~ Madison's POV ~

"I can't believe he's actually gone. I felt so...lost while were in Florida, so numb. I wanted to come back but I didn't want to ruin the twins' vacation."

"It's okay Madison. Don't worry." I let out a sigh as I wiped away my tears, feeling the frustration inside me starting to increase.

I'd been sitting with my mom for the last hour and every time I tried to speak to her, she'd just give me the same response - 'it's okay Madison' or 'It's fine Madison.'

Every time.

"Mom please, just talk to me. Don't shut me out." I gave her a pleading look as I took her hand in mine but she still just continued to stare straight ahead.

I knew she'd just lost the love of her life and best friend all wrapped up in one and I probably will never be able to imagine how it would feel to love someone so much, but I was her daughter. She was forgetting I'd just lost my father and I needed my mother to be there for me.

I let out a sigh and leaned back into the couch, the movement allowed me to instantly smell my dads cologne that he used to wear since I was sitting in his favourite spot on the couch.

It was like his memory was just ingrained in every part of the house.

The scent just caused more tears to form in my eyes and soon I was just sobbing quietly next to my mom who didn't even bother to turn to look at me.

She didn't even care, like the sound of me crying didn't even bother her.

A while later after I'd finally calmed down enough to be able to drive the half an hour drive back home safely, I just mumbled a goodbye to her before I left the house.

I wanted to be there for her, I wanted to talk to her and tell her it would be alright and that I'd be right there with her if she needed me. But, I just couldn't. I wasn't in the right state of mind to put aside all of my own pain and grief for her if she couldn't even try to do it for me.

At that point I absolutely had no one there for me. Santiago was so busy with his own things but also our relationship wasn't the same anymore. He wasn't going to drop everything for me like he would have done seven years ago. He had a new bestfriend in Katia and a brother in Arturo who he would do that for now. Not me, not anymore.

I did call Stevie for the first time in weeks and thankfully she offered to watch the twins for me today so that I could go and see my mom.

I'd been dreading the long drive back to Santi's house as soon as I realised I'd have to go alone since Santiago and I weren't speaking and I couldn't really take the twins with me. So it was just me alone with my thoughts for a full thirty minutes which was one of the worst situations ever when you're mourning the death of a loved one.

"Come here."

I let out a small sob as I stepped into Stevie's arms as soon as I stepped into Santiago's kitchen once I'd got home.

We got back from Florida late last night and just went to sleep straight away but early this morning Santiago left his bedroom and I hadn't seen him since. I'm sure he was in his office downstairs though, because Arturo and some others had been coming in and out of the house all day.

I'm pretty sure his bad mood had something to do with that Julian guy who some how knew his name the other day.

This is why I needed Stevie to come over since no one would be around to watch Cameron and Mackenzie.

"I was just about to start making the dinner for the twins."

I nodded my head as I wiped the tears away from my eyes.

"I'll do it, thanks Stevie. Have you seen Santiago today?"

She nodded her head, a frown forming on her face at the mention of his name - she really hated him.

"Yeah, he came in for something a few hours ago. He's in his office." I nodded my head as I stepped further into the kitchen, giving the twins whatever smile I could muster when they saw me.

Ever since I found out about my father's death, I tried my best to try to keep my mood up around the twins, but I knew they could sense something was wrong.

The air in the house that day was so tense and cold, I'm sure they could feel it.

Children are a lot smarter than they're given credit for. I just didn't want to tell them yet, I wanted to make sure I was in the right frame of mind to explain death to them without breaking down and crying all over again.

It was something I needed Santiago to be there for but, well, I don't think that would be happening any time soon.

As I over to the fridge to take out the ingredients for their dinner, Stevie sat down at the table with the twins. It was good to see that at least the twins weren't so affected by everything that was going on since they started rambling to her straight away like they normally would.

"Here you go my babies." I put their plates down in front of them, giving them a small smile as I did.

"Thank you mama." I couldn't help but smile when they said the same thing in sync before picking up their forks to eat.

