Violent Delights (White Monarch Book 1)

by Jessica Hawkins

  I wasn’t alone, though. Diego was here.

  “Vete,” Cristiano ordered from behind me.

  With the command to leave, the man circling me looked over my head and left the dancefloor.

  “Go,” Cristiano said to Pilar next.

  She nearly tripped over herself as she scurried to the bar.

  After a moment, he spoke near my ear. “You’re more courageous than your friend.”

  It went against my every instinct to keep my back to him. The hairs on my nape rose. The mix of my pounding heart and the drink I’d had formed little stars in my vision. I tried to pass off my swaying as dancing rather than nerves. It would serve me right to fall on my face for toying with the devil. Could Diego even stop Cristiano from doing what he wanted? I’d never been scared of the dark while surrounded by this many people.

  “More courageous?” I asked. “Or more foolish?”

  He grunted. “Where are your guards?” When I didn’t answer, he added, “Can you turn around and look at me, Natalia?”

  A wild animal like him would sense my fear. I wasn’t sure if vulnerability would help or hurt me. I turned just my head over my shoulder but didn’t look at him. “Por favor. Go. I’m just here to have a girls’ night.”

  “You’re a little far from home.”

  “We didn’t want to run into anyone we might know. We’re not supposed to be out.”

  “Ah. You’re unsupervised then.” He lowered his mouth to my ear. “I won’t ask twice. Turn . . . around. Look—at—me.”

  It was no longer a request. I obeyed, facing broad, pulled back shoulders, somehow both severe and elegant. They squared off to the lean, muscular arms that had pinned me to his body as a girl, that had held me tight as we’d danced a week ago. His skull face paint had enhanced his bone structure then—or so I’d thought. Even without the mask, his angular jaw sharpened with high cheekbones and caved cheeks. A darker, more demanding beauty than his brother’s left me breathless. They had similar faces arranged like Greek gods, but where Diego’s features yielded to sun-kissed, smooth skin, Cristiano was harsher, weather-beaten with crow’s feet around his eyes. His neatly parted hair and clean-shaven face contrasted his stern expression.

  I sipped my drink, hoping to calm my nerves. “Why bother asking for anything if you’re just going to demand it?”

  He licked his lips as his eyes drifted over the short, tight dress Diego had picked out for me. Though Cristiano’s eyes were as black as a starless sky, they still glimmered behind his hooded gaze. “It’s the polite thing to do.”

  Had I been brave enough, I would’ve snorted in his face. He’d just shooed off Pilar with no regard for her obvious anxiety. “Is it polite to make a woman tremble with just a word?”

  “Very.” One hollowed dimple appeared as the corner of his mouth rose. “Sometime I’ll demonstrate on you.”

  My face flushed. He wanted to make me scream and tremble. Despite what I’d heard about his brutality, my mind descended into a shameful vision of being trapped underneath his wide shoulders, begging for a different kind of mercy.

  He took my Long Island Iced Tea from me and handed it to a random woman. She started to protest but then looked up and disappeared like the others. “Let me get you a real drink,” he said to me.

  Diego was right about playing hard to get. It was working. “I have to check on my friend,” I said. I took a step, but he wrapped his hand all the way around my upper arm and pulled me back against his wall of a body. “Watch your step, mamacita,” he rumbled before he picked me up by my waist, turned, and set me down.

  I lost my breath, disoriented by being repositioned like a doll. “What are you doing?”

  “There’s glass all over.” Cristiano signaled across the bar, alerting them to the mess.

  He kept one hand lightly at my hip. I shifted to see if he’d let me go. He flexed his long fingers against me, pressing the pad of his thumb into my hipbone. A few degrees south, and he would’ve found a pistol strapped to my upper thigh—if only Diego hadn’t made me leave it behind, rendering me defenseless.

  Cristiano started to pull me closer, but I moved away. He dropped just his eyes to mine. If he wasn’t six-foot-five as Pilar had guessed, he was within centimeters of it. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “You only dance with men in costume?”

