The girl steps back as I glance up and down the alley, squinting to see through the thick rain. I don’t see anything, or anyone. Certainly not a big delivery. Someone else must have dealt with it after all, and now I’m pissed that Mallory dragged me out here for nothing. I hear her say something behind me, but can’t make out the words.
“What?” I yell, and when I turn back to look at her, she’s shutting the back door behind her.
“I’m sorry.” I barely hear her, but I do make out the sound of the heavy lock snap into place.
Fuck.
Before I have time to fully process what’s happening, something hits me hard on the back of the head, and everything goes dark.
Break
Hard Candy is The Breaker’s last stop of the week, and always the most irritating. The flashing lights, the din of the crowd… it all sets him on edge. But once this is done, he’ll make the drop at King’s, then return to his dingy apartment for the night. “Home” is not as quiet as he’d like, but it’s enough to get him through.
The Breaker doesn’t prefer to drive, but in this weather, the task is unavoidable. The highways are loud and bright, and the sky illuminates with lightning every few minutes. In the car, he can’t feel the answering rumble of thunder, only hear the sharp crack in the darkness.
It’s going to be a long night.
At least the storm has kept the crowds away from Hard Candy. He parks in a shadowed corner of the lot and marches toward the club with purpose. In, out, done. Hopefully Miel Conde won’t be too mouthy tonight, but he’s not counting on it.
As usual, Lucia Mendes waits for him at the door, and silently walks him in. Out of all of Miel’s girls, he likes Lucia best. She knows how to keep her mouth shut and get the job done.
She gives the back office door a solid knock, but there is no response. She tries again, adding a shout to announce who the visitor is.
“I haven’t seen her all night, she has to be in there,” Lucia says, adjusting her petite shoulders.
The Breaker gives the door two warning raps, then slams his full weight against the thin plywood. It gives way easily. Inside, the office is dark and empty. Something stirs uneasily deep in his gut. Miel Conde is a lot of things, but in the five months she’s been here, she’s never missed one of his visits.
“Miel?” Lucia chirps into her radio, but the answering device lights up on the abandoned desk.
“Search the building,” The Breaker orders stiffly. “Find her.”
Ten minutes later, the girls all show up empty handed. Her car is still in the lot, but Miel is missing.
If this were anyone else, The Breaker wouldn’t give a shit. He’d take the money and report the issue to King, who would simply place a new manager at Hard Candy. Things would continue to operate smoothly, and in a few weeks, no one would remember the missing woman.
Unfortunately, this is Miel Conde. That means he’ll have to care. He’ll have to chase the woman down and make sure she’s alright.
After all, he swore to Javier Vega that he’d look out for her.
Chapter Ten
Andrews
I eye my captive’s body in the golden glow of sunrise. I have her stretched out in front of me, practiced knots holding her wrists high, those toned arms taut. Her head is still rolled to the side, messy curls dripping down her back, eyes locked tight behind long lashes. Her makeup is smeared, both from last night’s rain and from our journey here. I resist the urge to reach out and wipe at the black smudges on her defined cheekbones.
I haven’t touched her yet, aside from carrying her unconscious body to and from the car, and securing her bindings. It feels like cheating, to take while she’s not awake to fight back. If I wanted this to be easy, there are a dozen other ways I could have gone about things. But the sick, twisted part of me that she brought into existence craves the challenge, yearns for the struggle. It’s all part of the game, the game I’ve been dying to play.
I’m not interested in touching yet, but I can’t fight my curiosity, not when the object of my obsession is right in front of me. I lean back on the mattress a few feet away, and let my eyes roam her body. I study her like a war chief studies the map of enemy land. I memorize her like a conductor memorizes every note and pause of a symphony. I examine her the way I would any other piece of evidence, not only observing but analyzing the body of proof before me.
I start at her hands, the bare, neatly clipped nails, the palms that surprised me with their softness as I pressed them together in prayer and wrapped my rope around them. My eyes slide down her left arm to the faded scar that this position exposes. It matches mine, the wound she gave me, but hers is a smooth, pale memory, where mine is still a swollen, pink souvenir. Who gave her hers? How long ago? Was it far enough in the past that she barely remembers the pain, or does it still throb through her every night, like mine does?
They way I’ve bound her lifts the hem of her thin tank top, revealing the faint silhouette of perfect abs, not showy, but utilitarian. I can’t see it from here, but I know what peeks out over her waistband, on the tempting dip of her back. The mark of El Sombrerón, the decades-old tattoo still bold and unmistakable.
I was never in Organized Crime, never followed the cocaine kingpin’s case that closely. There were enough bodies chasing his comeuppance. But in my illicit investigation of Miel Conde and her compatriots, the name popped up often, the monster’s legacy the canvas on which Miel and Javier painted their own sins. I don’t know much, but I do know that most women under El Sombrerón’s regime, from the lowliest whore to his very own wives, rarely made it out alive, and never in one piece. Never without his cruel intentions marking every inch of their bodies, inside and out.
I know that the history I can read on Miel’s skin is only a fraction of the truth, but I also know that no motive can justify becoming a monster yourself. People all over the globe suffer worse without inflicting their trauma onto others. It doesn’t matter how Miel got to this place. She’s getting what she deserves. It’s all I care about.
