Page 65 of Chris

“Make sure.”

The crack of a gunshot slicing through the air had Valeria jerking on the spot. She glanced upward in just enough time to see a skeet fly into the air by a mechanical arm before it exploded into shards of ruined ceramic. This little game of Jorge’s and his men was now getting tiring, but she knew better than to go out there and tell him to knock it off.

Not that it mattered.

The sky was darkening as Valeria could see from her position on the bench seat at the large bay window in the sitting room. Soon, they would drink—let’s be honest, they already had—and that would take importance over playing stupid shooting games with their rifles.

“You seem annoyed.”

Valeria gave a look over her shoulder, and a small smile when her sister-in-law joined her at the window. “Decided to come along, did you?”

Abril waved a dainty hand. “Someone needs to keep you company, no?”

“Oh, was that it?”

“I had nothing better to do back at the ranch.”

“Did you see Maria with—”

Abril’s smile grew cold in an instant. “Carla knows what will happen to her should she step out of line with my niece.”

Of course.

No question, Abril was just like her brothers. They didn’t realize it, which was their mistake, Valeria supposed.

The raucous laughter from outside drew their attention to the window again. Valeria didn’t wonder for long what had caused the men’s uproar when she found her husband pawing at a woman while he stuck his tongue down her throat.

Valeria blinked.

The woman, wearing a gray dress with white buttons down the front, was a servant at the house. She couldn’t be any older than twenty, if that, but she didn’t seem to have a problem with the way Jorge groped her in front of a crowd of men while he licked the goddamn taste right out of her mouth.

She made a noise in the back of her throat, unsure of how she felt about the entire scene happening outside. Annoyed, maybe, but only because if the woman was bothered by the attention, she was far better at hiding it than Valeria.

“Better her than you tonight,” Abril murmured beside her.

“That’s cold, don’t you think?”

Abril sighed. “I have learned that we all have to sacrifice to survive in this world, Val. And that means sometimes, thinking about yourself and what is best for you, even if that means someone else must hurt for it. You have too caring of a heart—you worry too much about people who wouldn’t give a damn about you, and that’s why you’re an easy target for him, and whoever else wants to break your back on the way to the top.”

Ouch.

That stung.

Abril wasn’t wrong though.

“It’s bad I care?” she asked quietly.

“It’s bad you care so much, you would sacrifice yourself for someone else, yes. Women like us that’s not how we make it in our life.”

“Abril?”

“Hmm?”

Valeria glanced at her sister-in-law from the side, weighing her next words because she didn’t want to offend the one person from her husband’s family who gave a shit, and looked out for her. Then again, Abril had always appreciated Valeria’s honesty, so she chose to say was on her mind.

“I don’t want to be like you,” Valeria whispered, “I’m not like you, or them. I never was.”

Abril cleared her throat, her gaze drawing down to the ledge of the bench seat where Valeria sat, and she stood next to her. “I know, which is why I never understood his obsession with keeping you when you didn’t fit him.”