My throat felt like the Sahara desert. Being that my motel room didn’t come equipped with a mini fridge to keep my drinks cool, the ice machine down the hall was my best bet. I refused to drink from the rusted tap; I did have some limits.
Sliding my feet into the pair of fuzzy slippers Melody had brought me, I grabbed the ice bucket and my room key before heading out.
Immediately, the smell of damp, recent rain assaulted my senses. One single light was on in the motel’s parking lot.
Navigating the maze-like halls, my house shoes lightly padded over the dull orange concrete. I was halfway to the machine when I saw a man smoking a cigarette from the corner of my eye. I wouldn’t have spared him a second glance if he wasn’t wedged between two walls like some generic Jack the Ripper.
“That’s a nice diamond,” he stated as I continued past.
I ignored him.
“You’re supposed to say thanks, bitch,” he called after me.
I ignored that, too, reaching the old machine without further incident. Eyeing it suspiciously, I pushed down with my bucket and cringed.
The thing sounded like a stuffed up garbage disposal. I pulled back, just for ice to come falling out of the chute like pieces of hail from the sky, with no sign of stopping.
“Are you kidding me?” I moaned, catching what I needed and then hurrying away before some pissed off guest could wake up and see me standing there.
On the way back to my room, I was relieved to see the asshole from moments ago was gone.
That feeling was short lived.
Entering the room, I locked the door and sat the bucket of questionable ice on the table. As I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, I noticed the tiny hairs on my arms were on edge.
My body had sensed something was wrong, and my brain delayed in catching up. I turned my head and audibly swallowed, seeing a pair of worn tennis shoes sticking out from the far side of the bed.
I wasn’t bothered by the body, not really. Dead people didn’t faze me.
I was much more concerned with the framed king of diamonds someone had sat on top of the comforter.
Chapter Seven
The faucet turning on in the bathroom had my already rapid heartbeat skyrocketing. A full minute or two rolled by before the water shut off.
I could have run. Maybe I should’ve. But I had nowhere to go, and I didn’t want to run anymore. It wasn’t going to bury or erase my reality.
So I stood where I was, crossing my arms over my chest when he came around the corner. It was nearly three in the morning, and he looked better than ever.
I was in a pair of black yoga pants and a white t-shirt. He was in a three piece suit, neatly pressed. The thick onyx hair I loved to touch was swept back in its usual style. His smoldering eyes swept over me from head to toe.
I wasn’t sure what to say, and he didn’t bother to speak. He came towards me, his mask solidly in place.
Nothing about the way he moved was any different than usual but, everything about Mateo was overwhelmingly intense. He exhumed raw, masculine power without trying.
I stood my ground, refusing to look away. I wasn’t afraid of him, not in the slightest. I was always more terrified of how I felt about him.
He stopped when we were just a few breaths apart, and stared down at me. This was how it always went between us. Pre-determined roles it felt we’d played a thousand different times since the day we’d met.
I had to slightly tilt my head back to look up at him. He came a little closer, bringing us nearly nose to nose. He lifted his hand and very gently wrapped it around my throat.
My palm went to his chest, barely making impact with his solid form when a warning flashed in his eyes, making me drop it down to my side. I sharply inhaled, pulling the familiar scent of him into my lungs.
“You ran away from me. Didn’t I tell you I’d find you?”
“I don’t see it as me running away. I told you I needed space,” I calmly replied.
“Anjo, are you now telling me you forgot what I told you about space?”
“I thought you’d make an exception, considering.”
“Considering what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. How about the fact that Eva’s dead after you told me she wasn’t? Or what—”
“I never told you that,” he swiftly interjected. “What I told you was that she was closer than you thought—not hungry or hurt, but detained. Come on now, Elena. Use that beautiful brain of yours. You know I didn’t leave you that box of ashes. I only left the card.”
“But you knew,” I said harshly.
“No, I didn’t know, and just like the day of the wake, I’m not sorry for your loss, but I’m sorry you’re hurting over someone who never deserved the arresting emotional attachment you had for them in the end.”
I blinked, still floored by how flippant he was about everything. I should have been used to it by now; very rarely did things seem to faze him.
“Why can’t you just be transparent? Why does everything have to be so damn complicated with you?”
“Maybe I like the illusion of mystery.”
“Ugh, stop fucking with my head!” A frustrated growl erupted from my throat and I tried to push away from him.
He had the audacity to chuckle, tightening his grip and maneuvering me around, practically lifting me off the floor.
The pressure was enough to make swallowing difficult, but not so bad that I couldn’t breathe.
Suddenly, I found myself airborne.
I landed on the bed and my back flounced off the mattress, causing me to nearly fall off the other side. I clung to the comforter to prevent myself from landing directly on top of the dead body.
Taking in the man who had called me a bitch less than fifteen minutes ago, my eyes honed in on the perfectly round bullet hole in the center of his forehead. His face was distorted at an odd angle, and blood had already settled into the navy carpet.
Mateo’s hand clamped down on my shoulder and pulled me back to the center of the bed. He planted himself above me, forcing me to lie flat.
