Born a Queen (The Queens Book 3)

by Nikita Slater

  She glared up at him, her eyes an inch from his, his nose pressed against hers, her breath bursting from her lips in gasps as they stared at each other while her body reached for the heights of orgasm. This orgasm was different, nothing like the orgasms she’d given herself in the darkness of her own bedroom or the one Mateo had given her on the lawn behind the house.

  This one was so much more intense, so much more out of her control. She was hurtling toward a gaping unknown and before she could stop herself, he shoved her over the edge. She cried out and sank her nails into his arms while flinging her head back into the mattress, her body as taut a bowstring as an orgasm ripped through her.

  As she came, Mateo’s cock seemed to grow bigger inside her and she gasped at the discomfort. His thrusts became more frantic, more painful. And then he was finished, sperm shooting inside her unprotected body.

  Mateo froze, staring down at her with his dark shuttered eyes. She stared back at him, shock freezing her as well. They had gone from having a decent friendship, to a shaky relationship status, to this.

  "Get off me." Her voice was quiet but firm.

  She was surprised when Mateo actually did climb off her and then off the bed. He stood up, his broad shoulders back, his head up. She saw turmoil in him, but she didn't see regret. She saw pride, determination, ruthlessness. This was the man who would become her husband. Not the gentle lover that she been gradually getting to know over the past few weeks.

  She crawled off the bed and bent over to pick up her bikini bottoms, trying desperately not to feel the shame that was slowly washing over her like a wave. Tears pricked her eyes. She wasn't sure if they were tears of anger or tears of hurt. Either way he had done this to her and she hated him for it.

  She pulled on the bottoms and then reached for her robe, shoving her arms through the holes and belting it tightly. Without a word, without a backwards glance, she left, walking out of the bunker and leaving him behind.

  Mateo didn't stop her.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Raina studied herself in the mirror of her make up table. To her eyes she looked different. Drawn. More serious. Even if her body didn't reflect it, she was altered. She felt as though she'd grown up overnight.

  Raina had always thought herself more mature than her classmates growing up. She'd reined in Cass's impetuosity and helped organize Noah. She helped her parents on the farm. She was a responsible person. Yet she clung to her youth and some of her immaturity. She was only twenty-one, she shouldn't have to grow up so fast.

  Mateo, he was older… she didn't know how much. She’d never asked him. She figured late thirties. There was something about him, something that didn't make the age gap such a big deal. But now, she felt as though the years were impossible to breach. His life experience, who he was as a person, had stomped all over her, showing her exactly how young she was. How not ready for this world she was.

  She had to leave. She had no choice. She couldn't allow a repeat of what they’d done and she could no longer consent to marriage with a person like him. One day, she would piss him off again and they would find themselves back there in the bunker, in the same place. He would hurt her again, and again, and again, until she couldn't take it anymore. She would become Casey under Ignacio Hernandez’s regime. She would become Elvira under Tony Montana's ownership. Raina would not allow that to happen.

  She didn't feel the tears until she looked up at herself in the mirror. She touched her face as they dripped down her cheeks. She would allow herself to mourn this one night only, then she needed to get back to herself so that she could find a way out.

  She pushed away from the makeup table and strode towards the bathroom stripping her clothes off as she went.

  Raina took a hot shower that lasted nearly forty minutes. She scrubbed herself clean, washed her hair twice and shaved every inch of her body. Just because she was traumatized didn't mean she couldn't take care of herself.

  She pulled on her cami top and a pair of pajama bottoms and slid beneath her sheets. Though she wasn't afraid of the dark she decided to sleep with the light on; being able to see when she woke up would be comforting. She wouldn't have to worry about monsters in the dark.

  Raina didn't come to Mateo’s room, not that he expected her to, but he'd hoped. He should've known better though. What he’d done to her, anywhere else in the world it would be unforgivable. Even to him and his moral code it was unforgivable. Yet, he made no apologies.

  It had been necessary to wake her up to the realities of their world. Raina was reckless. He'd allowed her those two years to establish her independence, but she got herself hurt. Here at the estate, she was attempting to control their home, to control him. She was taking more frequent trips out and chafing under the required security measures. He needed her to understand that he was the boss. He would always be the boss.

  He needed to frighten her into listening to him without hesitation, without exception. She couldn't be her usual argumentative self if they ever came under fire. If they were attacked, she would need to react without thought, which meant obeying her master. Her husband. Mateo.

  Yet, he hadn't thought he had it in him to actually hurt her. And it destroyed a piece of him, a piece he'd been holding onto for her sake. It was the part of Mateo that wanted a normal relationship, a normal civilized love. He was obsessed with this woman, but her safety had to come first. Even if that meant her safety came above her human rights.

  With that last thought he left his room and strode down the hall toward hers. When he opened the door, he found her sound asleep in her bed, curled on her side with the light on. A shock of pain pierced him as he realized she was probably sleeping with the light on because she was scared of him. He’d become her monster in the dark.

  The thought gutted him, and he continued to stand in her doorway looking at her as he brought his emotions under control.

