by Julia Sykes
Essentially, he had bought it for me. If I weren’t in Adrián’s employ, I never would have earned the kind of money necessary to buy this house. And I knew he paid me far better than anyone else who worked for him. He claimed it was because I was his most valuable asset, but I suspected he simply didn’t mind giving me plenty of money to buy the stuff I wanted.
Having a billionaire drug lord as a best friend had its perks.
“I’ll be right behind you,” I said to his retreating back. “Don’t scare Sofia in the two minutes it takes me to unload.”
“I won’t let him,” Valentina promised, shooting me a reassuring smile over her shoulder.
Adrián definitely did not deserve that sweet woman, but I was pleased that he had her. If she chose to love him, I was happy for them.
Besides, he might thrive on subjugating her, but Valentina held far more control over Adrián than anyone else I’d ever seen. Even in our friendship, I was definitely the one who took orders, not the other way around. On the surface, Valentina was submissive to Adrián. But he would do anything to make her happy, and that tipped the balance of power in her favor.
If Valentina promised me that she wouldn’t let Adrián scare Sofia, I was confident that I didn’t have to worry about it.
For the two minutes it took for me to grab Sofia’s bags, at least.
I popped the trunk on the Jaguar and loaded up her stuff, a bit taken aback at how much they’d brought. When Valentina had offered to go to Sofia’s apartment and pick up some of her things, I’d been expecting a small duffel bag.
Valentina appeared to think that Sofia was about to take a month-long cruise and would need at least three changes of clothes every day.
I hustled everything into the house, finding that Valentina and Adrián had made themselves comfortable on my couch. Sofia was still taking some time and space for herself in the bedroom, so Adrián spooking her wasn’t an immediate issue. I doubted he would actually try to scare her, but he terrified most people innately.
“How much stuff do you think Sofia could possibly need?” I asked Valentina as I set down three large duffel bags and slung another two off my shoulders.
“You’re welcome,” Adrián said pointedly.
Valentina placed a calming hand on his forearm. “Sofia will want her full range of clothing options, as well as all of her makeup and haircare products,” she explained.
“Sofia doesn’t need any makeup,” I declared. She hadn’t worn any since I’d taken her as my hostage, and she was as lovely as ever.
Valentina rolled her eyes. “Women can choose to wear makeup just for themselves, not for men. Sofia’s sole purpose is not to look pleasing for your benefit. You want her to be comfortable here, don’t you? Trust me, she’ll feel much more at home if she has access to all of her things.”
At home. The two words took me by surprise, sticking in my brain. I’d decided to claim Sofia as mine, but I hadn’t really thought about her making a home here. But if I didn’t intend to allow her to leave me, it only made sense to move all of her stuff to my house.
“Yeah, I want her to be comfortable here,” I agreed. “Thanks, Valentina.”
Adrián cleared his throat, and Valentina shot him a wry smile.
“I think Adrián wants you to thank him. He’s actually the one who went to pack up all of Sofia’s stuff. He wouldn’t let me go to her apartment in case Caesar had men watching the place. So, we did the whole thing over video call to make sure he knew what was most important.”
I stared at my boss, the vicious kingpin who was notoriously feared by even the most ruthless criminals. The concept of him running an errand like this was preposterous.
“You did that for Sofia?” I asked, incredulous.
His pale green eyes glinted, and the hard planes of his face turned to granite; a silent warning that I shouldn’t make a big deal out of his uncharacteristically helpful behavior.
“I did it for Valentina,” he said coolly.
I offered a small nod, deferring to his desire to save face. I recognized that cold stare all too well, and it meant don’t fuck with me.
“And I’m very grateful,” Valentina told him, tucking herself close to his side and clasping his hand in hers.
He didn’t take his eyes off me, but as soon as she cuddled up close to him, his dangerous aura dissipated slightly.
“I did it for you too, Mateo,” he informed me, shockingly genial. “I figured you don’t want Sofia to hate you. I thought this might help.” His gaze swept over me, assessing. “And judging by the look of you, you need all the help you can get.”
