by Julia Sykes
Arturo would be a warm-up. I’d pay Daniel a visit once I finished with the older man.
Stefano tipped his head in a small nod, acknowledging my unspoken plan. I would do this without his vocal support, eliminating the problem while he could feign innocence.
As always, we would work together to stabilize his regime. He would remain king, and I would remain rich. The arrangement was ideal. There was a reason we’d both survived this long.
“Now that we’re all here,” Stefano began, already eliminating Arturo and Daniel from our inner circle, “I’d like to discuss our next moves. I’m very pleased that you’ve all accepted my invitation to the gala on Friday.” He beamed at each of us, as though we’d had a choice in accepting his invitation.
I didn’t feel like attending another one of his fucking fake parties, but this was how Stefano operated. I wouldn’t have fun, but I would be there, looming behind him; his ever-present, menacing shadow.
The rumble of a raised, masculine voice broke through Stefano’s falsely jovial energy. My attention snapped to the door, which was closed to ensure our meeting remained private. The guard stationed outside shouldn’t be able to make out anything distinct through the wooden barrier, so the fact that we could hear him at all meant he must be shouting.
I didn’t need Stefano’s prompting to stalk toward the commotion, removing the wickedly sharp hunting knife from the sheath at my side as I moved to confront whoever dared to disturb us. My fingers flexed around the knife handle, shifting my grip in preparation for violence. I doubted our enemies had managed to infiltrate Stefano’s private high-rise building, but the interruption alone called for a swift lesson in respect.
This was my role in the cartel. This was what kept me rich, powerful, and secure: vicious, unforgiving brutality.
Just as I wrenched open the door, a high, feminine cry pierced my chest.
“Raúl!” My name was ragged and desperate on Marisol’s lips.
My eyes skipped past the guard blocking her way, immediately fixing on my frightened little captive.
Her lovely eyes were wide and wild, dark with panic. Crimson blood painted her fragile face, staining the soft cheek I’d caressed for the first time mere hours ago; the cheek that had pressed into my hand, welcoming my touch and seeking my protection.
A savage, animal roar boomed through the corridor, and my knife found the man’s heart with lethal precision. I flowed through the ingrained, deadly movement without conscious thought.
I shoved aside his lifeless body, reaching for Marisol. She cried out again, but this time, she wasn’t calling my name. She shrieked and stumbled back, desperate to evade my maddened advance. The sudden movement jarred her head wound, and her eyes rolled back as her knees buckled.
I caught her just before she hit the floor, cradling my pretty, breakable hostage with aching care that was entirely at odds with the vicious snarl that ripped from my chest.
Chapter 3
Marisol
“Marisol.” He rasped my name, and his big hand caressed my cheek with the same careful gentleness as this morning. Two thick fingers curled beneath my chin, tipping my head back slowly. A feather-light brush over my hair sent a wash of dizzying pain through my skull, radiating outward from the cut where my head had slammed into the glass coffee table.
Blood on the glass above me. Warmth pooling beneath my cheek. Daniel’s cruel threat for my compliance. Carmen’s hand reaching for me, begging me to save her…
My eyes flew open. The sudden, jolting movement sent another wave of nausea rolling through my head, and the world blurred. A strong arm tightened to an iron band around my shoulders, pinning my side against a massive, hard chest.
“Stay still.” The order came out in a gruff rumble, but the gentle touch on my face calmed me.
Raúl won’t hurt me.
I realized he knelt on the floor, bracing me against his body with one corded arm around my shoulders. His other hand held my face with shocking tenderness, preventing me from sudden movements that might jar my injury again.
“What’s going on?” A different, silky smooth voice slithered around Raúl’s protective bulk, sliding down my spine like an icy blade.
Stefano Duarte. He would kill me if he knew I’d helped Daniel take Carmen.
I shuddered, but I didn’t dare close my eyes again. Carmen needed me to save her.
Daniel had lied to me. He’d always intended to abduct her and drag her to her enemies, not her allies. I’d handed her over to men who terrified her. I couldn’t leave her to that fate. Not when I had caused it.