  “You looked friendlier then.”

  He pursed his lips as if suppressing a smile. “I wasn’t.”

  “Did you know it was me at the party?” I asked, even though I could guess his answer.

  “It’s too loud down here. Come with me.” He nodded behind him. “Arms up.”

  Reflexively, I raised them when he cupped the sides of my breasts and slid the deadly weapons he called hands down my waist and hips. “What? Where?”

  “Upstairs.” He squatted to clasp one of my ankles.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, trying to free my leg.

  “Security check.”

  “My legs are bare.”

  “Nevertheless.” One dark eyebrow quirked. “People are creative about where they hide their weapons.” He grazed both palms along my outer and inner calf, higher and higher, until his hands were under my skirt. Finally, something else overtook my nervousness—a pulse of heat between my legs as his fingers lingered there.

  “Hold onto me if you feel weak,” he said, a hint of teasing in his voice.

  Nobody around us even flinched, either unsurprised or keeping their heads down. I tried to push his hands out from under my skirt. “I don’t have anything on me, not even my phone.”

  “Is that wise?” he asked.

  “I had nowhere to put it.”

  He paused but didn’t remove his hands.

  “And I’m not going anywhere alone with you,” I added.

  “We won’t be alone.” His lifted his eyes to look directly into mine. “My men are everywhere.”

  A threat. Perhaps Diego had my back, but he was one man against who knew how many savages. I couldn’t go anywhere with Cristiano. Either I’d be leaving myself vulnerable or Diego would try to stop it and put himself in Calavera crosshairs.

  Cristiano’s gentle touch didn’t distract me from the fact that it was still callused, or that his hands, as they moved to my other thigh, had taken many lives. His fingertips started high and then slid down to my ankle, which he squeezed almost tenderly before standing again.

  Kicking some glass aside, he gestured toward an elevator I hadn’t noticed before. “After you.”

  “I’m expected to trust that you aren’t armed?”

  He opened his arms. “Frisk me.”

  My heart skipped at the thought of touching him. The sprawling shoulders and flat pecs under a crisp white shirt. His wide, powerful torso. He was the weapon, big everywhere that I could see. What about where I couldn’t? My gaze started to drift down, but I stopped it and turned my reddening cheek to him.

  “I’ll save you the trouble,” he said, lowering his arms back to his sides. “Not only am I armed, but one signal from me could light this place up with fireworks.”

  I flashed back to the barrel of his gun under my chin. Diego couldn’t stop his brother then—how could he take on the devil now? I crossed my arms. “I’m not leaving the dancefloor.”

  White light reflected off the disco ball and flashed over the hard angles of his face. “Then you’ll have to come closer so I don’t miss a word you say.”

  That was better than the alternative, so I closed the gap between us with a step. We were nearly toe to toe, but he still had to lean down to speak in a normal tone. “Of course I knew who you were at the party. I wouldn’t whisper my wishes to just any butterfly.”

  I tried to force my muscles to relax. We were out in the open, and he was willing to talk. “Why me?” I asked.

  “Perhaps to see if you’d cower. To test whether I’d scared that little girl well enough. The fact that you’re standing here tells me I didn’t.”

  “I do cower. You c
an’t expect me not to in front of my mother’s murderer.”

  He started to jut his chin but stopped. “I’m only dangerous to those who cross me or have a right to be afraid,” he said. “Do you?”

  My instinct was to look up for Diego, but I schooled it. “Did my mother?”

  His jaw ticked. “No.”

  I dropped my eyes. I couldn’t think of her now. Even as I questioned what I knew, it felt like a betrayal to even be in the same room as Cristiano without attempting to burn it down. This was for a greater cause, though. The sooner I had what I needed, the sooner I could be free of this place and of him.

  I looked up again. “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “It’s my nightclub.”

  Words escaped me. If Diego had known that, he’d neglected to clue me in. “That’s not what I meant. Why are you back?”

  “To dance.” Cristiano took my hips and pulled me flush against him. With a slow roll of his body, I felt every bump and ridge of what had to be a gun. If it wasn’t . . .

