Beautiful distractions hid the worst of crimes.

The table, draped in silk, and filled with food cooked by a renown chef, welcomed their guests, in a dining room with walls covered in expensive art. It proved to Valeria that the other people sitting down at the table for dinner would forget the young lady—who was barely a woman—across from them had been in the papers just a few months ago.

They wouldn’t remember her face had been on the news after her mother’s murder—the wife of a prominent Mexican politician. They didn’t seem to remember how just months later she walked down the aisle, not yet sixteen at that point, forced to marry the son of the man who had invited them to this dinner.

None of it mattered to them.

Money talked.

And it apparently said very nice things.

Like the silk linen, the coveted art, delicious food, and beautiful people dressed in their best with glittering diamonds showcased on their bodies to prove their status and wealth. All of it became a promise to them. Should these people keep quiet about the other issues at the table, like Valeria, then the Lòpezs would make a deal.

They liked that.

Deals.

Better known as bribes, or blackmail. It depended on her husband, and his father’s, preference or their need. When it had been her father on the other side of this table, they had wanted a promise he would help them smuggle their illegal drugs into the United States where he had connections to border control.

Her father said no.

They killed his wife.

Her father then agreed.

And so, they took her, too, and forced her to marry the oldest son of the Lòpez cartel’s leader. A way to drive the point home, she figured. Because that’s all she had been.

And now, she was a trophy.

A beautiful thing.

Something to own.

“Sonreírse,” Jorge said to her left, his Spanish order for her to smile coming out dark, and harsh, even under his breath. He watched her constantly, and when she didn’t behave as he wanted her to, he made her aware. His fingers curved around her thigh under the table, flexing enough to make her draw in a quick breath. “Now, Valeria.”

Her gaze swept the people at the table, a business meeting, they told her. Right, more like a way to manipulate and gain what the Lòpez family needed to do their work without trouble. Tonight, it was cops in high positions of power. Officers that controlled the subordinates under them, which corrupted the system further, but allowed the cartel to breathe a little easier.

This was how it worked.

She smiled when the wife of one officer turned her attention away from Valeria’s sister-in-law, Abril, to the ones at the other side of the table. The whole damn family sat there—from her father-in-law, Martín, to Jorge’s younger brother, Samuel. They pulled out all the stops to draw these people into their traps without using violent means first—the cartel’s usual way.

When someone denied them things turned bad. Valeria’s family was a good example of that.

“Martín,” the woman said to Valeria’s father-in-law, smiling a little too widely, “you must be pleased, sí?”

What was her name again?

Missy?

More American than Mexican. A dual citizen of both countries, if she trusted what her husband told her about their guests earlier, which kept the conversation drifting back and forth between English and Spanish for most of the dinner.

Not that Valeria cared to engage.

“Pleased about what?” Martín asked, tipping his wine glass up for a drink.

Out of all the people at this table, Valeria hated Martín the most. A difficult task for him to accomplish, considering she married his son, a man who beat her to keep her in line. He had suggested the marriage after killing her mother, like they should have expected it.

Still, she blamed him.

For all of this.

Across the table, Missy nodded at Valeria with a subtle tilt of her chin. Her grin reached to her eyes, as though she held a secret, but for now, she was only hinting at it.

Martín seemed to understand.

“Ah, el bebé,” Martín said, chuckling. Setting his glass to the table harder than necessary, proving just how much he had imbibed over the course of the dinner, he smiled and nodded. “Very pleased. We hoped it would be a niño for us. A boy. And yet, it seems it will be a girl, but that’s okay, too.”

Valeria had done her best throughout the dinner to not draw attention to herself. For the last several months, they had not allowed her out of the Lòpez’s compound after her marriage. This was one of the first dinners she attended, and her greatest fears would be that someone would ask about her father, apologize for her mother’s death, or even, like now, want to discuss her current life.

Valeria’s hand lifted from the table to rest upon the swell of her stomach. Under her palm, she felt the baby girl shift from her mother’s touch, but like the good baby she already seemed to be, the child settled, allowing Valeria little discomfort from the movement.

“Congratulations,” the woman said to Valeria. “Babies are gifts.”

“Blessings,” the man next to her added.

Right.

Her husband created this baby through violent means and pain, but she wouldn’t say so. Was raping her a blessing? And besides, she loved her daughter. She loved her enough that she sat at this table, kept her smile on, and shut her fucking mouth so that Jorge wouldn’t beat her later in the evening when everyone left. Then, the baby wouldn’t get hurt, too.

“Thank you,” Valeria whispered.

Her first words at the dinner.

No one seemed to notice.

Next to her, Jorge gave Valeria a tight smile. Another warning, she figured, but without him speaking it out loud. She didn’t need him to do that at all—she was aware what he expected of her, and what the punishment would be if she failed.

It used to scare her.

He terrified her.

Now, she just … worried.

For this child she carried, mostly. Because what would happen to her once she made her presence known in the world. Valeria, all of sixteen years old, but she would be seventeen before this baby was born. Not that it mattered because what control did a girl of her age have against a man like her husband. Six years her senior, a criminal who had only taken her because of the status it would provide him, and far too power hungry for his own good.

What could she do?

How might she protect this baby from him?

From the rest of them?

“Val, would you like another drink of water?”

At the soft question from a familiar, kind voice, Valeria came out of her thoughts to see her sister-in-law standing from the seat on the other side of hers. Abril gave Valeria a small smile, but in her eyes she found the truth.

Concern warred in Abril’s gaze.

Older than her by a few months, Abril was the only person in the Lòpez family that Valeria had made friends with, and sometimes, she even questioned it because she no longer trusted anyone. Abril had done nothing to prove she deserved that hesitation though. She helped.

And she had promised to help more.

“Water?” Abril asked again.

Valeria nodded. “Yes, thank you, that would be nice.”

Abril passed Valeria’s chair, her hand coming to rest on her shoulder as she bent down to whisper, “The plan happens tonight—I received the message.”

As quickly as Abril had told her the words, ones that might promise her freedom, she was leaving the dining room and the rest behind. Valeria looked to the man at her side, finding her husband distracted, and grinning at the young wife of an official across the table from him.

That grin meant he wanted to fuck the woman.

Valeria didn’t care.

The promise of freedom would make a person smile, no matter how dangerous, crazy, and even if there was no guarantee her plan to run away would work.

Still, she had to try.

For this child, she had to.

“Valeria.”

She hoped the guilt didn’t show on her face when she met Jorge’s gaze. He never missed her distractions. Now didn’t seem like a good time to play with fire. The blank expression he wore said she was the last thing on his mind.

Good.

“Yes?”

“I’m sure you won’t mind going home to the compound alone tonight, will you?” he asked.

He posed it like a question.

It wasn’t.

“Of course, not,” she said.

“I’ll be home for breakfast. Take care of my baby. You got me?”

Better than he understood.