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“It was last year some time. I picked her up from a club and drove her home. Nothing happened, I just saw her differently.”
“My fucking daughter!” he snarls at me, his teeth bared like a rabid dog.
“I know,” I reply. Does he think that I’ve forgotten this fact? “I wish that it wasn’t her, Alejandro.” I shake my head because saying that feels like I’m betraying her. But I do wish that the one woman I can’t live without wasn’t my best friend’s daughter. But he is more than that to me. He is my brother. Since we were fourteen years old, we have stood by each other’s sides. He has been with me through every high and low I have ever experienced, and I for him. I am godfather to his sons. He is the only true family I have.
“What if I asked you to choose?” he says, his eyes narrowed as he stares at me.
“You wouldn’t!” I glare back at him.
“Oh, I would. Choose, Jackson. You can’t be my brother if you are screwing my daughter. So which is it to be?”
My throat constricts as I try to swallow. Surely he’s not asking this of me? I have been nothing but loyal to him for over twenty years. I have watched him become the man he is today, stood proudly at his side as he took his place as head of the Montoya family. I can’t imagine a life without him in it.
“Then there is no choice,” I say as I drop my head to my chest and in that moment, the only thing I can think about is all that I have lost.
CHAPTER 42
LUCIA
I can’t get a hold of Jax. He left my apartment over two hours ago and I’ve been calling him for the past hour but his phone goes straight to voicemail. I am frantic with worry and my mind is in overdrive, thinking of all of the worst things that could have happened. What if my father couldn’t forgive him? What if he shot him and is currently driving him out into the desert to bury him in an unmarked grave? I know that’s crazy-talk but the thoughts won’t stop running around my brain.
As I take the elevator to the top floor of my father’s hotel another, more realistic, thought enters my head. What if my father made him leave and I never see him again?
A few moments later, I burst into my father’s office to find him sitting at his desk. He holds a large glass of whisky in one hand, sighing as he sees me walk through the door. I can’t help but notice the cut on his lip and hope that Jax is okay. Guilt washes over me like a wave. My father and Jax are like brothers. They have never fallen out before and now I have caused this huge rift between them.
“Papi,” I say as I walk into the room.
“Lucia,” he says and the flicker of a smile pulls at his lips as he takes a glass from his desk and pours me a Scotch. “Sit down, mija.”
“Did you and Jax fight?”
He brushes his lip with his fingertips but he doesn’t answer me.
“What happened?” I ask as he passes me the glass of amber liquid.
“I told him he had to choose,” he says matter-of-factly, as though he hasn’t just plunged a knife straight into my chest.
“What?” I stammer. “How could you do that?” I slam my glass down onto his desk.
“I had to, Lucia. I did it for you.”
“No,” I snarl at him. “You did it for you. So that you could keep your best friend and your most loyal soldier. I suppose this works out well for Mom, too. Does she think that I’ll stop working for you now?”
“This has nothing to do with your mama,” he snaps at me and his eyes darken. “You think that I don’t want to see you happy, Lucia? It breaks my heart to see you in pain.”
“So why did you make Jax choose?” I sniff as a fat tear rolls down my cheek.
He sucks in a deep breath and looks down at the glass in his hand, swirling the dark liquid around the bottom for a few seconds before he answers me.
“Because I know Jax better than anyone, Lucia. I know the kind of man he is.”
“I know him too, Papi. I love him.”
“I know that you do,” he nods. “And I also knew that he would make the right choice.”
“No,” I cry as the tears roll down my face. I have lost Jax. For good this time.
“Lucia,” he says, pushing back his chair and walking around the desk to me. He places an arm around my shoulder and I try to shrug him off but he is too determined. That is my father after all. Determined. Stubborn. Always getting what he wants no matter what the cost. “He chose you, mija.”
