Their Cartel Princess: The Complete Series: A Dark Reverse Harem Box Set

by Logan Fox

  “Javier had an affair with Cora’s mother?”

  Bailey gave him a grim nod.

  “But why kidnap his own daughter? Did he want her back?”

  But before Bailey could answer, Finn stabbed an index finger in Bailey’s chest. “No, wait…Sofia died, didn’t she? She didn’t make it out.”

  Bailey nodded.

  “Why would he kill his own daughter?”

  Bailey stared at him with surprisingly intent gray eyes. “Maybe he’d only ever wanted one daughter, and she wasn’t Sofia.”

  As soon as Cora heard her bedroom door close, she climbed out of the tub again. She padded, naked and wet, across her room to the dressing table.

  Pointedly ignoring the stack of papers she still had to sign, she drew out the drawer as far as it would go. Her fingers fumbled along the underside until they touched a folded piece of paper. She tugged it free from the tape sticking it there and ambled back to the bathroom.

  She didn’t sigh when she slid back into the warm water; every ounce of pleasure the bath could give her was suddenly void.

  Cora held the folded note in her hand, staring at it as the bubbles around her hissed out of existence.

  When her fingers trembled, she opened the note.

  Mi corazón.

  My heart.

  Her eyesight blurred. She blinked hard, cleared her throat, and forced her eyes back to the page.

  More than anything in the world, I wish I didn’t have to write this letter. But, sadly, there are things in this world that were never in my control.

  I wish I could have seen you one last time. To explain, or at least attempt to explain, why I acted as I did.

  I raised you the only way I knew how. I realize now that it wasn’t good enough, and I apologize for that.

  I love you, mi corazón. I have always loved you. If you doubt that, even for a second, then remember this…

  Even though you abandoned your mother and sister to a fate worse than death, I forgave you.

  Likewise, I trust you will find it in your heart to forgive me for what I’ve done to you.

  Love,

  Papa.

  Cora’s lips parted. Her breath hitched once, hard, and then her eyes flew to the top of the letter again.

  She read it again. Slower. Pausing at the end of each sentence.

  But it read the same.

  Even though you abandoned your mother and sister…

  Forgive me for what I’ve done to you.

  10

  Worshiping the Devil

  Neo’s leg bounced. A soccer match was being broadcast on the flat screen, but he stared through that glossy surface - seeing nothing.

  “He’s going to call,” Sylvia said, but even the usual calm reassurance in her voice was evidently missing.

  “And then what? What the fuck am I supposed to tell him?” Neo sat back in a rush, both hands in his hair. “I don’t have the heroin. It all got burned. It’s ash. What, am I going to give him ash?”

  “Calm down, Ne—”

  He sprang to his feet. “Stop telling me what to do!” He stabbed a finger at Sylvia. “You got me into this. If it wasn’t for you—”

  “Then you might have been dead already,” she said, rising slowly to her feet. She was tall, so she could look him straight in the eye even though she wasn’t wearing heels.

  That pissed him off.

  “Someone’s owed a shipment,” she said, toying with the collar of his t-shirt. “If you didn’t make contact, they’d probably have put a hit out on you.”

  “They wouldn’t get here. He probably doesn’t even know where we are. Dad was careful to—”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” Sylvia mused, sliding her fingers over his arm as she stepped around him. “Havie let his guard down a lot the past few weeks.”

  “How is this better?” Neo yelled. “By calling, I’ve just gone and accepted that fucking debt, or whatever arrangement they had.”

  “Maybe he’ll take something else instead. Money, or property—”

  “That’s your answer?” Neo tried to grab her as she slipped past him, but she moved her shoulder out of reach with practiced ease. She padded over his room’s thick carpets as she headed for the refrigerator alongside his small breakfast nook.

  She passed the Lamborghini on the way, and wrinkled her nose. “Smells like something died in here,” she said, and then opened the fridge.

  “Sylvia! What am I supposed to tell him?”

  “Make him an offer,” she called back, taking out a can of soda. “You’re capo now. You can give him whatever he wants.”

  Neo opened his mouth, but then closed it again. He put his hands on his waist, nodding.

  “I am capo,” he said, but more to himself than to her. “I’ll make him an offer—”

  His phone rang, and he almost bit his tongue how he jumped at the sound. He snatched the phone off the coffee table, inhaled deep, and answered as calmly as he could.

  “This is Neo.”

  “I trust you’ve had enough time to work through your ‘number’s?” the man on the other end of the line put a sarcastic emphasis on what Neo had spouted out before hanging up on him the last time they’d spoken.

  “Yes, I have.” Neo watched Sylvia walking back to him, as lithe as a gazelle. Well, as lithe as he’d imagine a gazelle to be. “Your shipment isn’t ready.”

  “No?” the man asked, sounding unsurprised. “When will be it ready, then?”

  Neo knew little about heroin; he’d always been more of a coke guy.

  “Three months. Give or take.”

  The man laughed in his ear. It was an unpleasant sound, but it went on too long, and cut off abruptly instead of tapering like true mirth.

  “Tomorrow,” the man said.

