For her, rock bottom came in the form of being high out of her mind and stuck smack dab in the middle of a drug deal gone bad. As luck would have it, my brothers and I were the reason said deal had turned into a firefight. She was only alive because Manny had taken two bullets in the upper back getting her the fuck out of there. Her near death experience and our support helped her beat the addiction. In return, she managed our lives with the same boundless determination she had dedicated to her sport.
“Whatever this shit is,” I growled, annoyed this was going on while I needed their focus elsewhere. “You two need to squash it.”
Erin flipped her hair, turning away from Manny completely and focusing hazel eyes on me. “Consider it squashed.” She folded her arms across her chest and cocked her hip. “I’m more pissed at you at the moment anyway.”
Manny chose that moment to make his escape, disappearing behind her. He headed in the direction of Isaac’s office, leaving me to deal with the wicked witch of the building in the only way I knew how.
I smiled, flashing pearly whites. “Chica bonita, what could I have done to piss you off in less than twenty four hours?”
She smacked me in the arm and I feigned a wince. “Don’t give me that ‘pretty girl’ crap. Why didn’t you tell me I was finally going to meet the girl you talk so much about? Although you kind of left out how scary she is.”
The blood in my veins flash froze and then boiled over a moment later. I looked around with new eyes, senses on red alert. My hard stare fell on the hilt of the knife sticking up out of Erin’s desk and my throat went dry.
She was here.
In my space.
My goddess gracing my temple.
“You feeling okay?” Erin poked me in the chest and I barely felt it. “You’re looking kind of...intense.”
“Where?”
“Where...what? Seriously, you’re being creepy right now. What’s going-”
I grabbed her arm, grip tighter than I meant for it to be as I lowered my face to hers. My voice was low. Deadly. “Where. Is. She?”
Erin pulled away, scowling. “Your office.”
Should’ve known.
People spoke to me as I strode across the floor. I only knew because I saw their lips moving. They might as well have been starring in a silent movie. There was no sound save for the blood rushing through my ears as I closed the distance fast enough to burn a trail in the hardwoods.
Only when my hand gripped the handle of the door so tight I felt bones grind together and a twinge of pain travel up my forearm did I pause.
I forced myself to breathe deeply and took a metaphorical step back, turning my focus inwards to the flood of emotions running rampant. The thought of her being on the other side of the door sent a singular urge through me. One that made my cock twitch and fill with the idea of stomping in there, bending her over my desk, and having those long legs wrapped around my waist while I buried my entire length in wet heat.
But I was getting ahead of myself.
And she was fucking playing me.
I see you, diosa.
Tossing threats at the club last night? Showing up here? She considered herself a giant poking an ant hole with a stick, waiting to see what needed to be stepped on.
Any loss of control on my end was game over. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.
It would be equal to shooting off fireworks spelling out my guilt.
My play to remove the Cartel completely would be done. My brothers and I would find ourselves in shallow graves. Everything I built would be turned to rubble.
More than any of those things combined, I would lose my chance to save her.
For all the power Creed and the other Sinners wielded - and while I owed them an eternal debt for annihilating the bastards who’d tried to break her - they hadn’t been able to free her from the hurt. The pain.
But I could. It was a conviction I felt so deeply I could stand on the firmament of it and wield that unshakable faith as a holy sword against anything in my path.
My spine steeled as I twisted the handle on the door and walked in, shutting the door behind me with a calmness I was already struggling to maintain.
Her scent was flooding my office, a warm citrus making my mouth water for a taste. She was standing along the far side where a wall should’ve been, but instead there was one solid sheet of glass top to bottom. As I slowly crossed towards my desk, laying my briefcase down on top of it, she turned my direction and I glanced her way like I had just noticed she was there.
An impossible feat, given her presence alone made the space brighter, more alive, and somehow smaller at the same time.
Sylvia was temptation streaked in sunlight, and twice as radiant.
Her hair was closely cropped on the sides, leaving a platinum blonde streak pulled back into a small ponytail. She wore dark, calf length boots with silver buckles. Tucked into them was a skinny pair of distressed, black jeans that fit her long legs like a second skin and gave teasing glimpses of the perfect thighs they concealed.
Her black, leather jacket was discarded over a side table and a grey tank top fell to just below her waist. It was loose enough to flow around her body with ease as she moved closer, but tight enough for my eyes to discern the swells of perky breasts. My appraisal couldn’t miss the indentations telling me that not only was she not wearing a bra, but that her piercings didn’t stop at her stunning face.
I barely suppressed a hungry groan, imagining the tight buds of her nipples bared to me, monochrome barbells going through each one. Would she want them sucked? Bitten? If I twirled my tongue around the cool metal would she arch into me, begging for more? If I continued down that lithe, soldier’s body, would I find more jewelry right between her perfect-
Sylvia cleared her throat and I brought my eyes up to meet hers, unashamed. I made sure to let my gaze drag over the slight flush creeping up her neck, committing it to memory. The irritation sparking inside twin, silver orbs made my lips curl at one corner and satisfaction unfurled inside me.
