“And who?” I snap, guessing what’s coming but wanting to hear it anyway.
“Your first daughter, Isabella,” she finishes quietly.
This time I do more than blink. I lower my weapon. “What did you say?”
“I was eight when Gabriela found me,” she says, her face working hard to push emotion away again. “Just a year after she swore to raise your daughter as her own. I loved her like a sister until she—”
“Shut your goddamn mouth,” I snarl, raising my weapon to shoulder height again. “You have no right to claim a piece of her after what your father did.”
“And you have no right to be pointing a gun at me when all I’m guilty of, in your eyes, is being a blood-burden.”
Silence falls over the kitchen.
Is she bracing herself? Is she saying her prayers?
Finally, I shock the shit out of both of us by clicking the safety back on.
“Get the fuck out of my sight,” I tell her gruffly, collecting the bourbon on my way to the door. “The next time I see you, the quality of my mercy will be a damn sight weaker than it is now.”
29
Anna
I wake to peace. And cicadas... Their endless chirp is a soothing rhythm to me now.
Rolling over to begin another moment, I’m disappointed to find the bed empty. His chain has gone from the nightstand. There’s nothing left of him except the empty silver blister packs of morphine.
Frowning, I scoot across the tiles to use the bathroom, each step intensifying the ache between my legs. He took my permission and ran with it. He fucked me just the way he said he would. He crumbled my walls, he turned my tides; I screamed and I shattered in his hands, and now? I see only him. I want only him. Again and again, until my lungs are hoarse and my body is begging for mercy.
“I hope that morphine’s kicking in a treat, Joseph Grayson,” I whisper to my reflection in the mirror. “I’ll be seeking you out in a minute and forcing you to make me whole again.”
I take a shower and dress in the simple black summer dress that Gabriela lent me yesterday. It must be one of Vi’s because there’s not much on the material side and a lot on the sexy side.
I know I have some serious explaining to do to her, not least because she’s currently sharing a mansion with her nemesis—the man she hates most in the world—and it’s all my fault.
Once I’ve brushed my hair, I follow a trail of male voices downstairs, which leads me into another over-the-top living area. I see Dante first. He’s sprawled out on a red velvet couch with his boots resting on a gilded coffee table in front of him, looking as sleek and deadly as a black and tan rattlesnake. He’s deep in conversation with a small, overweight man with thinning gray hair, but they break it off as soon as I enter.
Dante looks over and glowers. I guess he hasn't got over the whole me slapping him in the face thing yet.
“Where’s Gabriela?” I ask, as his companion’s eyes feast on my body, making my skin rash up with disgust.
“How the fuck should I know?” comes his growl of a response. “Try the other wing. That’s where she keeps the girls.”
What are they? Cattle? “Joseph, then?” I ask coolly. How Eve deals with his shitty moods is anyone’s guess.
“Recovering, most likely.” This time there’s a hint of amusement in his dark expression, which makes me blush scarlet. Asshole. “He’s with the doctor. He busted a stitch. Second door on the left,” he adds, dismissing me back into the hallway with a flick of his hand.
I go to push the door open when a soft hand and a familiar scent slip into my senses and drag me sideways into an adjoining room.
“Holy shit, parcera, where the hell have you been?” hisses Vi, looking me over and frowning. “Hey, is that my dress?”
“Your aunt lent it to me. Is that—?”
“Whatever. It looks good on you.” She shakes her head as if it’s not important and plants her finger to her lips, beckoning me over to the other side of the room. “I’m trying to listen in on their conversation,” she confesses, pressing her ear to the ochre wall.
“Who? Dante and that guy’s?”
She shoots me a dirty look over her shoulder. “On a first name basis with him, are we?” She manages to sound both mad and hurt at the same time.
This is the downside of feeling again, I realize. All of my emotions are getting a look-in, including guilt.
