by Nina Levine
I step closer to Perez and aim my gun at him. “It’s such a shame you won’t get to fuck me,” I say. “Or shoot me,” I add as he spins to face me. Without hesitation, I pull the trigger and lodge a bullet between his eyes, exactly how I was taught by the men my father hired to train me as a teenager.
Javier moves into action the minute I fire the gun.
He retrieves his gun before closing the distance between us as Perez goes down. “Stay with me,” he orders, his voice rough. Pulling out his phone, he makes a call and barks into the device, “Perez is with me. He’s dead.” He listens for a moment before saying, “You and Christopher come up to the suite to take care of this. Everyone else is to keep searching for his men.”
He disconnects and shoves the phone into his pocket before running his gaze over my body. It’s as if he’s searching to make sure I’m okay, that I haven’t come to any harm.
I frown. “What happened with Perez two years ago?”
His eyes meet mine. “Nothing.” He takes hold of my arm and tries to drag me out of the library.
I resist, pulling out of his hold. “No, Javier. I want to know what he meant when he said you stopped him. Did he threaten my life?”
“Fuck, Emilia, this is not the time to get into this.”
“You’re right there. The time to get into it was two years ago.” I cross my arms and settle in for a fight. We aren’t going anywhere or exchanging any vows today until he answers my question. “Did us breaking up have something to do with this?” I don’t know why it would have, but the timing seems far too coincidental.
His eyes search mine. I can’t tell if he’s deciding to ignore my question, or if he’s weighing up what to share with me. Finally, he nods. “Yes. Perez made a threat against you two years ago.”
“What kind of threat?”
“The cartel had to give up some territory. He threatened your life if we didn’t.”
“Okay, so what did that have to do with us?”
He takes his time answering again, and I can tell by the look in his eyes that he’s frustrated by this conversation. “He figured out that you were my weakness. I wouldn’t have forced my father to surrender anything if not for you.”
I still.
My pulse speeds up.
And suddenly everything falls into place.
“You didn’t want to walk away from me.”
“No.”
The nerves that fluttered in my stomach earlier go into overdrive.
I move into him so fast we practically collide.
“You saved my life.” The words breathe out of me as I take hold of his face, staring into those eyes of his that hold so many hidden emotions, willing him to share the piece of himself I desperately crave. The piece I’ve craved for two years. “Then, and now.”
His arms go around me without pause.
Strong.
Firm.
Possessive.
“I will always save your life,” he rasps before crashing his lips down onto mine and giving me that piece of him I want.
His heart.
10
Javier
“Everyone has been dealt with,” Bruno says when he returns to the penthouse two hours after Emilia shot Perez. “And everything has been cleaned up.”
I nod, drawing my attention from my fiancé who is pacing the library on a phone call with her assistant. I eye Bruno. “Ensure all entry points into the hotel are covered by multiple men. Also, all surrounding streets need coverage too.” The Alonso Cartel will be swift with their retribution. I can’t take any chances today. If this wedding wasn’t crucial to ease bad blood, I’d postpone it until I could be absolutely certain of everyone’s safety.
Bruno gives me his assurances he’ll handle everything and leaves me to do what I’ve asked.
I walk into the library, taking the time while Emilia wraps up her call to admire her curves. Curves I first fell for when I was fifteen. She was as much a handful then as she is today. I looked forward to every family gathering after that day we first met, simply because it meant more time with her.
I’ve watched over her every day since we were nineteen. I will never forget the night I found her at a party with my friend back then. He forced himself on her and she’d had too much to drink to take care of herself. I ensured he never laid a finger on her again and assigned security to her.
When I finally made her mine two and a half years ago, I’d planned to marry her. Perez put an end to that, and I’ve had to endure two years of watching her with other men. They’ve been the longest fucking years of my life, and while I don’t like the idea of having a known weakness, I can’t go another day without her. Without having every part of her fully.
“Sorry,” she says as she ends her call and looks at me. “I’ve just put together a massive deal and we’re ironing out all the kinks as we find them.” She walks to me, slipping her arms around my waist. “I promise no more work for the rest of the day.”
Emilia thinks I don’t want her working and that I don’t support her desire to live in New York. She’s wrong. I’ve been engrossed watching her build her business over the years. The power she’s amassed and the skill she has handling assholes in the business world turns me the fuck on.
I’m a selfish man, though; I don’t want to share her.
I know I’m going to have to learn how.
I also know the journey we’ll take while I learn is going to be rough.
Emilia talks about compromise. That’s not something I’ll be good at. It’s a good fucking thing she’ll be bound to me after our wedding today.
I settle one hand on her ass and bring the other to cup her face. “No more work for the weekend, dulzura.”