Not as unaffected as you would like to be. I’d bet on it.
Without breaking the stare we were suddenly locked in, her hand drifted into her pocket and reappeared with a phone. My grin only broadened as her fingers started flying.
She leaned over the desk, holding the device up to my face until it filled my vision. “Keep your eyes to yourself if you don’t want to lose them.”
I reached out, pushing the phone away. The tips of my fingers brushed hers and every hair on my body suddenly stood on end with the pure rightness of it. One of us gasped and Sylvia stepped backwards, staring down at her hand like it was a foreign entity before she refocused on me with a look containing twice as much annoyance and a trace of something else.
Curiosity.
Smoothing my suit, I sank into my plush leather chair like I didn’t have a care in the world.
But inside?
The cheshire cat had nothing on my smug grin.
CHAPTER 5 - Sylvia
What the fucking fuck was that?
I fisted and relaxed my fingers, working out the pins and needles feeling only now starting to ebb. I wished that was the worst of it but I so rarely got what I wished for.
If I didn’t know better, I would swear my body had turned into a tesla coil at his touch. A soft, slow thrum of energy continued to pulse through me, not fading nearly as fast as I wanted it to.
I fought through my body’s reaction, ignoring the low buzz in my stomach and the heat it produced while my focus remained on the man who’d caused it.
For his part, Carlos looked largely unaffected. I didn’t trust him, nor did I trust the sly twist to his full lips or the banked heat in his eyes. But it was there as sure as the sunlight beaming in through his obnoxiously large window and I was really regretting my wardrobe choice for the day.
I wasn’t blind. I knew my own appearance. It was a weapon of near equal value to any piece of metal and I treated it as such,
taking advantage of it whenever possible.
Right then? The edge was feeling upsettingly dull, blunted by the unwanted thrill inspired by those honey eyes taking me in inch by inch.
Should’ve kept the jacket on.
It occured to me, as the silence stretched between us, that my so called brilliant plan was falling apart.
Carlos was supposed to be off balance already, thrown by the threat I represented showing up in the city and at his business. I’d left a fucking knife in his assistant’s desk for crying out loud.
He wasn’t.
He was watching and waiting, looking at me as if through a scope. Meanwhile, here I was, far behind enemy lines without any backup. Ordering Tone not to come with me was starting to feel...less than ideal.
Carlos waved his hand towards the chair across from him. “Have a seat. I don’t bite.” He flashed his teeth, not quite a smile. “Much.”
The urge to retreat and regroup tried to wrap itself around me and I punched it in its fucking face.
I used the few, brief moments it took for me to grab my whiteboard and marker from on top of his desk to re-establish the vault doors around my emotions. By the time I sat down across from him, I was calm and composed.
Or at least as close as I ever fully got. Which was never very close at all. Funny how that worked.
“Rabid dogs always bite. At least until someone does what needs doing.”
One of his dark brows popped up and he lounged back in his seat, steepling his fingers. “That’s what you think? That I’m some rabid animal? Aye, dios mio, you wound me, Sylvia.” The way my name rolled off his tongue was distracting, but reminding myself of what I was dealing with helped.
“That’s not what I think of you. I think you’re worse.”
His head tilted, lips thinning. Carlos’s focus on me sharpened, the scope dialing in as his eyes darkened. “Worse. How so?”
“Because you’re deluded.” I watched the muscle in his jaw jump, and I made a point of looking around the massive office, head on a swivel. “You sit up here in the sky with all your treasures, pretending that you’re above the filth when you’re really tracking shit in with you with every step.”
“I can appreciate the imagery.” His eyes shifted to the floor length windows and subtly unfocused. “But I think I know a thing or two about delusions and how dangerous they can be. Refusing to face the kind of life my own blood lead nearly cost me everything.”
“Then you should’ve known better than to follow in his damn footsteps.” I refused to soften. It didn’t matter how much he looked like the boy I called myself sparing years ago. He was the enemy now.
“So you do remember me?”
I frowned, nose curling up. The question was so far out of left field I couldn’t tell where it came from. “Of course I do. What kind of half brained fuckery are you spewing?”
Carlos grinned suddenly, stealing my breath and I pinched my thigh where he couldn’t see it. Fucking hormones. Gotta be. Go away! Shoo!
“You’ve got quite a mouth on you for someone who doesn’t speak.” I gave him a dull look. “Have you ever heard that cursing is only a substitute for a poor vocabulary?”
“Have you heard the many fucks I don’t give whistling in the wind?”
Carlos tsked, shaking his head in disapproval. “This is why I didn’t think you remembered me. Such hostility towards a life that you spared.”
“It was a mistake.” I froze, looking at the words. An uncomfortable tension in my shoulders made me want to erase them but that felt too close to weakness. I brushed aside my reservations and showed him anyway.
His eyes flashed with something I couldn’t name before he schooled his features. “You don’t believe that,” he said confidently.
“Don’t I?” I honestly wasn’t sure why I kept poking the bear when he was being surprisingly decent, but I couldn’t help it.
