Page 25

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FIVE

SEVEN YEARS BEFORE

T he warm August breeze whipped against my face as the sound of crashing waves and heavy music wafted across the beach. The dusky evening air was peaceful, and above everything else, full of the promises of freedom. It was my eighteenth birthday, and I was officially an adult, able to do whatever it was I pleased—within reason of course.

Always within reason.

I proudly flashed the bartender my shiny all-American driving license and he got to work making my first legal coconut lime spritzer.

The small beachside bar was rammed full of bodies and somewhere amongst them was Leon as well as some of our other more distant cousins. I tried spotting their faces amongst the crowd but couldn’t see them. Leon always did that—abandon me despite being ordered not to.

I paid for my drink and walked around the makeshift dance floor toward a vacant table sat overlooking the beach. Leon can look for me instead, I thought. Content to bring in my eighteenth birthday alone and watching the distant cresting of the waves.

Cancun was always one of my favorite places to visit growing up. Two weeks of every summer we would find ourselves vacationing along the white sandy shores, basking in the fierce sun and indulging ourselves on the local cuisine.

Over the years it had become easier to convince myself that our trip to Mexico was just that—a trip. I had stopped seeing the heavily scarred men coming and going from our penthouse suite in those years. Had long stopped hearing the word ‘narcotics’ around our dining table every night and had completely stopped caring that my mother was screwing the hotel’s gardener every chance she got.

It was just easier that way.

“This seat taken?” A male voice broke my quiet train of thought.

A vaguely familiar man stood towering above me, gesturing to the seat opposite. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, judging by his still slightly rounded features. He was undeniably handsome, what with his slight russet-colored skin, inescapably sharp jaw and short, perfectly styled black hair. He was muscular too, bulging arms stretching underneath his white dress shirt as he wore it tucked into suit pants.

He was at the penthouse the other day, I realized. Arturo Lopez’s son. That’s why he’s familiar.

I gave him a non-committal shoulder shrug, instantly wary of his presence despite my family’s long history with the man’s father.

He smirked and took the seat swiftly, folding his six-foot-something self into the chair and dwarfing it. I probably would have found it funny if I hadn’t been so wary of him.

It was my number one rule: don’t date Mafioso men. Or any of their associates for that matter.

I had been around their kind long enough to know it wasn’t something that I was interested in putting up with. Whether my father would let me marry outside the Cosa Nostra though…was a different matter entirely.

“You’re Alberto’s daughter Adalyn, right?” I didn’t give him an answer because it wasn’t really a question.

He knew that I was. He was just testing the waters to see if I was receptive to him.

Prick .

While I appreciated male attention, I didn’t particularly want it from a business connection . Especially not when that connection was almost certainly hopped up on something that was not donut dust. The white flecks of which still clung, unceremoniously, to his nose.

Then again, my father would punish me for not being at least civil. It was ‘bad for business’ you see.

“And you are?” I asked.

“Ricardo Lopez. My father Arturo and your father have been… friends for many years.” He smiled around his characterization of their relationship.

I nodded in recognition but let the silence hang in the air.

If he was smart, he would take the hint. The problem was, at least in my experience, most people had either brains or beauty but rarely both.

“Well, Adalyn. You look gorgeous this evening.” Just beauty then, I stifled a sigh . “ A little birdy told me it was your birthday today.” By little birdy, he most definitely meant Leon.

Rat bastard.

Ricardo lifted his hand in the air and gestured off in the distance, presumably to the bar. Less than two minutes later, a bottle of cold Mo?t & Chandon champagne arrived in a bucket of ice and two crystal flutes. The waiter deposited them wordlessly before drifting back through the throng of people to the bar.

I looked between the bottle on the table and the man smiling charmingly down at me.

“Let me guess, Daddy owns the club?” I observed dauntlessly, rolling my eyes. “How original.”

“ Damn . That’s usually my best move.” He joked, feigning insult.

I gave him a small smile as he reached across the table for the flutes and poured out the bubbly beverage. It smelled delicious, subtle and fruity. He slid one over to me and I eyed it skeptically, unsure whether my acceptance of the drink would only encourage him into thinking I might accept other things.

“There you are, baby Cuz!” Leon’s vivacious voice interrupted my internal dilemma as he came bounding over to the table. “And look who we have here!” Ricardo stood from his chair and the two shared a hard hug.

Ricardo resumed his seat, but Leon remained standing, or rather swaying, on the spot.

“What are you on, Leon?” I asked, unable to keep the distaste from my mouth.

He was a borderline alcoholic with a propensity for drugs, women, and gambling. And although he wasn’t an evil man, there wasn’t all that much to like about him, either. It was distressing knowing that he would one day become the head of our family.

“Oh, quit the nagging, Addie. Lighten up! It’s supposed to be your birthday for fucks sake,” he shouted, his eyes moving in and out of focus. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUUUU—” he started singing at the top of his blasted lungs.

