Page 51 of Vicious Savage

51

ATTILA

We’re heading to Seattle. Luna has convinced Nadia to follow us out. A fresh start. For everyone. I can’t ignore the lingering glances that pass between Nadia and Cesar as we leave her standing at the door to her mother’s house. I’m glad. I haven’t seen him look at a woman that way since I met him. Maybe now that he’s avenged his wife’s death, he’ll find it easier to move on. And the task I’ve given him, of finding Luna’s brothers, will give him a purpose, some sort of direction.

He slides his phone into his pocket, a pensive look on his face, before he comes to join Luna and me where we sit on the jet.

“Problem?” I ask him. It’s only a matter of time before he gives me the information I need about the Castillos. Luna whips her head in his direction, a curious look on her face.

“Marden.” He mentions his best friend, also his former brother-in-law. “Wants me to come home.”

I’m silent as I try to read the emotion of his face. His body language won’t give me anything. We haven’t been working together long, but what started out as a need in both of us to rid the world of our mutual enemy has turned into so much more than that. We work well together. Our empire is growing. And we could use a man like Cesar on our team. No. Weneeda man like Cesar on our team. There’s probably no one I would trust more than him to get the job done. Plus, there was the matter of Luna’s four missing brothers. We’d tried for years to track down the elusive Coyin Castillo, but it was Cesar, working on his own, who finally managed to find him. I had no doubt he was the best person to find Luna’s brothers and give her the closure she would need.

“What are you going to do?” Luna asks, saving me from caring. She looks devastated. She, too, has become accustomed to the man who watches over her like a second shadow.

“I don’t know yet. But I’ve never been to Seattle before.”

He looks up and grins at her. He’s torn between his past, his present and his future. Only time will tell where he lands.

Luna exhales softly and settles back into her seat, never taking her eyes off Cesar as she also tries to read him. She’s been through so much change recently. I don’t know that she’d be able to deal with him exiting the stage, especially as she tries to navigate this new and foreign way of life without Coyin Castillo hovering over her.

When Gabriel joins us, he hands out packets of nuts and juices, then gives Luna a pointed look when she tucks them into a side pocket in the seat.

“Eat. You haven’t eaten anything all day.”

I watch the exchange between brother and sister. So different, yet so similar. She’s fair to his dark, but I can see the similarities in the crane of their neck and their profile. He’s taken to her as though he’s known her all these years, the caring and protective older brother who will stop at nothing to ensure her safety. He risked his own life trying to help her when Coyin had her imprisoned in the dungeon underneath his home. Luna told me he got close to getting his head blown off by Coyin. He’d known all along that Luna was his sister. He’d also had his suspicions that Coyin had killed his father. So he’d done what any warm blooded creature with a pulse would do in our world; he got close to Coyin, serving as his driver and bodyguard, in order to get close enough to find his sister then get rid of Coyin himself. He’d played the only card he had, and that had paid off for him in the long run.

I like that she has Gabriel to fill the void while she waits on news about her brothers. He’s protective without smothering her, watchful without being a stalker. And he cares enough about her to have risked his own life to protect her.

I point to the scar on his right cheek. It’s vivid without detracting from his features; if anything, it lends him an air of mystery. “You never told me where how got the scar,” I comment.

Gabriel smirks and corrects that it’s nothing more than a scratch.

“A pretty deep scratch,” Luna murmurs. “Did you get into a bar fight?”

“Long story,” he tells us. “Maybe I’ll tell you… sometime.”

We change the subject as the jet glides seamlessly through the air and Gabriel joins Cesar across the aisle, while we settle into our seats. Luna sits with a pensive look on her face, looking out the window nearest to her.

“What are you thinking about?”

When she turns to me, her eyes are glazed with a fragility I haven’t seen in her before. I can’t get the image of her jumping over the railing that first time we spoke out of my head. She was untouchable then, mesmerizing, taking me by surprise with her ferocious lack of fear as she faced two grown men — strangers — head on. She literally kicked my ass without even trying, and I’d been awe-struck by the mechanics of the way her body moved as she jumped from the first storey and landed ever so gracefully on the pavement. Like a feline. Like a cat.

But now there’s something almost broken about her, and for the first time I notice the dark rings under her eyes. I haven’t been paying attention. She probably hasn’t slept well in days. I know she’s not eating, either. She breaks into my haze as I continue to catalogue her.

“I’ve always known where I was going, Attila. My destiny; what was meant to happen to me. My whole life has been dictated for me.”

“He’s gone now,” I tell her. “You dictate your own destiny.”

“What if I have no idea what I’m doing? What if I get it wrong?”

I tread carefully as I assess her and consider her words. She’s like a little girl lost, even though at her age, most women pretty much know where they’re going and what they’re doing. I try to picture her life as it was, Coyin controlling her every move, dictating what should and shouldn’t be. Moving her around the board like a chess piece. Depriving her of a mother… a female role model to look up to. It can’t have been easy.

“You have good people on your side, Luna. You won’t get it wrong.”

52

LUNA

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