by Lana Sky
Because he’s lying, obviously. He didn’t plan this, or he wouldn’t have been on the phone earlier, confessing to a change in timeline. But that just brings up the bigger question of what exactly he is planning.
And why.
I must lose track of time, because the next time I startle to awareness, my hair is nearly dry, and Ines is standing in the doorway to the bathroom.
“Mr. Domino requests you join him for lunch,” she says with a respectful nod. “He is on the terrace.”
My heart pulses as I move to obey, entering the circular foyer to find that it’s mid-morning already, if not the early afternoon. Domino is lounging alone this time, a platter of food on the table nearby.
I square my shoulders before stepping out from the archway, prepared to do battle yet again.
Instead, he gestures to the seat across from him. “Eat.”
It’s strange how he’s broken down the one bastion of control I’ve ever maintained in my life. Hunger has always been a beast of my own making, always at my discretion for how gnawing it could become before I’d finally give into it.
Around him, hunger means nothing but a tool with which he can use to escalate any standoff to his advantage.
So I sit and snatch something from the tray at random, bringing it to my lips. I chew woodenly, holding his gaze for as long as I dare. When I finally look away, I hear the cushions of his lounger creak beneath his weight as if he shifted his position.
“Alexi was a pawn brought in by Jaguar to help me navigate the more delicate intricacies of the Terra Rodea social scene.”
In other words, to fuck the men in my orbit.
“Why are you telling me this now?” I ask, glancing at him again.
He leans forward, staring past me, his expression harder than ever. “She fed me intel and kept me updated on the whereabouts of Tristan Lucas, but that was as far as our relationship extended. I never fucked her.”
There’s no inflection in his voice, and I can’t tell if he’s lying or telling the truth. All I can do is reiterate, “Why tell me this now?”
“Because Alexi belongs to Jaguar,” he says coldly. “She always has. Everything she does, she reports back to him. I don’t know what he has over her, so in some ways, I can’t blame her. But you need to keep that in mind the next time you get the urge to run your mouth because I’ve pissed you off. Beyond your father’s fancy mansion, everyone belongs to someone, Ada. The world is a patchwork of alliances and rivalries, and I suggest you think long and hard about who you align yourself with.”
“How would someone like Alexi wind up with someone like Jaguar?” I ask.
He raises an eyebrow. I’ve surprised him, I think, but only because he seems to believe the question is too obvious to humor. “Why else?” He snatches a piece of fruit from the platter and takes a bite. Its juices paint his lips red as he declares, “People will do anything for love, or for revenge.”
Is that his way of telling me that Alexi’s motives stem back to what happened ten years ago? On the one hand, it sounds ridiculous. On the other…
After seeing the lengths Domino himself has gone through in the name of vengeance, I can’t count out anything anymore.
“What does that mean? You alone can help me? Pardon me if I’m skeptical of that.”
“You can be skeptical,” he warns, taking another bite of fruit. “And still be smart. Tonight, you’ll need to make a choice.”
“You? So you can spin more riddles and torment me with even more mind games?”
“So I can find my sister’s body,” he counters in a tone so serious it catches me off guard. “And so you can tell me what really happened to her and stop using the missing pages of a diary as an excuse to feign ignorance. I want the truth from you. I’d prefer if you cooperate, but even if you decide to jump on Jaguar’s cock tonight, know that I will still have you.”
“Because you own me?” I ask softly, rephrasing the same claim he made against Alexi when it comes to Jaguar.
“No.” Finished with his meal, he licks his fingertips clean. “Because you are not as stupid as you look. Sooner or later, you’ll come crawling to me, and this time your begging won’t be for show.”
He thumbs my cheek and stands, wiping his hands on his pants.
“I’ll be gone until tonight. Play nice, and I suggest you don’t get tempted to go running into the desert again, either.”
“Where are you going?” It’s a bold question, one he humors with merely a raised eyebrow instead of an outburst of rage.
