Delgano: A Dark Contemporary Interracial Romance

He worked his jaw, nearly cracking several teeth. “Let nothing else about my mother come out of your filthy fucking mouth, puta.”

The tip of her tongue peeked between her lips. “Are these the names you’ll call me when we’re wrapped around each other in a few days, fucking like nymphos?”

His mother had always been a sore spot. She’d had such enormous dreams, all of which were far too grand for the life they’d had to return to once the illusion dissolved.

According to her, their destiny had been to end up somewhere in Europe. There, she would be offered a “super important job” that would give her weekends off, and they would spend those weekends going to museums, art exhibitions, cafés, restaurants, and fresh food markets. She would put him in the best schools, and he would go on to attend one of the top colleges in Europe, the United Kingdom, or the United States. Then, he would get married and have children, and because of the life she’d given him, his children would never have to experience the poverty that had closed its fists around their throats every night.

Some days, he wondered whether, in her final moments, she’d finally accepted that those kinds of dreams weren’t usually afforded to people like them. Without heavy doses of luck, significant intellect, beauty too exceptional to go unnoticed, or an acceptance of a life of crime, people like them were usually left to create legacies out of destitution.

Knowing his mother, however, she’d probably hoped that a better future made its way to him somehow, more than likely through divine intervention, without considering how much more impossible it would be in her absence.

“Look, Gano, I know that this,” the crimson-haired woman gestured to him, “wasn’t the best way to get you to trust me. To trust us. You don’t even know my name. First off, I’m Hannah. I was tasked with locating Adrían Delgano, the Enforcer from Brazil, and bringing him in. There are three of us at the moment: Trevor Mason, Nick Spettro, and yours truly.”

The stone against his cheek grew warmer. As if sensing his discomfort, she used her body to provide enough shade to cover his face. Then she passed her fingers through his hair, tucking a few strands behind his ear.

“Adrían, I’m sure your mother didn’t want you to become a kill-on-command recruit for the gang responsible for her death.”

As plainly as if she stood in front of him, he saw his mother’s face. He saw her dark hair, her dark eyes, her lovely smile. He felt her kindness and how she would fuss with his hair and look at him as if he was the only good thing she’d ever known. Despite all the shit they’d had to deal with, despite the world that would crumble and rebuild itself around them, repeatedly, she’d treasured him. At no point in his life did he ever question her love for him.

The woman who called herself Hannah sighed and rose to her feet, swiping dirt from her palms. “You’ll be staying here,” she said. “We’re in Morocco. You’ll be under armed guard for the time being, but you’ll have free rein of one-half of the house and the area just outside. Relax. We’ll chat again in the morning.”

A firm hand snatched him off the ground and shoved him toward the broadest sliding doors known to humankind. The doors seemed to go on forever, acting more like exterior walls than entrances to several rooms in the main part of the house. On cartel duty, he’d spent time in impressive locations with amenities he’d never known existed, but this place surpassed anything he’d ever encountered.

The house sat two stories high and was nearly as large as the neighborhood he grew up in. A pool area that closely resembled an outdoor park bisected a row of arched stone openings covered in thick carpets of foliage. The views from a wide terrace at the edge of the property were all rock formations and desert. Still, even those were marvelous, outlined by Moorish architecture and an expensively furnished interior. As far as prisons went, he’d done much worse.

The same man who’d snatched him off the ground cut the rope at his hands, sending his arms swinging from the small of his back to his sides. The guns went from across their chests to raised as they freed his legs, but he had no intention of being shot before he had something to eat.

“Where is the kitchen in this monstrosity?” he asked.

A man pointed with his gun.

He walked until he spotted kitchen appliances, fully intent on raiding the refrigerator before tending to his tender wrists. However, he found a woman wearing a chef’s coat sitting on a bar stool, flipping through a wire-bound book with the words “Authentic Brazil” in block font on the cover.

The woman looked up, hopped from the stool, and bowed her head, her hair and face covered by a niqab. “Mr. Delgano, welcome to Estate Hamdou. My name is Ni…Sayeda Taghia. I’ll be your chef for the entirety of your stay here.”

Like Hannah, this woman sounded American, but there was an additional slight hint to her accent he couldn’t immediately place. Considering they were in Morocco, Arabic would have been his first guess. The ability to travel the globe was probably the only thing his mother would have approved of from his life as an enforcer for organized crime.

He frowned. “So, your name is Nisayeda?”

“No, just Sayeda,” she said. “It was a hiccup.”

“Then, Sayeda, I don’t need a chef. I’m perfectly capable of cooking for myself.”

She clasped her hands in front of her face. “Please, Mr. Delgano. Let me cook for you. I know a variety of cuisines. I’m sure I can find something you like.”

As he went to turn her down a second time, she glanced behind his head, and he heard what she didn’t need to tell him. Like him, her station there didn’t appear to be by choice, and performing her duties could mean the difference between living and dying.

At the moment, she seemed incapable of posing any real threat to him, weapons or not. Also, depending on how long they expected to keep him trapped, there might be a need to stay on the good side of someone like Sayeda Taghia. One day, she could serve him well as an accomplice.

Or a hostage.

“Do you know how to cook any Brazilian dishes?”

“From what part of Brazil?” she asked.

“Excellent follow-up question. Any part of Brazil.”

She nodded so fast that she had to step forward to maintain her balance. “Yes. I learned several recipes in preparation for your visit.”