Violent Ends (White Monarch Book 2)

by Jessica Hawkins

  I pulled his jacket closed around me. “Why?”

  “I already told you—because I wanted it. I’d pledged my loyalty to your family, and that included you. But in a moment, it all vanished into thin air. Nobody would risk their life for me, though I had for them, over and over.” He unknotted his bloody tie and discarded it on the desk. “So I left, built a steadfast cartel around me and made my own family,” he said, undoing the buttons at his throat. “Why, then, is it not enough? Why do I still think about that moment you pulled this on me?”

  “Is that why I’m here?” It wasn’t the answer I wanted as to why he’d married me, but it was an answer nonetheless. “Some elaborate scheme for revenge on a scared nine-year-old girl?”

  “No, mi corazón. My scheming is done. It didn’t go the way I’d planned—Diego’s still alive—but only because he knew what I wanted, even when I didn’t.” He gently slid the gun across the desk. “Just when I was about to throw him to the dogs, he stood where you are now and offered something I couldn’t take on my own.”

  I released a breath I’d been holding. “Me.”

  He nodded once. “You.”

  “You could’ve taken me at any point. You didn’t need Diego to do it.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  Because Cristiano wouldn’t let himself take me. He’d needed Diego to give me. Maybe he’d thought that my loyalty was part of the bargain, but something like that couldn’t be forced.

  “Diego is more cunning than you think,” he told me. “I didn’t even recognize my own want for you until he showed it to me. I’d never let myself think I could have you, so it was never an option in my mind. Diego gets credit for pinpointing a weakness and exploiting it. But he doesn’t get to keep any part of you.”

  “Of me?” I asked. “He doesn’t have me. He doesn't have anything anymore.”

  “You can’t be loyal to both of us, Natalia. It’ll get one of the three of us killed, and it won’t be me.”

  “He doesn’t have me.” Cristiano had to know that—didn’t he? Feeling short of breath, I walked a few steps toward him and steadied myself on a chair. “But neither do you. Do you honestly think loyalty can be demanded?”

  “Yes. So tell me—who are you loyal to, Natalia?”

  After this past week, the answer came easily. “Myself, and no one else.”

  A vein in his forehead ticked, and he nodded at my bag. “Where’s the phone?”

  My heart stopped, even though I’d known where this was going. “Diego gave it to me,” I said, focusing on keeping my voice firm and steady. “I didn’t ask for it.”

  “Where is it?” he demanded.

  I swallowed as his patience ran thin. “Sewed into the bottom,” I said.

  He rifled through his drawer and slammed a pair of scissors on the desk. “Get it out.”

  As I approached, he jerked his desk phone to his ear and punched a single digit.

  I could see that I’d angered him—but did that mean what he’d said it would? Since I’d arrived, he’d been all bark and no bite. He’d warned me leaking information would lead to death—period. But Cristiano wouldn’t kill me.

  I hadn’t shared any information. I was only guilty of accepting and hiding the phone.

  He wouldn’t hurt me, I told myself.

  What then? How would he punish me for hiding the phone? Did he have it in him to lock me away, chain me, starve me? The answer was easy—yes, he did. He hadn’t gotten where he was without ruthlessness. Torture, destruction, and murder. And you didn’t torture, destroy, and murder without having developed some degree of detachment from people.

  He’d lavished beautiful clothing upon me, fed me the best food, and surrounded me in comfort. He’d kept his distance, as had his men, warned away from touching Cristiano’s “things.” He was teaching me how to fight them—and him.

  He’d liberated women and children, mostly, I realized in that moment, without credit since he’d been underground until a couple weeks ago.

  He wasn’t a rapist or an abuser. But he was a murderer.

  And I?

  I was his one exception.

  He leveled his eyes on me as he held the phone to his ear and waited. After a moment, he spoke into the receiver. “Send Scratch upstairs with his equipment.”

  My stomach dropped. Equipment?

  He shoved the contents of my bag onto the ground and picked up the little black phone. “What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing,” I rasped through my dry throat.