My very first obsession was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, par for the course for a six-year-old boy. Same thing when, at twelve, my life began to revolve around Kelly Tongson. Totally normal, at least until the part where Kelly’s best friend busted me following them around the mall one too many times, and her parents accused me of stalking the girl. Maybe that was the moment where I could have been fixed, when my dad could have said all the right words in that somber, disappointed tone, and I would have learned how to healthily process my interests. But he never got the chance.
After that came a blur of football games and the Academy and my first case as a white shield, but never again a woman. All-nighters following suspects that I was certain were guilty, sneaking files home to work on cold cases I’d been told to abandon, punching the walls of the courthouse when we didn’t get the verdict I wanted. But never again did I watch a woman from afar, memorize her routines, spend full days thinking of nothing but her. Not until Miel. I’ve missed the high of the fixation, the clarity that comes when you empty your mind of everything that doesn’t matter. The adrenaline rush that never seems to end, the security of knowing exactly what you want. No woman could withstand the intensity of such attention, not even if you dressed it up like love.
The long, sleepless night is starting to catch up to me, so I stand and quietly walk to the single small bathroom stall in the far corner of the open floor. There is no longer a door on the frame’s hinges, and the porcelain sink is cracked and stained, but the water from the spout comes out clean and clear. I splash my face, then dry off with the hem of my shirt.
I’m glad the mirror over the sink was shattered long ago, leaving no reflection to catch my eye as I lean heavily on the counter, feeling anything but clean.
I don’t want to think about what I’m becoming, and what I’m going to deserve after I carry out my intentions.
Chapter Eleven
Miel
I wake up al
l at once, immediately registering the dull ache on the back of my head and the sharper pain rolling down from my wrists to my shoulders.
He has me.
Why the hell didn’t I kill him when I had the chance?
I slowly blink my eyes open, and I remember why.
Andrews is in the shadows a few feet from me, broad back turned my way. Strong shoulders strain at a too-small shirt, big hands wrap around a thick coil of rope. A perfect ass that his loose jeans can’t hide, a complexion that shines like water in moonlight. A mattress by his feet. The sight should scare me, but for some reason, the way my heart speeds as I watch his muscles flex as he works the bindings doesn’t feel quite like fear. This is the part where a sane woman would be afraid. I imagine those strong palms wrapping easily around my wrists as he binds me. But I don’t feel dirty or used, the way I usually do after men have touched me. Picturing his hands on me makes something small and unfamiliar flutter deep in the pit of my stomach. It feels the way butterfly wings must, as the chrysalis falls away and they shudder and stretch for the first time. Delicate and newborn.
I don’t like new things.
Keeping him in my peripheral, I slowly twist my sore neck to take in the full view of what could very well be the room I die in. I’m standing in the center of what looks like some kind of abandoned industrial space, wide and dusty. Daylight pours in through the tall windows that circle me, tantalizingly out of reach. I see a pseudo-restroom in one corner, and tally the elevator doors on one wall and the emergency exit in the opposite corner, likely leading to a stairwell. Almost definitely locked. I don’t see other buildings out any of the windows, and the inevitable noise of traffic is a distant rumble. Wherever we are, it’s not downtown. It seems impossible that there would be any corner left of this city where they hadn’t shoved in as many high-end apartments and clubs as they could, but here we are.
I test my bindings next, while keeping my eyes on the room. I’ve never been bound like this before. I’m tied tight, definitely not the work of an amateur, but the rope doesn’t dig, doesn’t bite. Not until I pull, anyway. I risk taking my eyes off my captor for a moment, glancing upwards. Steel rafters cut across the ceiling, low enough that Andrews probably didn’t need the help of a ladder to loop his rope over them, but high enough that I couldn’t reach them on tip-toes. Past the orderly grid of metal is nothing but endless bare concrete. I shudder a little at the familiarity. This box is bigger than most I’ve been kept in, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m trapped in it.
When I lower my eyes again, my captor is looking right at me.
Chapter Twelve
Andrews
I watch my captive’s dark eyes flood with heat as my gaze catches hers. A new thrill tickles up my spine, something akin to anticipation. It’s Christmas morning, and I got exactly what I wanted, all tied up in a bow.
I was in high school when I realized my desires ran a little darker than most boys’. That much became abundantly clear when my first girlfriend shoved me off of herself halfway through our post-prom deflowering, storming off with her heels in hand and more than a few choice words about what a pervert I was. After that, no girl at our school would come near me. I didn’t discover proper kink until my early twenties, when my partner and I picked up a dominatrix for indecent exposure, and she tried to throw us off balance by describing her night in excruciating detail. We still took her in, but I was certainly shaken. I’d never been that aroused in my life. It took me a few months to screw up the courage to visit her club, and a few more after that to do anything more than watch. I was never that into the club scene, but it was the easiest way to find a sub when I needed to take the edge off, when light rope play with the girlfriend of the month just wouldn’t cut it. I never let myself fully gorge, though. I was always afraid that even the club’s most hardcore pain sluts couldn’t take everything I felt building up inside me.
