Their Cartel Princess: A Dark Reverse Harem Romance Box Set

by Fox, Logan

  “So, I got news.”

  “Tell me.”

  She cocked her head. “In a bit.”

  “Stop fucking around, Shay.”

  Her eyes flared a little, and he turned away from her in case his irritation would give her some kind of satisfaction. The way she carried on, it was giving her a goddamn clit boner.

  “Another coffee,” he barked out when a barista came in earshot. The girl gave him a curt nod and dashed away to get his order.

  “So, this Kane fella,” Shayla said, pausing to take another sip. “How close is he to your girl?”

  “He’s not,” Bailey said, and then hesitated. He had no reason not to trust Shayla — they had, after all, been thick as thieves back in the day — but there was something too intense about her this morning.

  Then again, maybe he was projecting his sense of urgency onto her. It would be just like him, doing that.

  “I’d rather not talk about it,” he said, accepting his new cup of coffee with a grim smile. “Why? What does it matter?”

  “I’m worried.” Shayla took a noisy sip of her latte. “This dude’s trouble.”

  Bailey’s heart squeezed in his chest.

  Fucking knew it.

  He thumped the counter with his fist and then glanced around to see if anyone had noticed. The old man gave him a small frown over his newspaper, but no one else paid him any attention.

  “What? What is it?” Bailey leaned close to Shayla. “He has a record, doesn’t he?”

  Someone claiming to be a DEA agent when he wasn’t had to be hiding something. And the only thing that made sense to Bailey was something as sinister as a criminal record.

  But what had he been charged with? Theft? Armed robbery?

  Murder…?

  “Relax.” Shayla studied him for a second and then looked away to sip at her drink. “Look, I might have something for you. But you’re going to have to trust me on this.” She looked back at him, eyes wide. “Can you do that?”

  He wrapped his fingers around his coffee, glancing down.

  No. He didn’t trust her. As fucked up as it was, for whatever reason… he couldn’t trust her.

  “Of course,” he said, meeting her eyes and wishing his voice didn’t sound so unsteady. “How could you even ask me that?”

  It took everything he had to hold her gaze. He couldn’t even blink, and he wondered if she could pick up on the lie. Fuck, were liars supposed to blink or not?

  “Good. I’m glad.” Shayla nodded. A grin came out of nowhere, beaming at him until he felt his own lips perk up. “You’re gonna have to get some time off from your woman though. Can a pussy whipped bitch like you handle something that?”

  “Time off?”

  “We’re going on a little drive.”

  “Where?”

  Shayla put her latte down hard enough to rattle the spoon in her saucer. When she spoke again, she directed her words straight forward instead of turning to Bailey.

  “And here you just told me you trusted me.”

  A chill worked its way into Bailey’s fingertips, despite how hard he gripped the porcelain cup. “I do.”

  “Then fucking trust me,” Shayla snapped, eyes wild when they touched on him again. “I’ll have you back before supper. Tell your momma she can tuck you into bed tonight.”

  Shayla’s eyes glared the challenge at him. It put his back up, but at the same time, it made him realize how long it had been since he’d seen this girl.

  A woman now. So different, but just the same.

  “Can you tell me where we’re going at least?”

  Shayla grinned around her cup as she drained the rest of her drink. “I could,” she said, using a fingertip to wipe foam from her lip. “But then I’d have to kill you.”

  * * *

  The smell of hay and horses hung heavy in the air when Lars entered Swan Manor’s stables. He spotted Cora by one of the horse’s stalls and grimaced a little as he moved closer. It wasn’t that he didn’t like horses, or stables, but there was always a lingering hint of manure in the air, no matter how clean the straw.

  How could Cora — who couldn’t hold down dry toast these days — stand it?

  “You gotten a hold of him yet?” she asked when he was in earshot.

  “Nope.”

  She was brushing her black horse while the white one in the next-door stall watched with intense, equine interest, perhaps waiting on its turn.