“Why is he in here?” I pushed at his chest, trying to dislodge him. He let out an inconvenienced sigh and easily caught my wrists, pinning them on either side of my head.
“He saw me about to enter your room.”
“So that led you to killing him?”
“No, I killed him for disrespecting you with that derogatory term.”
I exhaled a noisy breath of air, unable to stop my laugh spilling from my chest. “You’re truly, legitimately crazy.”
“So are you. It’s what makes us so good together.” He let go of my wrists and grabbed the top of my yoga pants, yanking them down to just beneath my ass, taking my cotton boy shorts with them.
“What are you doing?”
“Reacquainting your cunt with my cock.”
“What? No! After everything you’ve done, you think it’s that easy to shove your dick in me?” I tried to wriggle from beneath him, but was stopped when he placed a firm hand on my lower stomach.
“I know it’s that easy, anjo, because I know who you really are.”
“And who is that, Mateo?” I nearly whispered, feeling my thighs loosen for him and a trickle of hot, carnal need.
He didn’t answer me, not right away. He trained his tiger-like eyes on me and undid his slacks, daring me to protest, making this an unspoken challenge.
Everything seemed to be a battle of wills when it came to this beautiful man.
There were approximately nine hundred thousand more important things I needed to be doing than taking his dick, but I wanted this in spite of all of that. There was no one inside the room to judge me for my actions or my skewed thought process; it was just us.
Mateo’s eyes were the only open windows he occasionally let me see through, and when he revealed a bit of what he was feeling, my stomach dipped.
Anger swirled through his golden hues like a raging storm, but there was something else there too…relief?
He pressed a hand on the ugly jagged scar that blemished my left thigh, softly tracing over it with his thumb, never breaking his gaze from mine.
Silence stretched between us and my heart fluttered in my chest.
I thought it’d be impossible for him to know the story that surrounded that permanent mark, but he seemed to know everything.
I let him settle back above me. He spat into his hand and used the saliva to lube up my pussy, running his fingers up and down my slit and circling my clit with his thumb.
I dropped my head back and sighed, shutting my eyes.
After another minute or two rolled by, he shifted. Feeling his solid cock at my entrance, I braced myself for the rough intrusion I knew was coming.
“Open your eyes. I want to see you,” he demanded, slamming himself inside me.
I had no choice. I sucked in a sharp breath and my lids lifted.
He pulled out and slammed back in, eliciting a loud moan from my throat and forcing my back to arch off the bed. He set a grueling pace, burying himself balls deep with every solid thrust.
With my pants not even half-way down, it made spreading my legs any wider impossible. I felt every bit of him touching the parts of me he owned.
The springs inside the cheap mattress sounded like they were seconds away from giving out. His balls smacked against the groove of my ass in tempo with his movements.
From the corner of my eye, I could see the dead man watching us. His gaze was almost sad. Mateo grabbed my jaw and forced me to focus solely on his face.
“Your mind is everywhere but where it needs to be. When you blink, breathe, or scream, you do it thinking of how good my dick feels inside you, and how hard you’re about to come all over it.”
My pussy clenched and more juices saturated him, dripping onto the sheets beneath us. I let everything else fall away until all I saw was the man fucking me like a well-oiled machine.
“Mateo,” I choked out his name and reached up, threading my fingers through his silky hair.
He lurched down and smothered my mouth with his, biting down on my lower lip and caressing my tongue.
“Your pussy is heaven.” He pulled back, groaning.
Bracing himself with one arm, he leaned down again and kissed the side of my neck.
“Do you want to know who you are, anjo?” he asked, his warmth breath skimming over my sensitive flesh.
Unable to vocalize a coherent response, I tried to nod my head.
“You’re mine. Even when the last breath has left this beautiful body, you’ll still be mine,” he rasped, picking up his pace.
I came with a silent scream, flooding his cock with my come, bunching up his suit jacket in my hands. He continued to fuck me, strands of his silky hair falling onto his sweaty forehead.
I felt him twitch inside me, thrusting one last time with a small grunt, finding his own release. We stayed together for only a minute, taking the time to catch our breath.
When he pulled out, he wiped the remnants of us off on my lips before pulling my pants back up, leaving our come between my legs.
I wordlessly readjusted my shirt and fixed my hair as he got himself back together. When he was done, he took out his cellphone and tapped away at the screen.
“Gather whatever you don’t want to leave and let’s go,” he said, speaking so calmly it was almost like he hadn’t just released himself inside me.
He began walking towards the door without seeing if I would listen. Him just casually strolling away bothered me for varying reasons. I didn’t want to fall into him any deeper than I already was—not when I didn’t have a single fucking answer as to what the hell was going on.
“What about the dead guy?”
“It will be taken care of.”
“Okay, and Eva? Who hurt…who killed her? And Raine’s dead. She and her family had nothing to do with any of this, but they were executed in cold blood. And the men who showed up…you have to tell me something!”
“Elena, the wisest thing for you to do is get the fuck up and follow me,” he shot back, not so much as giving me another glance.