And now, looking at Miel Conde bound before me, I feel that hunger, and there’s a sick part of me that pulses with the knowledge that here, I can do whatever I want with her. No rules, no limits. But that’s not what I took her for. I shove the twisted thirst down deep inside me, and try to enjoy the sight of my captive in ropes for what it is, and nothing more. A victory.
We’re both quiet. I’ve learned from the mistakes of my past. Reveling feels good in the moment, but it only gives your adversary more time to knock you down.
I wonder if this is what I looked like to her, in that wine cellar, trussed up for her enjoyment. I understand now why she was smiling, why she seemed so hungry. This is a high unlike any I’ve ever experienced. Seeing suspects in cuffs or women in blindfolds never felt like this. This is true power, undiluted by regulations and witnesses and safe words. This is what it feels like to truly possess something. Because that’s what Miel Conde is now—so much more than a mark or a prisoner. She’s mine.
She still isn’t speaking, barely blinking. Anyone else would be shouting for help, bargaining for their life. It’s just human instinct, the ancestral drive to survive. But I know this woman would rather die silent than ask anyone for help. This unnecessary stoicism might make her feel stronger, but ultimately, it’s her fatal flaw. She probably won’t even beg for her life as it crashes down around her.
Without breaking our eye contact, I step around the mattress to face her. With her stretched out like this, we’re almost at eye level. God, the things the sight of her in ropes does to me. A bead of sweat slips down her forehead, and there’s a tiny tremor in the muscles of her arm. The position shouldn’t be hurting her yet, but I’ll have to adjust her soon, before her circulation gets fucked up.
A dirty supercut flashes through my mind, of all the ways I could have her. Spread open, or curled tight. In chains or cuffs or braided velvet. Bare and exposed, or decorated in Shibari knots.
I fight the urge to shift on my feet and adjust myself. I didn’t expect to have to remind myself that this isn’t a game, isn’t a scene. This is business, pain without pleasure. In the heat of the moment, all my wires are getting crossed, my impulses twisted. I’m here to punish Miel Conde, to exact revenge for the crimes she committed against me. An eye for an eye, and then I walk away. I walk away, and go back to my real life, go back to normal. I’ll never think about this woman or what happens in this room again.
As if reading my thoughts, my captive finally speaks, her voice low and emotionless.
“What are you going to do to me?”
Chapter Thirteen
Miel
Andrews doesn’t immediately answer, which is annoying. When I had him in chains, he couldn’t stop running his mouth, begging for my mercy. I’m the wrong girl for that. I don’t give it, and I don’t ask for it, either. If that’s what he’s waiting to hear, he’ll be waiting a long fucking time.
What are you going to do to me?
My question hangs heavy in the air between us, unanswered and unacknowledged. The former detective studies me for another long moment, then steps back toward the mattress, reaching for the hem of his shirt.
Shit.
…shit.
My instinctive reaction to unsolicited male nudity is to lock down, to brace myself. To look away. But in this moment, it’s like he’s taken my gaze captive along with the rest of me. I can’t look away, instead staring as he lifts the sweaty shirt up, up, up. My eyes don’t follow the garment to the floor, though. I remain transfixed by his torso, thick and strong like a tree trunk, sculpted and glistening in all the ways I’ve never quite seen before. I look at shirtless men every day at Hard Candy, but for some reason, this is the first time the sight keeps my attention. From this angle, I can see the deep curve that dips into his waistband, the flatness of his stomach, and the comparative fullness of his chest and shoulders. And then, my frozen insides suddenly waken and begin spinning like a hurricane. Down the inside of his left arm, the long, fresh scar from my knife. The mark I gave him. The memory of me that he’ll be forced to wear long after he kills me
.
All of a sudden, I want to touch it, want to trace that and every other line of his body. The urge is so foreign and unexpected, I lose my mental footing for a moment, stumbling over confused feelings when I should be bracing myself. Because now he’s in front of me again, too close, too naked.
What are you going to do to me?
I swallow the question, but it sticks in my throat. My whole body quivers at his proximity. Is this fear? It’s been so long since I felt anything at all. I learned early on how to shut myself down in these situations, how to completely remove myself from my body. I don’t remember the last time I felt this present, this aware.
I don’t want to remember.
But when he takes a step closer, I do anyway.
One hand holding me down, the other carrying the cigarette from his lips to my chest, back again, over and over. The cold nothingness in his eyes as he watches me squirm, hears me cry out. The cold uselessness of the tears trailing down my cheeks, the salt stinging the cuts from—
“I’m going to…” Andrews begins, that big hand reaching toward me, my body knowing it should pull away but not remembering how. I’m paralyzed, but suddenly my captor is too, his palm a breath away from my face, his thumb so close to my lips, I could bite it. His whiskey eyes are trapped in mine, glowing with newborn bloodlust and undiluted… something. My own eyes must be black holes, bottomless voids that have never glowed with anything but tears. I can feel myself shrinking into myself, my atoms disappearing one by one. I’m torn between the knowledge that this man’s touch will kill me, and the certainty that the lack of it will destroy me twice as fast.
Hard Candy Page 4