  “Is Finn still pissed at me?” she asked quietly.

  “From the sounds of it, he’s gone and completely dismantled that bike of his.”

  “You know I can’t leave him there, right? I can’t just—”

  “I’m with Milo on this one, princess. I don’t see any reason why you have to go stick your neck out for that guy.”

  “That guy saved your life.”

  “Then he should have no problem saving his own.”

  Her hand slowed, then stopped. “He’s seeing someone else, isn’t he?”

  “Bailey?” Lars asked through a snort and then took a hurried step backward when the horse she was brushing stamped a hoof. Christ, had he cussed the animal in horse language or something? He’d have to watch himself around her. Milo’d be pissed if he caused a stampede.

  “Nah. More likely, he’s gone to find out something about Irish.”

  “The man in the video?” Cora asked, glancing at him over her shoulder.

  “Know any other people of the leprechaun persuasion that suddenly cropped up on our radars?”

  She rolled her eyes at him, which he kind of deserved, and began brushing her horse again. It didn’t look as if it needed the grooming — its hide gleamed like satin already.

  “So why doesn’t he answer his phone?”

  “Because he’s probably busy digging up dirt.”

  “He could have sent a message.”

  “Maybe his hands were full. Of like… documents and stuff,” Lars hurriedly added.

  Cora let out a massive sigh and leaned her head against the horse’s flank. It hardly seemed to mind — it gave a toss of its head and made a blustering sound with its lips.

  Lars moved past her to the white horse’s stall and peered over the stall door at the creature. It regarded him with calm, patient eyes and then blew hair from its face with a practiced huff.

  “Try him again. Maybe he’s… done.” Such a strange mix of hope and despair filled Cora’s face that something reached inside his chest and gave his heart a good ole squeeze.

  “You know what?” Lars took his phone from his pocket and handed it to her. “Here. You call him until his battery dies, or he gives up and answers.” Lars gave her white horse a decisive pat on its muscular neck. “I’ve got better things to do.”

  Cora’s face twisted into a sour grimace, and she threw her horse’s brush to the bed of straw like a kid who’d just been told it was bedtime. But she still snatched the phone from him.

  He could feel her glaring at his back until he was out of sight of the stables.

  Why was she so fucking paranoid? So what if Bailey left — she still had him and Milo to keep her bed warm?

  Ungrateful wench.

  But his heart wasn’t in it, and he felt a stab of guilt at the thought.

  Lars detoured, heading for the garage to see if Milo would let him observe whatever mechanical shenanigans he was getting up to with his bike.

  At least he could admire the man’s muscles while he worked. That could kill and an hour or two.

  9

  Inadvisable

  Shayla’s contact had a thing for orchids. The air lay heavy with their scent as she led Bailey through the mansion’s expansive entry hall. They took a flight of stairs, their footsteps muffled by carpeting as plush as that at Swan Manor.

  “Jesus, how rich is this guy?” Bailey murmured. This guy had greasier palms than pig greaser… or some other person whose occupation required them to handle a lot of grease.

  Shayla’s hand trailed along the ba
nister as she climbed the steps ahead of him. Her ass looked amazing in the dress — something she seemed hyper aware of from the way she kept swinging it in front of him.

  Hadn’t she heard when he’d told her he was seeing someone? Then again, Shayla’d always lived in her own fantasy world. Some days, he’d been convinced she thought herself a beggar queen the way she ran the gang of street kids who’d congregated under the bridge in downtown Brooklyn. That was months after they’d run away from the half-way house — and the start of their years together on the streets.

  “What did you say his name was?” Bailey asked in a low voice.

  Shayla swung around, putting a perfectly manicured finger to her lips to shush him. She faced forward again, but not before he caught something in her eyes.

  What was she so uneasy about? She had the look of prey scenting the air as if it had caught the hint of a predator nearby. She was trying to cover it up by being glib, but he’d known her for long enough to realize when she felt out of her depth.

