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Cricket tipped his head and watched her spin on her heels and disappear around the corner. Damn, he couldn’t stop smiling. It seemed the universe had been listening earlier, and with any luck, he wouldn’t be spending any more nights alone.
eight
Manuel Contreras wasn’t a soft man. In fact, he preferred to think of himself as hardened steel, no soft edges or warmth of any kind. In his world, with the type of people he dealt with, it was just easier that way. He needed to be feared and revered in order to stay at the top of the food chain; otherwise, he’d be cut down fast.
But no man was without a soft underbelly. As a human being, made fallible, he had one major weakness: his daughter.
Victorjia was the perfect combination of her momma and him, a blend of his Mexican bloodline and her mother’s Cuban. She was exotic in her beauty and smart as a whip, and she was the gentlest creature he’d ever met. Again, because of her mother.
Paola had been the love of his life, the only person capable of making him a good man, and for a time she had. She’d saved him from the darkness of the streets that threatened to devour all young men and briefly they’d made a life together anyone would be proud of.
The day she died had been traumatic and life changing for him and their baby girl. Cut down by thugs while leaving the bank—a simple errand that should have seen her home safely—she’d lost her life too soon.
Just a random shooting. A case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, the policia had claimed.
Manuel didn’t care what the excuse was. He wanted justice. He wanted revenge.
Months of lax investigation resulting in nothing finally made the decision for him, and Manuel packed up his daughter and sent her off to live with her abuela while he took matters into his own hands.
It took a few years, a lot of money, a lot of blood spilled, and too many crimes that he wasn’t proud of to get there, but eventually he had tracked down Paola’s killers and exacted his own justice.
Pieces of them were scattered everywhere now. No one would ever find them.
Now, his little girl was an adult, a woman as gentle and beautiful as her mother was. He texted her regularly, sent her gifts to let her know he was thinking of her and made sure she wanted for nothing.
Yet he hadn’t seen her in the flesh in over a decade.
He couldn’t help it. It was like looking into his dead wife’s eyes, standing before the ghost of the woman he loved but could never again see or speak to. Even Victorija’s voice was an exact match for her mother’s.
The pain he felt through even a simple picture could not be expressed, for it was debilitating. He’d managed to avoid physical contact with her all these years, but that time had reached its end.
When Victorjia called him two nights ago to let him know she was on her way there, to his home, and planned to stay, he’d been unable to deny her. He could deny her nothing. She hadn’t offered a reason beyond wanting to see him, to connect with him as a father and daughter should, and now he had little more than minutes before she arrived on his doorstep.
Madre de Dios, give him strength. He’d cheated death more times than he could count, but he held zero confidence he would get through this alive.
The gentle hum of a car engine touched his ears, and Manuel perked up, instantly on alert. But not for danger, despite his fight or flight responses kicking in.
He knew without a doubt what that sound meant, but he left his comfortable leather wingback and moved to the floor-to-ceiling, multi-paned window overlooking the long and winding drive to witness it for himself.
The black beamer coasted toward the house, reaching the brick that formed a roundabout encircling an overlarge, stone water fountain in the image of cherubs urinating, before coming to a complete stop outside the front door.
Manuel drew a deep breath as his finger went to his suit jacket and fastened the single gold button. This was it. His world was about to shift yet again, the past reaching out as if from the grave to run its icy fingers down his spine.
He could almost feel Paola’s cold breath on the back of his neck as he watched the driver exit the vehicle and round the car to the rear passenger door, opening it and standing back to allow his daughter to pass.
White sandals preceded long, tanned legs as she stepped out, and he gasped. The pictures hadn’t painted a clear enough picture. Victorjia didn’t just look like her mother. She could pass for her twin!
As those big, brown, doe-like eyes looked up at his Spanish-style mansion, her expression unreadable much as his own most days, Manuel decided it was now or never.
Turning away, each purposeful stride he took carried him closer to a reality he was as unready as he was unprepared—and undeserving—for.
He gave a nod to the valet who opened the door with perfect timing so he never broke stride. Stepping out into the sunlight, Manuel took his first close-up look at his daughter in ages…and tried not to lose his breath.
That soft gaze of hers swept from the imposing house’s façade to him, taking him in, in much the same fashion he was. There was a difference between having knowledge of someone from a distance and actually standing before them in the flesh. There was something profound about the moment, as terrifying and exhilarating as it was.
Still, as Manuel took the two stone steps down to the driveway and met his daughter halfway, he couldn’t shake the sense of dread that filled him.
As much as a part of him—deep, deep down—liked the idea of having her under his roof, he wanted her gone from his life.
