Page 29 of The Last Promise You Made

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“I wish I had recorded this. Your siblings will never believe me when I tell them you got all mushy and cried.”

“I didn’t cry,” I groused.

She chuckled, and it did exactly what she’d intended—it lifted my heart just a teeny-tiny bit.

Enough for me to breathe again.

I’d figure this out like I had every other crisis in my life—by making a plan and seeing it through one step at a time—with my family at my side.

Chapter Nine

Emiliano

TROUBLE ABOUT MY SOUL

Performed by The Trishas

I thrust the man up against the side of the barn with my forearm shoved into his throat. He let out a garbled noise, yanking at my arm, but I didn’t budge. I used my free hand to open the switchblade I’d taken from my father and wave it casually before his eyes.

“Explain to me how this happened,” I demanded.

Before he could reply, I shoved harder into his neck. He gasped. Even without me cutting off the air to his lungs, his eyes had been little slits, shoved close to his nose. They’d always screamed untrustworthy, but I’d paid him enough to ensure a beacon of loyalty. I’d paid him not to fuck up.

Fury washed over me as I poked the tip of the knife into his cheek, instantly drawing blood. I eased up the pressure on his throat just enough for him to speak.

“Talk.”

“She came at me with a knife first.”

“You shouldn’t have been in the room with her. You were to take it without her knowing.”

His eyes drifted to the side and back, and I knew. This little weasel of a man had wanted a piece of her. Wanted to put his dick inside her. Wanted to take what was never intended to be his. The edge of my knife slid downward. The man didn’t cry out, but his eyes narrowed until they were almost nonexistent as blood dripped over his chin.

“She stole from you.” He gasped as I varied the pressure on his throat. “I did what you asked. I got it back.”

“I needed her alive.”

“Jefe, you are smarter than her. You do not need her.”

If he thought flattery would save him, he was wrong. I was smarter than Natalia. I’d always been smarter and more patient than her, but she’d had a skill I’d needed. She’d taken my ideas and made them a reality by carefully applying zeroes and ones. My mistake had been in forgetting her persistence. Forgetting how good she was at hiding that stubbornness under a mask of serene acceptance.

While I’d stormed at our family’s dark secrets with brutal force, she’d quietly slid out from beneath them. I should have known better than to assume she’d accept the bonds I put on her any more than she’d accepted our father’s.

My anger grew. At myself for the error. At her for her lack of loyalty.

She’d forgotten the promises of our youth.

The promises we’d made while bleeding together…or while playing together. Father had tried to use stories of a big cat that lived in the forest around our compound in Mexico to keep us from wandering away. Instead, we’d used the idea of Balam to hone our skills, biding our time ’til we could use them against our father. I’d enjoyed the hunting, the stalking, the kill. She’d enjoyed the hiding, the camouflaging in the trees, and stealing away in the night.

Now, there would be no more hiding for her. No more escape.

It wasn’t only sorrow that tried to worm itself into my heart, but disappointment.

Both emotions only fueled my rage at the man I had pinned to the wall of the barn.

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