hit, at least—would have to wait. The divorce papers were trash now. He’d keep the man around until the heir was safe and a better influence could be found. But was living with h

"Tell me you’re lying, Daniel."Santiago didn’t turn around. He stood by the desk, his good arm braced against the edge. The air in the office was cold, heavy with the scent of gun oil. I stood by the settee, my heart hammer-drilling into my ribs. The walk in the park had been too quiet. I’d come back expecting the usual silence, the video games, the tension. Instead, I found a crime scene of a conversation.Daniel Brooks didn't flinch. He never does. He just adjusted his shoulder holster and looked at Santiago like a priest giving a final confession. "The money trail is clean, but the mouth isn't. I've got a soldier in a dark room who says otherwise."Santiago finally turned. His face was a mask of cold granite. He looked at me, and I felt the heat of the bullet wound on his shoulder as if it were my own. When he collapsed on that sidewalk in Milan, I felt my world stop. I loved him. I’d spent months running from it, but seeing his blood on the stone had killed the lie. I loved a man