"I'll just take Santiago's food to him, can you just watch them please? They can get a little crazy at dinner time." As I walked over to pick up Santiago's plate, Stevie nodded her head absentmindedly as she sent a message on her phone.

I grabbed him a bottle of water, rubbing my sore eyes as I left the kitchen. I'm sure by then my eyes looked as bad at they felt. I'd been crying all day and I could definitely feel them stinging by then.

As I walked from the kitchen to Santiago's office, I thought about the fact that I still hadn't actually spoken to him since I kissed him. For the entire day yesterday we didn't speak, even when we got back home in LA and went to sleep in the same bed again, he acted like I wasn't there and I did the same.

So, this would be the first time I actually had a proper interaction with him after he pushed me away from him when I made that stupid mistake.

He even told me he didn't have or want a girlfriend and then I was stupid enough to go and kiss him like he would suddenly kiss me back and declare his undying love for me.

They say there's a thin line between love and hate, but in our case the distance between hate and love couldn't be any larger.

We really did hate each other. Well, he hated me. After that kiss I had no clue how I felt about him anymore.

I let out a tired breath as I reached his office door, knocking on the door as best as I could since I had a bottle of water in my hand and a plate in the other, before I pushed open the door, stepping inside.

"Santiago I made you some..."

As I turned to face him, my words got caught in my mouth when I took in the sight in front of me.

His eyes widened as he looked at me over her shoulder, while she just turned to give me a smirk before she pressed herself even closer against him from her place on his lap.

"S-sorry..." I quickly rushed over to his desk, putting the plate and water down before I turned to leave the room, for some odd reason feeling totally embarrassed by what I'd seen - even if they had all their clothes still very much on.

I could hear Santiago calling my name as I quickly walked down the hallway, trying to get the image out of my head. But, no matter how hard I tried it wouldn't leave.

Katia was sitting on Santiago's lap with her legs draped over the arm of the chair as she turned her body towards him to kiss him.

The worst part of the whole thing was that it shouldn't have hurt me. None of it should have hurt and yet I just felt the cracks in my already broken heart just increase when I saw it.

Apart from that night that we conceived the twins, I'd never had any romantic feelings or thoughts towards Santiago and all of a sudden after I kissed him I just couldn't get them to go away.

Even after everything he'd done over the years and after everything he'd said to me, I somehow had these feelings for him which I couldn't even understand.

It was so messed up.

"Maddie? What happened?" I shook my head at Stevie as I stepped into the kitchen, closing the door behind myself before I leaned against the counter. She quickly came over to me as the tears started rolling down my cheeks, doing her best to stop the twins from being able to see me.

"Maddie?" I let out a small sob as she pulled me in for a hug and I rested my head on her shoulder.

"Why does it hurt Stevie? I don't know what's happening. I shouldn't care."

"What happened?" She rubbed my back soothingly as I struggled to contain my sobs.

"He was kissing her. Katia of all people." Stevie fell silent for a moment before she let out a sigh and pulled away from me.

"Madison you can't be feeling like this right now, okay? Forget Santiago. Your dad just died and you have two children who you need to focus on. I don't want to be harsh but someone needs to tell you, this really isn't the time."

As she spoke she looked me straight in the eye, trying to get her message across to me as clear as she could.

"But-"

"No buts. That's enough, you need to snap out of it. He's no good for you."

Eventually I nodded my head as I let out a deep breath.

"You need to move back home Madison, I have no idea why you're living here but enough is enough. He's messing you about and now isn't the time for you to let someone play with your emotions. You need to give yourself space and time to heal."

I nodded my head in agreement as I went over to the kitchen counter to grab a tissue to wipe my eyes.

"It's not that simple Stevie, I can't just leave."

"I don't care, I'll deal with that...buffoon...if I have to." I could tell she was about to use a pretty vulgar word but then she glanced over at the twins who were watching us with innocent expressions before she changed her word.

