Malo - Page 39

“What’s going on there?” I ask him curiously. “Why are all those people here?”

He sighs. “We’re under a code black right now,” he explains

I frown, wrinkling my nose in confusion. “And for the uninitiated, that means…?”

“It means that Las Rosas took the bate and hit the Cafarelli family, just like we thought they would,” he continues, expanding on his main point. “And they’ve come to form a temporary alliance.”

“What does that mean exactly?”

“It means they want Las Rosas wiped out. An all-out war against the cartel,” he tells me, his voice dropping slightly as he speaks, his eyes darkening. I can see from the look on his face how serious this is to him. I almost want to ask him about his own grudge against the cartel, what happened with Harley, but that’s clearly far too sensitive a point to bring up.

“Damn,” I mutter, reaching for the coffee he made me.

He pauses, his eyes fixed on mine for a moment as he considers what to say next.

“If you want to leave,” he tells me. “Now is the time. Because it’s not going to be long until everything around here gets a lot more serious, and if you get caught up in it, there’ll be no way for you to get out.”

I bite my lip. I know he’s right. Getting caught in the middle of this war, it’s going to put me in the kind of danger I could never have imagined before, the kind of risk I’ve been trying to avoid all this time. But how can I walk away, when I know my father is still in danger? How can I just leave, when I’m in so deep now?

“I’m not going anywhere until I know my father is safe,” I reply firmly, and I mean it. Even if the trip to Mexico didn’t come to much, it doesn’t mean I’m anything close to willing to give up on him, that much, I’m sure about.

A small smile curls up the corners of his lips.

“He’s lucky to have you,” he murmurs. “Not many daughters would go this far to get their father back.”

“Trust me, all the girls I grew up with, they’d do this without a second thought.” I laugh. “Besides, he raised me. All by himself, for the most part. It’s the least I can do.”

“Your mom’s not around?”

“She passed away when I was young,” I reply, lowering my gaze to the table for a moment. “It’s just been me and my dad for most of my life. I miss her, of course I do, but he’s such an amazing parent. I was never left wanting for anything in the world.”

“He sounds like a good father,” he remarks, and I feel a warmth in my chest as I nod in agreement.

“When you meet him,” I reply. “You’ll see for yourself.”

For some reason, the thought of Malo meeting my father makes me happy, in ways I hadn’t expected. It makes me feel safe, the thought of those two men together, those two men who have gone to such lengths to keep me safe. Malo might have messed up while he was in Mexico, but he’s here now—sitting right here opposite me, making breakfast for me, telling me he’s sorry. And that has to count for something.

And I can still remember, all too clearly, the way he came into that room when Rayo came at me. The way he pulled him away from me, yanking me to safety, his eyes blazing with anger. As though he couldn’t believe someone would dare lay hands on me like that. It feels good to have someone like him on my side, even in the midst of all of this. I know I would still be locked up in that room if he hadn’t found a way to forgive me for the money I stole from him and gotten me out of there. Sure, part of it is because I can help the Kings take down the cartel, but there’s something else to it, too.

There’s something more between us. Something I know he feels as much as I do. And even if we’re not exactly talking about it right now, it’s still there, and I don’t want to let it go.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I finish. “Whatever it takes to get my father out, I’m willing to do it. I don’t care how long it takes.”

He nods, and I see a certainty in his gaze as he looks back at me.

“We’ll get him out,” he promises. “I can’t tell you how long it’s going to take, or what we’re going to have to go through to get there, but we will. Okay?”

“Okay,” I reply, smiling. A flash of frustration crosses his face again, and he shakes his head, as though remembering everything that happened before.

“I should have done more while we were in Mexico,” he mutters. “I should have?—”

“Hey,” I cut him off, before he can spiral any further down that line of thought. “It’s fine. They’re not going to kill him, right? Not as long as it takes for him to make whatever they’re looking for from him. You did what you could.”

I can tell he’s not convinced. He doesn’t seem like the type who’s good at cutting himself a break, even when he deserves it.

“What’s happens next?” I ask. I don’t know what this war will look like, exactly. I figure there’s going to be a whole lot of bloodshed, a whole lot of lives lost, but that’s about all I can picture right now.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “Beast’s calling everyone together in the war room?—”