Twisted Tides (Forged Hearts #2)

Chapter Sixteen

EVIE

“Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush

T he plane touches down in Mexico, and I feel the anxiety creeping in. Mateo and I didn’t speak much during the flight. The night that we found out about Mr. Martinez being Mateo’s father, I knew that a long-overdue visit to Mexico was needed to finally find out what the actual fuck was going on. We have so many questions that need answering, and I want to be able to see our uncle’s face when he tells us the truth.

“How many more lies are they keeping from us?” I mumble under my breath. It’s not a question because I know that there is definitely more to come to light.

Mateo glances over at me, but doesn’t respond. He runs his finger over his lip, probably wondering the same thing. I look out the window as the plane is taxing into the gate.

This is our family, and there should not be any secrets between us if we are to succeed in bringing the Martinez family down. I know every family harbors some secrets, but this is beyond normal. This is the mother of all secrets, so to speak, and I can’t believe my own mother kept this from us and that, worse, no one told us anything about it after her passing. Wasn’t it significant enough to warrant a discussion? I want to find out why my brother was sent away from us and we never knew anything about him.

We grab our luggage from the carousel and walk side by side out of the baggage claim area. As soon as we get outside, I am assaulted with the heat that only comes from a desert-like climate. Spring is hot in Texas and is similar to south of the border, but what a heat wave it is. The heat creates a visible mirage glaring off the pavement in wavy lines. I place my hand over my brow to reduce some of the glare when I see Adrian pull up.

“Eek!” I drop my luggage handle and run over to hug him. I know that Mateo and I are close, and it stings something fierce to know that they are cousins, too. The unfair balance of family dynamics is unsettling and puts a damper on my reunion.

He runs around to the side of the truck, and I can’t help but jump into his embrace, messenger bag and all.

“Hey, cousin. How are you?” I drop down from my koala-like hug and fling my messenger bag over his shoulder before he can reply. I jump into the front seat of his truck before Mateo can get in there.

“Shotgun!” I ring out as loudly as I can. I hear Adrian greet Mateo while simultaneously throwing our luggage and my messenger bag in the back.

“I see she is just as pleasant as ever,” he remarks, and Mateo snorts.

“Oh, you have no idea. Remember, I live with her.”

Adrian laughs. “Right, my condolences.”

They both get into the truck, glancing my way.

“Hey, I can hear you guys. You know that right?”

“Um, Evie, we were not saying anything you didn’t already know, and we weren’t exactly trying to keep that from you.” Adrian chuckles, placing the truck into drive.

No, but what else are you keeping from me, cousin?

I roll down the window as we take off toward our uncle’s house, the only consistent home I've ever had and filled with many good memories. I stare out the window, wondering at the possibilities.

We are barely settled in at the house and are about to have lunch when our conversation is interrupted by a phone call from Eduardo. My uncle heads to his office, and Mateo, Adrian, and I all run toward him, following like children to eavesdrop when he takes the call.

My uncle ushers us in, as he shuts the door when I slip in last, taking my seat. The emotions on my face quickly decline as my mind turns into a downward spiral of what-ifs. Mateo tucks me into his embrace, standing by my side as always while we wait to hear what Eduardo has to say. He places the call on the speaker and places his finger to his mouth, a gesture letting us know to be quiet.

“Eduardo. To what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?”

The urgency in Eduardo’s voice makes me want to run back to Houston to see if my sister is okay for myself. Mateo squeezes my arm, trying to comfort me.

“I just spoke to Emma, and she informed me that Mr. Martinez, Julian’s father, was at the gala last week, and he cornered her outside of the bathroom. She just told me after a week. A whole fucking week, Andrés!”

He sounds upset. My shoulders relax as Mateo and I saw this account firsthand. I know he didn’t have time to tell her anything, but he does know where she is now. Unfortunately, that’s the least of our concerns at the moment. After our brief, but informative visit with Mr. Martinez, we now see much more is going on, which is more unsettling than today’s news. After all, that is why we are here visiting our uncle.

