Calm pervaded him, and his oft-black eyes were closer to melted-chocolate brown just then. “I can’t make you that promise,” he said, the heavy words landing at our feet.
I balked. “You just made me say it. Why can’t you?”
“Because I will follow you.”
Frowning, I shifted and placed my other hand over his—so we made a fist like a heart. “What do you mean you’ll follow me, Cristiano?”
“Into death.”
With a sinking feeling, my eyes fell to our grasp on each other. I could barely wrap my head around what he was saying. I squeezed his hand, more out of a need to hold onto something rather than to offer comfort. “Don’t say that. You wouldn’t . . .”
His chocolate-brown gaze hardened to an opaque, unreachable void. “Nobody would get away with hurting you. I’d raise hell to avenge you, and if that meant risking my life to achieve it, I wouldn’t hesitate.”
“Cristiano—”
“I wouldn’t be allowed in Heaven, but I swear on all that’s holy—I’d rattle the gates until they let me have you.”
Goose bumps sprang over my skin with a new kind of dread. He meant it—and there was no changing his mind. My death would mean Cristiano’s.
I could not die for my love—or I would take him down with me.
* * *
Sometime around dawn, a firm, wooden knock came on our bedroom door. Cristiano left the warmth of our bed, and as I began to drift back to sleep, he roused me.
“Come,” he said, a thread of panic in his voice. “Get dressed.”
“What?” I opened my eyes and blinked away sleep. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Max.”
We got dressed in a flash, and I tied my hair up into a bun as Cristiano and I hurried down to the ground floor. He opened the front door for me, and we stepped outside.
Dawn broke on the bruise-colored mountains, the trees lime green as the rising sun hit their leaves. The peaceful vista of the sprawling, sleeping Badlands was disrupted by a revving engine. One of the security vehicles always posted at the Badlands’ front gates barreled up the side of the mountain.
I shielded my eyes, squinting ahead. The truck kicked up a dust cloud as we walked down the front steps. When we stopped at the end of the drive, Alejandro, Eduardo, and Barto appeared next to us.
“Is that . . .” Alejandro started.
The car stopped, and one of Cristiano’s uniformed gatekeepers jumped out of the driver’s side before hurrying around to the side door. “¡Ayuda!” he called for help, then wrenched open the door. As the passenger stumbled out, all four men sprinted forward.
The sun peeked out, shining down on the man as if he’d fallen from the skies. Dragging a foot and with a swollen face the color of the purple mountains at his back, he was almost unrecognizable. Except for the glass eye. “Max,” I whispered.
He fell to his knees and curled his fingers into the grass. Cristiano reached him first and fell to Max’s side.
I glanced over my shoulder. My father stood in the doorway along with half the staff, hands over their mouths. “Call Doctor Sosa.”
Max pushed himself off the ground to sit back on his heels. “Agua,” he pleaded.
As I walked forward, I called back, “And get water—now!”
“You escaped?” Cristiano asked as I reached them.
With a grimace, Max shook his head. “They . . . let me go,” he rasped.
Cristiano glanced up at me. “But why?”
“Truce,” Max said hoarsely.
Truce? I was immediately doubtful. That didn’t make sense. “Why would they ever call a truce?” I asked.
Max’s face contorted as he swallowed and formed fists against the ground. “Leave their business alone.”
“Why would I?” Cristiano asked. His anger sent a tremor through the air. “Because they returned a man they took? And tortured? I have even more reason to destroy them.”
“They’ll get out . . .” Max said. “They’ll stop.”
“Stop what?” I asked.
“Trafficking.”
Cristiano froze. He hadn’t expected that answer, and neither had I. It was what he’d wanted—to end their business. But could we trust that information? Concern also registered on Cristiano’s face.
Jaz delivered a bottle of water and stood back, crossing her thin arms over her stomach. Max drank it down in one go, tossed the empty plastic aside, and tried to get up.
Cristiano rose and helped him. Watching Max struggle to stand on his own two feet was painful to watch, and Cristiano must’ve felt the same. “There’s no truce,” he said. “BR will pay for this, my friend. They’ve done too much damage—”
Max held up a hand to stop him and wiped his mouth on his sleeve before accepting another water bottle. As he cracked open the twist top, he managed, “Diego.”
The name sent chills down my spine. Instinctively, I reached for Cristiano as he opened his arm and pulled me to his side. “He had a part in this?” Cristiano asked.