“A place where naughty girls, daughters of a monster like Roy Pavalos, can’t follow. Ines will keep an eye on you, so don’t get any ideas.”
He strolls past me, entering the house, and I somehow can sense the exact moment he leaves. The tension in the air lessens, and I can breathe easier.
But in his absence, that ominous feeling from before only grows.
Jaguar is coming, and despite Domino’s word games, I’m not sure what it means. Something bad, my intuition warns. I would be a fool to sit around and wait patiently for my impending doom to be handed to me on a silver platter.
I rise and enter the house, surprised to find no one wandering the spacious halls. Not Ines, or even Alexi. Is the blond still here? I can’t sense her presence the way I can Domino’s.
When I enter his room, however, I don’t find her twisted in the sheets. His bed is still neatly made, which makes sense considering he slept with me. I’ll parse over that glaring lack of judgment later. For now, I set my sights on the one task I should have been fixated on from the very start.
Finding answers.
I inspect the closet first, retracing my steps to the same duffle where I found the vial of Lorazepam and the explicit photos. Do I believe him when he claims to have never touched her? Of course not, though it doesn’t matter now.
The side pocket is empty, the photos gone.
Of course, he wouldn’t leave me with anything more than the breadcrumbs he deems worthy of taunting me with. I know this entire search is in vain, but I can’t stop myself from scanning every shelf, inspecting them in more detail.
The clothing stands out to me, the more I inspect each garment. In fact, the female clothing outnumbers his. I’d be tempted to suspect he has some sort of secret fetish for wearing it himself, if the sizing wasn’t skewed so small that I doubt he could fit a single thigh where the waist is meant to go.
Something I heard him say comes back to me, uttered in a tone so gruff and deep that I suck in a breath just reliving it.
I’ve obsessed over this body, Ada-Maria. What I would have you wear when you were mine.
I’d almost believe it… That he bought these with me in mind, my body, his tastes. If it weren’t for the glaring fact that Alexi is the exact same size, along with most of the women in Terra Rodea. How many has he plied and captured before sending to Jaguar?
I let the resentment build, giving me the strength to keep searching, hunting for anything out of place, merely out of pure spite. I rummage sloppily through the hangers so that he’ll know I was here, touching his clothing. His shirts. His pants. I toy with the material, noting its quality but also how new it all seems. Which makes sense—after dropping the Domino persona, he would need all new clothing with which to embody his freed self. A man who harbors more secrets than any man should have the right to.
And every step of the way, he’ll only feed me pieces at a time, at his discretion. He must get off on my confusion, more than even my pain. I bet it makes him feel powerful to exert so much control over me, thinking he can anticipate my every move.
And if I were a smug bastard like him, I’d gloat over my captive’s supposed innocence. I’d take joy in hiding snippets of information right under her nose, and I would relish in watching her squirm.
Whether by accident or subconsciously. I’m near that black duffle again. This time, I unzip the main compartment, even though it was empty initially when I first found the things he planted
for me.
This time, it’s not.
Inside is a neatly folded set of clothes. A passport. A wad of coiled cash. Underwear—women’s underwear…
The clothing, too—a black sweater and light wash jeans—are far too small to fit Domino Valenciaga. Could they be Alexi’s?
I bring the bag to the watch cabinet and remove each item one by one. The first observation that takes my breath away is, when I open the passport, Alexi’s picture isn’t the one I find inside.
Though, the name reads Alicia Garcia, I vaguely recognize the woman in the stern-faced passport photo. Her hair is a dark brown, the same length as mine, her eyes listed as gray, her height listed as five foot, five inches…
She looks like me. The photo could be one of me, in fact, though altered with darker hair. When I eye the clothing again, a dull sense of dread begins to build in my gut. While the right size to fit Alexi, they’d also fit me. The style is much more practical than a flimsy, revealing dress should I decide to go “wandering in the desert again,” as Domino taunted. Or for another reason entirely.