Raúl’s muscles rippled around me, the protective cage of his brawny arms drawing closer. I pressed into him, desperate for the massive barrier between me and the insane cartel kingpin.
My hand fisted in my protector’s shirt, clinging to him as tightly as possible. The world stopped spinning when I focused on his verdant green eyes, which burned with an incandescent, fierce light.
“I tried to stop him.” My words came out as a whispered plea. It was true. I did try to stop Daniel. They had to believe me. My fingers trembled, and I curved them tighter into Raúl’s shirt, wrestling down the terror that threatened to choke me. “I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t…”
My breath clogged in my throat, resisting the confession. Raúl might not stop Stefano from killing me if they both figured out the truth. I didn’t think he was capable of doing it himself, but I couldn’t know for sure. I’d betrayed their cartel. Daniel had told me that he intended to slaughter Stefano and Raúl by the end of the day. And I’d helped him. Willingly.
“Couldn’t stop who?” Raúl pressed. His teeth flashed in a purely predatory snarl, but his careful hold on my face didn’t turn violent. “Who did this to you?”
I drew in a shuddering breath. He was still enraged on my behalf. He still thought I was a victim. If I could focus his rage on Daniel, he might be distracted from asking about my sins. If I could convince them to leave me and save Carmen, I might be able to get out of here alive.
“Daniel.” I cringed at the harsh, beastly sound that ripped from Raúl’s chest, but his anger gave me the courage I needed to press on. “He followed me up to the penthouse,” I said in a rush. “I tried to stop him, but he…he took Carmen.”
“What?” This time, it was Stefano’s inhuman howl that tore through the corridor. I pressed deeper into Raúl’s chest, praying he wouldn’t turn me over to his sadistic boss.
Stefano appeared before me, vicious intent in every thundering step. He would rip me away from Raúl. He’d tear me apart. I’d caused his trophy to be stolen from him. No one stole from Stefano Duarte.
“Stop!” Raúl’s deep voice boomed around me, pushing Stefano back like a shockwave. “Come near her, and I’ll kill you.”
The madman stopped in his tracks, but his body practically vibrated with the effort of holding himself in check. Light flickered over his black eyes like twin, white-hot flames.
“If Daniel took Carmen, you need my help to get her back.” Raúl’s voice was still rough and savage, but he kept his protective hold on me rather than attacking his boss. “You will not touch Marisol.” The last was a dark promise, an echo of the fevered edict he’d snarled at Daniel when he’d been choking the life out of the younger man.
“She helped him,” Stefano hissed, his glinting eyes fixed on my face with lethal focus.
“Does it look like she helped?” Raúl’s muscles flexed around me with his own suppressed violence. “She says she tried to stop him. She bled to try to keep Carmen from him. He could’ve killed her. Back off and think for one fucking second,” he snapped. “You’re losing your goddamn mind.”
As far as I was concerned, Stefano Duarte had lost his mind a long time ago. I wasn’t certain if he’d ever been sane.
But Raúl’s words seemed to center him. He didn’t calm, but his eyes became sharper, and his aggressive posture shifted to something more purposeful. Somehow, he was more terrifying when he w
as coldly collected than when he’d torn after me in a rabid rage.
“Tell me what happened.” He seethed, but he spoke clearly. His soulless eyes narrowed on me. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
I opened my mouth to answer, but my throat was too tight to utter a sound. The weight of his menacing stare bore down on my chest, crushing the air from my lungs.
“Answer him,” Raúl coaxed in a shockingly soft tone. “I won’t let him hurt you, corderita.”
Little lamb. It sounded like an endearment in his low, rumbling cadence. If I was a lost, vulnerable lamb, then the terrifying beast holding me tightly to his chest should’ve seemed like the big bad wolf. Maybe he was, but he was turning his predatory ferocity against the men who threatened me rather than eating me alive.
I focused on his luminous eyes and took a deep breath. His masculine, earthy scent suffused my senses, and a blanket of calm enfolded me. He was as wild and dangerous as the deepest parts of the jungle, but there was safety if I remained hidden in his shadow.