"Okay. I just, I need to go home first and make sure everything is in good shape before I take the twins back. It's been over a month since I was last there, it's probably all dusty by now."

She seemed satisfied with my response and thankfully she didn't push me any further on it. It was actually kind of hard to talk to her about most things now that a lot of my problems relate back to Santiago and his life which is obviously a secret.

~ Santiago's POV ~

"Get out."

"But-"

"Now!" The volume of my voice caused her to jump and she quickly nodded her head, scrambling off my lap. As l rested my elbows on the desk and my head in my hands, I was vaguely aware of her leaving my office.

I don't even know how the hell that even happened.

Out of nowhere she sat on my lap literally in the same minute that Madison walked in. I didn't even know what was happening until Madison looked at me with so much hurt in her eyes.

But by then it was just too late.

I knew straight away it wasn't because she necessarily had feelings for me, it was just the whole situation. Two days ago I stopped her from kissing me and then she walks in on me kissing Katia - someone who she really didn't like.

"Santiago we have a problem." I lifted my head to look up at the door when Arturo walked in with a frown on his face.

"What?"

"Pedro, he's onto us. He knows what we've been planning."

"You still haven't killed him yet? He's one damn man, it's not hard." Arturo just rolled his eyes at my response as he dropped down on the chair across from me.

"Right now he's a little bit more powerful than you are and for someone to try and kill you it would take a lot of freaking planning. So, please give me a freaking break, it's not that easy."

"Just do it. As soon as he's gone and we sort out what to do with the remains of his cartel, I'll be at the top." Arturo nodded his head as he took out a cigarette from his pocket, ignoring the glare I was now giving him.

"I know what will happen Santiago, I was the one who gave you the idea to take out everyone above you."

Instead of replying to him I just let out a sigh as I leaned back in my chair.

"Stevie is here." Arturo spoke as he lit the cigarette before putting it between his lips.

"So?"

"So, she's hot as hell." He gave me a smirk while I just rolled my eyes. "Leave her alone. She's here for one purpose which is to look after the twins for Madison, that's it."

"Oh come on, that doesn't mean I can't have a go. Anyway, wasn't it you that managed to screw your lawyer when she came for that meeting? You claimed you were multitasking." He wiggled his eyebrows at me while I just narrowed my eyes at him in response.

"That was six years ago."

"So? You're still the same guy Santi." This time I shook my head at his words.

"I don't want to be him anymore." I'm not sure if he heard what I said, but it didn't really matter to me. It was true - I didn't want to be that guy anymore.

Over the last few years I'd done a lot of bad things. But that was all when I believed I would never have a family and I would never have children. Now that the twins are here and they depend on me, even if I lived an immoral life, I still wanted to be a good example for them.

It sounds screwed up I know, but I didn't have the option to just leave my cartel. I had to just deal with the cards I was dealt in the best way possible while protecting them as much as I could and raising them then best I could.

"Back to Pedro, what do you mean he knows?"

"Well, it's quite simple really. About a week ago, one of his men confronted Noah about us wanting to kill Pedro, so Noah killed him and that just confirmed their suspicions. So, we're going to have to try a hell of a lot harder to kill him while also watching our backs because I'm sure he wants to kill us too."

I nodded my head as I listened to him speak before I let out a frustrated sigh.

"So what you're saying is for the last eight months we've been going after Pedro and couldn't get him and now he knows so he's probably coming after us?"

Arturo nodded his head as he released a breath of smoke.

"Exactly."

"Brilliant. That's exactly what I needed. I gave you one freaking job Arturo, you've had months to kill the bastard and you haven't managed to." At my outburst, he rose an eyebrow before he taking one more drag of his cigarette.

"You don't need to bitch at me Santi, I've been trying."

"Well instead of screwing around you should have tried harder." Instead of responding Arturo just let out a laugh before putting his cigarette out. It fell silent for a moment before he eventually stood up.

"Come on, let's go and get a drink, you look like you need it."