  Neo’s blood grew heavy, draining from his face and settling in a cold pool in his stomach.

  “Tomorrow,” he parroted.

  There was such a sucking silence, Neo glanced at the phone to make sure they were still connected.

  “I…I can’t. Not—I mean, maybe if you give me a—”

  “Tomorrow,” the man repeated slowly. “Our usual meeting place.”

  “No, look—” Neo cast a pleading gaze at Sylvia, and she twirled her hand to encourage him to keep talking. “Please, there must be something I can give you. Money. How much money would the shipment have been worth to you?”

  “Money?” The man let the word roll off his tongue. “I don’t want money. Your father and I had a deal.”

  “Yes. You had a deal with my father. He’s dead, you know he is.” Neo tried to rein back his voice, but his heart was pounding so hard that it felt like it would shatter any instant. “In my mind, that cancels the deal.”

  Another laugh, but this one bitterly short and cold. “No, my boy. A deal is a deal.”

  “Then you get your drugs from Cora. She’s the one that killed him, not me. I shouldn’t have to pay for what she did. You call her and you tell her she killed the man you had a deal with.”

  He looked at the phone again. The call was still connected, but the silence sucked at him like a black hole.

  “The rumor is true?” the man asked.

  “What rumor?” Neo snapped.

  “Eleodora Rivera has been made capo alongside you?”

  Neo struggled for a moment with his answer. As much as he wanted to lay every fucking ounce of this shit on Cora, he didn’t want to admit he was sharing the throne of El Calacas Vivo either.

  “She’s my wife,” he said.

  “And capo?”

  “No woman will ever rule this cartel.”

  “Interesting…” The man made a humming sound, and let out a long, expressive breath.

  “You will deliver the shipment to me tomorrow before—”

  Neo cut in with a harsh, “I just told you—”

  “If not…”

  His mouth clamped shut, nostrils flaring as he tried to clamp down his frustration. It wasn’t that difficult
— he was coming to realize that the man on the other end of the line was anything but a hired gun. In fact…he was wondering if he wasn’t speaking to someone high up in a rival cartel, perhaps even the mafia, judging from his strong American accent. But why in heaven’s name would his father have made a deal with the mafia? Javier had his own connections to supply his product throughout most of the southern states of the US. Involving a third party just meant splitting profits.

  “And if I can’t?” Neo prompted, when the man remained silent.

  The quality of the man’s voice changed, as if he’d begun to smile.

  “Then you will bring me Eleodora Rivera instead.”

  11

  Come hither

  Cora’s hand jerked at a hard knock to her bedroom door. She rushed to her feet, water streaming from her as she splashed across the floor and shoved the letter between a stack of towels on a nearby hamper.

  Another knock, harder than before.

  It wasn’t one of her men—they had the access code to get into her room even if she locked it. She wrapped a towel around herself and padded into the bedroom.

  “Who is it?” she yelled.

  “Neo,” came the muffled reply.

  “Come back later.” She went inside her walk in closet and hunted out a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt to wear.

  She was hopping into the jeans when her bedroom door opened.

  Cora spun around, fumbling with her shirt as she tried to yank it over her head. Neo appeared in the closet’s doorway, glaring at her.

  She bundled the shirt against her chest, shielding herself. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? How did you even get in here?”

  “We have a problem,” Neo said.

  “Get out!”

  But Neo came in instead.

  “Out!” she yelled, aiming a kick in his direction. “I’m getting dressed.”

  “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

  “What?” she spluttered, trying to move around him so she could dart out the closet and—possibly—lock him inside until her men came back.

  Wait…where the hell were her men?

  “Finn!”

  “Just you and me, chica,” Neo said, and for a moment he sounded just like Javier. She shuddered involuntarily and twisted away from him, yanking her shirt over her head. When she turned back, she wanted to climb straight back into the bath and wash off the feel of his eyes.

  “What’s so important it couldn’t wait?” she demanded, backing out of the closet. The last thing she wanted was being trapped in a confined space with Neo.

  He had a strange look on his face, like a wary predator that had just came across something it didn’t quite know if it should classify as prey yet.

  Her Taurus lay on the dressing table. The small cheese knife she’d stabbed into Javier’s heart, by her nightstand.

  She’d needed neither today, not when she was surrounded by three men wearing enough weapons for six.

  But they weren’t here, were they?

  Anger bubbled up inside her, making her voice tight.

  “What do you want?”

  “We have a shipment to deliver tomorrow, before sunset.”

  “A shipment?”

  “Yes, Cora. Drugs. Our dealers were expecting them.” For a moment, he looked uneasy, and then he added, “Today already. But I got them to hold off until tomorrow.”

  Icy water flowed through her veins instead of blood. “But we don’t have anything, do we?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “But…wait a minute.” Cora tilted her head to the side. “How could they have wanted a shipment today? I mean…weren’t the poppies still supposed to have been harvested?”

  “Now you know all about how to cook heroin?”

  “I don’t think you cook it, either,” Cora said, frowning at him. “I looked it up on the internet, and—”

  Neo cut her off with a hard bark of laughter. “You fucking looked it up on the internet.” He laughed again, slapping his hand into the wall beside the closet where he still stood. “Fuck, am I glad one of us at least knows what the fuck we’re doing.”