  He couldn't allow this to fester though. If he did, it would change the direction of his actions and he knew he was in the right. They didn't inhabit the regular world of rules and laws, they lived in the underworld. Where people died, they disappeared and loved ones mourned. He would not allow that to happen to Raina.

  He scooped her off the bed and turned on his heel, striding back to his bedroom. She woke up as they were halfway down the hall and began to struggle in his arms. Her eyes were half open, her focus bleary.

  "Wh - what are you doing?" she protested groggily.

  Before she could begin fighting in earnest, he set her on the bed and turned to close and lock the door. She scrambled off the bed and flung herself to the opposite side of the room, her chest heaving in fear, her pupils dilated as she stared at him.

  He realized immediately what she thought was going to happen. He lifted his hands and approached her slowly. "I'm not going to hurt you."

  She angrily swiped at a tear that dripped from her eye. "I don't believe you."

  "When have I ever lied to you, Raina?" he asked quietly.

  "You said you would protect me, but you didn’t, you hurt me."

  "I know you can't understand right now, but by hurting you I am protecting you.” He tried to approach her, but she jumped away and hit the wall behind her so hard she winced. He stopped moving so she wouldn’t accidentally hurt herself. “I told you that I would make decisions in your best interest; even the ones you don’t want me to make.”

  "Fuck you!" she snarled. "You don't get to tell me you know what's best for me after doing something like that. You… you… disgusting excuse for a man."

  He gritted his teeth against her accusation, reminding himself that anger was not the way to go. He had allowed his anger to rein free in the bunker and now he would have to deal with the fallout.

  "You need to calm down, Raina. This is your reality. You are my wife and you will sleep in my bedroom. I give you my word, I won't touch you. It’ll be like our first night together."

  “I’m not your wife.” Raina eyed him, then the door.


  "I won't let you leave this room. We can stand here all night if that's what you want, but you’re not walking out that door before morning."

  His words were spoken calmly though he was a raging inferno of emotion on the inside. Only Raina could do this to him, pull these kind of feelings from him. He was good at his job because he was a born killer. He enjoyed the hunt. But with Raina, he wanted to be a better person.

  Finally, after several long minutes of motionless stand-off she said, "Okay, but you stay on your side of the bed. If any part of you touches any part of me it’s getting bitten off."

  He had to fight the unexpected urge to chuckle. He could definitely picture Raina taking a chunk out of his skin if he accidentally rolled over against her.

  He stepped to the side and waved her toward the bed. She cautiously sidled past him and then slid beneath the sheets, settling her head on her pillow. Mateo decided to keep his pants on for now. He didn't want to frighten her again.

  He slid into the bed beside her and pulled the blanket over top of them. She hissed in anger and wiggled further away from him before closing her eyes and tucking her hands in the prayer position underneath her head.

  Mateo reached over and turned the lamp off, plunging the room into darkness. He didn't think he would sleep, so he lay staring at nothing and thinking about the future weeks and the problems they would hold now that he'd made an enemy out of his wife.

  He thought that Raina had drifted to sleep, her breathing having evened out. But then her voice penetrated the darkness as she said so quietly he almost didn't hear, "I was a virgin."

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Vee shifted uncomfortably, rolling over and trying to find a new position. Then she rolled back, shoved her pillow underneath her head and closed her eyes, trying to sleep again. The bright light pouring through the pointless filmy purple curtains penetrated her eyelids like tiny burning needles.

  It was impossible, she couldn't get comfortable.

  Vee rolled to the side of the bed and sat up, swinging her feet to the floor and sliding them into the slippers provided. She pushed her hair off her face and stretched, yawning. Then she stood, reached for her bathrobe, also provided by her generous host, and headed out to the kitchen for her cup of morning tea.

  "Morning," Danny said, entirely too chipper.

  Vee mumbled something incoherent, took the herbal tea he handed her and plunked herself down at the table. She stared blearily at nothing until the hot liquid started to take wake her up.

  "Where’re Christine and Sadie?" she asked after a few minutes.

  Danny turned from the counter where he was making himself a sandwich. "Christine took Sadie to her daycare and then she's going to work. She works in accounting at UPS."

  Danny's wife's job was so mundane the Vee almost couldn't wrap her head around it. Especially considering the dark and exciting world the Danny inhabited. "She's not mafia?"

  It wasn't exactly a polite question to ask, but she was curious. How had Danny managed to meet a normal girl-next-door type, and then convince her to date him long enough for him to put a ring on it? Danny was as rough-and-tumble as they came, had fought his way up the food chain to become second-in-command to Vee and now Mateo.

  "She's connected, but distantly. Has a cousin working for the Alvarez family." Danny named a local mob family that engaged in gunrunning. Technically they would be Mateo's competition.

  "She seems sweet," Vee said noncommittally.

  Christine did seem like a sweet woman. She had welcomed Vee into her home, knowing that Vee had a dark past and an even darker husband. She allowed Vee to spend the night under her roof without complaint. She’d offered up their daughter’s room since they only had the two bedrooms and an office in the lovely seaside cottage. This was more than Vee would have done.

  "Yes," Danny said firmly. "She's about as nice as they come. I don't deserve her, but I'll do anything to keep her."

  Vee nodded. "Good man."

