Page 25 of Cryptic Curse (Bellamy Brothers #7)

DANIELA

I don’t talk about it. Not out loud. Not even to myself, not really. But sometimes, in the quiet moments—those strange, hollow stretches of time where nothing’s happening and everything hurts—I feel it.

The absence.

The knowing.

I’ll never have children. Not biologically. Not with my blood, my breath, my DNA tangled up in a tiny, perfect thing that calls me Mama.

Because of him.

He claimed I carried a bad gene. Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. I never saw any paperwork.

Now I see other women hold their babies and I smile, because that’s what you do. But inside, there’s a cold ache. Not jealousy, not even grief. Just emptiness.

Some part of me still wonders what it would’ve felt like—creating something soft and alive. Something that came from love, not control. A daughter I could have named after my grandmother. A son who might’ve had my father’s dark eyes, but without the cold rage behind them.

But he took that from me.

Maybe it sounds strange, but it’s the right to decide that I mourn. The right to hope.

And hope, when stolen young, doesn’t come back easily.

Vinnie and Raven are out. Belinda is with her nanny, Natalie.

I’m still holding the pint of Pink Cadillac ice cream I bought for her.

It’s beginning to melt, so I throw the container in my kitchenette sink.

I’ll buy her more tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

Back to culinary school. Back to what has become my life now.

A life that I love.

And now?

I have a lingering suspicion that my past is coming back to haunt me.

I scoff. It’s ridiculous that a woman who’s barely eighteen even has a past. But when you grow up the daughter of Jacinto Agudelo…

Well, my life was never normal.

Not even when my mother was alive.

Even then, looking back, I see she was grooming me. Not in a bad way. I still doubt she would’ve let my father do what he did with his friends and associates.

But she always taught me the importance of being pretty.

I had a wardrobe full of party dresses, and I loved every one of them.

White and pink socks with lace around the edges, beautiful patent leather Mary Jane shoes.

Very similar to the way Belinda dressed before Raven and I took her shopping for more casual clothes.

My hair was always brushed until it shone and then laced with white or pink ribbons.

I was the ultimate little girl. Perfect in her pink femininity.

When my mom passed away, my au pair let me pick out some of my own clothes. I discovered jeans, sweats, leggings. They were so comfortable, and I loved them.

My father didn’t seem to mind.

Not until I turned fifteen, when he began adding pieces to my wardrobe.

Slinky dresses that you might see on the red carpet at some Hollywood premiere. Never worn by a fifteen-year-old.

But that was my life.

And I?—

A knock on my door.

I look through the peephole, and there stands Hawk Bellamy, all tall, broad, dark-haired, and blue-eyed.

Without thinking, I whip the door open and launch myself into his arms.

I didn’t tell him to come to my private entrance, but I did tell him where it was.

“Everything’s okay now,” he murmurs into my hair.

He holds me for what seems like an eternity until he slowly disentangles himself from me.

He clears his throat. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, of course.”

I close and lock the door behind us. He looks around my living space. “This is really nice,” he says.

“Yeah, I love it.” I rub my arms against a sudden chill. “Although sometimes, I stay in the main house. In the guest room next to Belinda’s. Some days I like to be close to her.”

“Oh?”

“She’s become like a ch— I mean, little sister to me.”

I almost said child .

She’s the only child I’ll ever have.

“I’m sure you’ve been a good influence on her,” he says. “She hasn’t had it easy—” He shakes his head. “I’m so sorry. You haven’t had it easy either.” He rakes his fingers through his hair. “I swear to God, if your father weren’t already dead, I’d kill him myself.”

My cheeks warm.

“Same goes for McAllister,” he says. “For what he did to Belinda. For what his stupid son tried to do to Savannah. He deserved to be tortured to death, to suffer. That would have been a more just end than a clean gunshot.”

I look at Hawk’s handsome face.

I see the anger pulse through him. It’s not loud or messy. It’s the quiet kind, the kind that simmers just beneath the skin. His jaw tightens, a single muscle ticking. His ocean eyes—God, those eyes—darken to something stormy and sharp, like they’re trying to drown the rage before it drowns him.

He doesn’t speak. Not yet. Just breathes, slow and deliberate. But I feel it—his fury. It hums in the air between us, vibrating in my bones like a warning.

