Page 138 of The Devil Can Be Kind

TWENTY-FIVE

SEVEN YEARS BEFORE

The 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 firstlegalcoconut 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.Leoncan look formeinstead,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 abusiness connection. Especially not when that connection was almost certainly hopped up on something that wasnotdonut 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…friendsfor 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 Moët & Chandon champagne arrived in a bucket ofice 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.

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