He gestured for me to follow him and without a word I went with him to the kitchen. Once we reached the door, Arturo pushed it open, stepping inside but seconds later he was pushed back out and Stevie also came out with him. She closed the kitchen door behind herself before she turned to glare at us.

"Go away."

"What the hell?" She glared at Arturo for a moment before she turned to look at me and if possible, her glare became even more intense.

"You. You need to stay away from Madison, I mean it." I rose an eyebrow at her, watching her finger which she was pointing in my direction.

As much as I wanted to argue with her and tell her that my 'relationship' with Madison or whatever was going on between us, had nothing to do with her, I chose not to.

It really was none of her business, I didn't want to waste my time telling her that.

"Have you ever heard that it's rude to point at someone?"

She scoffed at my question before she came up with her own quick retort.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you that being a jerk isn't a nice thing?"

As soon as those words left her mouths, I narrowed my eyes at her before stepping closer to her, aware of the fact Arturo was watching me very carefully.

He knew what kind of reaction could have come from me as soon as that particular word left her mouth.

Somehow though, I managed to control my anger, a little bit.

"If you ever mention my mother again, I will make sure you can never speak again, do you understand me?"

Her eyes widened a little at the pure anger in my tone and she quickly nodded her head before I pushed past her, brushing my shoulder against hers as I stepped into the kitchen.

When I walked in I didn't even look at Madison who was leaning against the counter, watching the twins eat their dinner. Instead, I went over to the twins to speak to them for a moment, trying to keep some sense of normalcy around them before I went to get a bottle of bourbon and two glasses.

I knew they could tell something was going on, but thankfully they weren't throwing tantrums at the lack of attention they'd gotten over the past two days. Madison wasn't herself at all after receiving the news her father had died and after what happened between us in the hotel room and now in my office, she's not even making the effort to try and make it look like we get along.

I've also been extremely distant ever since we saw that man at Disney World who somehow knew my name. I know it doesn't seem that important but it actually was.

Somehow, someone who knew me managed to follow me to Disney World of all places and speak to Madison before he decided to give away the fact he knew who I was.

Now that I knew about Noah killing Pedro's guy, I'm almost completely sure Julian had something to do with Pedro. The timing all just made sense with Noah killing the guy a week ago, just before we left for Disney World.

The kitchen was quiet as I went over to the side pulling out the bottle of bourbon when something red, contrasting with the bright white kitchen counter, caught my eye.

"Is this yours?" I glanced over at the twins who were looking at me when I held up the small red ball with the number '1' which I'd just found.

It resembled a ping pong ball, except it had a number on.

They both shook their heads and from the corner of my eye I could see Madison also looking at the ball out of curiosity.

"No daddy, but can I play with it?" I nodded my head as I took the little ball over to Cameron, watching as he started rolling it around on the table causing me to shake my head.

"You can, but first finish your dinner and then you can play."

He gave me a small pout but when I just continued to stare at him he nodded his head and put it down to pick up his fork again.

Without another word I left the room with the two glasses and bottle of alcohol, gesturing for Arturo to follow me when I found him glaring at Stevie in the hallway.

"I hate her so much." I rose an eyebrow at him as he dropped down on the couch, still with the same glare on his face.

It wasn't normal for someone to be able to rile him up so easily, especially a woman.

"Relax, here drink this." I slid a glass of bourbon across the coffee table to him as I sat down with my own.

"I hate her so much and yet I would do absolutely anything to have her in my bed, listening to her scream my-"

"Hermano, cállate la boca, no necesito escuchar eso." (Bro, shut up, I do not need to hear that.)

Arturo looked over at me before he let out a laugh and shook his head.

"Coño." (Pussy)

<<<<<<< >>>>>>> <<<<<<<

~ Madison's POV~

It wasn't long before we finally got back to normality once we got back from Florida.

That first day was obviously an emotionally draining day, especially when I saw Santiago and Katia kissing, but after that it became a lot more normal. The twins went back to preschool the following day and I decided not to take any more time off work.