  She blushed hard and hot, and gritted her teeth until she could hear them creaking. “Don’t you dare speak to me like that.”

  “I can speak to you however the fuck I want,” Neo said, storming up to her.

  It took everything she had not to retreat. As it was she trembled, but hopefully Neo didn’t see.

  Surprise widened his eyes before they narrowed with irritation again. But he didn’t touch her. Didn’t grab her.

  Maybe there was something to what Finn had said.

  Don’t show emotion.

  Even her blush was receding.

  So what if she’d had to Google how the hell heroin was made? Just because her father had been a drug lord most of his adult life didn’t mean that knowledge had rubbed off on her.

  And from what she knew now, she could tell Neo was lying.

  Not about the dealers, but about the timeline.

  But why?

  “Look, whatever,” she said, swiping her hand between them as if to dismiss the argument. “This is why I wanted to talk to you. We have to decide what we’re going to do. Like now, with these dealers.”

  He opened his mouth, but then closed it again as she went on.

  “I mean, we don’t have anything to give them. So what are we going to do?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned his weight on his back foot. Then he shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Shit,” she murmured, jamming her hands into the pockets of her jeans. She inhaled deep, glancing around her room as her mind scrambled for a thread of a plan. “Do you know anyone who can get them heroin? Or get us heroin to give to them? We have money…” she trailed off. She had money, but it was locked up in her trust until she turned twenty-one. She doubted Nick could free anything, especially the kind of money they’d need for a shipment of heroin. It probably cost like a billion dollars or something.

  Shit, she had to get back on the internet. Maybe there was a cartel start up plan she could download.

  She gave Neo a grim smile, which he didn’t return.

  “Maybe we should meet with them,” Cora said. “We can try and straighten this out. You know—” she moved her hands between them “—try and get an extension or something.”

  Neo shrugged again, staring up at the ceiling for a moment before looking down at her again.

  It had worked. Finn’s trick had worked. She’d never seen Neo this calm before. This…in control.

  Now that she was taking control.

  “If we both sit there and just lay it out, what are they going to do?”

  Neo pressed his lips together, and let out a soft, “Hmm.”

  “I mean, someone burned down our poppy fields,” she said, with a laugh in her voice. “Who does that? How could we possibly have known that was going to happen, right?”

  Neo nodded. “You’re right. Maybe they’d accept money instead of product.”

  “Right,” Cora said, but a little less enthusiastically. “Uh…as long as they’re willing to wait a few days.”

  Neo’s dark eyes focused on her like ebony razors. “What you mean? You have money, right?”

  “Of course…” she said, glancing at the door.

  Where the hell were her men? Her self-assurance was disappearing like dawn under the midday sun.

  “Because mine’s all tied up right now. What with my fath—” Neo cut off with a cough.

  Her jaw clamped tight. He looked like he was struggling not to cry, the way his lips trembled.

  Which made her want to apologize again.

  But that would show emotion. She’d done what she had to do, and she would not beg for forgiveness.

  “I’m sure I can work something out,” Cora said, reaching for him and then deciding against it. She didn’t want him to think she was okay with them having any kind of physical contact.


  “Okay,” Neo said, sudden determination in his voice. “I’m going to call them. Arrange some kind of meeting. It’ll probably be tomorrow. We’re going to have it here, right?”

  “Uh…” Cora took a step back, and then shook her head as she waved at Neo. “No. No, let’s not do that. Javier was—” shit, why did she keep bringing him up? “—we shouldn’t let people in here. This is our sanctuary.”

  “Our sanctuary,” Neo murmured with a slow nod. “Yeah, you’re right. Well, where then?”

  She shrugged at this, hugging herself tight and looking at the door. “Let me think about it. When do you have to speak to them again?”

  “Tonight, I guess,” Neo said. “I’ll swing by before nine.” He started for the door, and then turned back to her, tapping his temple with a long, slender finger.

  He bore such a strong resemblance to Javier, and that gesture was something she could readily see the monster doing. But not with the warm smile Neo had on his mouth; Javier would have worn one of his wide, fake grins.

  “We’ll figure this out, Elle,” Neo said.

  The name lashed through her like the ghost of a whip. “Don’t call me that,” she managed, but her voice was so tight that the words barely came out.

  Neo’s smile widened, becoming as glassy as Javier’s would have been.

  “Maybe we don’t make such a bad team after all.”

  And then he left her alone with a twisted stomach and a thundering heart.

  “We should get back,” Finn said.

  Bailey let out a soft belch and crumpled his third can of beer in a hand. “Sure? Got the feeling she wanted to be alone.”

  “Yeah, there’s being alone, and then there’s being depressed.”

  “She’s got plenty to be depressed about,” Bailey said. “I mean—”

  “There’s no point living in the past,” he cut in, giving Bailey a hard stare. “I insist on it.”

  Bailey laughed. “She’s always done what she’s wanted. Or sulked for days if she didn’t get her way.”