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

by Logan Fox

  That technology had advanced so much that a tracker and a sound-activated listening device with a battery life of twenty-four hours could be no larger than a penny…he fucking loved it.

  The skull was a little macabre, but most fitting.

  The death penalty was still legal in both New Mexico and Texas.

  15

  Maybe she is the one

  When Finn opened Cora’s room door, he stood for a moment on the threshold before going inside. Cora stood in front of an ornate stand mirror, studying her reflection.

  She looked stunning and, thankfully, anonymous. Every eye would be drawn to her but, hopefully, no one would know who they were looking at.

  A staff member had hurried past him while he’d stood guard outside the room, paints and brushes in her hands — she must have been the one who’d painted Cora’s face with such an intricate sugar skull pattern.

  “Do you like it?” Cora asked, watching him in the mirror as he stepped inside.

  “You’re still going to wear a mask, right?” he asked, before he could stop himself. The sugar skull did a good job of hiding her features…everything except her golden eyes.

  “Does this count?” Cora asked as she reached up and drew a black veil over her face. It shielded her eyes and most of her face, and cast such a shadow over her features that the sugar skull looked uncomfortably realistic.

  He came up behind her, encircling her narrow waist with his hands. Her red and black outfit comprised a corset and a layered skirt cut above her knees in the front and almost trailing on the ground behind her. Stockings painted with skeletal femurs, patellas, and tibias clung to her legs. A pair of black high heels lifted her an inch off the ground, but still didn’t allow her to reach his chin.

  Finn drew the veil up, and toyed with her black curls. “I don’t think I’m letting you leave,” he said, but with a smile so she’d know it was a joke.

  Her returning smile was faint, and her eyes darted over his expression as if searching for something.

  Finn grabbed her shoulders, turning Cora to face him. “What’s wrong?”

  She looked away, and nibbled her lip. “Nothing.”

  “Cora…” His voice was low and dangerous. If she was having second thoughts—

  “What if they think I’m just some girl, Finn?” Her eyes, wide with uneasiness, darted his. “What if they don’t take me seriously?”

  “Of course they will,” Finn murmured, running his hands up the sides of her neck. “Javier’s corpse is proof enough they should start taking you seriously, if they don’t already.”

  Her eyes flashed away from him again, and he gingerly touched her jaw, making sure not to smudge her elaborate face paint.

  “Cora, I might not act like it, but I do believe in you. In what you are, what you will become.”

  Her eyes grew wet, but she blinked furiously and those pre-emptive tears vanished again.

  “Now it’s time you believed in yourself.”

  “But what if I’ve made a mistake?” she whispered. “What if something goes wrong?”

  He wanted to tell her it wouldn’t. That the party would be just that — a celebration of her twenty-one years on this planet.

  Too many people. Too many faces.

  And he agreed with his beast. Despite the guest list, although Lars had promised he would frisk everyone down…something felt wrong about tonight — like a blood moon casting its uncanny light on the world.

  But this wasn’t some rare cosmic event.

  This was Cora, and he’d promised to support her. To protect her. To obey her.

  The only problem was, he had a feeling only one out of the three could ever be possible.

  “We’ll be fine,” he said, drawing her close so he could plant a kiss beside the blood-red flower adorning her head.

  16

  Brave

  “Is that it?” Finn asked warily, slowing the SUV as he indicated to turn.

  “It’s got to be,” Cora said, rolling down her window so she could stick her head out and get a better look at the towering structure.

  Ana had only been partly right — the abandoned Grand Redoak hotel was off the interstate, but they’d driven fifteen miles of poor road to get here.

  No wonder they’d abandoned it; no one could have turned a profit with a hotel this isolated.

  Dios mio, it was breathtaking.

  The sun was already touching the horizon, but enough ambient light remained in the sky to cast the gothic architecture in stark relief. Gargoyles perched on the hotel’s four towers; one at each cardinal point. An ornate wrought-iron gate opened for their SUV when Finn hit the gravel drive. They coasted inside, a white-gloved man wearing an old-fashioned bellhop uniform directing them toward a parking lot.

