His younger half brother had been a mere twenty-five. He’d been smart and loyal. Tavio had had him educated and had taught him to fly. The kid would fly in any kind of weather with any kind of load, land anywhere, day or night. He’d trusted Tavio to take care of him.
Tavio shut his eyes. He’d had such high hopes for Marco. He’d hoped that someday he’d take Chito’s place.
Tavio kept seeing Marco and that propeller and blood. So much blood.
His head began to pound. It was the crack and the tequila. He’d smoked too much and drunk too much over too many days and nights. It was making him crazy.
Collins and Federico had stirred up a storm that had led to this. Some snitch within these walls had tipped them and the DEA off. Maybe the same person had hidden Mia in Marco’s plane. Why? Did she have something to do with Marco’s murder?
Tavio felt anger coil in his gut. Slowly he set his golden gun down on a rock, and when he did, it shot blinding silver fire just as the ripples of the pool did. He blinked. His pupils were dilated. He’d been so busy organizing the runs, he hadn’t slept for three days or nights.
He squinted. The light hurt his eyes. Things were too bright and too dark. That, too, was partly because of the crack.
When Angelita was upset, she came here and stared at the reflections of the pool for hours sometimes. Was she looking at herself or the clouds when she did that? He clenched both fists. He wanted to know, damn it. He wanted to know everything about her.
Staring into the black glitter of the water failed to calm him as it did her. In fact it made him feel even more strung-out. But then he was not like her. That was their problem.
Tonight he needed more than sex from her. That was the only reason he hadn’t raped her. He needed the comfort of Angelita’s arms around him. But she didn’t want him. She couldn’t love him, and the torment of that was driving him mad.
Estela would have held him close, but he’d sent her away for Angelita. He hadn’t touched another woman because of Angelita. He’d waited for this white woman longer than he’d ever waited for a woman, even for Estela, who’d been a teenage virgin.
He could have taken Angelita anytime. Did his restraint mean nothing to her?
He still didn’t know how he’d walked out of her bedroom two times tonight. Twice!
Any other woman he would have taken repeatedly until she learned to submit to his every demand.
She wasn’t that beautiful. But she was to him. He adored her trim body, her breasts that were in perfect proportion to her body and long legs. Her red hair had natural highlights and her skin was smooth and pale like porcelain. She was as beautiful to him as a goddess. Her full, lush lips haunted his dreams. He longed to taste every inch of her. He wanted her kisses all over his skin until every cell in his body caught fire. But afterward he wanted her to hold him in the darkness and be his tender friend. He had never wanted such things from a woman.
But she was strong and mysterious. She was egotistical in the way a man was egotistical. She knew what she wanted and what she didn’t want. He wanted to know her mind, to be her friend. He wanted her to care, but she hated his rotten business too much to see him as man, who was just like any other man. Why couldn’t she see that he was trapped just like she was in this nasty life he’d created and now hated because white men like Collins and Valdez believed he was an animal?
Valdez! How he hated Valdez!
Didn’t she know he would have preferred to be a legitimate businessman as his father had been? But he’d been born a despised bastard. In fact Federico Valdez was his half brother, his father’s most honored son, who now ran the family business. Valdez was his rich, white half brother who thought Tavio was dirt.
His brilliant father, also named Federico Valdez, could trace his ancestors to the Spanish conquistadores. He had been powerful in Ciudad Juarez. He’d belonged to an old and much-respected border family that had accumulated wealth over several generations. Tavio’s Indian mother had been a maid in his house. They had fallen in love briefly. Tavio was the result.
Since his legitimate children were years older, his white father had made Tavio a pet when he’d been young, carrying him with him everywhere—to his factories, farms and offices. This had incensed his blond, American-born wife and her white sons, especially the eldest, Federico. But their father had never claimed Tavio as his son. After all, his wife and he had six legitimate, white children.
His father had sent Tavio to a good private school, and school had been easy. Just like making money was easy if you got into the right business. Tavio had wanted to be rich like his father. When he’d graduated from college, he’d begged his father for a job in one of his companies, even a lowly one. Federico, who’d been running the business, hadn’t wanted him. Tavio had been hurt and furious but determined to become even richer than his father and brother. Drug running had seemed the quickest way toward realizing his dreams of being as rich and successful as the family that had spurned him.
In the beginning, like all young fools, the drug business had seemed exciting more than dangerous. He’d hired desperately poor people as his runners. They’d taken all the risks. When they’d been busted, he’d lost his shipment, but they’d gone to prison.
Poor women, too many of them to count who would do anything to feed their children, were sentenced to thirty years, which meant their children were orphans. That had meant nothing to him then. But sometimes, late at night or when peasants came to him begging him for favors, these things haunted him now.
His business had grown, sí, and soon he’d had to fight off competitors. To expand he’d entered into an ever-changing, complex relationship trafficking cocaine for the Colombians. In time he’d been forced to kill many people to maintain control of what was his. He did not enjoy killing, but it was part of doing business.
Too late, he’d learned what a vicious, deadly game he was in. When he killed, he made more enemies, and he’d had to become tougher to survive. His best men, like Chito, were those he could trust the least because they wanted to take over. The rules of his business were as simple as those the desert animals lived by. Win—or lose. Live—or die. Kill—or be killed. When you lived like that long enough, it changed you.
When he’d been young, he’d thought he’d retire with a big ranch in northern Mexico. He was now rich enough to retire, richer than he’d ever dreamed of being. But if he ever quit he would have to leave Mexico. Then many of the people he protected would die.
So what? The little people always suffered in Mexico. But as long as he was alive, certain people in the business would be nervous. Hit men would try to track him down and kill him. So, he stayed, and to stay, he had to be strong.
He hadn’t thought of leaving the business for a long time. Not until Angelita. She made him think of Paris or London or maybe a Caribbean island or South America. Never her country, America, because he was a wanted man there.
He still desired her, more than ever, even after tonight when she’d turned him away when he’d been crazed with anger and fear and desire. Even during saner periods, when he was alone, his blood would pulse as he thought of her in one of those thin nightgowns he’d bought her that had cost enough to feed a family of peasants for a year.
How much longer could he play this waiting game when his men were taking bets on how many nights it would take him?
Angelita was afraid of him. Always before he’d liked the edge fear lent to sex. It was like a spice to make a dish hotter. But not with her. He did not want her afraid. She was an intelligent creature of light and love, and he wanted her to stay that way.
He remembered going into his white father’s mansion as a small, impressionable boy. His father’s white wife had seemed like a queen.
Tavio wanted to know