“Listen, Vi, I know I should have told you everything, but—”
“Yeah, you think?” She pulls away from the wall and studies me for a second. “I guess we both had secrets we couldn’t share. I’ll go first, shall I? Brace yourself… Dante Santiago is my uncle.”
“He’s your what?” My expression can’t conceal my shock, and neither can my hands judging by the amount of motion going on with them.
“I’m his brother’s illegitimate daughter. Gabriela found out and adopted me when I was eight.”
“Does he know?”
She snorts. “Oh yeah, he knows. He hates my father so much he held a gun to my head last night.”
“And you lived?” I splutter.
“I guess he changed his mind,” she says, shrugging like it’s no big deal. How is she acting so calm about this? “I have to keep the hell away from him though, which is fine by me. Except when I want to hear what’s going on between him and Carlos Gomez.”
“The creep in there is Gomez?”
“Real pleasant, isn't he?” she says, rolling her eyes at me.
“Like a bikini wax on the last day of winter.” I watch her press her ear against the wall again. “I’m sorry I put you in that position. Believe me when I say I was desperate.”
“And I’m sorry I nearly sold you out to Fernandez, and shot your man,” she counters with a lopsided grin. I can tell she’s worried about it, though. “I’m glad he’s okay, ‘tho I gotta say I’m kinda bummed you chose El Asesino as your boyfriend.”
I laugh and shake my head. “I don’t know what we are… It’s complicated.”
“Just answer me one thing. Were you running from his fists or commitment?”
“Commitment,” I say honestly.
“Now that’s a language I can understand.”
“Are we okay?” I ask her anxiously. “I really want us to be.”
We’ve been through so much together these past couple of days. She’s had a big part to play in my healing process too.
“Sure we are… Now let me listen.”
I watch her for a beat, noting the deep concentration on her face.
“Why are you so interested in what they’re saying?”
“Fernandez has declared war on all of Los Cinco Grandes and Santiago. I want to know their strategies. I want to hear how it’s all going to play out.”
“You sound like a cartel queen in the making,” I say jokingly. “Either that, or a corrupt politician.”
“Like I said to Dante last night, the drugs aren’t going anywhere so why not make them work for us?”
My jaw drops. “Oh fuck, you’re serious. But you said you—”
“I know, I know, but I hate what fat old men like Carlos Gomez have done to Colombia because of their power trips more. To run an organization you have to be smarter than that, parcera. You have to be willing to work more with the people, not just exploit them. If I were in charge, places like Gabriela’s wouldn’t need to exist. No human trafficking, no prostitution…”
There’s real passion in her face as she says it. But it’s naïve of her to think like this, reckless even.
“Dante would never let you resurrect the Santiago cartel,” I tell her. “Even if he did, why would you want that level of violence back in Colombia?”
“I need to show him what I’m capable of. I need to show him I’m serious.”
There’s the sound of footsteps in the hallway outside.
“Just promise me you won’t do anything crazy, Vi,” I say, backing out of the room. “This isn’t the only path for you. I’ll
tell the cops what happened in Santa Perdito. When all of this is over, you can go back—”
“I am never going back, parcera,” she says, her dark eyes flashing with defiance. “That part of my life is done.”
I shut the door with an uneasy feeling. Vi’s changed since we arrived here. I’m still flirting with that line in the sand, but she crossed over when I wasn’t looking. I’m not the storm anymore: she is.
The hallway’s empty. I try another couple of doors before stumbling across a kitchen. Where the hell is he?
I turn to leave, and go smack into a familiar wall of hard muscle.
“Good morning, Luna,” he murmurs, his heavy hand clamping down across my mouth, bringing me up close and personal with a chilly gray-blue countenance that shoots instant sparks into my core. “Shhhhh…” Keeping his hand in place, he walks me backward into the kitchen and into a cramped storeroom off to the side. I watch him drag his gaze over my outfit. “Jesus… That dress is sin. Are you too sore to fuck?”
I shake my head, smiling into his palm.
A wicked smirk corrupts his lips too. “Do you trust me?”
