Page 10 of Cartel Viper
She owes me that.
Chapter Four
Maddy
“Mom, I’m ready?”
“You look lovely, sweetie.”
“Thanks. Is Dad in the car?”
“Yes. Just let me grab my purse.”
I step onto the front porch and look to the right. I’ve barely seen Luis or Margherita in the two days I’ve been with my parents. I wound up getting another hotel room under a different alias about two miles from the house I grew up in. I wasn’t ready for them to see me, and I didn’t want to explain why I came down early and unannounced. I needed more time for the most visible bruises to heal.
I glance down at the evening gown I’m wearing since it’s a black-tie affair. It’s modest but elegant. It has a single strap that crosses my chest and back. It doesn’t plunge too low across my chest, so it hides where Drew would pinch me while we had sex—the only good part of our relationship—but he did that to remind me I was his. He was a shitbag everywhere but in bed. He was decent there. The gown also covers most of my shoulder blades,the seam wrapping around just beneath my armpits. It hides the fading bruise over my right kidney.
As I walk out to the waiting SUV from the car service my parents reserved, I watch the Diazes’ house. I spent so many hours playing there as a child. We had so many Sunday dinners there. We alternated weeks for more than two decades. It’s odd to know that’s over, even though it has been for nearly five years. It’s not like I expect Luis, Margherita, or Pablo to step out of the house. Pablo doesn’t live there anymore, and besides that, they’re at the wedding ceremony. They only invited anyone outside the immediate family to the reception.
I glance in the side-view mirror before climbing into the third row. I would normally care about my appearance anyway, but I put extra effort into today. Some of it is feeling self-conscious about being at such an enormous event and having so many people look at me. I feel like somehow, someone will know what I’m hiding beneath my gown.
I want to look the part of thepakhan’ssister-in-law, not that Maks or anyone in his family expects anything of me but being myself. Still, that family and the women who married into it are insanely attractive. My parents and I will sit at the same table as Maks and Laura.
And there’s a part of me I don’t want to acknowledge that wants to look good in front of Javier. I wasn’t expecting guests, so I hardly looked my best when he burst into my hotel room. I’m certain he and Joaquin spotted the bruises on my wrists. If he asks, I’ll say I’m into martial arts, and my opponent got me into a hold I couldn’t break. I’ve refined that lie so well, I practically believe it myself.
I’ve tried not to think about him every waking moment of every day since I saw him, and I’ve succeeded. It’s only every other moment. His family is another insanely attractive one. In fact, all the members of the Four Families are wildly gorgeous.There isn’t a dud in the bunch. Not the men or the women. But there’s always been something about Javier.
I watch the houses go by, then the buildings alongside the highway until we’re in the city and at one of the most luxurious hotels in Manhattan. The Peninsula is where my sister had her reception. I sweep my gaze around the ballroom as my parents and I enter the receiving line with my sister, the Kutsenkos, and the Andreyevs—Maks’s mom’s side of the family.
“Madeline, you look stunning. Thank you for coming all the way down here.”
Javier didn’t tell him.
“Thank you,t—Enrique.”
I barely caught myself before calling himTío. That would have been uncomfortable. Laura glances back at me, hearing my nearfaux pas.
“I’d like you to meet my wife, Elodie.”
“Hello. Thank you for including us on your special day.”
“Enrique and I are both so happy all of you could make it.”
I hear sincerity in her voice, and she didn’t force it. But I know any happiness she has about us being here is for Enrique’s sake. She doesn’t know us, but I’m certain she’s heard the stories. She’s not quite an ice queen, but she’s definitely regal enough to bela patrona—Boss Lady. She already looks the part of thejefe’swife.
My family makes our way to our tables. The four Kutsenko brothers, their wives, their mother, their four cousins plus the wives of two of them, their two aunts and two uncles make nineteen. Add my parents and me, and that’s twenty-two. We take up three eight-top tables. I sit beside Laura.
“Can you believe he remarried?” Laura leans toward me as Maks pushes in her chair and mine.
I continue to look around the ballroom as I answer. “No. I never imagined he would. He’s been the perpetual silver fox since we were in college.”
“I know. But he seems to really love her.”
“I’d say as much as Maks loves you.”
“I don’t know how I’m happy for him while still not liking him.”
“Are you ever going to make peace with everything that happened? Juan’s dead—” I whisper that. “—and their family’s left our sisters and cousins alone for years.”