I ran my hand though my hair, attempting to smooth it into a more civilized style. I’d mussed it all to shit while I stewed in my frustration over the last three hours since Sofia had disappeared into the bedroom.
“Thanks,” I said, genuinely grateful for his help, even if I was baffled by it. “For packing Sofia’s clothes, I mean. Not for telling me I look like shit.”
Adrián shrugged. “Someone had to tell you. This tortured caveman appearance isn’t going to help your case if you want to attract Sofia’s interest.”
He turned his attention to Valentina, giving her shoulder a tight squeeze to reprimand her before she had the chance to admonish him. “And don’t tell me that I should be nicer to Mateo,” he warned her. “He’s already freaked out enough over the fact that I ran this little errand. If I’m any nicer, it’ll ruin my reputation.”
“You’re still a cold, cruel bastard, as far as I’m concerned,” I reassured him, trying and failing to hide my smile.
“Asshole,” he shot back, keeping his expression completely neutral. Coming from him, that was the equivalent of a teasing smirk.
Banter with Adrián was weird from an outsider’s perspective, but I knew him well enough to understand that he was being positively playful at the moment.
Valentina glanced from him to me and back again before waving her hand through the air, dismissing whatever was puzzling her. “I’m not going to pretend I understand the dynamics of this friendship between the two of you. I’ll leave you to insult each other, or whatever you usually do for fun when I’m not around. I want to talk to Sofia. Do you think she’ll want to see me?” she directed the question at me.
Her soft features were pinched, the fine lines around her chocolate eyes drawn with anxiety. Valentina was worried for Sofia’s emotional wellbeing. Adrián had convinced her that I wouldn’t harm Sofia, but Valentina was still obviously troubled by the idea that my hostage might be distressed.
“I don’t know,” I replied truthfully. “She was feeling okay this morning, but I… She wasn’t doing great, last time we spoke. She’s in the guest room.” I gestured in the direction of the hall.
Valentina extricated herself from beneath Adrián’s proprietary arm. “I’ll go see if she wants company. I’m sure this is confusing for her. She’s a sweet girl.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, my stomach knotting at the memory of how I’d damaged that sweet trust. “She is.”
If Valentina detected the strain in my tone, she didn’t linger to ask me about it.
Adrián, on the other hand, pounced as soon as she disappeared down the hallway. “So, you fucked up,” he surmised. “How bad is it?”
I winced. “Pretty bad.”
“Stop hovering over there,” he ordered, irritated. “Offer me a drink like a decent host, and then come sit down.”
“You are such a dick,” I informed him. “I’m not on the clock right now. You don’t have to bark orders at me in my own home.”
His dark brows lifted, his expression impassive. “I’ll take a beer, if you have one.”
I shot him the middle finger on my way into the kitchen. Adrián was a complicated man to be friends with, but so was I. That was probably the reason we got along: we both viewed friendship as a farce. We knew the truth about the world. People were inherently greedy and self-serving and capable of committing vile acts to get what they want
ed.
Adrián and I were no different from everyone else. We just didn’t bother to pretend otherwise.
Somehow, our mutual cynicism and disdain for the rest of humanity had fostered a strange but unbreakable bond. There was an odd sort of trust that developed in agreeing that no one was trustworthy.
I grabbed two IPAs from my fridge and joined Adrián in the living room, dropping down onto the L-shaped couch across from him. He took the beer I offered, a slight inclination of his head his only acknowledgement of gratitude.
“Are you going to tell me what you did, or do I have to guess?” he drawled.
I blew out a breath and scrubbed my hand over my beard. “I was spanking her, and I pushed her too far.”
He took a drag from his beer, completely unfazed by my reference to corporal discipline. He’d been the one to introduce me to my darker perversions, inviting me to the decadent, kinky club he owned. It was a front for trafficking our product, but he still liked to indulge his sadistic needs there.
