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Estevan narrowed his eyes and slowly nodded. “Sí, the name sounds familiar, but I don’t believe we’ve met.” He reached for her, chains rattling. “Tell me, how have you been? How’s your mother? I want to hear everything.”
The guard turned around and peered in through the window. Being given a private room wasn’t normal, but she’d pulled a few strings to speak without others listening.One of the perks of being in the FBI.
“You know full well how I’ve been and how Mamá is.” She tightly gripped the folder on her lap. When the guard offered it to her at the front, it came as a surprise but one she didn’t mind. The more she stayed ahead of her father, the better. She pulled out the packet and emptied the contents. “The guards confiscated this last week.”
She held up one of the newspaper clippings and prayed her hand wouldn’t shake. “This is me, Papi. You’ve been watching me.”
Estevan took the article and scoured it. “Sí, mija,I wanted to know you. Since you never visited, I had to find out who you were on my own.” He tossed the paper back to the table. “I’m surprised, of course, but my daughter, an FBI agent, is an achievement on its own.” He puffed out his chest, pride evident in his voice. “You’ve done well too.”
She couldn’t reciprocate the emotion in his eyes. It grated on her nerves the longer she kept his gaze. This wasn’t the man from her childhood. Hell, she wasn’t even sure she knew her father. Her childhood in Diablos seemed like a dream, not the nightmare she later discovered it was.
“I never would’ve guessed it.” He chuckled. “My daughter, a Fed. That’s been hard to explain in here, mija.” He shook his head. “But your name change helps keep you safe. Too many club members have uttered your name, though.” Estevan looked to Kevlar, then back to her. “Better watch your back. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”
Keeping her father’s gaze was harder by the second. The subtle threat wasn’t hard to translate. “Why did you choose the Greenback Cutthroats MC?”
His smile remained fixed, not a muscle moving. After years of interrogations, he’d surely built up a threshold to such questions. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The familiar accent grated on her ears. He’d always had it, but now it sounded more defined as if he spoke nothing but Spanish while incarcerated.
“Fine, let’s talk about Diablos. Who’s running your club?”
He shrugged. “Why would I know?” He lifted his hands, but only as far as the cuffs let him. “I’m shackled to this prison, mija. I have no contact with Diablos.”
Kevlar’s body tensed beside her, and she reached over, squeezing his thigh once.
“Someone from Diablos came after me.” She stared into his eyes, waiting for him to break his indifference. Instead, a slow smile crossed his face.
“Mija, you abandoned me fifteen years ago. How else could I get your attention?”
“You put our family at risk back then, but you couldn’t just let us go.” She gritted her teeth, resisting the strong urge to slap him.
“You betrayed me.” He spit across the table, missing her by inches. His fatherly role quickly evaporated, and a hardened criminal replaced him. “You and your worthless mother. I had to get my vengeance. You’re lucky it took me so long to catch you in my snare.” Sitting back, his easy smile found him again. “It’s been years in the making. I tried so many times, but you never took the bait. You never made the connection. Until this MC.” He glared at Kevlar. “I wonder why. Perhaps, because your emotions are in play, sí?”
“I hate you.”
“Fine, hate me all you want.” He leaned closer over the table. “But hate me from the Diablos presidency seat.”
Nikita reared back, his words punching hard. “Excuse me?”
“Run Diablos, mija. You were made for the job.” He chuckled. “Hell, when your mother couldn’t produce any more children, I groomed you to take over.”
“No, you’re wrong.” She looked to Kevlar but his face was etched in confusion. Rubbing her hands on her thighs, she wracked her mind for an explanation to his statement.
“Am I?” Estevan clucked his tongue. “Remember all those trips we took? How excited you were to be part of my world? I remember them like they were yesterday.”
Wracking her memories, she pulled up ones that matched. Plenty of worldwide locations, but nothing ever stood out about the trips. She was fully aware of the MC but never knew the inner workings of their transactions. “I was your companion because Mamá couldn’t travel.”
“No!” He shook his head. “Your mother refused to go with me, mija, so I took you wherever I went.” He searched her face. “Don’t you remember playing in Ireland? Those weren’t games. Those were battle plans. Ones you helped create.”
Her blood went cold. That she remembered. It’d looked like a game, a fun one with tiny motorcycles and stickmen.There’d been a map.She bit her lip.Fuck.
“Ah, you remember, good. The Twelve Brothers MC adored having you around.” His dark eyes lit. “We even discussed merging our clubs with a marriage.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Kevlar’s jaw tighten. Meeting his eyes, she saw the rage there. It equally mirrored her own. Shaking her head slightly, she wasn’t sure if he could keep his temper sated. She couldn’t return to the purpose of their visit. Not until she understood how he went from a seemingly loving father to a maniacal criminal mastermind. The truth of the matter was that her father had always been like this. She’d just been too young and naïve to see it.
“How did you keep the club’s business so secret?” Nikita pushed down her disappointment with herself and her father and pressed on toward the reason she was there. “I never knew how violent Diablos truly was until the trial.”
“You saw what we let you see. Your mother kept you away from the darker sides of the club.”
