Alonzo sent the man a sinister glare and snarled, “Hands off the woman!” He poked a finger in the guy’s chest, then swiftly grabbed a finger from the hand that held Casey’s arm in a brutal hold. Alonzo snapped it so hard that she went stumbling into the wall as soon as she was released. She heard a sharp crack and a pained gasp. She suppressed the sound that threatened to escape her throat and sent her mind to a better place. This wasn’t the first time she’d seen or heard something awful happen in front of her and it wouldn’t be the last. “Never fucking touch the woman. Understand?”
“Yeah, man!” the guy panted, doing everything he could not to drop to his knees in front of the bigger, angrier bodyguard.
“Alonzo,” she mumbled.
“What?” he grunted not bothering to look at her.
“I… I fell on the stairs and he helped me. That’s the only reason he touched me. Please d-don’t tell Ignacio,” she whispered, keeping her eyes averted from the brutal tableau. She edged along the wall toward Ignacio’s study. Though he was the master of these horrible men, he usually kept some semblance of calm around her. Kept the savages at bay. Sometimes, like now, they got out of hand when they were allowed off their leashes. Though if he found out one of them touched her… the consequences would be so much worse. She shuddered in memory of the last time one of them touched her.
“This true?” Alonzo demanded of the man whose hand he was ruthlessly crushing.
She could feel the guy’s gaze on her, but she refused to look at him. She’d done what she could. She didn’t like him, didn’t really want to help him. But she also didn’t think a few bruises was worth the brutality Alonzo was delivering now, or the punishment she knew he might deliver later if she didn’t diffuse the situation. Her bodyguard was extremely efficient at following through on the boss’ orders.
“Yeah man,” the guy wheezed. “I was just helping ‘er. Never touch ‘er again. Promise, man.”
She straightened against the wall, shook her hair back and forced herself to meet the scene head on. She met Alonzo’s gaze with an icy look meant to convey her boredom and disdain. She knew her regular bodyguard understood her better than anyone in the mansion, including her own husband, but acting was all she had to fall back on. She knew it. He knew it. And there were cameras everywhere.
“Can we deal with this later, Alonzo?” she demanded, sending an annoyed glare toward Ignacio’s office. “I have things to do today.”
Alonzo stared back at her for a moment, their eyes clashing in a shared moment of understanding. Alonzo let the man that had dared touch the mistress of the household sweat for a further thirty seconds before releasing him with a shove that sent him sprawling across the marble foyer. Casey held her ground, continuing to watch the scene with cool indifference, though she wanted to turn away in disgust.
“If Mrs. Hernandez says you were only helping her,” Alonzo drawled, “then you were only helping her.” He tilted his head to the side, his dark eyes taking on the dead look she’d unfortunately seen so many times before. Casey dropped her eyes, hoping she wouldn’t have to witness an execution. Fuck, she already had enough trouble sleeping at night. Alonzo pointed a thick finger at the guy, his gold ring, a gift from Ignacio for his years of service, glinting in the light. “Touch her again though, and you die.”
Casey shuddered and turned away, satisfied that they were finished. She strode toward the study door and waited for Alonzo to open it for her. He joined her and reached past her, his hand brushing the bruises of her arms ever-so-slightly. She stepped quickly to the side and glanced swiftly under her lashes at the man that had stood next to her side for the better part of a decade. She didn’t understand him. Sometimes she thought he hated her guts and sometimes… she didn’t think he hated her at all.
Alonzo knocked and waited for Ignacio’s summons before ushering her inside. Casey entered the large, opulent room and took a seat across from the husband she hadn’t seen in a week, not even in passing. Partially because she avoided him like he had herpes, rabies and bird flu all rolled into one. Plus, their schedules differed significantly and Casey lived reclusively, choosing to take most of her meals in her room. Unfortunately, Ignacio would insist on these meetings where she would have no choice but to see him. He was currently on the phone so she waited patiently for him to finish, crossing her legs and folding her hands over her knees.