Her forehead wrinkles. “Some things might pop up that I need to take care of.”
I shake my head and tighten my hold on her. “They can wait. Your husband cannot.”
Heat flares in her eyes, right alongside the frustration I always bring out in her. “My husband will need to learn to wait.”
“Your husband will never learn to fucking wait for you,” I growl before taking over her lips with mine and showing her what she does to me.
This woman was made for my ruin, my collapse, my absolute fucking undoing.
I might not ever learn how to negotiate with her, or share her, but I will always, from this day forward, love her with everything I fucking have.
Epilogue
Emilia
“Javier called,” Carly says, coming into my office, brows arched. “He said to tell you, and I quote him exactly, ‘to stop ignoring my fucking calls and get her ass on the phone to me’. I think maybe you should get your ass on the phone. I don’t think I want to chance his wrath making an appearance in our office today.”
I smile, my only excuse being the pregnancy hormones flooding my body, because I’m certainly not smiling at what my husband has said.
The man is intolerable.
But damn him, I love him more than I’ve ever loved anyone.
Three years of marriage, which have been three years of living with an overbearingly arrogant asshole who still hasn’t learned the meaning of compromise, have only increased the love I have for him.
“I’ll call him,” I promise.
“Thank you. I’m not answering any more calls until you do.”
She exits the office and I reach for my phone.
“I don’t like being ignored, Emilia,” Javier answers, his dark voice reaching into my veins like it always does, intensifying the thrum of need that lives there 24/7.
“I’ve been busy.”
“And you know how I feel about you being too busy for me.”
“I’m never too busy for you, Javier, but sometimes I have work to do.”
“I’m coming to pick you up. Be ready in half an hour.”
Javier will never change.
I know this after three years of being married to him.
And since changing him isn’t my goal in l
ife, I’ve learned how to work with him.
“Give me an hour.”
“No. Half an hour, dulzura.”
“I need an hour. If you don’t give me that, I will have to bring work home with me.”
I practically feel his growl through the phone as he says, “Forty-five minutes. Don’t make me wait.”
He disconnects the call and I smile as I stare at our wedding photo sitting on my desk in front of me.
That day seems so long ago now.
It was chaotic with the threat from another cartel, but my husband did what he always does and kept everyone safe. He then spent the next year dealing with the fallout of me killing Perez.
Today, the Estrada Cartel is strong and united. Our union ensured that, and there isn’t one drop of bad blood between our families now. Javier might be ruthless and cruel to those who cross him, but for those he loves, he goes to extremes to make sure all is right.
And this man loves me.
Deeply.
Completely.
The proof is right there in his actions.
It’s also there in the vulnerability he shows only to me. Late at night and early in the morning, he holds me, touches me, kisses me, and opens himself up to me. Javier might not compromise often, or tell me he loves me all the time, but he lays his soul down in ways that weave themselves around my heart and soul, and whisper his love to me.
He almost makes good on his word. Instead of giving me forty-five minutes, he strides into my office thirty-five minutes after our call. I was expecting that, though. I know my husband well. If I’d agreed to half an hour, he would have only given me twenty.
Dressed in the black suit he prefers and the dark sunglasses that almost always cover his eyes, he says, “We have a flight to catch.”
I stand and walk around my desk to him. “Where are we going?”
He pulls his glasses off and gives me his eyes. “Australia.”
“Ah, okay,” I say, more than a little surprised.
“Something came up and my presence is required.”
“And mine too?”
He traces a finger over my lips. “Your presence is always required.”
I move into him, craving the contact. My hands go to his waist before moving up to the hard muscles of his chest. “I have something for you.”
He lifts his brows. “I see you’re not in the mood to argue today.”
“I think this pregnancy is screwing with me. You should prepare yourself for when the hormones change course. I’m sure we’ll be arguing over everything then.” Plus, I love Australia. I’ve been with him three times now and it’s one of my favorite places on earth. Also, after three years of dividing my time between America and Colombia with him, and all the places in between that he needs to go to for cartel business, I’m used to him springing travel on me at the last minute.
His hands settle on my ass. “What do you have for me?”
I reach behind me and grab my phone off the desk. Opening the folder of photos on it, I show him the image of our baby that my doctor emailed me this morning after my ultrasound. Javier tried like hell to move his meetings around so he could come with me, but between our various commitments and the doctor’s schedule, we couldn’t make it work for him to attend. I wanted to send this image to him straight away, but decided against that, because I wanted to watch him as he took his first look at our child.
I’m so glad I waited.
This moment is priceless.
He takes the phone from me and spends a good minute silently committing the image to memory before finally meeting my gaze again.
The emotions I see in his eyes melt their way into my heart and I forget to breathe.