“Daniel followed me up to the penthouse. He knew I had biometric access, so he got in the elevator with me. I thought I didn’t have a choice. He scared me this morning.” I stuck as close to the truth as I could, keeping any hint of a lie from revealing my complicity in the plan.
Raúl made a low grunt, as though he was locking venomous words in his chest. I understood that he wanted me to continue. There would be no interruptions.
As I sank into the safety he offered, my courage slowly returned. Righteous purpose suffused me with renewed strength. I didn’t want any interruptions. I had to tell them everything I could to help them save Carmen.
“As soon as we got to the penthouse, Daniel drugged Carmen. He said you would go looking for her at his house, but a man named Arturo would be waiting with an ambush. He thinks you’ll all die trying to save her, but he’s taking her to someone else.” I cringed, remembering the horror in Carmen’s eyes when she’d heard the man’s name. “She looked scared.” That particular truth slipped from my lips on a whisper, but I hadn’t intended to say it. Guilt bubbled hot in my stomach, pushing up through my chest to sear my heart.
I knew that fear: the absolute, helpless dread of inevitable violation. Pain that reached so much deeper than the physical damage they inflicted. Sadistic men took little pieces of a woman’s soul every time they took their pleasure in her unwilling body.
That same fear had driven me from my home, fueling my reckless flight to freedom. But I hadn’t found freedom. I’d only found more agony inflicted by cruel men. I’d been captured for their callous use and dragged into this criminal underworld. I seemed to be locked in a nightmare, unable to escape men’s grasping, greedy hands, no matter how far I ran or how much I sacrificed.
“Did he say who he was taking her to?” Raúl prompted, pulling me out of the vortex of my guilt and saving me from saying something incriminating.
“Miguel Armendariz.”
A purely animal roar—something between rage and pain—cut straight through my chest. The anguished bellow tore my attention from Raúl, and I realized the dreadful sound had come from Stefano.
As I stared into his maddened black eyes, I suddenly understood. Carmen wasn’t his trophy. Maybe she had been when he’d first captured her, but the desperately deranged man looming before me wasn’t simply angry that his toy had been stolen.
I never would’ve imagined the insane kingpin to be capable of caring for someone else, but he might even love Carmen.
My boiling hot guilt surged, singeing my insides.
What have I done?
“You have to get her back,” I begged raggedly, desperate to undo my awful sin. I found Raúl’s eyes again, imploring. “I tried to stop him. I swear I did.”
His thumb brushed over my cheek in a gentle, soothing caress, but his jaw was tight with his own strain. The small scar on his upper lip drew deep on a scowl.
I can’t let Raúl die.
Even if I’d never see him again, I couldn’t be responsible for his death. Because as soon as the men left to rescue Carmen, I would have to run. My part in Daniel’s plot would be discovered when they got her back. I needed to be long gone by then, or even Raúl wouldn’t be able to save me from Stefano’s wrath.
If my huge protector didn’t turn on me himself when he realized my betrayal.
“Daniel said Arturo is waiting to ambush you at his house,” I said quickly. “You can’t go there.”
“That’s exactly where you’re going, Raúl,” Stefano barked. Murderous energy practically pulsed off him in dark, suffocating waves, but he appeared to have gathered his wits again. “I’m going to get Carmen back from Armendariz. You’re going to kill Arturo. I won’t risk him running off if he has time to learn that their coup has failed. I want him dead within an hour.”
Raúl’s intense gaze roved over my face, lingering on my bloodstained cheek. His jaw ticked, and his scar drew deeper as his lips peeled back from his flashing white teeth. “I’ll have him subdued within an hour,” he swore in a deep, dark rumble. “But I make no promises about how quickly I’ll kill him.”
The protest that had teased at the tip of my tongue withered and died. The beast that cradled me in his corded arms didn’t need my plea to save himself from Arturo’s ambush. As I stared up into his burning eyes, I understood with absolute clarity that Arturo was the one who should be afraid.
I’d been sure that Raúl could take care of himself. I’d told myself over and over that he wouldn’t be killed during Daniel’s coup.