Uncle Andrés knows this too, and judging by his expression, there’s more. They discuss strategy, and he lets Eduardo know that he is coming up with a plan but has an emergency he needs to take care of at the moment. They disconnect the call and Tió points to the chairs that he would like for us to take a seat at. I’m already sitting, but before Adrian joins us, he decides we might need a different approach.

Adrian walks over to his dad’s cabinet and pulls out a bottle of scotch. He grabs four glasses, pours some Buchanan’s into each glass, giving one to each of us. I, for one, don’t waste a minute before I throw back the entire contents in one go, smacking my lips in the process. Adrian wrinkles his nose as he looks at me like I am a disgrace to the family.

“Pfft, please.” He wouldn’t be incorrect, but there’s a lot of ‘disgrace’ going on in this family. I place my glass on the table before smacking my lips at the flavors assaulting my taste buds. My uncle looks at me with a slight quirk on his lip. “Something you wanted to say, Uncle?”

He steeples his hands, observing us, and Mateo’s knees bounce in anticipation of what he will say. I look him up and down. Maybe he should have drank the scotch in one go also. Bro looks like he can use about one or twelve.

I frown, looking his way, but he doesn’t notice. He doesn’t notice anything except the person sitting at that desk about to make his worst nightmare come true. He is focused on anything that may leave our uncle’s mouth. I turn back to him, and then he confirms what we feared.

“Mr. Martinez is your father.”

Mateo blinks a few times before he drops his head down, and I move my chair over to offer my brother some emotional support. To be told that that monster is your father is the worst news that anyone can get.

Tió continues, “Julian is your half-brother.”

And I think I lied to myself because it definitely did get worse. Mattie shakes his head in disbelief, but he knows it’s true. He just doesn’t want to admit it, and I second that.

“How?” he says. “When?” He shakes his head in disbelief, but he knows it’s true. He just doesn’t want to admit it.

“Your mother dated Julian’s father during her first year of college. She was on her own, like father and son, he had a similar infatuation with your mom as Julian did with Emma. She found out she was pregnant with you and came home one weekend to speak with us about it. She explained that she had been sexually active with Mr. Martinez in a consensual way, but when she told him she was leaving college to return home, he wanted her to take time off and have her stay there with him. He was very insistent, and she was wary of his intentions. She swears he must have tampered with the condom, but before she could end the relationship, she found out she was pregnant with you. She was in her first trimester, and we discussed various options.”

Mateo visibly tenses with this, and I know immediately what he is referring to by this. I hold onto Mattie’s hand out of instinct, and he leans into me, unsure if he wants to hear anything further. Tió holds his hand up to let him continue with what he is saying.

“I want to be clear. She always wanted to keep you, and anything else than not having you wasn’t an option for her, but she also knew that if she told him about you that he wouldn’t let her leave and his controlling behavior would just get worse. He would hold you over her forever, so she left the beach of South Padre, which she loved so much, and lived here with us.”

“I did believe her when she told us that Mr. Martinez had tampered with the contraception. This wasn’t what she had planned. Our parents were pissed, but they supported her decisions, when she came back home to have Mateo. She also discovered that her best friend and dorm mate was now sleeping with Mateo’s biological father, so she felt he would soon forget about her.”

“But he didn’t forget about her, did he?” Mateo mutters under his breath.

“Our father thought it was best for her to go to another college farther away, and they decided to raise Mateo along with my wife and me.”

“So, why didn’t she give me up for adoption?” I look over at my brother and selfishly thank my mother for keeping him close. He saved me, too, so there’s that. If it wasn’t for him, who knows what would have happened to me, but I do know. He would have broken me, and then I’d be dead, too—like my parents.

“She couldn’t possibly let him get to you, and I think she wanted to keep you close because she couldn’t let go. Anyway, later, she received a letter forwarded from the PO Box we had on file at the school containing a wedding invitation from her ex-boyfriend and ex-best friend. We thought that was the end of it, and for a long time, it was.