Still, I don’t look away. I can’t.

His anger is beautiful.

I never thought anger could be beautiful, but Hawk Bellamy makes it so.

Finally he speaks. “Let me take a look at the note you received.”

I pick it up from where I left it sitting on the small table in my kitchenette. A whiff of Pink Cadillac ice cream—strawberries and chocolate—drifts up from the sink where it still sits, melting in its container.

The paper seems to singe my skin as I hand the note to Hawk, our fingers slightly grazing, making a tingle flow through me.

“Can I see the envelope too?”

“I threw it out.”

“I need to see it, Daniela. It’s important.”

I’m not sure what he means, but I pull it out of my wastebasket and hand it to him. He takes a blue bandana out of his jeans pocket and ties it around his nose and mouth. Then he steps outside.

“You stay here,” he says. “Shut the door. I’ll knock when I’m done.”

“Uh…okay.” I do as he asks and shut the door, my heart racing. What’s he going on and on about?

A few moments later, he knocks on the door. The bandana is no longer on his face.

“What was all that about?” I ask.

“I had to determine that there was no powdered substance inside the envelope that you may have missed.”

I drop my jaw. “What? You mean like drugs?”

“Yeah, maybe drugs.” He purses his lips. “More likely anthrax.”

“That cow disease?”

“That cow disease is actually a potentially fatal bacterial infection, not just something livestock get. If someone wanted to hurt you quietly, anonymously, it would be a good way to do it.”

I blink at him, my mouth going dry. “Okay, well…that’s comforting.”

He doesn’t smile. Though he’s calmed down a bit from his anger. But only a bit.

“The envelope is clean. No powder or other substance.”

I heave a sigh of relief. “Great. So it’s just a creepy valentine with a threat written in ink.”

He tilts his head. “Do you recognize the handwriting by any chance?”

“No. But the message? ‘You locked the door, but you forgot—I have the key.’ That’s not something you write to an old friend.”

His brows draw together. “Have you ever gotten anything like this before?”

“Never. I mean, I’d get gifts from my father’s”—air quotes—“ friends from time to time. But nothing threatening. My father wouldn’t have put up with that.

” I shudder. “The only person who ever harmed me physically—at least, in a way that didn’t involve sex—was him .

No one else was allowed to lay a hand on me or even say anything indicative of violence. ”

Hawk scoffs. “So even he had his limitations, you’re saying?”

I close my eyes. “I know how it sounds.” I open my eyes to find his gorgeous blue ones focused solely on me. “Don’t get me wrong. He was a bad man. An evil man.”

I don’t know what else to say. That he let them rape me and scare me but he would have never let them threaten me?

But that’s the truth of it.

To understand my father, you have to understand the way monsters draw lines. Not moral ones—it’s about territory. Ownership. Control. He didn’t protect me because he loved me. He protected his investment. His legacy. His name.

He’d let them touch me, mark me, break me down until I was a shell wrapped in silk. But threaten me? Scare me in a way that made him look weak or vulnerable? That he wouldn’t allow.

Plus, I was one of his most valuable assets. Like his cars, his boats. He wanted them all—myself included—to look as clean and shiny as possible.

I see Hawk’s throat work as he swallows, his expression unreadable now. Maybe it’s the silence between us. Or maybe he’s realizing I’m not just some broken doll from a wealthy house. I’m haunted—worn out, used up, and still standing.

“He’s dead, right?” Hawk asks, voice low.

I nod.

“Good.” He doesn’t blink when he says it. Doesn’t flinch. “But that doesn’t mean he’s finished with you.”

And for a second, I feel it too—that cold breath at the back of my neck, the kind that whispers you’re still his.

“Are you saying you think this note came from my father?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t believe in ghosts. But I do believe in legacies. In the kind of rot a man like that leaves behind.”

I swallow hard, the air suddenly heavier, tighter in my lungs. “You think someone’s carrying on what he started?”

“Maybe,” Hawk says, voice like gravel, eyes locked on mine. “Or maybe someone who knew him. Someone who still sees you the way he did.”

My stomach twists. “Like I’m a possession.”

“Or a threat,” he adds quietly. “Depends on what they think you know. Or what they think you are.”

