Carlos didn't bother with grace before he stabbed a juicy piece of sausage and bit the end off it, sculpted jaw flexing as he chewed.
I didn't know what to think of all of this just yet, but I knew I was tired of feeling off balance. A boat left unmoored from the dock to be swallowed by the storm. It'd been a constant since we stepped out of the building. Maybe since the first day in his office if I was being honest.
Instead of finding his driver waiting for us, proof of the kind of giant ego I was dealing with, there had only been a sleek, black car with a red interior that smelled like leather and the dark, seductive cologne he wore.
Instead of the fancy restaurant I was expecting, he took me to a vintage diner straight out of a movie.
And while it was bold and underlined in the rich asshole handbook to be rude to anyone with less than, what I'd seen of the relationship between him and the eccentric Mama L was closer to mother and son instead of owner and customer.
Then there was the way he looked when he talked about Mama’s offering a place to sleep. He had been quick to look out the window. Not quick enough to hide the telling glint in his eyes. First-hand experience had been written there, clear as day.
“Something wrong?” He asked suddenly, peering at me. The concern written on his face seemed real.
Why? Why was he feeding me? Why did he care?
The more I found out, the more questions I was left with but my currency was running out faster than my curiosity.
I grabbed my knife and fork before my stomach decided it was going to growl at me again. Carefully, I spread butter over the waffle, mouth watering as it melted right in. If this ended up tasting half as good as it looked, I would have to tell Caitlin she had another batch of recipes to hunt down.
“Here.” Carlos put a mason jar full of honey down in front of me. It felt like some kind of cosmic joke, the amber color of it matching his eyes perfectly.
I frowned at him. “That’s not syrup.”
He smiled easily, flashing those perfect teeth. “You’re right, it's better.”
“No thanks.”
“What’s this? One of the legendary Seven Sinners is afraid to try something new?”
Carlos was goading me, once again. He wasn’t even trying to be sneaky about it.
Too bad for me, it was working.
I snatched the jar and poured it angrily over one of the waffles. Scared of trying something new? Me?
Yeah. Fucking. Right.
The fluffy dough parted beneath my knife with the barest effort and I stuffed a triangle shaped piece in my mouth, chewing fiercely. Once this was over with, I could get back to using syrup and-
Bliss.
My taste buds finally caught up to my brain and subsequently exploded.
I refused to tell him he was right but I’m sure the way I started rapidly stuffing my face with everything in front of me achieved the same effect. Why so many women felt the need to daintily eat bird sized pieces, I wasn’t sure. I also wasn’t afflicted by the same curse. If Carlos had a problem with it, he didn’t make it known as we devoured our plates in comfortable quiet.
By the time Mama L returned to fill us up on coffee, we were done, and I had drawn a giant, red heart to spin her way.
She smiled, bright and wide. “Judging by the way y’all cleaned these plates. I’m guessing everything was to your liking.”
“Outstanding as always, Mama.” Carlos idly licked a bit of honey from his lips. Distracting. Very much so. “Tell Tony he’s still got it.”
“Oh honey,” she winked. “He’s still got it in more ways the one.”
Carlos’s eyes bugged out of his head and the genuine horror on his expression was too much. A choked giggle slipped out, then I was laughing and I couldn’t stop. Not even when he turned his focus on me, gaze burning with a pleasant sort of intensity that warmed me from the inside out.
My heart started beating wildly and the laughter dissolved about the same time I recognized his look for what it was.
Want.
Briefly, I let myself wonder how the old me would've reacted to this. The me from before the fire and ash. The girl I’d been wasn't shy about her wants and needs. She wasn't terrified of having her will stripped away. Sylvia one-point-oh would already be leaning across the table for a taste of the lips I couldn't stop thinking about.
Do it, some part of me prompted. And I wondered if that girl wasn't as gone as I thought she was.
“Two questions left, mi amiga.”
His deep baritone rumbled through me, striking between my thighs like a match.
I pinched my thigh, hard, hoping the pain would help me focus as I shifted in my seat. The ache low in my belly didn't subside. Not completely. But it did so enough my brain didn't feel like it was swimming.
My zen needed to be firmly in place before I showed him my next question. Because so much as writing it down caused barbed wire to wrap around my heart, sending shooting pains through my chest.
“What happened after I left the room that day?” I didn’t feel the need to clarify. He would get it, and I watched closely for his reaction.
I should've known I wouldn't catch him unguarded twice in a row.
Carlos shuttered his emotions so fast I could almost hear the blast doors sliding into place. He leaned back, folding his hands together atop the table. I was starting to recognize when he shifted between his masks. In a way, I envied how easily he could go from Businessman to Crime Lord to Gentleman. How quickly the iron clad control came to him.
For so long, there was only the rage, and it took years before I could put that genie in a bottle it wouldn’t break out of. I had the scars to prove it.
“Why do you care?” he asked smoothly, giving away nothing.
Because I was so consumed by hate I orphaned three boys without a second thought.
Because years passed before I wondered if they made it out of the city alive.
Because I was ashamed of how easily I had become a monster.
All true. All constants on my mind at one point or another over the years. When you didn’t talk, it left so much more time to think. I wasn’t sure it was always a good thing.