  There were already over twenty cars in the lot. Ana had come ahead of them to set up, insisting that Cora wasn’t to lift a finger preparing. She’d have loved to help, but she was also glad she wasn’t already worn out from setting up such a massive event.

  She was about to meet a handful of some of the most influential drug dealers in the El Calacas Vivo cartel, after all.

  In fact, she wasn’t even sure if they were part of the cartel. Somehow, the fact that she couldn’t just tell them to go to hell made her feel she might not be in a position to order them around.

  At least she’d have her men with her.

  Bailey sat in the passenger seat of their SUV. Both he and Finn were dressed in black Tom Ford slacks and pristine white, button up shirts. They were supposed to be wearing capes, but she doubted she’d be able to convince them to put them on.

  But at least both had agreed to wear their tooled silver masks. All three her men had received the same mask—a growling beast in dazzling silver—and wore the same outfits.

  Bailey came around the car to open her door for her, extending a hand so she could climb out of the SUV.

  She hadn’t bothered with a purse—what the hell would she have put in it?—but her outfit came with a shawl glittering with tiny red and black stones. She draped it over her bare shoulders, and rested her hand on Bailey’s arm as he followed Finn toward the hotel.

  “It’s huge,” Bailey said. “You sure Lars said they’d locked it down?”

  Bailey was referring to the heated conversation Lars and Finn had had about three hours ago. Lars had come through with Ana—being the doorman, he had to be there for the early birds—and he’d been pissed off when he arrived. According to him, the ‘gigantic moldy mausoleum’ of a hotel was the most impractical, unsafe environment for La Sombra he could have dreamed up. He’d even said it would have been easier just handing her over to Jalisco or Sinaloa.

  As if either cartel had even shown an interest in her.

  Finn had talked him down, walking him through a security check. After which Lars had— grudgingly—agreed that perhaps Cora might just, just, make it out alive here by the end of the evening.

  Cora came to a stop just in front of the short flight of stairs leading to the grand entrance.

  The facade’s pale concrete, stained with rain and moss, had weathered over the years. About twenty rooms faced the front of the hotel, all with French paneled windows, most snag-toothed with the shards of glass that remained.

  She felt that, if she stared up long enough, she’d see a ghostly shape move past one of those windows.

  “I fucking love it,” she murmured, squeezing Bailey’s arm and glancing up at him.

  He looked down at her, a fond smile on his mouth. “You’ve got more than a little dark in you,” he said.

  The comment sounded so out of place, that Cora didn’t have an answer for him. He guided her up the stairs and the entry hall that lay beyond the thrown open double doors.

  There was a metal detector and, behind that, a red rope barring entry to a gaping darkness curtained in faded red velvet drapes. Lars leaned against one wall, staring into the depths of the hotel.

  He could have been posing for the Halloween edit
ion of a men’s fashion magazine. His slacks hung perfectly, his shirt immaculately tailored to his tall, lithe form.

  Lars tossed hair from his eyes, and in doing so must have spotted them. He straightened, throwing a dazzling smile at her as he came closer.

  She didn’t deserve this.

  Cora ground to a halt.

  She didn’t deserve them.

  Glancing up, she caught Bailey’s gray-eyed stare as she untangled herself from his arm. He frowned at her, that luscious mouth of his parting as if to ask her if something was wrong.

  “Cora?”

  She swung to face Finn.

  Why would they follow her? Worship her? Give her so much happiness, she felt she’d burst? Why, when she’d done nothing in return.

  Finn’s stony face cracked with a frown, his intense stare drilling through her as she took one step back, then another.

  She shouldn’t be here. They shouldn’t be here. As she turned to bolt outside, she caught the suggestion of a figure in that curtain-draped darkness beyond the metal detector.