Even if my father had died, the last thing I wanted was to just stay in Santiago's house all day without the twins. So, I went to work for my usual shift during the day.

Also, going back to work allowed me to make a quick stop at my apartment on my way home to make sure everything was okay for the twins and I to go back home.

Of course Santiago wouldn't be happy with it, but we had to move back eventually and it really wasn't the right thing for me to be around him so much right now.

But, as soon as I pulled up to the building I knew something was wrong. I could just feel it.

The parking lot was completely empty when I pulled up which never happened considering how many people lived in the building.
The hallways inside were all dark and eerily silent as I walked through them and up the stairs to my apartment.

As soon as my door came into view, I saw the white paper stuck to it, with the words 'eviction notice' written in red along the top.

A frown formed on my face as I came to a stop at the door, reading the message underneath which explained that I had thirty days, or twenty now that I'd only just seen this, until they took everything out of my apartment to throw it away.

Taking my key out of my purse, I unlocked the door, stepping inside before I turned on the lights.

I expected everything to be pretty clean considering the day Santiago made me leave with him I'd just finished cleaning my apartment and it was immaculate.

But, the second the light flooded the large room, my eyes widened and a gasp escaped my lips.

The whole area was completely trashed.

There was glass absolutely everywhere, all the food from the cupboards had been thrown around and there was fluff from the couch which had been ripped open. Even some of the children's toys were thrown and broken.

Almost everything was damaged beyond repair.

My eyes filled with tears as I took in the sight in front of me, looking at all the items I'd worked so hard at the hospital to buy completely destroyed.

I took a small step inside, some of the glass crushing under my shoes as I did, before I stepped back again, deciding it was better not to go in alone.

There was only one person who was responsible for the mess. It was obvious this was because of him.

Almost everything bad in my life was because of him.

I let out a deep breath as I wiped my eyes, taking my phone out of my purse. I had to try my best to control my tears as I dialled his number, and then just waited for him to answer.

"What?"

Could he be any ruder?

"You need to come to my apartment."

"Why?" I let out a sigh as I looked around the trashed apartment, only imagining what my bedroom and the twins room might look like.

"Someone's been here."

"What do you mean?" This time I let out a more audible frustrated sigh.

"I mean, someone trashed my apartment Santiago. Can you just come here please?"

Santiago fell silent for a moment before he spoke again.

"Fine, I'll be there soon. Don't wait inside, go back to your car." He didn't wait for me reply and instead just hung up the phone. Doing as he said I closed the door to my apartment and quickly made my way out of the building, rushing through the rain to get back into my car.

For the next half an hour I just sat in my car in silence, apart from the steady sound of rain falling on my car. Although the sound was calming, it didn't stop me from crying.

The universe had absolutely no chill. First my father dies, than Santiago pushes me away when I kissed him, then he kisses Katia instead and now someone's broken into my apartment and I'm being evicted from that apartment.

Even after all of that, I couldn't help but feel like the bad things weren't only just getting started.

I was busy staring off into space, thinking about what was going on in my life when someone knocked on my window causing me to jump. I turned my head to the side to see Santiago standing there with his hood up over his head, waiting for me to get out.

"Can't you see it's raining? Hurry up." Usually, by now, I would have given him a piece of my mind for the way he spoke to me on the phone and now but, I just didn't have the energy in me.

Santiago walked ahead of me, rushing into the building, stopping to watch me walk once he got inside since I was taking my time. We walked in silence back to my apartment door and this time it was Santiago that stopped to read the message taped to my door.

"You're being evicted?" I wordlessly shrugged my shoulders as I took my key out again, ignoring the confusion on his face as he read the rest of the message.

"It says the past owners sold the building, and the new owner has evicted everyone for construction work."

I didn't bother replying to Santiago and instead I just opened the door, stepping inside my apartment - or whatever was left of it.

Letting out a curse word, he stopped beside me as he looked around before turning to face me.

"Madison..."

"Don't. This is obviously your fault Santiago. Ever since I let you start taking over my life again, bad things keep happening to me."