She allowed her gaze to trail over the expensive, masculine furnishings that outfitted his office, declaring him mafia royalty among those men lucky enough to enter into his exalted presence. She knew better than to let him see the hatred in her eyes as her gaze flowed over the items in loathing. She’d had no hand in the furnishings as a wife might. She cared little for the things he chose to surround himself with. He cared even less for the things she might enjoy.
Ignacio ended his call and Casey felt the physical shift of his focus on her body like an actual touch, though she was the untouchable princess in his elite tower. Her gaze was locked on a statue that he kept on a pedestal a few feet from his desk. It was the horrific depiction of a cherub with a bow and arrow. Casey knew it must have been insanely expensive, but she didn’t understand what else it could possibly have going for it.
Ignacio brought his open palm down heavily on the desk, startling her attention back to him. It had taken years of practice, but her heart no longer sped up in trepidation at his cold, twisted visage. That face. The one that drifted along the edge of her nightmares without ever stopping to feature too closely. Mostly because she didn’t have enough respect left to be truly scared of him. Unlike that clown from IT. Now he was worthy of featuring in a nightmare or two.
Ignacio was twenty-three years older than Casey and she thought he looked every one of those years right now. Not from stress or worry, but from self-satisfied overindulgence. His dark, silver-threaded hair was filled in with surgical plugs and slicked back from his scalp in a sharp widow’s peak. His light grey suit was not well complimented by the awful wide-collared flower-patterned shirt he wore underneath. The entire ensemble would have cost as much as the gaudy desk she was forced to sit across from. She rather thought he should’ve at least looked in a mirror before leaving his bedroom. He tried so hard to look old-school mafia. She didn’t know how all of his associates didn’t just laugh in his face before turning a gun on him. God, how she hated the man with every fibre of her being.
His lips curved in a cool smile of welcome. As though he were happy to see her. Of course, the smile didn’t reach his eyes. It had never reached his eyes, not even in the early days of their marriage. “Casey, my dear. Thank you for coming on such short notice.”
She nodded her head, not returning the smile. “Of course,” she said quietly, her hand twitching involuntarily. She clasped her hands together, to stop the tremor before his eyes fell to her lap. As if she had a choice. If Ignacio demanded his wife meet with him then she made time for him, no matter what she was currently doing.
“What are your plans for the week?” he demanded.
His cold eyes roved over her. His look was possessive, but not in a passionate, caring sense. No, he was picking her apart piece by piece. Checking her for faults or flaws. Making sure the merchandise wouldn’t embarrass him. She resisted the urge to shift in her seat, like a child under inspection. She knew exactly what he would see anyway; her appearance was flawless. She wouldn’t have it any other way. If he had no complaints then he wouldn’t have a reason to interview her.
She also knew he didn’t actually care what her plans were for the week. He received a schedule of her calendar every Sunday and it never deviated. Lunch on Tuesdays, shopping on Fridays. She clung to the mansion with stubborn tenacity the rest of the time, like it was some kind of replacement family. She wouldn’t even bother with lunch or shopping except that it was expected.
She forced herself to meet his dark, empty gaze once more and said in a level voice, “I have lunch with Maya Steel, Elvira Montana and the rest on Tuesday and then
shopping plans on Friday.”
“Huh,” he grunted, his eyes narrowing.
What exactly did he want from her? Those were her exact plans. She never deviated from them. The only time her schedule changed was when Ignacio changed it up himself. Yet he looked at her as though he thought she might be lying to him. She tried to force her frozen brain to move, to think about what his motivations might be for this meeting. It wasn’t an easy task. She’d learned from her years with him that it was easiest… or best… to just turn her thoughts off and flow in and around his life with robotic ease. He paid less attention to her that way.
Plus, the medications his doctor prescribed for her headaches helped her maintain this sense of fuzziness. They didn’t seem to help much with the pain though, and she’d tried to stop taking them when she was younger and feistier, which hadn’t gone over well with Ignacio. Now the meds were like an ally in her quest for invisibility.