  Danny sank onto a chair at the table taking a huge bite out of his sandwich before dropping it on a plate and opening his laptop. He turned it so that both of them could see the screen. He pulled up a file entitled Daniela Velasquez. Together, Vee and Danny went through each item in an attempt to track down the now deceased Daniela's connection with the mystery woman who took her identity.

  So far, the only connection they could find was Mateo’s and Raina's desire for an interior designer and the fact that the designer they chose came highly recommended and was Latina.

  Vee rubbed her forehead and growled, "I don't know how to keep my daughter safe if I don't know what the danger is or where it's coming from."

  Danny gave her a long look. "The danger is going to come from your husband once he realizes that you didn't board that plane to Venezuela. Which, at my estimation, was around midnight last night. Am I correct?"

  "Are you lecturing me?" Vee demanded, glaring at him. “My daughter’s safety is more important than Isaac’s commands.”

  He grinned and held his hand up. "You're not my boss anymore, lady. I'm doing you a favour by letting you stay here, but you're not doing me one by setting the Butcher on my ass."

  Vee felt a bolt of guilt. She hadn't thought about the fallout to the people who were sheltering her when Sotza discovered that instead of going home she decided to stay in Miami to hunt down any leads on the woman who deceived her daughter.

  "I'm sorry, Danny. I didn't think about that. And you have a wife and daughter now. I should leave." Vee started to stand, but Danny reached out and grabbed her wrist.

  "You're not going anywhere." He held her arm until she was forced to sit. "For one thing, I'm the only ally you have in this town who’s capable of helping you with this. Your husband is going to come banging down my door anytime now and I'd rather you be under my roof than anywhere else. I figure I have more of a chance of survival if I can hand you right over than if he has to wait to get his hands on you."

  Vee let out a laugh. "You're not wrong about that."

  They continued to research their prey until they came up with a lead. They were going to question the carpenters that had been working on the house alongside Daniela Velasquez. Mateo had tried talking to them but had gotten nowhere. The head contractor had seemed clueless about their employer. They knew she belonged to an interior design company, but they hadn't set eyes on her prior to construction at the mansion. This in itself was unusual, since most interior decorators had teams that they preferred to work with.

  Danny and Vee found them at their new job, building offices in a warehouse near the docks. Vee felt a rush of nostalgia as she passed the dockyard. This had been part of her territory when she'd reigned over Miami. She had fought valiantly for it when she’d gone to war with Sotza. Now, it belonged to Mateo.

  Vee’s heels tapped against the concrete floor as she made her way through the warehouse, searching for any sign of a carpenter. She found them at the back of the building, joking with each other and discussing which bar they wanted to hit up after their workday finished. It was Friday afternoon so they were probably going to knock off early and head out for drinks.

  "Can I help you?" A bearded man looked up from his position where he was crouched on the ground next to a wall.

  "I'm looking for the foreman," she said coolly.

  Danny stood behind Vee, silent and mean-looking. They fell into their old roles, Vee as the boss and Danny her hired muscle. But he was more than a thug, he was her protection and she knew without a doubt he wouldn’t fail her.

  "You’re talking to him," the man said, straightening up from the floor and dusting off the front of his jeans. “Name’s Lincoln Frye.”

  "Good to meet you, Lincoln," Vee said, her voice cool and professional. "I want to talk about a recent job you and your team did for Daniela Velasquez."

  The guy frowned. "I'm beginning to think there's something shady going on with that job. First that tough guy that owned the house grilled us, then his woman bodyguard,
now you. What's up with that place?"

  "It's not the place we're concerned about so much as the woman who infiltrated it. The woman who hired you was an imposter. She was not Daniela Velasquez."

  Lincoln's eyebrows raised and he looked genuinely surprised. Vee realized that she’d given him a piece of information no one else had. When Mateo and Angela had interrogated him, they hadn't given him all the information, which meant he wouldn't have known how to form his responses accordingly. He would've answered their questions, but not through the filter of knowing there was something off about the woman who hired him.

  "Yes, the real Daniela was found murdered in her home. We think the imposter killed her and took her place. What we don't know is why." Vee didn't feel a single moment’s hesitation about giving up all the information. She was confident she was doing the right thing, though Mateo likely wouldn't agree.

  "Holy fuck," Lincoln drawled, his amazement building. He shook his head. "She was so fucking hot, hard to believe she could kill a person."

  Vee closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them and exhaled. She hoped for his sake that this man never again met a woman who was both beautiful and deadly, because they were far more common that he apparently thought. Vee could kill him in an instant right where he stood, and he wouldn't even know he was dead before he hit the ground. She had a knife in her purse, and a gun in her holster at her back. Aside from that, she was also very good at hand-to-hand combat.

  "We want to know what she was doing there. Did she ask you any questions about the place while you were renovating? Did she say anything to you that seems strange in hindsight?"

  He thought about it, then shook his head. "Not really. Nothing set off any red flags. To be honest, she was a stone-cold bitch, none of us had much to do with her besides taking her direction on the renovations."

  Vee felt deflated. This was the only lead she and Danny could come up with and it was going to be a bust. She was about to thank Lincoln for talking to her, when he spoke again.