“When your mom went to this new college, she met a man there and fell in love with him—your father, Evie. She wanted to come back and be closer to you, but we all decided that you could never know about her, Mateo, and that she was your mother. She begged and pleaded with us, but we were insistent and wouldn’t hear of it. You were safer that way. We all were.”

He takes a big gulp of his drink before placing it down. “She eventually moved back to the town she loved so much after she had you girls, which was still close to us. She wanted her kids to be born in the US, and her husband was a US citizen. They had you girls and came to visit frequently, but then Eduardo and Emma became close.”

He left that to simmer for a bit. “He seemed almost obsessed with her, and he came from another mafia family. Your mom didn’t want that life for Emma.”

I notice Mateo visibly stiffening in his chair. Anger radiates off him, and I can understand that. “But she didn’t care about that life for me?” He slams his fist on our uncle’s desk.

“Let me be clear. We discovered Mr. Martinez wanted to trap your mother because of her family ties. He realized she was the daughter of a major mafia player in the Gulf Coast area, and he wanted to tie himself to the family through an heir. That was why he could never know about you.”

I turn to look at Mateo and my uncle. I understand his reaction. He has a lot of anger, and things are undoubtedly unfair. He never had the chance to meet his mom and have the family he deserved. In fact, when we were there in Mexico with our mother, Mateo wasn’t. He was sent off to boarding school, and now we know why.

“So why was I sent off?” he spews, but I already know. “Was it because they didn’t want me around when her new family was here?” The anger is palpable, and I recoil at the viciousness his words yield.

My uncle is quick to reply. “No, it’s more than that, Sobrino.” His eyes soften, and this is the first time he has referred to Mateo as his nephew.

I almost choke out a sob and try to rein it in, looking away from my brother. His expression would gut me. I see from my peripheral vision as Mateo’s head drops, and I know that he realizes as much as I do that there is something broken in my uncle’s voice that is more like regret and sadness.

“I don’t remember her being here,” Mateo admits. His voice cracks, and I almost want to cry for the little boy that wasn’t with his real family. “I remember you and Adrian, but I don’t know them.” He looks over at me, and sadness stretches between us. I glance up to meet his eyes—a bridge of tears that brings us closer to understanding the truth of what happened all those years ago.

“We left and went on trips. You always loved the beach.” He smiles, remembering all of it as his memories wash over him in nostalgic waves. He pauses. “As the girls got bigger and my wife passed, I couldn’t handle it anymore. Grandpops passed away, and my mother had suffered from dementia for years and was in an assisted living facility with round-the-clock care. Her memories were stolen from her, and she didn’t even know who we were.”

Adrian stands up and pours us all another glass of scotch. Tió empties his glass’s remaining contents and holds it out to his son for a refill.

“I decided to send you off to school so that you could have a better education. Then, when your mother cut off ties with us, we brought you back and made you part of the organization—a soldier—in case we needed you to take a stand.

“Mr. Martinez might have suspected you could be alive, but he never saw any indication that the rumors were true, until he recently had everything confirmed with his own eyes.”

I look at my brother in panic, and he stares back at me, the same emotions flaring to life.

“Emma was falling down the same path with Eduardo, and I think your mom overreacted and never returned to Mexico. Eduardo’s family is heavily involved in the mafia, and she wanted a different life for her kids.”

“Well, that worked out well, clearly.” I point around us.”You know what they say about the ‘best-laid plan’ and all.”

“It might have been. Except Eduardo was always in love with Emma. That time the kid returned the following year, and he left heartbroken. A shell of himself. I had to tell him to respect your mother’s wishes. But who knew that history would repeat itself and Julian would get his claws into Emma.” He pauses, looking around at us.

“This is so fucked up.” I stand up and walk around the office. Mateo is still sitting there, until he finally speaks.

“Does Julian really need Emma now that I am alive and have a real connection to him and this family? The bond that ties us all?”

Uncle Andrés finishes the rest of his drink and stands. “Now that, my nephew, is the real question, and more importantly, what happens now?”