And here we went again, with the elusive answers followed up by a large dose of mind-fuck. I had to remind myself that this was about a game, a game that was rigged with no clear picture of the outcome.
Chapter Eight
The rain was coming down in sheets.
I sat beside Mateo in the backseat of his Tahoe, watching the windshield wipers whip back and forth.
We’d hardly spoken to one another since leaving the crappy motel. For once, I didn’t mind the silence.
My body ached with the reminder of what we’d done. I was fighting the urge to curl up on the leather seat and go to sleep.
Leaning my head against the cool glass, I let out what had to be my fifth sigh.
I strummed my fingertips on top of my little white box of ashes, watching my engagement ring glimmer in the window’s reflection.
I never took it off because I truly had planned on going back to Mateo; only, I thought I’d be doing so after I had some semblance of a plan.
I’d been so confident being away from him would help me regroup. All I managed to do was hit the same roadblock I always did. Every question answered led to another question I didn’t know where to begin finding an answer for.
Space didn’t help me at all. If anything, this all clarified what common sense already told me.
The answers all lay with the infuriating kingpin sitting beside me.
He placed a hand on my thigh and lightly squeezed.
“Your thoughts are loud, anjo.”
I lifted my head and looked at him, loathing how easy it was for him to read me. It took concentrated effort and a shitload of patience for me to do the same with him.
“What does that mean? Why do you keep calling me that?”
“It means ‘angel’.”
“I’m no angel,” I scoffed.
“You’re a bit twisted, but that doesn’t make you less than an angel. You just have fringed wings.”
I didn’t have a reply for that, so I turned back to the window and resumed my previous position. I was starting to feel more like Lucifer, but I guess even he had wings once upon time. Mateo’s words proved his ability to see beneath all my pretty and straight to the ugly.
My complete disregard for the things other people would be losing their shit over, how calm I was in the midst of all this, and the fact that I still found comfort when I gave him my body…
It all solidified what I’d long ago realized about myself.
I was stingy with my empathy, and death didn’t bother me. The right kind of violence made my heart beat irregularly—never in fear; always sick excitement.
Just. Like. Him.
I hid my flaws, whereas he never pretended to be anyone other than who he was. I envied that freedom. And sitting there with the sound of rain pelting off the roof in the dark of the morning, I accepted he was right.
We fit perfectly together.
A gentle hand on my shoulder shook me awake.
Before I could fully open my eyes, I felt the chill of a breeze and bits of rain hit my face.
Blinking, I rubbed the side of my head and took notice of Mateo standing outside the truck in the dark, an umbrella shielding him from the downpour.
“Come on.” He reached inside and took my hand.
“Where are we?” I asked around a yawn, scooting across the seat.
“The cemetery.”
I immediately tried to pull my hand away. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Relax, Elena. I’m not going to hurt you,” he soothed, securing his grip. “There’s something you need to see.”
“At a cemetery, at almost five in the morning, in the dark while it’s raining?”
“What better time is there?” His white teeth flashed in the dark as he smiled. “Come with me,” he repeated a little gentler.
With an irritated sigh, I slid out of the truck and imm
ediately sought shelter under the large red umbrella.
I still had Raine’s pink sweater jacket, and lifted the hood to help block some of the water hitting my face.
Mateo said something to the driver (who I’d never seen before) in his native tongue, and then placed a hand on the small of my back to guide me.
His vision was clearly better than mine because I could barely see two feet in front of me, and he had no issues making his way to where he wanted to be.
I focused on the water starting to absorb through the bottom of my slippers; when I looked up again, I knew exactly where we were going.
Not a minute later we were cutting through a small stretch of grass and stopping directly in front of my family’s plot.
“Why did you bring me here?” I asked again, wondering what he was playing at now.
“Look.”
Refraining from rolling my eyes, I looked back at the marble headstones, not seeing anything out of the ordinary. Okay, I couldn’t really see them at all due to the weather, but I knew every marker by heart.
“There are five graves here, Elena, but not all of them contain a body. Who do you think is missing?”
My brows slanted together as I studied the graves for a second time, skimming over each one.
I knew my grandfather was dead. Molly was most certainly dead. Eva was in a box, and my mother had been in her casket during calling hours, so unless one of the three I knew was buried had risen from the afterlife, that only left one other person.
My mind immediately rejected the notion. It didn’t make any sense.
“It’s Eva, or my…father.” I looked up at Mateo, needing him to say something.
“It isn’t,” was his blunt response.
“What isn’t, Mateo?”
“The answer’s not simple enough for me to give you a yes or no.”
Shaking my head, I looked back at the graves at a loss. If my father was alive, then where the fuck was he?
Chapter Nine
The most poisonous, dysfunctional people I knew were all disguised under the illusion of family.
They were liars, criminals, and ridiculously selfish. They fit right into this fucked up clandestine world. I had a plethora of issues of my own, so I sincerely hoped I didn’t inherit their toxic dysfunction on top of them. If I did, I was doubly fucked.
Old Money Roulette: Complete Trilogy Page 24