When Cenobia came out of her room the next morning, looking dressed to kill in pearls, a high-waisted skirt that outlined her curves, and a siren-red blouse, Roman bounded over like a stray offering her a carcass and told her what he’d learned: Glori and the head of Trujillo Industries’ security had gone to question Vasquez at his home, but—according to his staff—he’d left in a hurry hours earlier. Finding the worm on Daniel’s computer had probably triggered an alert.
Sheppard Security was currently dismantling Vasquez’s computers and hunting for the man.
She’d leaned on him and kissed him, relief trembling through her beautiful body. “It’s almost over,” she’d sighed against him.
He smelled the end like blood in the water. They were close. Soon Cenobia and her son, her car and her company, would be safe. They would discover who set this turbulence in motion. Roman would let the Mexican government deal with Las Luces Oscuras in public and he would deal with them in private. And when they discovered the location of PazYGuerra... If it was in the next few days, Roman would assign Glori to accompany Cenobia to the Frankfort launch.
His love accepted his mission. She understood. She was strong enough to withstand it. He could have her and it.
His family expected him to be devoted to them and a cause he couldn’t embrace. Cenobia saw him. She knew him. She loved the soldier. So the Christmases at the training camp or the weeks away to protect a client or the way putting his gun to PazYGuerra would change him, she would understand that.
She’d asked to borrow his office for the day. While Roman got updates at his kitchen island, Cenobia video conferenced with her staff to get the launch of La Primera back on track.
They’d both taken a break when Adán had come out of his room. Roman had made him toast and a cup of weak, sweet coffee, which Adán liked to dunk his toast in, while Cenobia sat next to him at the dining table and asked if he had any questions.
When Adán had given that head tilt and half shrug of kids, Cenobia said, “I know it seems like you can’t ask them, but you can. If I feel like they’d be better answered with a family counselor in the room, then we’ll write your questions down.”
Adán looked down into his cup. “I was wondering...about my father.”
Roman immediately wanted to go to Cenobia, wanted to offer her his strength. But his girl didn’t need it. She looked resolutely back at Adán.
“Of course, you’d be curious about him. I’m going to tell you the little I know. Te lo prometo,” she swore. “I want you to feel free to ask whatever you want to ask, and I need guidance to make sure I’m helping and not hurting. Is that okay?”
Adán looked at Cenobia, his mother, and Cenobia looked back, unflinching and open. When the boy nodded slowly, it felt like the first shaky steps toward a new relationship, and Roman hoped like hell he would be there to watch it firm up.
“But until then, know this,” Cenobia said, carefully taking Adán’s hand. He didn’t pull away. “Daniel and Bartolo are your fathers, just like they’re mine. They love you, they’ve shaped you, they protected you, and they admire you. You are their own, tu sangre.”
Cenobia told Roman later, in private, that she hoped Adán staying with her more often (she didn’t say living with me but Roman could hear it) would give Daniel and Bartolo a chance to explore and fully experience the love between them. It was up to them whether they were going to tell Adán, she’d said. But she seemed to be setting the stage.
“I don’t pray for myself,” she’d said. “But I’m willing to pray that all of the members of our family can stop hiding.”
Roman eyed his family now at the last-minute gathering Roxanne and Mateo had thrown together in their glamorous mountain-side home. Officially, the dinner was a chance for Cenobia and Adán to mingle with everyone. Unofficially, Roxanne had begged them to come over and put Liliana out of her first-crush misery, a misery that had given Roxanne and Mateo a jarring window into the upcoming teen years. Now the little girl—Liliana was still Roman’s baby niece no matter how many crushes she had—sat next to Adán on the long couch in the sunken living room, staring at him with the same adoring eyes he was currently giving Aish, who sat in front of Adán on an ottoman and showed him how to play a “C” on the guitar the rock star had placed in his lap.
Aish leaned back and laughed, long and lanky with his black straight hair falling behind him, at something the boy said. Sofia who stood at the top of the living room steps chatting with her mother, Queen Valentina, broke off to smile warmly at her husband.
Aish and Sofia had once hidden their love from each other, Aish because he’d selfishly broken her heart and Sofia because she’d detested that she still loved him when her heart had been broken. They’d both worked hard to face truths and shake off misconceptions, and love shined off them now.
Near the dining table with its extravagant modern chandelier, Mateo chatted with Henry, his wife’s former bodyguard, while Roxanne spoke to a pregnant Gina Pérez, Henry’s wife and Bodega Sofia’s head barrel maker. Gina’s little girls and Gabriel huffed on the floor-to-ceiling window and wrote messages in the fog, totally ignoring the spectacular view of the mountain range beyond it.
Roman remembered a time when a drunk Mateo, trying to hide from his shame that he’d turned his back on the beautiful billionaire, would have punched her “centerfold bodyguard” before talking to him. And he remembered when Roxanne’s efforts to hide her past almost made victims of them both.
