CHAPTER 3
ISABEL
Stefano Duarte could be considered beautiful. If you found sharks beautiful. The notoriously sociopathic head of the cartel was sleek, powerful, and viciously lethal. He bared his teeth in a charming smile, but it didn’t reach his glittering black eyes.
They roved over the half-a-dozen men in the room before fixing on me. I shrank back a step when he pierced me with that shark’s stare.
“Isabel.” He said my name with warmth, as though we were at one of my family’s lavish parties. But I’d seen him turn violent in the blink of an eye, and I knew his jovial façade was an affectation. “It’s good to see you. The last living Vera.”
My breath caught. He’d just admitted that my brother was dead in a jarringly casual tone.
My knees shook. Not because I grieved for Daniel—I’d spoken the truth when I’d told Sebastián that my life would be better without him—but because Stefano’s full, lethal focus was fixed on me.
I licked my suddenly dry lips and struggled to force a plea from my parched throat. “I didn’t know about any of it,” I rasped. “I swear. I didn’t even know that Arturo was at my house until he forced his way into the panic room with me.” I still barely understood what’d happened other than the fact that Daniel had taken part in an attempted coup, and he’d paid with his life, just like Arturo.
A single black brow rose to Stefano’s uncharacteristically mussed hair. Freshly returned from battle, he wasn’t quite as composed as usual. His tight black shirt was torn, and a red smear marked his cheek, although he wasn’t cut. I wondered if it was my brother’s blood. My stomach lurched, and I swallowed hard.
“And why should I believe you?” he asked, his voice deadly calm. “Your brother took Carmen from me. He thought he could keep me from the woman I love.” A few sharp intakes of breath hissed through the room. No one present thought Stefano Duarte capable of love. But the maddened glint in his eyes betrayed a flicker of true emotion: something between burning rage and desperate desire.
A shiver raced through my body. The man truly was insane. I pitied the woman who’d captured his obsessive affection.
And he thought I might have something to do with her abduction. He suspected that I’d played a role in stealing his love away.
I parted my lips to defend myself, but no sound escaped my constricted throat. I shook my head in silent panic, my stomach flipping at my inability to plead for my life. A tremor took hold of me, my entire body quaking. I’d never been exposed to this side of the cartel. Stefano Duarte had never fixed me with his incisive, soul-shaking gaze.
A soft whimper escaped me when a large, warm hand spanned my lower back. I flinched, but the pressure remained sure and steady, offering support to my shaky frame.
“Just look at the girl, Stefano.” Sebastián’s deep voice held a harsh rumble. Anger?
I glanced up at my savior, a massive pillar of muscular support standing at my side. I felt very small in his shadow, but he was using his bulk to shield me rather than intimidate. Confusion threaded through the haze of fear that blanketed my mind. Sebastián had been strangely kind to me since taking me out of the panic room. He’d barely spoken to me on the journey from my estate to Stefano’s high rise in the center of Mexico City, but he hadn’t been cruel, either.
His dark brows drew together, and his chin tipped back in challenge as his dark eyes clashed with Stefano’s shark-like stare. “Arturo hurt her to force his way into the panic room with her. He admitted it before Raúl killed him. Isabel was caught in a firefight and tried to hide.” His fingers flexed against my back, and I found myself leaning into his strength. “She’s naïve and scared. You know she’s never taken part in cartel politics. You’ve exacted your revenge and spilled enough blood today. You got Carmen back. Leave Isabel out of this.”
Stefano’s pitiless eyes flicked from Sebastián to me and back again. “Since when do you care about a Vera?” he asked, the barest hint of implication in his mild tone. Sebastián was aligning himself with me. With my family. The family that’d just tried to take control of Stefano’s cartel.
Sebastián’s hand firmed on my back as his muscles flexed with barely suppressed anger. On my behalf? I didn’t understand his sudden, fierce protectiveness toward me, but I was grateful for it.
“She’s innocent.” The words were little more than a warning growl.
Stefano’s head canted to the side, and he studied Sebastián in unnerving silence for several interminable moments. Finally, he nodded. “Fine. Isabel is innocent. I’ll take you at your word, Sebastián.” The last was heavy with warning. If I wasn’t innocent and Stefano found out, he’d hold the older man responsible for my actions.