“No.” He swiveled to face his computer monitor, shaking the mouse to wake it up. “If you thought I was that far gone, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Unless it was at knife point, and I believe you left yours with Erin.” His eyes flitted back over me in blatant perusal. “It doesn’t look like you have room for many more.”
“Trust me when I say I’m never without.” I wasn’t either. There was a reason I was sitting ramrod straight and it wasn’t because the chair was uncomfortable.
“Of course not.” He scoffed. “Where would the Reaper be without her weapons?”
I was proud of that nickname. It was bought and paid for with years of bloodshed, some of it my own but most of it not. A title and an oath, written in red with the same cleaver I had stolen from the whorehouse the Sinners rescued me from. Most said it as a curse.
Carlos?
There was reverence in his tone and I didn’t know what to do with it.
His computer chimed and he returned his attention to it, seemingly unconcerned about the possible executioner sitting across from him. I tapped my tongue piercing against the roof of my mouth, taking this time to observe him freely without the intensity of his regard forcing my thoughts down unproductive paths.
Carlos was wearing another immaculate suit, this one midnight black with a matching shirt and glossy tie. He looked every bit the suave businessman with his thick, wavy hair and the air of self importance surrounding him. The stubble I found particularly tempting gave everything about him a healthy dose of danger. A tantalizing taste of the kind of ruthless bastard lurking beneath his smooth skin.
I tried again to stuff him into the box of hate I reserved especially for the Cartel but he didn't quite fit.
Before Carlos arrived, I'd spent a significant amount of time searching his office and going through his computer. Tanner managed to be good for something other than playing mother hen. Except there hadn't been anything obviously incriminating I could find.
There was money being moved around between various companies, and large sums of it, but nothing so outrageous it raised any red flags. By all indications, MIC Holdings was completely legit and in the process of making him and his brothers a fuck ton of money. More than enough to support Carlos’s monthly acquisitions of various properties around the city - restaurants, hotels, coffee shops and several others.
Putting my own personal feelings aside, he had the Midas touch.
Every business he had touched in the last five years was thriving, pulling in money hand over fist.
So why the double life? It didn't make any sense. He was making millions legally. I was sure I would find people practically throwing money at him once I got a chance to dig deeper. So why bother with the added risk of being a crime boss on top of it?
Sure, there was a certain amount of power afforded to those standing near the summit of the underworld. Creed was a neon sign proclaiming that as fact. Except I didn’t get the feeling Carlos was in this purely for clout or monetary gain.
His ambition was bright as day. I could see it in the cogs spinning behind his eyes while he worked. The power he did hold wasn't disguised either. His custom made suits easily cost thousands. The understated watch on his wrist was probably twice that. He had a driver full time and at least four personal, luxury vehicles I knew of.
So no, he wasn't hiding his power.
Yet he also wasn't wielding it like a sledgehammer. Which meant he was doing something with it I hadn't been able to discern.
“As much as I'm enjoying your company, señorita.” His voice was deep and soothing, drawing me out of my thoughts. “Having someone as devastatingly gorgeous as you staring at me is more than a little distracting.”
To my own surprise and belated horror, my chest flushed at his compliment. I blamed it on the casual ease with which he mentioned it. There wasn't time to throw my guards back up before a warm feeling was stirring around my heart. It was one thing to see him look at me like he wanted me. Another for him to so readily admit he found me attractive.
Obviously not missing my reaction given our proximity
, his fingers stopped tapping and melted honey eyes took me in. “You're surprised. Why? Surely you're aware that you're muy jodidamente caliente.”
Very fucking hot.
I felt my blush spread from my neck up to my cheeks. For the first time in a long time, I wished for the long hair I used to have. With it, I could've tipped my head forward and hid behind the platinum blonde curtain.
As it was, I was left shifting uncomfortably in my seat and forcing my eyes to stay on his while I aggressively bit the cap from my marker and let it drop into my open palm.
“The compliments usually stop about the same time they find a very sharp knife pressed to their balls.”
Carlos read slowly, eyes dancing with mirth. He was smiling when he looked back at me. “And you find yourself in this position often?”
“More than I would like, but it makes for good practice. My hand has only slipped once.” He winced in sympathy and a grin curved my lips. At least until he spoke again.
“I'm not afraid of you, Sylvia,” he said carefully, leaning closer.
“You should be.” My wires were crossed somewhere because I was torn between two urges. One wanted me to lean forward and find out if his lips were as soft as they looked. The other wanted to grab hold of this moment and rip it to pieces.
Destruction, I was good at.
Feelings? Not so much.
“Why?” he questioned harshly, slamming up against the barricades I was already trying to erect. “You’ll find nothing to use against me. I have nothing to fear from you.”
The chains holding the more volatile me in check creaked and started to break apart.
Three seconds. Exactly how long it took to pull the knife hidden in my boot, rise from my chair, and surge across the desk towards him. I gripped the thick hair at the back of his neck to hold him in place. I put the knife to his throat, pressing in, but my focus was drawn back to his lips.
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