Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 118333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
My head was spinning, too full with information. I was stolen from my real mother. Who she was, I had no idea. And my father . . . was not my father.
I was payment to him for a debt? I was nothing more than a pet? A thing he bought and raised, crafted to be his perfect cartel daughter?
I could see the happiness on Diego’s face. The satisfaction that he had been the one to tell me this secret. And he had shot my father . . . removing the only person who could have given me answers. The only person able to tell me the person I really was, who my parents were.
“I hate you,” I spat out, and pushed him from me with my hands on his chest. Diego fell back a few steps, and his smug smile melted away. He struck out and sliced his hand across my face. My head snapped back with the force of the blow. Before I even had a chance to recover, he slammed me back against the wall, knocking the air from my lungs. “You think I don’t know you’ve spread your legs for the Nazi?” His words quickly cleared my head. I met his eyes. They were furious. “You think I don’t know the great White Prince of the Ku Klux Klan killed Vincente?” My pulse and heart raced in one fast beat.
But this time it was my turn to smile. Diego would kill me. I knew that. I had nothing left to lose. “I love him,” I said boldly, and felt myself calm as those words came from my mouth. I leaned in close. “He is everything to me, and no one, not a single person, could ever compare.”
“He’s dead,” Diego threatened. I rejoiced that my words had hit their intended target. The triumph was short lived. “The Klan are here in Mexico. We are readying to destroy the Hangmen. And I’ll be the one to take that cunt out.”
Instant fear for Tanner suffocated my heart. “You are no match for him.” I looked him up and down, seeing him for the wicked man he was. “In any way.”
Diego’s fist flew out, and he punched me. He hit me over and over until my ears rang and the world tilted. I could taste nothing but blood in my mouth. Diego gripped my hair and dragged me through the hacienda. I tried to take in what was happening. Bodies littered the floor. I saw Carmen’s lifeless body on the mezzanine outside my rooms. Diego opened the door and threw me inside. I hit the floor with a thud. “I’ll be back for you,” Diego promised. “And I’ll enjoy every minute of killing you, princesa. Every last fucking minute.” His threat washed over me as he headed to the door.
“Where is Charley?” I demanded to know. “Where is her father? He won’t tolerate this! He will come for you, Diego!”
Diego turned around. “Bennett is dead by my own hand. The kill ordered by your father weeks ago. He was no longer effective as a distributor. We gave another Californian outlet the contract.” I stopped breathing. “And as for your best friend . . . she is long gone.”
“Dead?” I asked, breathlessly.
“No. But she’ll wish she was.” The door slammed and the lock turned. I was left alone. I let the tears flow. I let the choking grief and pain tear me apart, until I shook with hurt and my chest was raw from too many hitched breaths. My face throbbed from Diego’s fists, but I crawled to the tapestry that hid the underground tunnel. When I pulled back the tapestry, nothing but brick wall greeted me.
A dark kind of acceptance settled over me as the last hope of freedom was ripped from my hands. Pulling myself to my feet, I staggered across my room until I reached my bed. The sheets were fresh. Carmen had prepared my room for my return. Sitting on the edge of my bed, I opened my drawer and took out my secret box. I opened it, and warmth filled my empty heart when I brought out the cotton ring Tanner had given me.
As I lay on the bed, I slipped the ring on my finger and pictured his smiling face. Diego could come and take me. He could kill me as slowly and as painfully as he wanted. But I would die with Tanner’s ring on my finger and my promise to him in my heart. So that if we ever met in the afterlife, he would know I’d been with him until the end. Dying with the hope of marrying him still firmly in my heart.
Somehow.
Someday.
I would see him again.
Chapter Thirteen
Tanner
My head ached like I had a hangover. My mind was foggy, too full of a thick mist I couldn’t clear. My mouth was dry; my tongue felt swollen. I moved my legs and arms, but they were numb and lethargic. And the minute I tried to get up, something held me in place. My heart started racing, like it knew what was wrong before my mind could catch up. I opened my eyes, the light from outside slicing through my head like a blade.