“Shut it!” I hissed as people began turning to look at the spectacle, yanking on his shirt in the process.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUUUU?—"

This time there were enough people jumping onto the disastrous singing of my cousin for him to continue screaming the song at the top of his lungs. I buried my face in my hands, blushing a crimson red with absolute humiliation.

When the crowd erupted into applause, Leon grabbed my hand pulling me upwards and turning me around on the spot. I shrank back down into my chair as quickly as possible, furious and mortified, while he was doubled over laughing. He knew how much I hated a spectacle.

“And with that, my work here is done!” He announced, turning to Ricardo. “Don’t be put off by her shitty temperament, Ricardo. She just needs to get laid. Then she’ll be alright.”

My mouth slackened in outrage. “Shut up , Leon.”

The prick just laughed and smacked Ricardo once more on the back before heaving himself back into the stream of dancers nearby. I didn’t think I would be relieved by his absence, not with the solid hulk of a man sat staring at me, but the moment he left I felt myself relax back into my chair.

“Sorry about him, he’s a bit of a?—”

“Loose cannon? Particularly when drunk?” Ricardo finished for me, and I smiled apologetically.

Another silence started drawing out between us.

“Do you…come to Cancun often?” I asked, more to be polite than out of interest.

“Fairly. Business and all.” He smiled, reclining back in his chair and hooking his arm over the vacant one next to him. The picture of ease.

I just nodded.

“I think I might start coming here more often. Perhaps once every summer?” He shot me an arrogant smile and I chuckled at his audaciousness. He had balls, I’d give him that. “Anyway, here’s to you on your birthday,” he said, picking up his flute and gesturing for me to do the same.

I pinched the crystal between my fingers, and he brought his glass against mine with a clink.

“Happy birthday, Adalyn.”

The first thing I realized when my eyes opened was that I had no idea where I was.

My head spun and my heartbeat thrummed loudly in my ears.

I was lying on something, no not something—sand.

I could feel my fingers half submerged in it. Could smell the seaweed that accompanied it and the tang of salt on my tongue. I wasn’t at the club anymore, the heavy beat of it off in the distance somewhere.

Where am I?

I blinked furiously, trying to regain my senses. Beach . The familiar shoreline of the beach meandered off to my left as far I could see. I struggled to comprehend it. My mind felt heavy like…like I’d been drugged .

That’s when I felt it. A tugging sensation.

I froze, not sure what the source of the tugging was. I quickly cast my eyes downward, and adrenaline crashed into my system, ripping me away from what I saw: Ricardo.

Ricardo was on top of me.

No.

I screamed.

My arms thrashed wildly as my legs reared up, trying to push myself away from him or at the very least hurt him. He reacted quickly, dodging my sluggish limbs with ease before trapping them at my sides. He pushed his knees against the inside of my thighs, immobilizing them painfully with his full weight.

I let out another scream, but it immediately died away as a fist struck my jaw, throwing my head to the side violently. I spat blood onto the sand, feeling my skin split open against my teeth and a radiating pain consume my face.

“You’re supposed to be out cold, my love,” Ricardo muttered, the edge in his voice sending a chill of fear racing up my spine. “No matter.”

I felt him shift as hands latched around my throat and after a second of fighting it, desperately searching for air, the world fell into darkness.

Luckily or unluckily, the tranquility of oblivion didn’t last long.

Searing pain and the incessant muffling of voices roused me, echoing amongst the shadows. I didn’t know how much time had passed, but as the seconds wore on the voices grew clearer until?—

“Fucking calm down man!” His voice made my stomach churn violently.

“Calm down? Fucking calm down!” It was Leon’s voice I was hearing next, and it brought me some hollow form of comfort. “You fucking rapist!”

Everything apart from the voices remained shrouded in disorientating darkness.

Sand .

I could feel sand beneath me, my numb hands buried in the grains.

A second more and I could detect the smell of salt in the air, just as I had before. I couldn’t taste it this time though.

No—I could only taste something metallic. Bitter. Blood.

Flashes of Ricardo’s menacing face. The roughness of his hands.

My senses snapped back with ferocious clarity and I gasped, throwing myself upright. My eyes flicked open but only one of them complied, the other seemingly swollen shut. Something hot and sticky ran down my face and black spots once again danced across my vision.

I need to RUN!

“Adalyn, it’s okay. You’re okay,” A voice murmured somewhere close by, before shouting, “I need a medic!”

I recognized it as one of my cousins.

The relief was instant, and I collapsed back into the sand, unable to hold myself upright any longer. I was in so much pain I couldn’t tell where it hurt worse. My face or my neck or m-my?—

I turned my head to the side just as bile spewed violently from my throat.

I once again succumbed to oblivion.