  Santa Muerte, wearing red and black. Veiled like a grieving widow.

  Exactly how Cora was dressed.

  She managed a breathless, “Just getting some air,” before she hurried outside.

  The world smudged through brief tears, but she blinked them back hard. Two cars came into the hotel’s property—a white Bentley followed by a gold, fully-kitted Range Rover.

  She was on her second gulp of cool pre-twilight air when a warm, firm hand grabbed her arm.

  “What is it?” Finn demanded.

  “I just…” Cora glanced up at him. She wanted to lie, but her tongue refused to form the words. Instead, she said, “I’m scared.”

  She expected him to announce that she was going back to the villa. That this whole idea had been idiotic, and he’d been right all along.

  But he cupped her face, and his face softened. “Were you scared, when you were walking up to the altar?”

  She took a moment to puzzle out what the hell he was talking about. And then her chest went tight. She gave a curt nod, pressing her lips together so they wouldn’t tremble.

  She hadn’t been able to feel her fingers or her toes. Her heart had been beating so fast that her entire body had felt as if it was shaking from the effort.

  “But you did it anyway. You took your life into your own hands, and you did what you had to do.”

  Finn grabbed both her arms, squeezing her hard as he dipped his head a little. “You did it once. You can do it again.”

  Her back straightened. That queasy, acidic pool in her stomach bled away.

  “I can do this,” she said quietly, and heard resolve in her voice.

  Feet crunched behind her, and she hurriedly stepped out of the way as a couple approached, subtly trailed by three bodyguards.

  They wouldn’t be happy discovering that they couldn’t take their weapons past that metal detector; no one could. That had been one of Finn’s stipulations.

  No weapons, not even for them. The exterior guards were armed with tasers, but no one inside the hotel would be armed with anymore more dangerous than a butter knife.

  “Now,” Finn murmured, as the guests walked straight past them without seeming to recognize either her or Finn. “Don’t you want to go look inside?”

  She did, more than anything, but instead she stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to Finn’s.

  He pulled back. “Your paint—”

  But she grabbed the back of his neck and drew him down for a kiss anyway.

  Screw her elaborate makeup, she wanted to taste him. Wanted him to taste her. And she wanted that taste to linger in his mouth until tonight when the four of them could have some time alone in their room.

  She didn’t deserve them, but until the world set itself right, she would take full advantage of the situation.

  17

  Shiny-as-fuck Oxfords

  Being a bouncer sucked ass. This deep inside the entry hall, all Lars could see was a square of the hotel’s exterior —which was mostly parking lot and a few sad looking trees—and on the inside, a dark rectangle leading to the main entertainment hall.

  Setting up had been fun; he’d spent time with the DJ who’d be playing here tonight, setting up his stand. But it had gone downhill since then.

  Finn had insisted that they close the doors at quarter to seven — and it was twenty-three minutes to.

  Fuck it — anyone who arrived late could trek back the way they’d come and go get some drive through. He was done.

  Lars went to the hotel’s massive double doors and began pushing them closed. When the two halves met—as he’d seen when he and Ana had arrived earlier—they formed the snarling face of what could have been a demon.

  He was having serious doubts about the sanity of the person who’d built this hotel. Either they fancied themselves vampires, or directed their prayers down, not up.

  A white sedan pulled into the hotel’s drive. Lars watched it without expression, and then let out an expressive sigh as he opened the door again.

  This was such bullshit. Why couldn’t he have kept his mouth shut? Then Cora wouldn’t have stuck him with door duty as punishment.

  He’d been concocting some very interesting ways of punishing her in return. A cat-and-nine-tails featured top of the list, followed by some dripping candle wax.

  Messy, but effective.

  He could already see her, bound and yelling, as he dripped bright red wax over her—

  “Evening,” a warm voice called out.

  Lars blinked, clearing a very vivid image of naked Cora from his mind. “Evening,” he said, stepping aside so the man could come through the door.