I nod again, no hesitation. He could take me any which way he desires, and I’d still want more.
He leans in, scuffing my hair with his next words. “Do I have your permission?”
My second nod has me being spun around and pressed into a counter.
“Bend over. Hands out in front of you,” he orders. “Now that you’re mine, I’m not messing around anymore. It’s time we got a few things straight. I like it rough and I like it unapologetic, understood?”
This time I’m groaning out my response into his hand. God, yes… The harder he fucks me, the more I feel it, and I want to feel everything with him.
“Good. Bite me if I go too far. I’ll only make you beg for more.”
I think I’m dying from an explosion of senses. The flickering pulse in my clit is a button demanding to be pressed. I part my legs for him even before he asks, and he laughs in response.
“Bad girls get fucked even harder for that.” I drop my head between my shoulders as my panties disappear. His other hand is still clamped to my mouth. “I’m not removing this, baby,” he tells me. “You’re a screamer, and I have no desire to let Santiago and Gomez in on this rodeo.”
My dress gets flipped up around my hips. Next, it’s the sound of his belt buckle and zipper. I grind my naked ass against his erection and hear him hissing out in appreciation.
“So damn beautiful.” He slides his fingers in deep to check I’m ready for him. “And so damn wet… You could end a drought with that.”
He lines himself up, the smooth head of his cock pressed flush against my entrance, and then he’s driving into me so deep my muffled screams rupture the air.
He’s unrepentant, fucking me so violently against the counter I can't match his rhythm. Now he’s reaching around to pinch my clit in a way that has me detonating first. My climax tears through my body, squeezing his cock mercilessly until he’s cursing out my name.
“Fuck… Anna!”
He goes big, or he goes home. Now I know why he needed me whole.
His final thrusts are so savage, I swear I’m about to black out. When he comes, the jerk of his cock produces a flood of warmth inside of me that goes on and on forever. When he pulls out, I can feel the excess leaking out already.
“Oh, you’re definitely mine now, baby,” he growls, catching the drips with his fingers and massaging it into my inner thighs. I get the impression he’d do that with every inch of me if he could. “Too much?” His hand finally loosens around my mouth.
“No,” I gasp out, falling forward onto my elbows. “The more you fuck me like this, the more I start to believe in us. The more it all seems real, the more—”
This has him spinning me around, lifting me up onto the counter with a wince, and catching my next words in his mouth.
“I know, baby. I know.”
He forces our heads together like that time in the motel room, but it’s me who wants to push inside of him now. He finishes with a firm kiss to my lips.
“Get your ass back in the bedroom and wait for me there. I’m not done with you.”
My face breaks into my own wicked smile. “What if I say no?”
He catches my jaw between his fingers. His eyes are catching all the light today. “You wouldn’t fucking dare.”
“Then don’t be too long.”
“Don’t go issuing orders at me sweetheart,” he drawls. “I’m the boss here, not you.” He’s only half-playing, and hell if that doesn't turn me on even more.
He takes a step back to re-fasten his jeans, but there’s such a smug, arrogant look on his face that I do what any horny girl would do to teach her man a lesson: I spread my legs wide and high on the counter and let my fingers do the teasing.
“What the hell are you doing?” He pauses with his belt in his hands.
“Showing you what you’ll be missing out on,” I tell him, as I circle my still-throbbing clit in full view.
His gaze dips, and his expression tightens. “I can see my cum dripping out of your pussy… Do you know how hot that is?”
“Am I changing your mind yet?”
To my disappointment, he just laughs and shakes his head, coming in so close that my knuckles brush in matching circles against his stomach. “Nice try, Luna,” he whispers, “but I survived a week-long interrogation in Afghanistan… I think I can survive this.” With that, he kisses the top of my head and saunters out of the pantry without looking back.
“Motherfucker,” I wail, sliding down from the counter to collect my panties from the floor. This is just the start of us. The push and pull of us…
It’s not until I’m back in the bedroom like an obedient little lover that I feel that heavy hand across my mouth again. I knew you couldn't resist me, Joseph Grayson.