He placed his elbows on his black marble -topped desk and drew his chair in. Folding his fingers in a way that made the light glint off his rings and throw reminders of his position of privilege and power in all directions. Ignacio stared at her with a mixture of undisguised longing and hatred that could easily have equalled her own. That look almost rocked her back in her chair. He usually took pains to mask his every expression, which was probably how he’d managed to avoid a grisly death from his many enemies despite his rampant greed. Ignacio wasn’t completely stupid, much as she wished to imagine otherwise.
Casey was convinced that the only reason she wasn’t dead yet by her husband’s order was because he still wanted her, despite several years of growing impotence on his part. That, and she still held value to him as a figure of beauty. Something to lord over his friends and bodyguards. She didn’t like feeling like a trophy on his arm, a pretty doll that other men could watch, but never touch. She wasn’t allowed to speak when they were out in public together because she didn’t have sufficient control over her words. Perhaps a by-product of her accident, or maybe it was just who she was; Casey didn’t have enough memories left to know for sure, but she rarely controlled the words before they popped out of her mouth and thus often chose silence. Or silence was chosen for her by Ignacio. Thus, she was a kind of broken doll, mute and frozen at his side.
“There’s a man,” he began, his voice drawling the words, while his eyes took in every micro-expression on her face.
Panic threatened to well up and ruin her carefully controlled exterior. If there is one thing she knew to the core of her being, it was that Ignacio expected fidelity. She shook her head and quickly denied, “You know my every move, Ignacio. There’s no man.”
He shook his head and waved his hand impatiently over his desk, indicating she should shut up immediately. She closed her mouth, pressing her lips together and dropping her chin. He’d not had to follow his words with a physical correction in years. She’d learned from a young age what was expected of her.
After a few seconds of silence, he continued. “This man is important… very important, Casey. He’s coming here, to our country to inspect my operations and make sure our association is running smooth. My business here depends on his continued benevolence.” She struggled not to frown down at her lap, to keep her expression smooth. It was very unlike Ignacio to admit that his business might hinge on another person. And since when did he discuss business with her? In front of, yes, because she was invisible to him, but never with. “He seems to have taken a liking to you, my love. My sources tell me he has even discreetly looked into you, tried to find out about your past. Of course, he has found nothing, but I’m of a mind to use this information to my advantage.”
Casey bit her lip to stop the dangerous rush of breath that might give away an emotion. She slowly, steadily stiffened her shoulders and lifted her head to look at her husband. She forced herself to ask the question that she knew could get her killed, either by Ignacio himself or by this mysterious man that would be her husband’s equal, or worse. “And what do you want me to do about this man, Ignacio?”
He smiled coldly across the desk at her. “You will be nice to this man, Casey, and make him happy while he’s in Miami.”
Chapter Four
She’d had a bad night. Emotionally. Physically.
In every possible way.
She knew what was waiting for her when she opened her eyes. She wanted to be grateful, but fuck them all, she wasn’t. It was their fault she was a pitiful wretch of a human being to begin with; a frail ghost who was too useless to function without an army of prescription pills and vitamins. Speaking of which… she managed to crack an eye open to survey the dim lighting of her bedroom. Oh, thank goodness, the maid had left the blinds closed. Alonzo must have warned her about Casey’s terrible night.
She shifted carefully under the blankets, as much as she dared, and snaked an arm out, reaching for the plastic cup on the table next to her bed. Just as her fingers closed around the smooth surface, slippery with condensation, Alonzo’s voice rumbled from the doorway, interrupting her peace, “Take the meds as well, Mrs. Hernandez.”
Casey flinched and nearly lost her hold on the precious drink. She slapped her other hand over the cup and hauled it into her chest, just barely managing to save her cherry Cola flavoured Slurpee from ultimate doom. She sighed and pulled the blankets further over top of her head, covering both herself and the cup.
