Just hearing a woman’s name, especially since Cristiano struggled to get it out, put my nerves on edge. She had to be the reason. “Who’s Angelina?”
He slid his hand up my back, pulling me closer by my shoulders. “It’s weird to say her name aloud after this long. She was the daughter of the head of our household staff. I had no time for girls, but she worked around the house a lot and was the kind of beautiful everyone noticed. I had a harmless crush—at least, it was harmless until my father noticed it.”
His hand became clammy in mine—or maybe I was the one sweating. I didn’t want to ask, afraid I already knew the answer, but I had to. “What happened to her?”
“The last time I stood up to my dad, he didn’t beat me, and he didn’t involve Diego.”
“He beat her?” I guessed.
“I wish he had.” The haunted look in his eyes turned the pit in my stomach into a sinking rock of pure dread. “I wish he’d just fucking killed her.”
The back of my neck bristled. To hear Cristiano, champion of innocent women, admit that of all things . . . it said everything. “How come?”
“He sold her to a Ukrainian man for a couple hundred dollars. I was in the room. My father had me restrained as the man beat her, raped her, then took her. And then my father gave me the money.”
I covered my mouth with both hands as bile rose in my throat. I’d heard his parents were malicious from my father, Diego, Cristiano, and others—it was common knowledge, really. But it’d mostly been in the context of their business and plans to overthrow my family.
This, though?
It was a whole new level of evil. Just hearing the horrific words brought tears to my eyes. “I had no idea. I . . .” My chin trembled. “I’m so sorry, Cristiano. Diego never said anything.”
“He was young. I used to talk about it with him, so he knows—but he only witnessed the tip of the iceberg in person.”
Cristiano pinched the inside corners of his eyes and breathed through whatever was working its way through him.
I brought his palm to my heart. “You don’t have to be strong,” I said. “You’re strong for everyone, all the time, but you don’t have to be that way with me.”
“I was forced to be,” he said. “Our father wanted to make damn sure I understood that there was no room for attachments in this world.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I knew my father wouldn’t stop at that. Diego was getting older, and he’d start seeing more. I wanted to protect him from our parents, but also . . . I couldn’t live in a world where I knew that was happening. I had to get us out or stop them—and there was no getting out.”
I clenched my jaw to stem another wave of tears that heated the backs of my eyes. It broke my heart, after all the strife between the brothers, to hear that Cristiano had once wanted to shield Diego so badly, he’d put himself in harm’s way. And that Diego didn’t know it, or even the extent of his father’s business . . .
“As you know,” Cristiano continued, “your father, mine, and some of the other cartels in the area had formed a pact against human trafficking. So my parents would have to take them out in order to expand their business.”
“That’s why you chose my father to ask for help.”
“At that point, I was barely fifteen and had no resources. I used the money from Angelina’s buyer to get a gun and transportation to your house. I’d known Costa to be fair, and your grandfather to be ruthless—the right combination for what I needed.” Resolve entered his voice as his shoulders drew back. “I figured as soon as they heard what my parents were doing, and that they were planning to overthrow the other cartels to get away with it, they’d be my best shot at stopping them. And I was right—you know the rest.”
My heart raced. If there was no more to the story, then it didn’t have a happy ending. “But what happened to Angelina?”
He finally lowered his anguish-filled eyes to mine and shook his head.
“You don’t know?” I asked.
“I never found her. I’ve tried. I started in Ukraine and Russia. That’s where I met Tasha’s grandfather, whose family had built a strong network in both México and Russia over many generations. But even with their help, it’d been eight years since she’d been taken. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. But it led me to other men and women that society had cast aside and left to fend for themselves. From Eastern Europe, we went on to see more of the world.” He took a breath and resolution firmed his jaw. “I’m certain Angelina’s dead by now. I hope she is. Some nights I lie awake thinking of everything she endured—all because of me.”