  “I warned you I was armed,” he said.

  A flush crept its way up my neck. He held me still and moved his hips to the smooth, sultry beat of Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby.” My body undulated on its own as my hands slid up his chest. He squeezed my backside, moving me against him faster, harder, until we were so synced, he could’ve picked up one of my legs and slipped right inside me.

  I gasped at the thought and shoved his chest. “Stop.”

  He didn’t budge, but loosened his grip on me, giving me space. “No need for violence, Lourdes. All you had to do was ask.”

  I inhaled a sharp breath. My second name had been my mother’s first choice, but she’d deferred to Papá’s love of Natalia. “Nobody calls me that.”

  “I call you what I want—Lourdes. Or maybe Natasha. How do you like that?”

  “Years away, and you’ve forgotten me completely. It’s Natalia.”

  “Forgotten you? No. Not after the way you helped me escape.” His eyes drifted to my mouth, then along my neck and chest. “Natasha is what you’d be called in Russia.” He moved his hand to my upper back and pushed gently. “Let’s go. Our drinks are ready.”

  “What? Where?”

  “Come with me.” He guided me through the dancefloor, which was emptier than it’d been before his arrival.

  It was slightly quieter at the bar, where he handed me a tall, chilled shot glass of clear liquid. I put my nose to the rim, but it was odorless. “Vodka?”

  “Straight from the heart of Siberia. I brought it myself. Have you eaten?”

  “I had dinner. Why?”

  “Good.” He took a second shot from the bar, raised it, and said something in what sounded like Russian, followed by, “Salud.”

  I followed his lead and tasted the cool liquid, holding it on my tongue a moment before swallowing. It was definitely smoother than the drugstore vodka my friends and I drank at school. “You’ve been to Russia?” I asked, hoping for a clue as to what he’d been doing during the years he’d disappeared.

  “Da. That means yes. I’ve been many places, but like you, I’ve returned where I belong. I’ve come home.”

  I tucked the information away for later. “This isn’t my home.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want this life.”

  “Ah.” He clicked his tongue like a wink. “But it lives in you, Natalia, and its roots never stop growing.”

  It was one of my greatest fears—that I’d seen and learned too much to ever lead a normal life. That no matter what, I’d always be the nine-year-old girl who could trip over the dead body of a loved one at any moment—and then be forced to get right back up and defend my life. “Like a cancer,” I said into my shot glass.

  “No.” He tilted up my chin with his knuckle. “Like a heart. Like blood in your veins. Like bones.”

  “You’re wrong.” I tried to focus on anything but his skin on mine, but it only made me more aware of his touch. “Every day I cut more and more of this cancer from my body, and I’m still standing.”

  “You can’t remove it completely. Pretend it’s gone if it helps you sleep, but the poison’s already in you. You grew up feeding on it, and any predator who comes after you will get a bitter taste. Because you’re a survivor. Like the monarch. Like me.”

  Taken aback, I blurted, “I’m not like you.”

  He finished his shot and signaled for another. “Let’s hope you’re never forced to find out.”

  “With a bounty on your head, you strolled back into our lives. That sounds more like a death wish than a will to survive.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” he asked. “I was driven from the only life I knew with nothing but what was on my body. Now, I’m back with the world at my fingertips.”

  “But it’s not enough.”

  He tilted his head at me almost imperceptibly. “Meaning?”

  “You want more than you have. I know that’s why you’re here.” I rested my elbow on the bar. “Give me another reason that makes sense. There is none.”

  “What about history? A sense of home?” He raised his glass to someone across the room and drank. “I’ve found myself a family who’d die for me and I for them, but I’ve discovered a man can travel the world and never find home, Natalia. And you will never escape it.”

  Cristiano was more machine than man, always calculating, always locked and loaded to kill. Perhaps he couldn’t help what he’d been taught, but it didn’t make it any less true. “Maybe my father trusts you,” I said, “but I don’t. I know what I saw that day. I believe what I’ve heard, both when you worked for us and after. You’re not here out of nostalgia.”