Until he stole Valentina for himself. Now, I was certain I’d never see him at that club again. She was the only one he wanted to hurt, to subjugate, to own.
I wanted to own Sofia, but my plan had been to slowly manipulate her into accepting my needs. I’d intended train her to love submitting to my perverted lifestyle. She already thrived on praise and physical affection. It should have been a smooth process to exploit her desire to please and shape it into a desire to obey me.
“You have to be careful with her, Mateo,” Adrián advised. “If you don’t want to break her, you can’t do anything unforgivable.” He cocked his head at me. “I assume you’d prefer for her to be willing.”
“Of course I want her to be willing,” I snapped. “Jesus, Adrián.”
He considered me for a moment, and I suspected he was choosing his next words carefully. “Are you sure she’s right for you? You’ve wanted her for years, but you don’t really know her. If she can’t handle a spanking, how can you think she’ll willingly engage in what you truly want from her?”
“The spanking wasn’t the issue,” I admitted gruffly. “You’re right. I didn’t really know her before. But everything about her is even better than I could have imagined. She was made for this, Adrián, even if she doesn’t understand it yet. She likes it.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I saw… She has a scar. I didn’t handle it well.”
I rubbed my fingers together, as though I could still feel the puckered furrow that had been carved into her thigh. The wash of rage that had rushed through me at the initial discovery began to surge once again.
Adrián’s mouth pressed to a thin line, his eyes narrowing with disapproval. “You can’t put your own shit on her. I understand why seeing her scarred might have bothered you, but a lot of people have them. Accidents happen all the time.”
“It wasn’t from an accident,” I ground out. She wouldn’t have reacted so fearfully when I asked if someone had hurt her if it weren’t true. “I’ll admit, I let my own shit get in the way when I first saw it. I shouldn’t have made a big deal out of it. But when I asked about it, she panicked.” The nauseating memory of her desperate struggle to escape my restraining hold made my fury swell. “Someone hurt her, Adrián.”
His lips curved in a sharply satisfied smile. “Excellent.”
“Excellent?” I snarled, my control tested to its breaking point. My fists clenched at my sides as I resisted the nearly overwhelming urge to punch the pleased smirk right off his pretty-boy face.
He reclined, slinging his arm over the back of the couch like it was his throne. “I was hoping you’d be like this, once you manned up and claimed her. You should see yourself right now. Positively shit-your-pants terrifying. Much better for business than the stupid expression you used to have whenever you looked at her. I need a rabid grizzly watching my back, not a cuddly teddy bear. To be honest, allowing you anywhere near Sofia has been a liability until now. She’s finally yours, so you can focus on protecting her instead of mooning over her.”
My mouth opened and closed a few times, at a loss for words. The insult should have heightened my ire, but hearing him acknowledge my claim over Sofia aloud helped soothe my most volatile urges. I much preferred protecting Sofia to pining for her from a self-imposed distance. I didn’t have to bother with that shit anymore. I didn’t have to feel guilty for pulling her into my dangerous world. Her father had done that to her when he’d chosen to threaten Valentina.
And if I was Sofia’s protector, that meant someone was long overdue for a gruesome reckoning. Whoever had hurt her would be screaming in agony and begging for death very soon.
“Do you know anything about it?” I asked Adrián. “Can you think of anyone who might have hurt her in the past?”
“No. I know that’s not the answer you want to hear, but I can’t think of anyone who would dare to harm Caesar’s darling daughter. From what I know about her, she’s lived her life in a sheltered little bubble. Are you sure the scar wasn’t from some sort of accident? Maybe you reacted to the mark more harshly than you think you did. You’re a scary motherfucker, Mateo. She might have panicked because your reaction frightened her.”
I thought back over the disturbing incident. Watching Sofia cry out my name while she came all over my hand had been the most breathtaking thing I’d ever seen. I had tensed up when I touched the scar for the first time. I’d been so intoxicated by her submission that the unexpected trigger had provoked me more easily than it would have otherwise.