  The last of daylight was leeching from the sky, but there was enough light that Lars could see the man wore plain, if perfectly tailored clothes. A showy robe hung from a brooch around his neck, thrown back over one shoulder. An empty sword hilt hung from his belt.

  Lars hurried ahead, going through the metal detector and snatching up the guest book Ana had provided him with earlier that day. About eighty percent of the names had been scratched off—impressive, considering how last minute this impromptu soiree had been—and he glanced up at the guest with a bright, “Your name?”

  Just because he hated the job, didn’t mean he wasn’t fucking awesome at it.

  A pretty accurate rendition of a wolf’s head cast in dark bronze hid the top half of the man’s face. Brown eyes the color of mud peered back at him.

  “Ignatius Briar,” the man said in a pleasant Alabama drawl.

  “What an unfortunate name,” Lars said, scanning what remained of the list.

  The man let out a low laugh, sounding surprised but not offended by Lars’s commented.

  Because he rocked this gig, that’s why.

  “Ignatius. I have you down for a plus one,” he said, waving his pen in the general direction of the missing person.

  “He’s running a few minutes late, it seems.” The man didn’t sound that pleasant anymore. In fact, Lars didn’t feel that at ease anymore. “Would you be so kind as to let him in when he arrives?”

  So, that’s how the guy rolled. Because, face it, if he had a bodyguard, the guy would have been at his side like a burr. But a middle-aged gentlemen of what appeared fine standing—and flawlessly tailored clothes—who had a male partner as a plus one?

  “Long as he’s here in the next…” Lars tipped his wrist to glance at his watch. “Four minutes.”

  “I am sure he will be,” Ignatius drawled, in a tone that suggested that the man would never be heard of again if he didn’t make it in time.

  Fucking drug dealers. Lars drew a line through Ignatius’s name and gestured toward the curtains. “Enjoy,” he said.

  Ignatius gave a dip of his head. As he turned toward the hotel’s interior, light flashed off his belt buckle.

  Jesus, these people had too much money. That he’d had a belt buckle made to match his mask…

&nb
sp; Lars snorted in disgust and went back to the front door.

  He dug in his shirt pocket and pulled out one of three small joints he’d rolled for tonight.

  Wasn’t a party if he wasn’t getting fucked up. In three minutes, his shift was over.

  Lars lit the joint and hit it hard, twisting his head to stare up at the menacing hotel rearing up behind him.

  Maybe they’d built it planning for it to be abandoned so they could make a ton of money off people like Cora who got warm and fuzzies being in ruined places like this. He had to admit, the interior was just as creepy. Peeling paint, moth eaten fabrics. And yet, a hint of detergent and furniture polish here and there. And the carpets —although horrifically threadbare—were freshly vacuumed when he’d arrived. The tables and chairs new and shiny, if Victorian-style retro.

  “God, you’re ugly,” he muttered. “I hope your architect offed himself when he was done. It would have been a public service.”

  “You know, I was just thinking the same thing.”

  Lars swung around, sweeping his eyes over the man walking up the stairs. How hadn’t he heard the car pull up? Or was he late getting to the door?

  “Dean,” the man said, holding out a hand. “I hope I’m in time.” Hazel eyes glanced past Lars, to the partly opened front door. “My boss is going to skin me—I’m already late.”

  “Ah, Ignatius the slave driver,” Lars said. “We’ve met.” He took a final drag of his joint, intent on crushing out the last half-inch under his heel.

  “Mercy, don’t waste.” The man held out a hand, hazel eyes going wide. He had a fine head of hair and wore it devil-may-care messy.

  Lars laughed. “Man after my own heart,” he said, giving the last bit of the joint over to the newcomer.

  His mask was a sock-and-buskin mash up—one half comedy, the other tragedy—and covered his entire face, but Dean didn’t seem to have any trouble navigating the small roach between the mask’s melancholy mouth slot. He drew long and hard, finishing what was left of the joint in a single drag.