I wriggle my ass into his crotch, but something’s not right. Then I look down at a swathe of skin that’s dark not tan, and at a cheap silver watch that’s definitely not Patek Philippe, and a horrible realization dawns. At the same time, a needle drives deep into the side of my neck, and my world sinks slowly into hell again.
30
Joseph
Gomez is whining like a bitch. Since Fernandez declared war on us last night, the Costavo’s green and black viper has sunk its poisonous fangs into Los Cinco Grandes. The order has fallen. The National Police Special Operations Command took out two of the cartels—Perez in Medellín and Hurtados in Bogotá—in dawn raids a couple of hours ago, citing a load of bullshit charges. Unfortunately for them, that kind of crap sticks when you don't have the connections to make it go away. It comes as no surprise to anyone in this room that their processing plants were being looted at the same time that their asses were getting thrown in jail. Insider trading is alive and well in any business.
The fifth cartel, Luis Ossa’s organization, has retreated back to the relative safety of Puerto Carreño. Word on the street is he’s already formed an allegiance with Fernandez, a detail that Gomez seems super pissed about this morning.
“We should have cut a deal with him too,” he says sulkily, shifting in his seat. As if an ass that size can ever get comfortable. “We could have given him the two bitches as a goodwill gesture. They’re the ones who murdered his son and started all of this.” He leans back with a self-satisfied huff, as if he’s just unveiled the mother of all solutions to us.
Spineless asshole.
Dead asshole.
Anna’s not going anywhere, and I’ll happily prove it to him now. My hand strays toward my gun, but Dante catches my eye and gives me a brief shake of his head. I can tell he’s about two minutes away from blowing a hole in the Colombian himself.
“I’m more interested in why Fernandez chose to disband Los Cinco Grandes now,” muses Dante, knocking back his third bourbon of the morning. “This isn’t just about his dead son. Someone’s playing the old man from behind the scenes.”
/> I nod in agreement. “Russians?”
“Too subtle,” he says. “Bratva aren’t known for their refinement. They would have taken Perez and Hurtados out themselves, and not involved the cops. We’re dealing with an organization with a bigger picture for us to burn.”
“Any ideas?” I drain my drink too, and pour another. I’m self-medicating. The morphine’s wearing off again, and the pain’s even worse since I pounded Anna’s sweet pussy into oblivion an hour ago. She’s the worst and the best kind of influence on my dick, and another who doesn’t advocate subtlety. But if it makes her feel the way she needs to feel, then who the fuck am I to deny her?
“Who cares!” shrieks Gomez, rising to his feet as panic makes another weak man look even more foolish. “Unless you’re planning on leaving your army here permanently, Señor Santiago, I will forever be looking over my shoulder for Fernandez. He’s too powerful now… Perhaps we need to rethink our distribution agreement.”
“Sit down,” Dante replies coldly, flashing that fucking smile of his, and I start the countdown to Gomez’s demise in my head.
“I’ll talk to Fernandez myself,” Gomez blusters, refusing to acquiesce. “Maybe we can come to some arrangement once he accepts that I had nothing to do with his son’s death.”
Five…
Dante laughs. “Would you like another limp to go with the one I’ve already given you, Gomez, or shall I remove the leg completely this time?”
Four…
Three…
Gomez face swells up like a bullfrog. “You’ve grown weak and stubborn in the last few years, Señor,” he accuses, moving his chess pieces from ‘foolish’ to ‘suicidal’. “Your pretty new wife has turned your head.” Heaving his trousers over his gut, he turns to leave as Dante and I both lift our guns in unison.
“Señor Santiago! Señor Santiago!”
Gabriela bursts into the room, making all of us spin around. She’s left her usual composure somewhere in the hallway outside, and her eyes are streaming with fear. Her forehead is bleeding, and the collar of her black shirt is torn.
Shadow Man: Grayson Duet: Book One Page 18