I let that sink in. The silence that follows isn’t empty. It’s thick with old memories and buried warnings. The kind that don’t stay dead, no matter how deep you dig the grave.

“I’m going to get security for you,” he says.

“No.” I shake my head. “I never wanted that. Vinnie offered it, but I love being…normal, you know?”

“You want to be normal?” he says. “Or safe?”

Tears well in the bottoms of my eyes.

I sniff them back.

I stopped crying over the fear of danger long ago. I had to, or I’d have become dehydrated.

I let out a nervous chuckle. “There’s no substance, you said, so the only thing this note can do to me is give me a papercut.”

He shakes his head. “This isn’t a laughing matter, Daniela.”

“I know. I wasn’t trying to make light of anything.”

“Have you called the police?”

The police? Is he kidding me? Back home, I learned to hate the police. They were all paid off by my father. They didn’t wear badges. They wore leashes. I could’ve been bleeding in the street and they would’ve stepped over me to open the door for him.

So no. I don’t trust cops. Not here, not anywhere.

I shake my head. “No. I haven’t called them. And I won’t.”

Hawk doesn’t argue. He just watches me, something tightening in his jaw. “You think whoever sent this is connected to your past?”

I nod once. “I don’t believe in coincidence. Not in my world.”

“All right.” Hawk rakes his fingers through his hair. “Let’s assume for a minute that maybe it’s not from someone from your past. Someone associated with your father.”

I resist rolling my eyes. Who the hell else would it be?

“All right,” I say.

“Is there anyone else? Anyone you’ve met since you’ve been here in the States?”

“No. Only Vinnie and Raven and the servants. The members of your family.” Then a thought occurs to me. “Though I did have my first day of culinary school today, and the guy I partnered up with in class flirted with me a little. Asked me out to a water park.”

Hawk’s jaw goes rigid.

“But he’s a really nice guy. His name is Jordan, and we were sitting with two other women. So I suggested we make it a foursome.”

“You know anything else about him? Where he’s from? What his backstory is?”

I bite my lip, shrug my shoulders. “He works in a restaurant. Wants to become a chef.”

Hawk is still rigid.

“Trust me,” I say. “If you could see him, you would know there’s no way he did any of this.”

“Guys who do things like this”—Hawk holds up the valentine—“are really good at hiding who they really are.” He clears his throat. “But we’ll put a pin in Jordan. Anyone else from Colombia?”

“Well, my father’s dead. Diego Vega is dead. Everyone else connected to my family is dead.”

Hawk clears his throat again. “Are you sure? I mean… You know how many men… You know…” He rakes his fingers through his hair once more. “Fuck, Daniela. I can’t believe anyone would do that to you.”

I swallow. “Well, at least I was fifteen. Poor Belinda?—”

“Damn it!” Hawk slams his fist into the drywall with a crack like a gunshot, his knuckles tearing through plaster and leaving a jagged hole that trembles with the force of his fury.

I gasp. I’ve seen men get violent before. I don’t like it.

But already I know Hawk wouldn’t hurt a fly. Only a wall.

I grab his wrist. His knuckles are bleeding. “Let me take care of that for you.”

“I’m fine.” He glances at the wall. “Sorry for that. I’ll have someone come by and repair it tomorrow.”

“Hawk, I don’t care about the wall. I care about you. Come on.”

I lead him through my small living area to the second of my bathrooms, where I keep first-aid supplies.

I pull out the plastic box and open it. Then I start running water. “Come on, wash your hands.”

“Yeah, okay.” He obeys me, pumping soap out of the dispenser and washing his hands thoroughly.

I watch the strands of blood go down the drain.

Blood.

No matter where I go in my life, no matter what I do, I always seem to see blood.

Hawk’s hand is so large in my own. I spritz Bactine over his knuckles and then bandage him up with Band-Aids.

“Does it hurt?” I ask.

Hawk shakes his head. “When you’ve been tossed off a busting bronco, you learn to deal with pain.”

I nod.

Then he takes his bandaged hand and cups my cheek. Shivers course through me at the contact.

“I promise you, Daniela. I promise that we will get to the bottom of this.”

I nod again. “Thank you. Thank you for coming when I called.”

He burns his gaze into mine. “I’ll do whatever I have to do to protect you. I will get security on you, and I’m going to stay here until Vinnie and Raven get home.”