“You’re supposed to be answering the questions, remember? Not asking them.”
His jaw ticked. “We lingered, for a bit at least. Long enough to see the fire. And the decorations.”
My skin paled and there was nothing I could do to hide it.
Make no mistake. If I could’ve done that day over again, there was nothing I would’ve done differently. Hand picking each of the men we sent to hell, and helping send some of them there on my own, had been an honor. The rest? Mounting their heads like gruesome warning signs? A statement.
But I could still acknowledge I felt no pride in knowing he had seen the aftermath of our handiwork.
“They deserved it.”
What? I jerked my head back towards him.
“Don’t look so surprised.” His eyes narrowed, jaw jumping again. Where his hands rested, linked on the table, the knuckles started turning white. “Did you expect me to go on about my life and never wonder why everything I knew had been burned to the ground?”
“When we made it to Charlotte,” he continued, emotion in his voice growing darker, angier. “We were on our own for a bit before Marco, an old friend of the family, took us in.” I wondered how long they had been by themselves but I could see this wasn't the time to ask. “He put us through our trials over the next year or so. I asked him about it, once we had proven ourselves loyal to the Cartel.”
“He told me, in great detail, what kind of man my-” Carlos paused, radiating menace for a long moment. “…what kind of man Santino was, and about the women he abducted. Marco actually had the nerve to brag about it. Fucking bastard.”
I bared my teeth, fury sparking. “You said it yourself. Filth.”
Carlos’s snarl matched mine. “Which is why I strangled him later that very night and felt nothing but satisfaction onc
e the act was done. And Marco had otherwise been good to my brothers and I. So yes, I fully believe everyone else who had a hand in what Santino was doing got what they fucking deserved.”
Truth blazed from his eyes, mixing with the same kind of rage I was intimately familiar with. Maybe it made me an absolute fool, but I believed his obvious distaste and it alleviated the largest fear I had. That he was taking innocent girls off the streets and doing to them what had been done to me.
With one borderline obsession down, the most volatile emotions I had associated with Carlos waned in their intensity. There was already no indication, at least not yet, he was running anything worse than the drugs we allowed. Then there were Tone’s consistent reports from the patrols he was doing. A big city like this would never be without crime, but according to my fellow Sinner, things were surprisingly peaceful.
Carlos was using the Cartel’s name, but not their methods. By all accounts, he’d achieved something I never thought possible.
He’d taught wild animals to heel.
Maybe he sensed the shift in my attitude because he leaned closer, easy grin returning. “Want to know something else?”
I got caught looking at his lips again and his eyes flashed like there was a miniature sun burning inside them.
“Is there a price?”
“Always. But for you, mi diosa, this one is free.”
Diosa?
“How generous of you.” I discreetly pulled out my phone and sent a text to Kane because I wanted to know what the hell he’d said.
“The Cartel has no idea you aren’t the indiscriminate murder machine you pretend to be.”
I froze, suddenly wary. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
He called me on my bullshit with a simple blink. “This is how you’re going to play it? I didn’t get to where I am by brute force and ruthlessness alone, Sylvia. I’m an investor. I pay attention to the details. I look for opportunities and I file them away.”
“When word started to spread about the bloodthirsty, platinum-haired Sinner, I paid attention. Everyone was too busy trying to keep up with the upheaval Creed, Texas and Rebel were causing. They didn’t have time to keep track of what you were up to. But I did. There were a surprising amount of survivors on your off days.”
What he was hinting at unsettled me. Creed was the only man alive who knew what I took part in when the rage caught me in a grip I couldn't break free from. Yet even the man I owed my life to didn't know those little excursions were as much about saving others as they were punishing those who deserved it.
Somehow. Someway. Carlos had figured out I hunted those I knew were guilty instead of random members wholesale. He wasn't supposed to have that knowledge. No one was.
I grimaced and pushed away the now tasteless cup of coffee. “Don’t try and paint me in a pretty picture. You won’t like what you see.”
“Maybe you should let me be the judge of that?”
“Maybe you should drop it, or I’m out.”
Carlos sighed suddenly and leaned back, irritation making itself known by the furrow between his brows. He looked across the diner, mouth in a thin line while he ignored me.
Him being annoyed was making me more annoyed and I hated it. So there was a good chance he wasn’t the evil dirtbag I had figured him for. Now I suddenly cared about his attention?
Fuck that.
I crossed my arms over my chest and did my best to stare a hole into the side of his face. Right then, I was seriously regretting having rode with him here. A dramatic exit ending with me walking down the street in the rain would be very anticlimactic.
“Carlos!” Mama L called from somewhere back in the kitchen. “If you’re giving that sweet girl a hard time, I will come out there and smack you upside your pretty little head.”
He grumbled under his breath, dragging a cupped hand over his scruff. “Let’s go.”
He didn’t wait for me. Carlos slapped a substantial number of bills onto the table and unfolded gracefully from his seat, striding for the door. I quickly grabbed my stuff, scrambling up and after him. I shouldn’t have waved Mama L away when she came from the kitchen with a frying pan. It would’ve served him right to get a good whack across the head.