  “Shay… what’s wrong?”

  She shrugged her shoulders without looking at him.

  Invisible fingers trailed down his back, and he had to force himself not to shiver. He looked around the place again as they made the final turn to the mansion’s second level. Just as he was about to step onto the landing, his eye caught something out of place in the carefully decorated sanctum.

  A security camera watched them from a distant corner, casing almost completely disguised behind a piece of fanciful scrollwork in the nook of the ceiling.

  Bailey’s hand clamped down on the railing, and it was with an effort he forced himself up that last step.

  Of course, someone dealing in trade secrets would want to protect themselves, but something just wasn’t adding up.

  Bailey slid a hand into his leather jacket and drew out his phone. His thumb hovered over the screen. He glanced up. Shayla strode down a lengthy corridor, a few steps ahead of him.

  Opening his messages, he typed out:

  I’m at 1 Rhodium Street, Mallhaven. Here to meet DEA contact. Should be back—

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  Bailey looked up at Shayla. Her eyebrows shot up, mouth thinning as she surged forward and tore his phone from his hands. “Are you fucking wack?” she hissed. “You can’t—”

  “Shayla. Good ta see ya again.”

  Bailey’s gaze darted past Shayla to the silver-haired man ambling up to them. He wore a suave three-piece suit, and a wide, gracious smile. Bailey’s own mouth twitched in an urge to smile back, but he managed to tamp it down to a squirming line.

  “Hi, yes.” Shayla spun around, hiding Bailey’s phone behind her back. Bailey glanced at the phone, then at the man approaching them.

  Everything tumbled into place, like a game of Tetris on fast-forward. The Irish accent. His presence. The way Shayla snapped to attention like a student completely under the spell of her professor.

  Bailey reached for his Glock, but froze the instant he heard a gun cocking behind him.

  “Inadvisable,” a voice behind him said slowly. “Mr. King goes nowhere without protection.”

  King.

  Bailey started to turn, freezing again as the man behind let out a quiet tut.

  He recognized the voice, but for the life of him he couldn’t place it.

  “Join me,” King said, dipping his head ever so slightly as he gestured toward one of the doors down the hall.

  His smile hadn’t changed, and it still felt so real that Bailey wanted to grin back at him.

  A cold dread filled him, exacerbated by the sudden heavy pounding of his heart.

  Fuck.

  * * *

  Cora gave Moonlight a kiss on his nose and then went into the next-door stall to give Starlight a brush down. At least Finn hadn’t demanded she stay away from her horses entirely. That might be what broke her — him saying she shouldn’t even be in the stables, in case of accidents.

  As if her horses would suddenly decide to rear and crush her to death with their hooves.

  For some reason, the thought lingered longer than it should have. Not only that, it was so vivid in her mind she could taste blood in her mouth.

  Cora backed out of Starlight’s stall. She gave herself a fierce hug that dug Lars’s phone into her ribs where she’d slipped it into the pocket of the button-up shirt dress she wore.

  She’d have to order more of these dresses. The last thing she wanted was a repeat of this morning when she couldn’t fit into her jeans.

  None of the men had said anything — they’d just watched silently as she’d taken every pair of jeans she owned and thrown them out the bedroom window.

  Bailey’d even had a small smile on his mouth — but it vanished a second after she laid eyes on him.

  Had she scared him away?

  She stroked the outline of the phone through the fabric of the pocket.

  Would he answer this time if she tried calling? She was in the process of sliding the phone out of her pocket when it rang.

  It promptly fell to the straw, dropped by fingers prickling with shock. She stooped, picked it up, and blinked at the name on the caller ID.

  Bailey.

  She let out a rueful little chuckle and put the phone to her ear. “I was just going to call you,” she said, smiling for what felt like the first time in a year. “Where the hell are you?”

  A deep laugh reverberated through the cellphone’s speaker.

