Page 51 of Heart of a Villain

“That’s how he talks,” Joel grumbled. “It’s weird as fuck.”

“It’s poetry,” he argued. “I’m smooth. Silk would be jealous.”

Gage grinned. “Plus, Eesh liked it at one point.”

Laughter vibrated against the walls of the interior cabin, and Joel looked around as if assigning a target to each of his teammates’ faces.

Seeing as how none of them had any weapons—minus Giorgio—Adrían gave Joel a few consoling shoulder pats. Because of Joel’s personality, he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Joel had playfully flirted with their significant others—minus Giorgio—when he was single, and now they were getting the payback they’d been due for a long time.

“Mano, don’t listen to them,” he told Joel, amazed at how well he kept a straight face. “That was the past. The far past. I can barely remember it.”

It wasn’t entirely true.

While his feelings for Ayesha had come about because of Sayeda, that knowledge didn’t suddenly make them less real. They’d cared for one another, and he saw how that affection was transforming into a solid friendship with Ayesha, her children, and even her ornery husband.

Joel glared at the hand on his shoulder.

He removed it, sighed, and returned to his story. “In the beginning, the house in Morocco was a prison,” he continued. “I’m sure you all know what much of that was like, having experienced the same.”

They all nodded.

“But eventually, with Sayeda there, it became a haven. I fell for her. Hard. I didn’t know it at the time, didn’t want it…but I did.”

“I knew,” Trevor piped up. “I told the kid, but he wouldn’t listen to me. But, back then, I was a new father. My communication skills aren’t what they are now.”

Lee rolled his eyes.

“A lot of us come from fucked up circumstances,” Dez said. “We’re used to shit trying to kill us. For me, growing up on the streets meant kindness often came with conditions. Accepting a kind gesture could be the difference between getting a hot meal or finding yourself locked in the back of someone’s van until you’re forced to turn tricks or die. So, I get it. Pretty sure we all do.”

The more he learned about this team, the more he felt like he’d finally found his place. Gage’s family was killed in connection with the work they did, Dez grew up as a homeless orphan, Julien was an abandoned baby, Giorgio grew up in a shack in the woods, and Mike’s entire lineage was assassinated in a pseudo-political hit. Of the six, Joel had the most normal upbringing as he’d gone from the military to the FBI before linking up with the group, and his birth parents were still alive. Yet, Joel fit the team like a bespoke suit.

“Until yesterday, I thought Sayeda was dead,” he went on, “and I’m grateful I never learned that she was alive. If I’d learned she was alive while she was still in Brazil, I would be there right now. It’s better that she’s here where it’s safe instead of me going there hoping to keep her safe.”

Julien leaned forward in his seat, his hands clasped. “Now is probably a better time than any to share what we know about Sayeda’s situation with Chamas. But first, let me ask you this: Adrían, are you familiar with Cipriano and Marcela Castilho?”

“Cipriano was what we called the ‘chefe’ or ‘chief,’ Adrían said. “The head of Chamas. Marcela is his wife. They had four sons and a daughter back when I was there. Their sons all run their own factions of Chamas outside of Brazil, but Cipriano didn’t trust any of them to take over the main location in Verde Horizonte.”

Cipriano had hoped for him to move into the role. If not him—and only by way of death—the next choice would have been Lorenzo Henriques.

Usually, an enforcer wouldn’t skip multiple rungs on the organization’s hierarchy to ascend to chefe, but Cipriano once loved him like a son. Unfortunately, Marcela and Cipriano wanted their daughter to lead at his side, which had meant waiting for Alessandra to finish college and establish herself before becoming rainha.

However, if fate had brought Sayeda to him anyhow, he would have spent his entire union with Alessandra boldly fucking Sayeda in the Chamas mansion, in the king and queen’s bed. With how much time he would have spent inside her, multiple pregnancies would have been inevitable, and there was no way he wouldn’t have claimed those children. To him, Sayeda would have been his true cartel queen.

The kind of man he’d been, he would have probably hired someone to kill Alessandra only to then move Sayeda into the mansion the very same afternoon. Adrían Delgano might have spared Alessandra or relocated her somewhere to help her save face, but Gano the Enforcer didn’t give a fuck.

“As of right now, Cipriano is still the head of the organization,” Julien said. “Sayeda served as his private chef for a little over two years. Technically, she was the private chef to the upper levels of the hierarchy, but for one of them, she might have been more than that.”

An uneasy feeling settled in Adrían’s gut.

“The other day, when we were talking about Rafael putting his hands on a woman, it was Sayeda,” Julien added. “It’s not the first time, but understand that she was never in a position to fight without risking her life.”

Suddenly, the names clicked.

Henriques and Henriques.

“The ‘one of them’ you’re referring to, is his name Lorenzo?” Adrían asked.

Julien nodded. “Yes. He’s Rafael’s brother.”

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