  Cristiano swiped swiftly and expertly before holding up the screen to show me the one saved number. “Padre. You expected me to be so fucking dumb that I’d believe this phone was from Costa?”

  “No,” I said.

  “You don’t even call him that. You call him Papá. Tell me how you still believe Diego cares for you when he put you in this position.”

  “I don’t,” I said, “but even if I did, I take responsibility for my own actions.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “You will.”

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Cristiano had only been this cold to me in the company of others. His iciness, paired with the mention of equipment, sent a chill down my spine. “I didn’t share information,” I said as panic tightened my chest. “You have my word.”

  He resumed looking through the phone. “If there were texts, you’ve deleted them, but one of my tech guys can easily recover them. Tell me honestly, Natalia. What information did you give him?”

  “Nothing,” I swore again.

  He slipped the phone into his shirt pocket and came around the desk. “If you’re conspiring with him against me—”

  “I’m not—”

  “Let . . . him . . . come for you,” Cristiano intoned, raising his voice. “I am not him. I won’t let you go so easily.”

  “Easily?” I exhaled. “What would you have done in his shoes?”

  “For the woman I claimed to love? Built an army to protect her or died by her side. But I wouldn’t give her to another man, especially one I knew to be dangerous. And I won’t let him have you.”

  The stark confession, which came so easily to him, shocked me. Did a man like Cristiano even know love? Did I? I’d been the one stupid enough to fall for a phony like Diego. I’d been the one begging him to flee with me, to die with me if it came to that. And he’d refused. Words meant nothing anymore—only action did. Now, I stood before his brother, who was turning out to be the complete opposite of what I’d thought.

  Cristiano continued around the desk until he was standing over me. “He’ll have to kill me if he wants you back.”

  I tried to hold my shiver at bay, but every inch of me was vibrating with adrenaline, both from Cristiano’s frightening threats . . . and his exhilarating promises. “I imagine he wouldn’t be the first to try.”

  He snorted. “Not hardly. Pero todavía estoy aqui. I’m still standing before you, so you can guess what happened to those who failed. As I told you once before—betrayal can only be treated as a life or death matter.”

  He was trying his best to scare me, and though it was working, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing it. I raised my chin. “Are you going to hurt me?”

  “Don’t you think I should?” He stood in front of me, blocking me from the exit. “If you were a man in my cartel who’d gone to the enemy, what the fuck do you think I would do to him?”

  I gripped my neck. El Polvo.

  “Exactly,” he said.

  “I didn’t betray you. I swear it.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re wrong, naïve girl.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I’m telling the truth.”

  “I know you are. But the phone synced with the Wi-Fi at the house. And that may mean nothing to you, but it means a hell of a lot to me, my security team that works very hard to secure our town, and to Diego—an enemy. And I assume all my enemies enter every situation wi
th the worst of motivations. Especially him.”

  My hairline began to sweat. I’d already known this was bad, but it was much worse than I’d thought.

  “He could’ve gotten access to sensitive information.” Cristiano’s lips pressed into a bloodless line. “He’d have known your whereabouts anytime the phone was on. He could be standing outside the door right now, ready to ambush us, thanks to his ability to track us here.”

  None of this had even occurred to me. I shook my head, at a loss for words. “I didn’t know.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You knew enough not to bring the phone into my house, and to cut off that line of communication. You did it anyway, knowing what it could cost you. You broke an unspoken rule that I did speak.” His pupils seemed to eat his irises—completely black eyes with not a single fleck of light to be seen. “You fed information to an enemy.”

  “Not on purpose,” I said, battling against a rising wave of dread. I looked to the gun. I’d thought loyalty couldn’t be forced, but maybe I’d been wrong.

  “You haven’t learned your lesson, even though Diego so brutally taught it to you,” he said. “So I ask you again. Who are you loyal to?”