It was clearer to me than ever that Raúl was a far more terrifying monster than the others. Even though he held me protectively now, I had to escape before he learned that I was just as much to blame for Carmen’s abduction as Daniel.
Daniel had been right; if I wasn’t gone by sunset, I wouldn’t survive.
Chapter 4
Marisol
Pain lanced through my skull as the doctor carefully examined my head wound, but it wasn’t the pain that made me dizzy. My heart raced as though I’d been running for miles rather than sitting stiffly on the edge of the plush couch in Raúl’s private suite. He’d brought me up to the rooms where he stayed when he slept in Stefano’s high rise, promising me that no one could get to me here. He’d sworn that I would be safe, and he’d left me in the care of his boss’s private physician.
I wasn’t safe. I had to run, but I needed the doctor to leave me alone before I could make a break for it. No one could suspect that my distress had anything to do with my complicity in the attempted coup.
How long has Raúl been gone? Stefano had ordered him to kill Arturo within an hour. Surely, at least a quarter of my precious time to escape had already passed while the doctor poked and prodded my aching head.
Unless Raúl chose to take his time punishing Arturo. I make no promises about how quickly I’ll kill him.
The memory of his chilling declaration sent a shiver racing down my spine, and my fingers trembled. I flexed and released them, as though that small movement would be enough to purge the anxiety that fizzed through my veins. My muscles twitched and danced beneath the surface of my skin, desperate to run. Every minute that passed was one minute closer to Raúl finding out the truth. One minute closer to his return.
One minute closer to my violent death.
“I feel okay,” I promised shakily, edging away from the doctor’s hands. “I just need to get cleaned up.”
Blood had started to dry on my cheek, clotting into a gory, sticky mask. I had to scrub it off before I fled. It would be dangerous enough to navigate the streets of an unfamiliar city. As a woman traveling alone, I already looked like easy prey. Looking like wounded prey wasn’t an option.
The doctor drew away, unconcerned with insisting on further examination. The middle-aged man’s eyes hadn’t met mine for more than a few, perfunctory seconds throughout his assessment, and his thick, dark-rimmed glasses served as a barrier between us. I supposed any doctor who chose
to work for a drug lord didn’t care much for ethics or a soothing bedside manner.
“You’ll live.” He picked up his medical bag, leaving me without so much as a backward glance or word of comfort.
I tucked my trembling hands beneath my thighs, restraining myself from jumping into action until I was sure he’d left the suite. As soon as I heard the door close behind him, I sprang to my feet and bolted toward the bathroom. I stifled a gasp when I caught sight of my face in the mirror. It wasn’t the first time I’d been bloodied, but I hadn’t seen myself like this in a while. Not since Raúl had started watching over me.
I shook the thought of his verdant green eyes from my mind, but I was instantly forced to brace my hands against the marble sink to stave off a wave of dizziness. Gritting my teeth, I turned on the tap, barely waiting for the water to warm before I began the gruesome process of washing my face. The stark white porcelain sink was bathed in red, then pink, then clear water.
I studied myself in the mirror more closely, now that I’d cleansed the blood from my cheek. A dark crimson trail had dripped down the side of my neck, marking the collar of the drab gray dress that served as my maid’s uniform. My teeth worried at my lower lip as I considered the stain, indecision stalling me out.
I didn’t want to take the time to go down to my small bedroom in the staff quarters on the ground floor. Walking out onto the street with blood on my clothes wasn’t a good idea, and I would have to retrieve a clean dress from my room if I didn’t want to risk it. But delaying my departure might be riskier. The seconds ticked by far too quickly, matching the pace of my rapidly beating heart.
Raúl probably had a change of clothes in this suite, but there was no way anything that fit his massive frame would remotely suit me. Wandering around in an oversized, man’s shirt would attract unwelcome scrutiny, too.
My attention turned to my hair, which was still loosely pulled back into a bun. The thick, black waves didn’t betray the same red stain that marked my collar, but my hair appeared unnaturally matted around the cut.