Page 66 of Cartel Viper (The Cartel Brotherhood #2)

Maddy

“Javi, would you stop?!”

I swat my husband’s hand away from the tres leches cake Tía Margherita brought over for our son’s fourth birthday.

Apparently, she was the favorite snack mom because she’d bring cakes to peewee soccer games whenever it was a kid’s birthday.

It meant a field full of kids went home on a sugar high at least once a month.

“If you won’t let me have this cream, then there’s a different kind I want.”

“You already had two servings of that today.”

Javi still wakes me often in the middle of the night despite having been together for eight years.

“ Mamá ?”

“ Sí , Josue.”

“Don’t let Papá eat all my cake like last year.”

We named our son after the grandfather Javi never got to meet. He was Luciana, Catalina, Luis, and Enrique’s father. Apparently, Javi bears the closest resemblance to him, and our little one is the spitting image of his father.

“ Papá didn’t eat all your cake, mijo .”

“But I heard you tell Papá that last year that he left you wanting more.”

Javi chokes on his laughter, and I’m glad Josue is too young to understand what he overheard. Otherwise, my face would be on fire.

We’re saved when Elle joins us at the table in the backyard. She’s trying to smother her giggle, but she can’t.

“Josue, Tío Enrique promised to take you to see your pony before everyone arrives. Are you ready?”

“ Sí, Tía !”

He runs as fast as his little legs can carry him toward Enrique, who swings him up onto his shoulders. He’s been like a surrogate grandfather to all the kids in Josue’s generation. He loves every moment of it. Elle isn’t far behind him as she joins them.

“Did you send that photo to Marco?”

“Yes. Salt in the wound, and I loved it.”

“It wasn’t enough that you got his pony eight years ago. Now you send him a photo of your son riding the pony that one sired. You just can’t let things go, can you?”

“Once I got my hands on you, chiquita , I didn’t let go.”

I turn in his embrace as he wraps his arms around my waist. I tilt my head back and accept his kiss that would be inappropriate if anyone was around to see us.

“I wouldn’t have let you, Daddy.”

I’m where I’ve always meant to be.

Pablo never expected he’d come face to face with the daughter of the man who stole his aunt’s happily ever after and left his cousins without a father in the heart of the Colombian underworld.

But the woman he nicknames reina —queen—needs him when she finds herself in the midst of a plot to destroy her and the Diazes in Cartel Prince .