Two weeks later.
The humidity in the evening air was thick, clinging to my brown skin like a second shadow as I led Demi down the dimly lit passage. The flicker of a few overhead bulbs was the only light we had as we marched past the aged, crumbling concrete walls.
The stench hit my nose first—a stomach-turning fusion of perspiration, feces, and the tang of rusted chains. It was the familiar smell of desertion, of misery—something Cyrus Malone deserved every fuckin’ bit of.
His cell was far from luxurious. The concrete floor was slick with fresh piss, and the bucket in the corner reeked of filth. A solitary cot rested against the wall with a paper-thin mattress and no pillow to separate his head from the stains left by past captives. Corroded chains dangled from the walls, clinking every time he shifted his weight. His once-massive figure had been reduced to nothing but a hunched bag of bones. The clothes on his back were ragged, and his ugly mug of a face was bloodied and bruised.
Good. He is getting everything his ass deserves. Let the Malone militia or Russians come. I don’t give a fuck.
The tiny window high above his head let in a slice of light through the iron bars, but it did little to erase his oppressed expression or the fact that he hadn’t been fed even a crumb in days. Droplets of water dripped repetitively from a leak in the ceiling, pooling near the back corner where mice scampered and clawed against the decaying stone, trying to escape.
My jaw ticked with rage as I glanced at Demi. Her expression was blank, and her full lips were pressed into a hard line. I wished I had the power to read her mind, though I noticed the conflict in her eyes almost instantly—the daughter who’d done nothing but love and defend her father and the woman who now stood before the monster who’d caused her unspeakable pain.
The irony of it all wasn’t lost on me, though. The villain who’d once been a titan of power and influence in the drug business now looked like a shell of his old self, beaten and chained like an unloved dog. Still, I felt no satisfaction. Not yet. If I had it my way, Demi would’ve never laid eyes on him again. At least not while he was still breathing. I planned to string him up and drag his dead body through the streets of Mexico City for what he’d done to my bride. For what he’d taken from me.
Cyrus eventually acknowledged our presence by looking up at us. His orbs were bloodshot red, but his gaze was still glaring and defiant, which told me his spirit hadn’t been fully broken yet.
“Come to gloat?” he quizzed, his voice raspy from dehydration and abandonment.
I remained silent and kept my hand tightened protectively around Demi’s. The silence stretched on for a few more seconds, weighted with undeclared feelings, before Demi took a cautious step toward her father.
I widened my stance in front of the dimly lit cell, keeping my observation trained on Cyrus. The minute he even breathed funny, I was going to put a bullet in his fuckin’ brain.
“If I had it my way, I’d be doing much more than that,” I began, my tone laced with malice. “You came to my home, knowing full well the war that would unfold. You didn’t just betray your daughter—you took life from her.”
“What?”
I ushered another step closer with my fists clenched at my sides. “You heard me! I lost my unborn child, and I almost lost my wife because of you!” I accused. “Do you know what that feels like? Watching her bleed out in my arms, not knowing if she’d survive? And then to find out we lost a baby. A child we didn’t even know we’d created.”
I paused, my jaw tightening as I tried to contain myself from ripping the bars off the hinges and strangling him to death with my bare hands. I’d never seen myself becoming a father. It was something I never thought I wanted before laying eyes on Demi. But after finding out I’d succeeded in getting her pregnant, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about what could’ve been every time I looked at her. I imagined her belly swelling with my seed—growing a little boy or girl with my smile and her attitude. Cyrus Malone took that from us.
I leaned in, gripping the bars as my voice dropped to a savage whisper. “You think this cell is your punishment? It’s not even the fuckin’ beginning, mothafucka. I’ll drag your body through the fuckin’ streets and let your corpse rot here, Cyrus. I’ll make sure you feel every drop of the pain you’ve caused us. And just when you think it won’t get worse, I promise you it will.”
My posture straightened, my cold gaze stationed on him as I awaited his response. Cyrus lifted his chin, his rusted chains rattling lightly as his emotionless eyes met mine. There was noguilt in them, no sorrow—only a glint of arrogance he’d had his entire life. He stretched his dry, cracked lips into a defiant smirk.
“You think you’re the hero in this story?” he asked, his raspy voice raw and gravely from dehydration. “You think chaining me like an animal and dragging me through the streets makes you a fuckin’ man? Look at you. You’re no better than me, mothafucka,” he grunted with a scoff. “The intimidating threats, the savagery—it’s like looking in the fucking mirror, whether you choose to believe it or not. Whether we die today or tomorrow, you’ll be burning in the same hell as me when the time comes.”
My jaw ticked, but I remained silent. But it seemed my stillness only drove him to continue his bitter monologue.
“You wanna talk about pain and loss, but you don’t know what it means to sacrifice your seed if you’re not a boss. Everything I ever did, I did it for power, respect, and her,” he confessed as he tilted his gaze toward his daughter. “And look where the fuck it got me.”
I looked over my shoulder. Demi stood behind me, her face drained yet tense. Again, I found myself wishing I could read her thoughts. In the midst of it all, Cyrus let out a hacking cough that reverberated off the walls of the filthy cell, causing my eyes to shift from Demi back to him.
“She’s my fuckin’ blood. My seed. My daughter. I raised her! I taught her everything she fucking knows! And you think she’s better off with you? The cartel boss who’s been defiling my daughter and playing house while mourning a child he probably didn’t even fuckin’ want before you found out about it? If I couldn’t do it, you’ll never be able to keep her safe. One call to the Russians, and you’re finished. You’re nowhere near strong enough.”
I inched forward, ready to prove him wrong, my fury visible in my knitted brow and clenched fist, but Demi’s soft yet firm grip on my arm stopped me in my tracks. Upon instinct, myattention shifted to her, and for a split second, my stone-like expression softened.
“Demi,” he said, chains rattling as he turned toward her. “You can despise me, judge me for my choices, but you’ll always be my daughter. You’ll never escape that, no matter whose last name you take on. You’re a Malone at heart. It’s my blood running through your veins, whether you fuckin’ like it or not.”
She flinched, tears building up in the corners of her eyes. Cyrus detected it and smirked slightly, knowing he’d gotten under her skin. “See what I mean? Even now, you wanna turn your back on me, but you can’t. You know why? Because no matter how much you think you’re his, you’ll always be mine because we’re family, Demi. You’ll come to understand it all one day—you don’t fuckin’ walk away from family.”
My words sliced through the silence. “You’re not her fuckin’ familia anymore,” I growled.
Cyrus’s arrogant smirk faded, but he remained silent as his gaze lowered to the dirty floor beneath him. The chains rattled as he slumped against the wall, visibly weary. His last words replayed in my head like a broken record, a sour echo of a fallen man desperately clinging to the only thing he had left—his false impression of power and control. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and when I fished it out, the name on the screen made my chest tighten slightly.
“It’s Maya,” I muttered to Demi.
“Answer it. I’ll be okay here,” she assured me.