Page 13 of Ashes

Today should be described as one of the happiest days of my life, but unfortunately, fate hadn’t dealt me with the greatest card.

Or should I say my father hadn’t.

He’d sealed my destiny when he’d decided to put his needs for prestige and recognition at the top of his priorities instead of protecting his family.

Instead of protectingme.

Growing up, I admired my father. He was loving, hard-working, and the best at his job. He’d worked for a small company for years before he’d been offered a promotion to work for one of the most influential families.

As a ten-year-old child, being moved into a bigger house and attending a fancier school with the best teachersthe system could provide just meant I was one step closer to my dream of becoming a doctor.

Then, two weeks ago, I’d learned that my father had lied to me my entire life because when he got that famous promotion, everything went downhill.

Over the years, greed slowly consumed his intentions and he started skimming money from offshore accounts set up for his employers’ moreprivatebusiness endeavors.

What’s worse was that he firmly believed they wouldn’t find out a few thousand were missing from their billions of dollars stashed away.

As if cartels don’t closely track the ins and outs of their money.

But there was one thing my father learned a little too late.

You didn’t cross the Barreras.

When they confronted him, he chose the easy road for him and blamed it on the authorities. Theywerein fact relentless in wanting to bring down the Barreras for the last twenty years, but they’d never found enough evidence to bring them in. So it couldn’t have been them.

How did a twenty-six-year-old emergency medicine resident know all of this?

Well, my father not only sucked at covering his tracks, he also wasn’t very aware of his surroundings when he spoke on the phone.

One night, after an already long and draining day at thehospital, I came home to find out that my father wasn’t the man I thought he was.

I never thoughtmyfather would turn out to be a coward.

My relationship with my parents wasn’t the best by any means, but I always let go of their deceits, forgave them, and moved on. What else was I supposed to do?

They were my family.

Yes, I had Kenna and Esra, but they weren’t blood. Family was family, even if they ended up being the people who’d hurt me the most.

But hearing him give me up so easily to pay his debt shifted something in me. That decision became one too many to forgive.

The course of my life was upset by simply overhearing a phone call where I’d discovered my father had been living a double life.

I could’ve said no, but who else would’ve taken on the responsibility? I couldn’t let my mother and sisters bear the repercussions of my father’s actions, let alone allow the Barreras to kill my father for betraying them.

So here I was, about to marry the son of the head of the Moroccan cartel to fix my father’s mistake.

A soft knock came to the door.

“Sisi, are you ready?” my mother asked, walking into the small room where I was getting ready for the ceremony.

“As ready as I can be.” I tipped my chin up and triedmimicking her smile to soothe the worry etching the two deep lines on her forehead.

She sighed and caught my eye in the mirror. “I know this isn’t how you pictured your wedding, but I’m sure Mateo will take good care of you.”

Tap.

Tap. Tap. Tap.