Page 16 of Vicious Temptation

I shove him back. “Don’t you and my brother have a playdate to get to?”

“Funny.” He stuffs his mouth with a forkful of fried eggs. “Gio has a fight today. I’m driving him. You know, in case he gets his ass handed to him.”

I wave him off and start toward the door. Halfway there, I glance back just in time to catch his eyes drifting south.

“Eyes, Leone,” I warn.

Estela smacks him upside the head. “Respeta a la niña.”

“What?” he mumbles around a mouthful of eggs, lifting a shoulder in an innocent shrug.

I laugh and shake my head. Some things never change.

“Señora Amalia is out back,” Estela calls after me, knowing exactly who I’m looking for.

I head down the hallway lined with my mother’s paintings until one in particular catches my attention. It’s the painting of Villa Dorada, and it’s always been my favorite.

Stopping in front of it, I run my fingers along the edge of the frame.

It was where my mom grew up, where she fell in love with my dad, and where she lost my Uncle Giovanni, the man my brother was named after. It’s been decades since the estate left my family’s hands. I’ve never seen it for myself, but I’ve always felt drawn to it somehow. Maybe it’s the history buried there, or the reminder that something beautiful managed to grow in a place marked by so much loss and violence.

My fingertips brush the painted wildflowers along the entrance, following the strokes my mother put there years ago. She used to tell us stories about Villa Dorada. About the house, the gardens, the people who filled it, and the life she had before everything changed.

For some fucking reason, that reminds me of Thiago telling me about Houston. I pull my hand away from the painting like it’s on fire.

“Seriously?” I managed to make it less than five minutes this time.

“Hey, Rem!” Giovanni darts past me, then doubles back just as quickly to press a kiss to my temple. “Gotta run.”

“Good luck,” I call after him.

Determined to make it the rest of the way without thinking about Texas, pretty curls, or one obnoxiously broad pair of shoulders, I keep walking.

The steady thud coming from one of the back rooms tells me exactly where Mamá is. I push open the door just as her arm extends and an axe leaves her hand, cutting cleanly through the air before burying itself dead center in the target.

Of course she hits the bullseye.

I grew up surrounded by incredible women, all of them strong and resilient in their own ways, but there’s no one I admire more than my mother.

Before she was my mom, Amalia Montesinos was La Mercenaria.

I can’t remember how old I was when I learned the truth about my parents and the rest of my family. It feels like I’ve always known I was born into a family of assassins, where learning to fight, survive, and protect the people you love was as ordinary as learning to tie your shoes. Maybe the rest of the world would consider that a cruel reality for a child to grow up with, but I wouldn’t change it. These people are everything to me. I give Matteo hell most days, but we both know there isn’t much I wouldn’t do for him.

Family isn’t just blood. It’s who you’re willing to spill it for.

“Murder before breakfast?” I ask as she lets another axe fly.

Mamá doesn’t startle or turn. She takes her time retrieving another as though she knew I was standing there before I ever opened my mouth.

Knowing her, she probably did.

My whole life, people have told me how much I resemble her. They say I move like her and think like her, but I’d give anything for that to actually be true.

I was never an easy child, and I spent most of my teenage years testing every ounce of my mom's patience. She loved me through all of it, even when I gave her plenty of reasons to lose her mind.

Watching her with Valentina had always made me wonder more than once if she wished I’d turned out a little more like her.

I know I do.