Like maybe he plans to let me go. Take me back to Terra Rodea and refuse to sell me after all? Hope is an insidious impulse, flaring before I can counter it.
A more likely explanation is that this is what he plans on shipping me off to Jaguar wearing. Why not make his job easier?
Angrily, I tug my dress over my head and throw it to the floor before pulling on the sweater and jeans. I take the passport and stuff it into one pocket, sliding the wad of cash into the other.
Now I’m truly ready to play my role—a toy to be bought and sold.
Chapter Eighteen
I exit the closet and eye myself in the mirror, trying to use this act of disobedience to distract from the growing fear, warning that, despite all of Domino’s taunts about Jaguar, I still have no idea what to expect. The only name I have to go on is La Guarida Del Tigre—a place filled with men even more despicable than he is, I assume. Hell.
By the time I finally leave and reenter the hall, my shoulders slump with the weight of the impending visit. Jaguar’s arrival feels more like an execution date, when I’ll finally find out my sentence. Death? Or something far worse?
In a daze, I make my way into the white room and stare from the windows watching the day slowly slip away as the sunlight darkens, turning golden. I don’t know what causes it—this imperceptible tensing of my muscles and a quickening of my heartbeat. A part of me is on alert even before I hear the telltale thud of a door opening and closing and a raised, masculine voice ring out.
When soft, shuffling footsteps approach my door, I’m already lurching to my feet just as Ines appears in the doorway, her head bowed.
“Mr. Jaguar is here, Miss,” she says softly. “He requests that you join him on the terrace.”
I notice that she doesn’t mention one other figure by name, and I can’t suppress the urge to ask, “And… Domino?”
She shakes her head, but if I’m not mistaken, a hint of alarm flits across her brown eyes before disappearing just as quickly. “Mr. Domino is not back,” she says.
But I sense there’s so much more lurking behind those ominous words. That gnawing unease chills me to the core as I stand and make my way through the house, bathed in the ochre light of sunset.
I hear him before I see him, a man with a booming voice that echoes loudly from the direction of the terrace.
“…So I came a little early,” he says, presumably into a phone given that I don’t hear anyone reply. “Don’t worry, I’m sure your little birdy tipped you off the second she saw me coming. Just take your time out on your little errand, Dom-Dom. I’m in no rush. In fact, it looks like I’ll just have to find a way to entertain Ada-Maria all by myself. See ya when I see ya, little brother.”
He’s standing at the balcony, eyeing me with a wink from over his shoulder. When faced in the full light of day without the shadows of Domino’s bedroom to obscure him, the man is imposingly tall, built seemingly from the same mold as his “little brother.” Muscle strains against the back of his thin white tee shirt that he wears paired with jeans. The tattoo covering nearly the full length of his left arm is on stark display—a predatory feline with dark fur, crouched among jungle leaves. I can’t help but notice that its hungry glare resembles that of the man spinning to face me, his lips parted in a sly, disarming grin.
“You must be, Ada-Maria.” His brown eyes size me up with a sweeping glance, lingering over my breasts, barely visible beneath the sweater’s relatively modest neckline. I’m already sweating, feeling the jeans cling to my legs uncomfortably. Perhaps it wasn’t so smart to try provoking Domino while having to face the brunt of the sweltering sun.
At the same time, some vain part of me is grateful for the extra fabric as a barrier against Jaguar’s scrutiny.
He has an aura so different from Domino’s—an all-encompassing swagger that instantly transforms this remote domain from an isolated paradise into a realm firmly under his control. He holds himself as though he owns the place, snapping his fingers to command Ines, who appears on cue.
“Bring us some wine,” he says, dismissing her with a wave of his hand. “The good stuff. I know little Dom-Dom wouldn’t want to be stingy when it comes to serving his guests.”
As she retreats, his piercing eyes return to me, his smile even wider. “Shall we?”