“Please, just leave me alone,” she mumbled, propping herself up on an elbow and sipping from the straw. The cool rush of frozen drink soothed the raw pain in her throat from vomiting and crying the night before. She held the cup against her aching head and closed her eyes in pleasure.
“Take the pills, Casey.” Alonzo’s insistent voice came from directly beside the bed. She heard him pick the tablets up off the side table where either he or the maid had left them at Ignacio’s orders. “If you don’t, then I’ll be forced to report to Mr. Hernandez.”
And she would be punished.
Casey stuck her hand out and felt two small pills fall into her palm. She pulled them under the covers with her, but he yanked the blanket abruptly back from her face. Her already tousled hair went flying. She didn’t bother flipping out at him. There wasn’t much point since this was their usual Casey-had-a-bad-night morning after game. She glared at him through red-rimmed eyes, stuck her tongue out and flung the pills in her mouth so he could see her swallow them. Then she took a long pull on her drink.
“Happy?” she asked fake-sweetly.
He grunted in response, turned away from her and began tidying the room. It was a weird chore for him to do considering it definitely wasn’t his job, but occasionally he seemed to enjoy going above and beyond his usual duties. She tilted her head to the side and listened for a moment. Then she shoved the covers to the side and struggled off her big bed with one hand still clutching her Slurpee cup. She ignored the way Alonzo straightened quickly from where he was collecting stray clothes littered across her floor, his eyes averted from the mistress of the mansion.
“I think I’ll go for a swim,” she announced, heading for her closet. “It’ll help wake me up. Please call the kitchen and order a mimosa, Alonzo.”
“But it’s raining outside, Mrs. Hernandez,” he muttered.
“Even better,” Casey replied, slamming the door of her closet behind her.
She appeared like some kind of apparition. One minute he was gazing absently out the patio doors of Ignacio’s office toward the pool, wondering if it ever stopped raining in Miami at this time of year, and the next she appeared. She was by herself, arms down at her sides, shoulders slightly slumped and head bent. She wore a white silk robe that clung wetly to her tall, willowy form as though embracing her like a lover. Something inside him, an invisible pull, desperately wanted to see her face, wanted to know if the same magnetism he felt before was still there.
As though hearing his silent summons her shoulders suddenly jerked back and she lifted her head, those strange eyes turning slowly toward
the window. He knew she couldn’t see him through the darkly tinted window panes and she would soon be completely obscured from his sight by the rapidly increasing rainfall. The thought was both unsettling and untenable. Under normal circumstances, if she were his woman, he would have one of his men bring her inside and warmed up.
But there was something wrong with her, this perplexing woman that captured his attention in a way she shouldn’t. Her eyes held a glazed, faraway look in them and she wasn’t shivering as she reached up to gather her hair loosely in one hand, wrap it around her wrist and drag it over her shoulder. She took a few steps forward, but stumbled, nearly falling on her too-high heels. Her bodyguard lunged forward, seeming to come out of nowhere. The hulking giant snapped at her, but didn’t so much as lay a finger on his delicate mistress to aid her.
Reyes frowned, anger and confusion growing as he watched her crouch and place a palm on the stone pool tiles while, what he suspected was, a severe bout of dizziness passed with absolutely no help from the man that was supposed to be her protection. Reyes had to squint now to see what she was doing, his muscles locked against the urge to stalk out the door, sweep her up and cradle her against him. Eventually she picked herself up and made her way slowly to a patio set where she collapsed into a seat with a hand against her head.
“Beautiful, isn’t she?”
Reyes’ lips began to pull back in a snarl and his hand twitched toward his gun, a primal reaction to Ignacio Hernandez coveting what was his. It didn’t matter that she’d belonged to the other man first, that she had, in fact, exchanged vows with the fucker. Reyes saw her and he wanted her, end of story. She would become his. The thought of Ignacio’s hands anywhere near such a perfect creature enraged him to the point of instant, blind homicide. Reduced him to the feral beast he so often unleashed when faced with an enemy.
Scarred Queen (The Queens Book 1) Page 2