They’d both bared their shame and revealed their secrets to the world in order to put the other person first.
Not one person in this room had to hide a betrayal as shameful as Roman’s.
In a quiet corner of the living room, Cenobia sat on a stool in front of Titi, the woman who’d been nanny and mother-figure to Mateo and Sofia. The tiny lady in her widow’s black leaned forward in her chair, looking down as fascinated at Cenobia as Cenobia looked up at her.
Roman walked over to join them.
“Hey,” he said, squeezing her shoulder in the red silk and running his thumb over her nape—her thick hair was coiled on top of her head—before moving his hand away. He wasn’t sure how much she wanted people to know about them. If she wanted Adán to know.
But she reached for his hand and pressed it back against her shoulder where she interlaced their fingers.
Titi’s sharp dark eyes watched like a pleased hawk.
“What’re y’all talking about?” Roman asked.
“Titi asked about my mother,” Cenobia said, smiling up at the woman. “I was telling her I didn’t know her but”—she lowered her voice—“I just recently realized I was raised by two wonderful dads.”
Roman looked down at his girl’s beautiful, shining face.
“Sí, vale, a child only needs love,” Titi said, her smile lifting her cheeks into soft, crepey balls.
“My mama loved me enough to count for two people,” he said.
“Yes, mijo,” Titi said. “She is looking down from heaven very proud of the person you’ve become.”
Roman never knew what to do with the clear-eyed affection Titi gave him. She’d taken him in as one of her adopted children along with Mateo and Sofia, whose parents had pretty much ignored them when they were little. But besides making sure her small cottage, a royal property, was well maintained and overseeing the online security of her three popular bocadillo shops—she sold the best sandwiches in the Monte, Salamanca, and Santiago de Compostela—he tended to avoid the woman.
Was his mama proud of him?
He’d done what she’d asked, taken that thing inside him and aimed it toward good, pointed it away from people he could hurt. He was glad there was little he could tell her during those scratchy calls home; she didn’t have to bear witness to his talents at work. But being halfway across the world also meant that he hadn’t been there for the woman who’d raised, loved, and treasured him when she’d needed him most.
He’d chosen to turn his back on his mama so he could do what he did best.
Maybe she’d been proud of him, proud when he’d stuck resolutely to the path he’d sacrificed her for. When he’d resisted allowing other people who could be sacrificed get in his way. But now, now that he planned on bringing Cenobia and her son into his shadow, two innocents who thought they could rely on Roman to put them first and above all else...
How could she be proud of him now?
Sofia touched his arm. She was eyeing his and Cenobia’s captured hands, too.
“I’m getting more wine from the cellar,” she said, gorgeously chic in an emerald-green silk jumpsuit with her hair in a loose, thick braid over her shoulder. “¿Me ayudas?”
“’Course, I’ll help,” he said, and excused himself.
As they chatted about nothing and strolled down the hallway toward the steps that lead to the wine cellar on the lower level, he knew she thought she was being sneaky. He’d already tracked his brother leaving the room a couple minutes ago.
Looked like he was heading into an ambush.
On the cool lower level, built into the mountain rock, he opened the door on the wine cellar, a gorgeous room of mountain-stone walls, black cedar racks, rich amber light, and comfortable chairs. He would have called it Mateo’s man cave if his brother didn’t spend so much time down here with his wife. Once, he’d walked in and had a chance to compliment his brother’s fine, farmer ass—Roxanne had been mostly dressed—before Mateo had roared at him to get out.
This time, Roman yelled, “I know you’re in here, Mateo,” as he pulled the door closed behind him.
Sofia whirled on Roman as Mateo walked out from one of the aisles in a white oxford, olive cardigan, and black trousers.
“Joder, you told him!” he accused their baby sister.
“Did not!” she said.
Roman crossed his arms and leaned back against the door. “Well, y’all got me down here. What’re you gonna do with me?”
Roman was two hours older than Mateo and five years older than Sofia, and he hadn’t been raised with them. But even he’d noticed that they settled into a weird oldest, middle, baby dynamic when they got together. Before they’d forced a ring and an office on him, it’d been fun as hell to show up for a few months to give them a hard time.
Mateo would get the same wrinkle between his eyes that Roman got, and it showed the annoyance he was fighting now.
Sofia had a temper, too, but she’d been the conciliator between her negligent royal parents and the powerless villagers when Mateo had been in America. She put her skills to work as a moderator now as she said, “We want to talk about your plans for the holidays.”
He’d known this was coming. “’Kay. Talk.”
She put up a waylaying hand as Mateo gave an irritated huff. “Were you truly planning on spending them in Florida?” She left out “instead of here with us,” but it was in her voice. It was in the clouds in her pretty, deep-brown eyes.
“Maybe.” Whatever decision Roman made, it was gonna be the best one for the people he cared about.
Mateo stepped in. “You’d rather risk getting your polla bitten off by a crocodile than opening your heart to that gorgeous woman out there?”