  I didn’t want to show fear, but I couldn’t help it. Cartel law was no joke. I’d been shielded from it, but I was no longer someone’s innocent daughter. I was in this life now for better or worse. And I wasn’t going to cower.

  “My answer is the same. Myself,” I said, mustering all the conviction I could, even as I wrung my trembling hands in front of me. “Every man in my life who means anything to me has broken my trust—even you.”

  “I can’t break promises I never made,” he said coolly. “Deceiving me has consequences, but when the going penalty is a slow, tortured death, I hope you’ll find this punishment more than fair.”

  With a knock, Cristiano looked over my head and called through the door, “Espérate.”

  He’d told someone to wait. “What are you going to do?” I asked, glancing back.

  “You wanted to be a captive. You wanted me to impose my will. That’s what I’m doing.”

  My heart stopped. “Who’s at the door, Cristiano?”

  “Scratch. Best tattoo artist in the region. You’re a member of the Calavera cartel now—and now you’re going to own it.”

  A pit formed in my stomach as I looked between Cristiano and the door. “You’re going to—to brand me?”

  “You’re already branded, sweetheart, but this way, there’ll be no question.”

  My heart pounded. Cristiano was going to put his mark on me. Permanently. There would be no mistaking who I belonged to with the Calavera name inked on my body. It was barbaric, possessive, and it was making my breath come fast. Part of that was anger that he could be so callous—but most of it was something else. Something deeper. Murkier. Cristiano hadn’t even officially claimed me yet, but he wanted to tell the world who I belonged to.

  And that spoke to an inky darkness in me I’d been trying not to give into for as long as I could remember. It nudged the basest of my desires awake, just like the ones Cristiano had whispered in my ear on only my second night in his bed.

  “I won’t relent until your body has drunk every last drop I have to give. Until you’re mine through and through.”

  The tender place between my legs responded to the claim of ownership now just as it had that night. Why did I want to be dominated like this? Why had I never known it until Cristiano?

  I’d struggled for control since I’d stepped foot into the church. I was terrified but also tempted to let go, just for a little, just to see how Cristiano would respond.

  “There is another option,” he said, tilting his head.

  I released a breath, but disappointment tinged my exhale. Why? My body wasn’t his property. But if ever there were a man who could own a person in every way, it would be Cristiano. And he’d picked me to be his. He’d married me, brought me into this cartel, and he was going to fuck me, no question. He’d decided I was his, so I was. What would a tattoo mean or even change?

  But I wasn’t as easily fooled as I used to be. “Another option” would only cost me in some other way. “What is it?”

  “One last chance to pledge your loyalty to your husband. But now, I want you to do it on your knees.” He walked around to my back and cleared my hair from my neck. After a soothing squeeze of my shoulder, he grazed his hand down and very gently molded his hand to the curve of my ass. “You will beg my forgiveness, you will promise never to betray me again—and then, I’m going to let you off with a warning. But not before I put you over my knee and punish you with a spanking.”

  I inhaled a sharp breath, my ass cheek already stinging with his promise. His enormous hand heated my skin while barely touching it—with only the thought of him exerting his dominance.

  My legs threatened to buckle. Which was exactly what he wanted—to prove he could get me to my knees, and then that he could get my body to betray me by making me enjoy my punishment.

  I was wet already—but he’d known I would be. I hated that he did, especially before I did. Getting spanked and enjoying it was a form of capitulation all on its own, but that he also wanted me to beg? And to mean it?

  They should’ve been easy demands to meet. Swear to keep his secrets, plead him for mercy, and receive a punishment that terrified me not because of the pain it might inspire, but because of the pleasure it definitely would.

  I had betrayed his trust. I’d put him, Jaz, Alejandro—the entire household, the entire town—at risk. I understood. He couldn’t let that slide.

  And any fool could say and do what was necessary to save her own life. If my mother was watching, God rest her soul, she would understand. Any idiot could see that being taken over one knee like a petulant child was a thousand times preferable to a permanent tattoo.