This man has so much love inside him that most people don’t see, but I see it. I see all of it. And feel it in a way that causes my knees to go weak.
“She’s going to fight me harder than you do, isn’t she?” he says.
I laugh. “You don’t know what’s in store for you.”
“No more daughters after her.”
“Unfortunately for you, this might be the one thing in life you can’t control. And oh, how I’m going to be praying for all the daughters under the sun.”
His lips capture mine and he kisses me like he can’t get enough of me. “You are my ruin, dulzura. My absolute fucking ruin.”
I smile up at him. “And you wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Thank you so much for reading SURRENDERED HEARTS.
If you loved it and Javier’s style of bossy alpha, you’ll love my book, Ashton Scott. Read ASHTON SCOTT.
And don’t miss my MC romances in the Storm MC series (three complete series ready to binge)! These bikers are possessive, bossy, and dirty. Many readers say the Storm MC series reminds them of Sons of Anarchy. Check out the STORM MC WORLD now!
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King of the Boroughs
Penny Dee
Prologue
Once upon a time, there were two castles standing side by side.
In one castle was a prince.
In the other a princess.
Both born on the same day, only minutes apart.
Two best friends growing up in the olive groves on their family’s coastal lands in Italy.
Also, in each castle were kings.
Brothers bound not by blood, but by loyalty and trust.
Two ruthless businessmen, ruling the land.
Each as powerful and as merciless as the other.
But when the kings suddenly became brutal rivals, a darkness swept across their kingdoms, and the two houses became enemies.
One king left for the new world, taking the princess with him and breaking the young prince’s heart.
Before she was swept away, the princess gave her one true love a paper heart, and the one special thing she could only ever give one man. Lying in the lush grass under a moonlit sky, she vowed to always love him.
In return, the prince swore that when they turned eighteen, he would find her, and they would run away together so he could make her his queen.
He meant it, he said.
And she believed him.
1
Bella
Age seventeen
I’m a romantic at heart.
I guess that’s why I’m here, sneaking through the shadows of Havenwood Girls School at two minutes to midnight, risking a third and final warning, to break into our headmistress’s desk drawer. Inside is Felicity Morgan’s cell phone. I know its location because that’s where all the seized contraband ends up.
Felicity, or Flick as we all call her, had it confiscated for texting her boyfriend during English period. They’re running away together. He’s a senior at the neighboring boys’ school, and they’ve made a plan to run off to Vegas to get married.
I think it’s romantic.
The other girls think it’s crazy and think they should just wait until school is finished before doing anything so rash.
But I get it.
In three weeks’ time, I’ll be eighteen, and Alessandro will come bursting through those doors to claim me as his queen, and there isn’t a goddamn thing anyone will be able to do about it. We’ve been kept apart for more than eighteen months. And there’s been zero contact. No secret messages. No texting. Just a promise made under a milky twilight back in Italy. A promise that blooms in my heart. A promise that doesn’t need anything but the faith I have in it.
Until then, if I can help one of my fellow romantics, I will.
Sneaking along the long hallway, I stop outside the heavy wooden door and listen for sounds. But there is nothing. The night is still. The building is settled.
As quiet as a mouse, I slip into the headmistress’s
office and make my way across the room to the large desk. Within minutes I have the desk drawer unlocked and Felicity’s phone in my hand.
Quietly shutting the drawer and relocking it, I feel the buzz of adventure course through me. I won’t lie. I get off on this. The adrenaline. The sneakiness. The quest. The rise of the little guy against authority.
Among the students, I’m known as the safe cracker. There isn’t a lock I’ve come across that I can’t crack. It’s something I learned as a kid from one of my father’s many associates, and one that’s earned me a lot of perks from the students who have required my abilities over the last year. Headmistress is big on confiscating the things that distract us from our studies, and from being well-bred young ladies.
And there’s a lot to be said for being able to break into the refrigerator for midnight snacks, or for some comfort food for one of the girls when her heart has been broken by one of the boys at the neighboring boys’ school.
I guess you could say I’ve always been rebellious.
A rebellious heart is what my father calls it.
He thinks I was born with a wildness brought down from my mother’s Irish roots. Maybe he’s right. My mom was feisty. With a fiery temper to match her flaming red hair. I have the same temper, and the same head of red curls. Dark fire, someone once described it, which I have to admit, I kinda love. I don’t know why, but people have always fallen in love with my hair—family, friends, the media, him. But for me it’s a mass of tangled curls that drive me crazy on a bad day.
Another reason for my rebellious nature? According to our headmistress, I’m a bad egg. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I really am the bad guy.
Or maybe I’m just a restless soul with a penchant for drama.