Roman straightened. “It’s alligators.” He’d walked into something he hadn’t expected. “Gators do the dick-bitin’ in Florida.”
“Don’t be an asshole,” Mateo cursed.
“Then y’all don’t stick your noses where they don’t belong,” he said coolly.
This wasn’t an ambush. It was an intervention. And he was already feeling guilty enough about how much he was willing to give Cenobia. He didn’t need them poking at the sore.
Sofia looked at him with naked, surprised hurt. She’d learn to protect herself around Roman.
But instead of lashing out, she said, with a practiced princesa level of calm, “You didn’t hesitate to stick your nose in to help Mateo fix his relationship with Roxanne. You asked for a billionaire’s financial intervention in our kingdom with barely a nod from us. You swooped in and provided security for my winery launch before I even realized I needed it. Why do you assume you must help us but can’t accept it in return?”
“This ain’t something I need help with,” he said, gripping his ugly hands into fists.
“Vale,” she said patiently. “Then...do you want to be king’s advisor?”
He was gonna need a chiropractor after the whiplash she was giving him. “What’s that gotta do with anything?”
“Answer the question,” Mateo demanded.
Roman glared at him.
His brother looked fierce. But not pissed. He looked like a commander. He looked like a king.
For the first time, his king had given him an order.
Roman felt the weight of the gold ring in his clenched fist. “Y’all needed help and I—”
“That’s not what we’re asking you,” Mateo said.
“Do you want to be the king’s advisor, Roman?” Sofia asked again.
Roman felt prickles over his skin, under his Brunello Cucinelli virgin wool suit, bespoke starched shirt, and grey silk tie. He might as well have been in the holey jeans of his childhood, it was so cold down here.
“Do you want to be with that woman out there?” Mateo asked, his voice rough.
Roman licked his suddenly dry lips. “After the launch I’ve still have work to do to secure her home and company, but then I’ll be back here to take care of what needs—”
“Stop, hermano,” Sofia urged, gently and sadly. “Stop talking about your tasks and duties. What do you want?”
His nose was cold and his mouth was dry and he thought that something might have gone south on their buffet table. Something wasn’t agreeing with his stomach.
He looked down at the alternating marble squares of the floor. “What I want’s not important.”
His sister’s voice was coming from much too close. “It’s important to me. It’s important to Mateo. It’s important to your family who loves you and every person in this kingdom.” He felt his brother put a hand on his arm and didn’t he know better? “It’s important to that woman out there who is obviously in love with you. For each and every one of us, you’ve done so much. You protected me and my winery in a time of chaos. My husband is alive because of you. Our kingdom is thriving and Mateo is its king because you decided to get involved with your troublesome siblings and this tiny village in the middle of nowhere. But for all of that, we don’t care about your happiness because of what you’ve done. We care because of who you are.”
“You don’t know who I am,” Roman told the floor. He couldn’t look them in the face. “You don’t know what I’ve done. What I could do to all of you.”
Mateo’s hold on his arm was fierce and unflinching. “Whatever haunts you, I’m sorry it hurts,” he said. “But, hermano, stop behaving like we’re naïve about the choices you’ve had to make. We acknowledge them and we accept you. Don’t push us away. You told me ten years ago I was a lucky bastard for the number of people who loved me, no matter how hard I’d tried to fuck it up, and you were right. I thought I wasn’t worthy, and I almost made the biggest mistake of my life. You think—what—that you’re dangerous? Now you’re about to make the biggest mistake of yours. I’m begging you, don’t do what you helped me avoid. It’s criminal for such a worthy man to deny himself the people that love him.”
Roman clenched his teeth together to keep from shaking. He couldn’t...have them and be loyal to her. He couldn’t embrace a new path without dishonoring the sacrifice he made.
If they didn’t get away from him, he was going to make them go away.
Thankfully, Mateo let go.
They stood in silence together for several moments.
“Te amamos, Roman,” Sofia said softly. “A home, a family, and a purpose are waiting for you. All you have to do is choose them. What do you want?”
Roman knew a few words in a bunch of languages but didn’t have a real great command of any of them. Right now, every word his sister said in English sounded like gibberish.
What did he want? To be loyal. To not hurt anyone else.
The knock at the cellar door was as welcome as a black hole opening up in the floor.
“Go away,” Mateo commanded, kingly as all get out.
But Roman stepped back and wrenched open the door.
“Sorry,” Henry said, looking harassed in the doorway. “You guys got no wifi connection down here.”
“No shit,” Mateo said.
Henry ignored him. “Roman, Glori’s trying to get ahold of you. I’ve got her set up on the office computer upstairs. Cenobia’s already waiting.”
“What’s happened?” Sofia asked.
Henry shrugged as Roman passed him.
This. The mission. This is what Roman was good for. What did he want? To use his talents for good. To catch the bad guys. To keep Cenobia and her family safe.
To kill the man who’d abused her.
He took the stairs two at a time.