  But my spine lengthened instead of bowed. It occurred to me that was what Cristiano had been teaching me to do. To show strength and fight back. And I’d warned him I’d use it against him.

  “No,” I said.

  “I beg your pardon?” he asked against my hair.

  Submit on my knees or learn what it meant to have my loyalty forced. I’d wear the tattoo like a badge of honor. I clung to the deep-seated knowledge that even though Cristiano’d had plenty of opportunities to hurt me already, he hadn’t. “You can shove me down, but I won’t beg.”

  “You put my men at risk, along with every single person in my household.”

  I bowed my head. “Then do what you have to do.”

  His hand disappeared from my backside. “If you’re trying to provoke me, you won’t like the result.”

  Except, I wasn’t just denying his loyalty to prove he couldn’t demand it. And my trust in him would never be absolute just because he’d kidnapped me. I was hit with the realization that there was a deeper, more powerful reason holding me back.

  I could never willingly let Cristiano have me in the ways he demanded . . . and it had nothing to do with his actions over the past few weeks, or with Diego.

  “You want my devotion and my loyalty, but they’re based on trust and respect,” I said calmly over my shoulder. “I have neither for my mother’s murderer.”

  “I already brought him to you,” he said through his teeth. “I hunted your mother’s murderer. I put him on his knees and handed Costa the gun. For closure. For Bianca. For you.”

  Maybe he was right. Maybe with everything I’d learned about him tonight, I should’ve known with complete certainty that he wouldn’t have hurt my mom on purpose. And perhaps it’d been an accident, or perhaps he’d given the sicario access, or perhaps a million other possibilities. But as long as I had even a shred of doubt, I could never fully trust Cristiano.

  I turned to face him. “I can’t know for sure.”

  “I can. I do. I’m not her murderer. She didn’t die because she was shot in the stomach—she bled out. Do you know how long that takes?”

  I blinked at the ground, un
prepared for this argument. “Several minutes,” I said, having looked up as many details as I could remember over the years.

  “At the very least. Could be ten, fifteen minutes—or more.” He took my arms and drew me close. “What fool would stay at the crime scene that long? I walked in moments before you did.”

  “You were cleaning out the safe—”

  “All the money in the world is useless if I’m dead.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Don’t you see that?” I wriggled free of him, backing up until I hit his desk. “Even if the sicario wielded the gun, someone else gave the order—but who?” I asked. “As long as I have questions about your involvement, I will doubt you. A wife cares for her husband in sickness and health, she lies with him willingly—she loves him. I will never do any of that for a man who could have killed my mother.”

  The skin at his collar reddened as his chest expanded with an inhale. He turned his head over his shoulder. “¡Adelante!”

  As the door opened and heavy boots pounded the floor, closing in on us, my nerves flared—but they were anchored by a shameful thrill of excitement. Cristiano knew how to make me enjoy a spanking, I had no doubt. But he would never suspect being marked this way spoke to a terrifying—and utterly confusing—desire in me.

  I tried to see around him, but his shoulders were too wide.

  A bald, lumbering man with a chest-length red beard and a black bag over one shoulder stepped into my peripheral vision. He pulled on a glove and snapped it into place. “Where do you want it?” he asked in a low, rumbling voice as rubber snapped against skin.

  I could feel that same sting, Cristiano’s big hand landing squarely on my ass, spanking me into the submissive role he knew would leave me wet.

  But I wasn’t going to beg for anything.

  “Turn and face the back of the room,” Cristiano said to me.

  As I did, my eyes landed on the White Monarch he’d left on the desk.

  He noticed it, too. We exchanged a look before he slid it outside my reach.

  My trust in him would never be absolute—and it seemed the reverse was true, too.

  From behind, he slid the lapels of his jacket to my elbows, trapping me and exposing my upper back. “Last chance to say mercy, mariposa.” He spoke quietly so Scratch wouldn’t hear. “Tell me you’ve learned your lesson. I warned you once. No lie, no betrayal will go unpunished. Say mercy, and I’ll turn that sweet ass red in return.”