Page 27 of Chris

“Papa.”

Chris slid in beside his father where Gian seemed comfortable to stand next to a window overlooking the garden on the north side of the property. Quite a large garden, too, and one his mother would appreciate, had she been here to see it.

“Chris,” Gian replied in kind.

“Did they leave you on your own?”

Gian raised his brows, and lifted the drink in his hand for a sip. “I wandered off, but no one bothered to follow me. I figured something else must have taken their attention for a time.”

Possibly.

Or, at least Jorge’s attention.

“I approached her outside,” Chris said, lowering his tone to above a murmur. If he believed Jorge to be paranoid, then even if they assumed they were alone, they likely were not. “We took a walk around the pool.”

Gian cleared his throat. “Do you think that’s smart at this moment?”

“We have to know, don’t we?”

“Know what?”

“Whether this is where she wants to be,” Chris said, shrugging. “I know all signs point to her being taken by force, given what we know, but there was still a possibility that she wanted to be here with him.”

“Was,” his father noted. “Past tense.”

Right.

“She’s controlled here, isn’t she?”

“To be fair, they all are,” Gian replied. “Fear is the first tactic a cartel uses to keep people in line, even their own.”

“Sure, but so much so that to take a short walk with me, she asked that we stay in view of the guards?”

“Some women don’t want even a suggestion of impropriety, Chris.”

His father wasn’t wrong, and he knew Gian was playing the devil’s advocate for him right now. Gian was of the mindset that Valeria didn’t want to be here, and there was nothing to figure out. Chris wasn’t as simple, and needed to be one-hundred percent sure before he started this plan of theirs, and did something crazy.

“I asked her if she liked it here,” Chris added, “and while her response was … meant to distract me, I still heard what she didn’t say.”

“Hmm. What, then?”

“The husband came out. She went back in the house.”

Chris didn’t mention how, while it may have seemed like he was staring at the sky when Valeria joined Jorge on the steps earlier, he had been keeping one eye on them. He saw it all—the way Jorge grabbed her, like she was property to him, and even the flash of fear in Valeria’s face before she slipped inside the house.

“Tell me,” Gian said, turning to face Chris, but keeping his head tilted down, “why, even with all the details we had on this situation, that you thought the woman might be here willingly, son.”

That seemed obvious enough, didn’t it?

“I don’t pretend to understand the complexities of other people’s relationships,” Chris replied, “and if people think she would be the first woman to fall in love with her captor, then they would be wrong. I wanted to be sure.”

Gian sighed, nodding. “And you’re convinced now?”

“Undoubtedly. She’s not here because she wants to be.”

Which meant, it was time for them to get to work. Or rather, for Chris to get to work. He needed to get his father out of this country, and work out a plan to get Valeria, and little Maria, out of here, too.

Without Jorge coming after them.