My palm hit the front door hard, frustration making itself known as I stomped outside and down the steps to the sound of rain pouring so loudly it overwhelmed the sounds of traffic passing by.
Carlos was standing at the edge of the awning, hands in his pockets while he stared out into the parking lot. I walked right up to him and shoved him hard in the back, pushing him out into the rain. He spun, but didn’t step back under the shelter, choosing instead to stare at me from beneath dark lashes already dripping water as his white shirt started sticking to his skin.
“What’s your deal?”
He was silent. Could he even read what I was writing through the water pouring down his face?
“My deal?” The cords in his neck stood out. “My deal is that I’m starting to feel like I’m talking to a brick wall. Every time I think I’ve taken a step forward, I end up with a bloody nose instead.”
I blinked, dumbfounded. Great. He’s lost it. Fan-fucking-tastic.
“You think I’ve lost it,” he said with such surety it startled me. “Fine. Then ask your last question so this night can be over with. I know it’s eating at you.”
Whatever else he was talking about, the last bit he’d gotten right. Because it was the one thing not adding up. So I wrote it down. Underlined it. Put a fuck ton of exclamation marks around it and no less than a dozen question marks.
“Why this?”
The million dollar question. He had money. A successful company. The entire city knew his name. So why bother with the Cartel in the first place?
Carlos stepped slowly towards me, stopping close enough water dripped from his nose and onto my boots. My pulse fluttered at his nearness but I held my ground, refusing to back down in front of him. I could barely make out the glint of his eyes in the shadows but what I saw there made my breath skip and stutter.
“Because of you, diosa.”
His rumbled words caressed my ears and seeped into my soul, stunning me, and he was ready for it. Carlos moved quickly, large hands grasping my waist and pulling me with him before I could react. He turned us so his back hit one of the awnings supports and we jolted, causing me to drop my whiteboard and marker to the cement.
My blood was rushing a mile a minute. It roared in my ears, a beast woken from its slumber.
Going for a knife and pressing it to his chest didn’t require a conscious decision. It was just there, ready to flay his skin. I was moments away from opening a vein when I noticed something inconceivable enough to give me pause.
His hands were on my hips, but I didn’t feel caged. Trapped. Despite the rain, his fingers were warm against my skin and only lightly gripping.
Carlos was touching me, but he wasn’t making any effort to hold me. I shifted my weight to test my theory and he didn’t pull me against him. One step back and I would be out of his arms. One step forward and my knife would slide right between his ribs. So why wasn’t he making a move to restrain me or defend himself?
Why was I still standing here, breathing him in?
Moving away any second now. Any. Second.
“That condition I talked about?” he said, although I was hardly listening. Somehow my empty hand had made its way onto his chest and I spread my fingers over the solid surface, captivated both by the strength beneath his skin and the steady beat of his heart. “I’m going to tell you what it is and I would like to not get stabbed when I do. So if you could?”
His chin dipped in indication. Thank God my muscle memory was as impressive as it was, because the hamster in my brain was on a lunch break. The knife disappeared back into a pocket, then both hands were on him with a mind of their own. They played with the buttons keeping his shirt closed while I blatantly stared at the sculpted muscles the clinging material was revealing
. Every inch of him was a feast for the eyes and mine were starving.
His thumbs rubbed circles into my hips, and I think I forgot how to breathe while an all too familiar heat pooled low in stomach. “Look at me.” Carlos’s tone was prompting, instead of demanding. A suggestion, rather than an order.
I stepped slightly closer, molding us together as I glanced up at him. His eyes were mostly hidden in shadow, but nonetheless, our gazes locked and our surroundings disappeared completely.
He leaned forward at a glacial pace, giving me what felt like hours to decide if I wanted whatever this was to keep going. His forehead met mine. My lips parted, breath fanning out. The thump of his heartbeat sped up until it echoed through my palm, matching my own.
“Say. My. Name.”
My thoughts fractured. A million reasons to deny him spread out like ink black droplets of condensed fear. My entire being shuddered in the grip of looming terror, except the tide wasn’t crashing down. It wasn’t choking me. There was a crystal clear awareness acting as refuge, giving me the strength to keep pulling in shaky breaths.
Carlos was focused on me completely.
Every move.
Every breath.
Every touch.
Standing in his arms, I somehow knew with absolute certainty there would never come a time where he wouldn’t hear me. With him, my voice would never be lost to the void and ignored.
I fisted the fabric of his shirt and looked into the dark depths of his gaze. “Carlos,” I whispered, voice rough from disuse.
His body coiled tight as a spring and a delicious zing of anticipation rushed through me. He brought his mouth closer to mine, and before I could overthink what I was doing, I rose up on my toes to meet him, eyes closing. I sighed as his lips brushed against mine in a feather light kiss that still burned me from the inside out.
Softer than I thought. Like two sexy pillows.
My tongue flicked out, only catching the taste of rain and traces of honey as he pulled away, cursing rapidly in Spanish under his breath. My lashes fluttered open, confusion dawning before spilling over the horizon when he gently pushed me away, tension stretching his features taut.
Saved by a Sinner Page 9