You promised. Her desperate accusation knifed through my mind. You promised you wouldn’t touch me if I didn’t ask you to. Please, let me go.
I bit out a curse. Of course I’d terrified her. She’d been struggling to close her legs and begging me to let her go, but I’d held her wide open for my inspection.
“Yeah. I scared her.” The awful truth was bitter on my tongue. I’d already realized that I’d fucked up by manhandling her when she tried to get away. But I’d thought my actions were justified. Because if I was able to find the person who’d hurt her and make them hurt, then I could make everything all better.
The fact of the matter was that no one had hurt Sofia other than me. I’d let my own damage fuck up my thought processes. The sight of a woman I cared about bearing a scar made me feel powerless, because it meant I’d failed to be there to protect her. It had happened once before, and I would die before I let it happen again. Especially not to my sweet Sofia.
But Sofia hadn’t been hurt by some monstrous man. I didn’t know how she’d gotten the scar, but in hindsight, it was obvious that her fear response had been prompted by my overreaction. I’d lured her into a deeply vulnerable state, and when she’d put her full trust in me to see to her wellbeing, I’d terrorized her instead.
“You’re going to have to be more careful around her,” Adrián advised. “She might have grown up in Caesar Hernández’s house, but she’s not from our world. I’m honestly surprised that you were able to spank her at all without her fighting you or weeping for mercy. She’s only been with you a couple days. I figured she’d still be in a full-on meltdown.”
“She’s a lot more resilient than you’d think,” I said, my chest swelling with pride. My little flower was soft and delicate, but she was also reasonable and adaptable. “She’s more upset with Caesar than anyone else. He wounded her deeply with his lies. So deeply that she says she would actually prefer to stay here with me rather than going back home. For some reason, she doesn’t seem capable of understanding what a monster I really am.”
“Well, you haven’t been monstrous to her, have you?”
“I scared her,” I repeated, in case Adrián somehow hadn’t heard me say it the first time.
He waved away my concern. “One little fuckup doesn’t make you a monster. I’ve seen the way you look at her. You would rather cut off your own hand than harm her with it. And if she’s as resilient as you say, she’ll forgive you for scaring
her today. You just have to prove to her that she can put her trust in you.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “I fucked up, but I can fix this.”
“Of course I’m right. You’re welcome.”
I knocked back my beer, deciding not to bother telling him he was a dick. He already knew that he was. And besides, he had given me good advice.
I knew exactly how I would earn Sofia’s trust back. Then, she would willingly return to my arms and welcome my touch. I could continue with my plan to seduce her into submission.
Sofia’s complete and utter devotion was still within my grasp. She was mine, and she would accept her place eagerly by the time I was finished with her.
Chapter 12
Sofia
Less than twenty-four hours had passed since I’d fled from Mateo’s disgusted stare, but already, I ached for him to touch me. I hadn’t been soothed by his embrace in far too long. I’d only been with him for a few days, but I was addicted to his affection.
In my childhood home, affection had been earned through good behavior and meeting Daddy’s expectations. I’d twisted myself into knots to please him, constantly anxious that he would withdraw his approval if I disappointed him.
Ever since I’d woken up in Mateo’s house, he had offered his attention freely, even stubbornly. Now that he’d seen my scar, he’d backed off, leaving me bereft.
I’d disappointed him with the physical flaws that I couldn’t change. There was no way I could modify that particular quality and earn his affection again. I couldn’t make this better with good behavior.
Although I felt moderately better now that I’d been able to style my curls and wear my own clothes, I missed the comfort of being swaddled in Mateo’s massive t-shirt, enfolded in his calming scent.
He wasn’t being cold or cruel this morning, but he didn’t encourage me to sit on his lap while he fed me breakfast, either. It seemed that he didn’t hate me or even dislike me as a person. He was genial while he cooked our meal, indicating that I should sit by the stove and watch him again. His big, warm body was so close to mine, but he was utterly beyond my reach.