He inclines his head, beckoning me to follow him to the terrace’s second level. There, a familiar blond lounges on one of the white couches wearing a black string bikini. Her gaze is unreadable as she watches our approach, but when she turns to face Jaguar, I note that the angle is far different from how she’d contort herself before Domino.
She’s not letting her breasts spill out, but bearing her throat in a gesture of subtle submission. My mother looked at my father the same way. Like she’d die for him.
And at the same time…
Like he had a knife to her throat, ready to slice should her expression convey anything different. I learned in my early childhood that slender line between love and devotion. And oppression.
“Baby, why don’t you take a walk around the property. I need to talk to Miss Ada-Maria alone.”
Alexi’s simpering smirk falls flat. “But you just got here—”
“What the hell did I say?” His inflection never changed; merely his expression did. A hardness set into his mouth, and his eyes seem even darker.
Without another word, Alexi lurches to her feet and takes off toward the gardens.
“Have a seat, Ada.” Jaguar claims Alexi’s former couch, sprawling out with his arms braced along the top of the chair on either side. He nods toward the space beside him.
Instead, I pivot and take the couch across from him. His eyes narrow to slits, but his smile doesn’t budge, remaining a fixture on his face even as his gaze takes on a more calculating focus.
“I think I prefer you naked,” he remarks with a bluntness that sets my cheeks on fire. He eyes my chest with open disapproval and sighs. “Dom-Dom must prefer to keep you covered while he’s away. What a damn shame. When we get you to the Guarida, that will change, I can tell you that.”
“The Guarida.” The word tastes heavy on my tongue, lacking the musical quality his accent gives it. “Is that where…”
I find that I can’t finish that sentence out loud. Where I’ve been sold to.
“It seems our little Dom-Dom has been more forthcoming with you than he’s led on.” He leans forward, stroking his fingers through my hair without warning. It takes everything I have in me not to flinch, submitting to his coarse touch. “All for the better, though. I don’t enjoy breaking in the new girls myself, but I’m up for a challenge. I’ll give you a little crash course, even. The Guarida is my paradise, you see. A world where the trappings of society and the silly rules some stuffy men in suits decide for us cease to matter. It is freedom.”
He runs his fingers along the underside of my chin, raising goosebumps. A part of me re
acts to his touch in a way I’ve never responded to anyone—not even Domino. It’s electric. The closest feeling I can compare it to is what I felt around my father’s guard dogs. Rumor had it that he trained them with live animals, and they were always on a hair-trigger, taught to heed only his command.
Jaguar has that same look in his eye. Like all he wants to do is bite. Attack. Brutalize.
Only I doubt he’d heed any other man’s commands to stop.
“You are very beautiful,” he tells me. “I’ll give Domino that much.” He sits back and gestures toward his lap with a wave of his hand. “We should get to know each other more. Come sit with me.”
It’s not a request. Knowledge of that spurs me to my feet despite every warning blaring at the back of my mind to put as much distance between us as possible. I aim to play it safe, meaning to perch myself on the very edge of his couch.
He snags my wrist before I can, dragging me toward him. His smile remains as he wrenches me down, and he doesn’t stop until I trip and land almost entirely on his lap.
“There. This is much better.” He hooks his fingers around my ass, yanking me forward so that I’m straddling him, much like I did Domino not too long ago.
But this position feels nothing like that. There’s no fragile familiarity, despite the animosity between us. With Jaguar, I’m on edge, painfully aware of the strength coiled in the muscle flexing against me.
“I can’t wait until we become more acquainted,” he murmurs, his gaze on my lips.
Maybe it’s because I’m pathetic enough to admit that I wanted Domino for years before he took me. I fantasized about every inch of his body, and a part of me will always fight that attraction.
But with Jaguar…
My body can’t get past the danger radiating off him in waves. It takes me a moment to identify it, but I stiffen the second I do—rage. It’s far different from the lethal anger that explodes from Domino, barely restrained. Jaguar’s hostility is far more nuanced, lurking beneath the planes of this handsome face, smoldering behind the dark irises.