I could tell he didn't agree with me, but thankfully I think he could tell I was too upset to have an argument with him so he just stayed quiet.

Instead of replying, he just started walking around the open plan kitchen and living area to find anything that hadn't been broken.

It really looked like someone and come and just took a baseball bat to everything in here.

"What were you even doing here in the first place?" I glanced over at Santiago who had just picked up a few of my photo frames with pictures of our children in, although they'd been smashed.

"I was going to move back here."

"Madison you know that's not going to happen. I definitely can't trust you not to take them away from me and I actually like having them live with me."

I shook my head as I continued hunting through the broken glass to find anything that was salvageable.

"I'm not going to try again Santiago. I just need my own space back, we're not together, it's not right for us to share a bed anymore. Especially now that you have a girlfriend."

Maybe I didn't need to add the last part but, I was salty, who can blame me? He pushed me away only to go and kiss her two days later.

When I said this he looked over at me from where he was standing, a small frown making its way onto his face.

"She's not my girlfriend Madison."

"Well, I don't want to get in the way of you doing whatever it was you want to do with women in your bed." This time his frown just turned into a bemused expression.

"What?"

Am the only one who just gets annoyed when people act completely clueless? I thought what I said was pretty straight forward to understand.

"If you want to have sex with her or anyone else for that matter, once I move out you can go back to doing that."

It fell silent for a moment as I avoided making eye contact with Santiago but all of a sudden he just let out a laugh.

A very over exaggerated laugh in my opinion.

"I don't want to have sex with anyone in my bed Madison. You and the twins are the only other people who have ever slept in my bed and I'm definitely keeping it that way."

"What do you mean? I thought you were a..." When I turned to look at him, he rose an eyebrow in amusement while I just frowned.

"A manwhore? I was, I guess, but I very, very, rarely ever bring anyone back to my house."

"Why? Are you scared they'll rob you or something?"

"Maybe, my house is very expensive. But, I also just prefer to be the one to leave in the morning; that way I don't have to deal with clingy naked women." He shrugged his shoulders and turned back to face the tv stand while I just stood there, staring at him which he didn't seem to notice.

"So, thats why you left me? You didn't want me to be clingy?"

I saw his back tense as he stopped what he was doing, realising what he'd just walked into by saying that to me, but he refused to turn to look at me.

"Answer me."

Eventually he turned around to face me again, this time with a cold, guarded expression on his face.

"That was different."

"How? How was it different Santiago?" When he didn't respond to me, I put down the candle I was holding as I made my way over to him.

"You left me. You just left, without even thinking about how I would feel in the morning. Before I knew I was pregnant I thought I'd imagined it all! I thought I was going crazy!"

The whole time I was shouting, he just did what he does best and kept his emotions hidden from me.

"I will never forgive you for leaving me Santiago. Twice."

With that I walked past him, heading down the hallway and into the twins bedroom. As expected their room was a mess although not as much was broken, so I just spent the next ten minutes tidying up while trying to get myself under control.

I didn't intend to say any of that to him, maybe ever, if I managed to avoid talking about our past like I so desperately wanted to.

But that guy, some how he manages to screw my emotions up so bad within seconds. I just lose all control of my body when I'm around him.

As soon as the twins aren't around or we're not talking about them, we just argue. Every time.

When I was eventually done, Santiago was just coming out of the main bathroom in the hallway as I went into my bedroom. Soon, he was right behind me when I let out a gasp, my eyes focusing on the destroyed room in front of me.

Just like the main area of the apartment, there was glass and fluff everywhere. Nothing survived.

Well, apart from two things.

Right in the centre of the room, were two items. It was like a circle had purposely been carved out in the mess and the entire circle was empty on the floor apart from those two items at the centre of it.

One was the unopened black box that I'd had hidden in the back of my drawer in my dresser, the box Santiago gave me for my 18th birthday.

The second item was a small red ping pong ball, with the number 2 on it.

👀

What did you guys think?

Don't forget to vote and comment ❤️