  Cora swallowed hard as a new rush of prickles sped from her fingertips up to her arms.

  “Not too far away,” came a man’s lilting voice, “About a two-hour drive.”

  Cora pushed to her feet, but stars dashed her vision for a second and she had to grab onto the stall door to keep from toppling right over again.

  She recognized that voice from Kane’s video.

  “Where’s Bailey?” Cora croaked and then cleared his throat. “What have you done with him?”

  “Nothing,” came Irish’s calm assurance. “Yet,” he added through a laugh. “I’ve been waiting for your call, Eleodora.”

  “I… I was going to—”

  “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear yesterday.” It genuinely sounded as if he was grinning. “I demand your presence.”

  Her cheeks went ice cold. Cora hurried forward, eternally grateful she’d decided on flat shoes as she forced legs that felt as plastic as a Barbie doll’s over the stable floor. She had to get to Lars and Milo. If Irish was calling from Bailey’s phone, that meant he’d gotten a hold of him somehow. Maybe he was torturing him, just like Kane. They’d have to let her go speak to him now.

  Swan Manor reared into sight. Where was Lars? He might be closer, but she’d have to look for him. If Finn was still in the garage, she’d have to run like hell to try to get there in time.

  Cora began to run.

  “How do I know you have Bailey? That—that he’s still alive?” The words came out in a yell, broken by her footfalls.

  “You’ll just have to trust me, La Sombra.” He spoke the name with that same smile in his voice as if he thought it hilarious she could proclaim herself to be the Lady of Shadows.

  “Well I don’t!” Her lungs were burning, but she was almost at the garage.

  “Fine. Bailey, give La Sombra a big, cheery hello.”

  But instead of Bailey’s voice, what came through the speaker was an awful, drawn out sound of agony she never wanted to hear again.

  “I’m texting you an address. I expect you to be here by midnight. And if you’re not alone, I’ll kill them both.”

  The phone went dead. Cora came to a panting stop within a yard of the garage door. Behind it, came the steady clang-clang-clang of Finn taking his frustration out on his bike.

  Midnight.

  Alone.

  Or I kill them both.

  Cora took a slow step back, and then another. The phone beeped in her hand, and she hurriedly squashed her hands over it. But there was so much noise c
oming from inside the garage, she doubted Finn had heard a sound.

  Alone.

  There was no way Finn and Lars would even let her leave the manor. Alone? The thought was laughable.

  She glanced at the phone’s screen.

  Which meant Bailey and Kane only had another few hours to live.

  Cora gritted her teeth, slid the phone back into her pocket, and dragged her hands through her hair.

  No one threatened her men, and King had gone further than that. He’d hurt them.

  For that, she’d make him pay. But only after she’d gotten them back safely.

  10

  Vices

  Finn’s wrench clattered to the garage’s concrete floor. He wasn’t doing anything constructive to the bike. He might even damage it more.

  Time to check in on Cora.

  Faint sounds of someone moving around in the kitchen came to him, but he had to clean up before he’d dare to set foot in there.

  He found Lars on the master bedroom’s balcony. He watched idly as a gardener climbed a ladder to snag Cora’s entire wardrobe of jeans from the elm outside their bedroom window.

  “Where’s Cora?”

  “Kitchen, I think,” Lars replied, glancing at Finn over his shoulder. “You done already?”

  Finn shrugged. “Wasn’t getting anywhere.”

  “Damn.” Lars gave him a smile, but it lacked his usual mischiefs quality. “I was just about to head down and watch you work.”

  “You mean perv over me,” he replied.

  Their banter sounded forced, but it was better than no banter at all. As soon this Irish mafia guy realized Kane wasn’t good enough bait to reel in a catch like Cora, then he’d move on with his life. After all, what the fuck did he expect her to do? Magic up a heroin shipment?

  Finn was in the shower when he heard the door open. Running his hands over his face, Finn turned to the shower door. Lars was nothing but a blur outside.