  “Why am I here then?” he asked. “Tell me, Lourdes.”

  “Power. Revenge. If you take out my father and steal his business, you get both.” I hadn’t meant to say so much, but with Cristiano, candor was best. It was becoming clear he and I could talk each other in circles—I needed answers, though. “And don’t call me Lourdes.”

  “Why not? Because your mother did?”

  My heart palpitated once. That was exactly why. It surprised me he remembered. “Yes,” I said. “It reminds me of her, and for you to use it is a slap in the face.”

  “It suits you, though,” he mused after another sip. “Natalia is a girl’s name.”

  He thought he had me pegged, but he’d been gone a long time. I wouldn’t try to change his perception of me. Any misconceptions could only hurt him—and help me.

  “What if you’re right about my plans?” he asked, setting his glass on the bar. “Will you stop me?”

  I couldn’t. He had an army and the means to fund it. All I had was a sliver of hope that somewhere in his body, a heart still beat. That maybe he’d cared for my parents and me once. “Don’t hurt my family any more than you already have,” I said. “That includes Diego.”

  A smirk ghosted over his hard, chiseled features. “No, I never forgot little Talia, fiercely loyal to someone who doesn’t deserve it. Where is my snake of a brother anyway?”

  Cristiano calling Diego a snake was like my nine-year-old self stumbling across my mother’s body and taunting her murderer for being scared. “You have that one backward.”

  “Do you still believe after all this time that Diego would stick out his own neck to save yours?” Cristiano asked.

  “He already did,” I said. “He took a bullet for me. You’ll remember—you were the one who shot him.”

  Cristiano scanned my face a moment, then laughed. It was a foreign sound that caught me off guard, a rumble both dark and delighted. As he reached up, I flinched, but it didn’t deter him from pinching my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “You have no idea what it means to be willing to die for someone. Diego took a bullet, I’ll give you that. But for you? No, mamacita. When someone does that, you’ll know.”

  That was bullshit. Diego had been brave. There was nothing else he could’ve done. And if there was, I didn’t blame
him. We’d both been in shock—scared and worried for each other. Once he’d been shot, he’d passed out. What did Cristiano expect, that Diego would magically heal his leg, regain consciousness, and throw himself down the tunnel after us?

  Why was I even questioning it? Diego had warned me Cristiano would try to manipulate the truth. “You’re wrong,” I said. “He’ll always have my back.”

  “And yet, the evidence of his cowardice stands in front of me. Diego has sent a woman to do a man’s job.” He swept his thumb over my bottom lip and released my face. “Where is he?”

  I refrained from touching my tingling mouth to erase his uninvited, overly intimate caress. “I don’t know,” I answered.

  “I believe you don’t know his exact location, but he sent you.”

  My heart began to hammer against my breastbone. Cristiano didn’t believe I was alone, and I suspected he never had. “You’re the one who came to me,” I pointed out.

  “Diego knew I would.” Cristiano turned his head slightly over one shoulder. “Perhaps he’s right at my back. Or above us. Or in the shadows of the dancefloor. He’s not far, is he?”

  If I thought I could fool Cristiano one moment longer, I might’ve tried, but he was too shrewd for that. I couldn’t risk him catching me in a lie and walking away before I got any information. Honesty was likely the best way to get the same in return. “He’s here.”

  Cristiano drew back a little, his eyebrows rising. “Maybe your loyalty isn’t as strong as I thought.”

  “I’m loyal to Diego, but I’m not stupid. Neither are you.”

  “You may be if you thought you could deceive me.” He cocked his head. “I should be mad, shouldn’t I?” He cleared some of my hair away, lighting goose bumps over my neck and shoulders. “But I’m more intrigued to know that my brother is watching us now.”

  I stilled so I wouldn’t betray how he was affecting me. “If you touch me, you’ll be dead,” I warned him.

  “Ah, but I already have. Not once, not twice, not even three times,” he said, grazing my hip with one hand as he brushed his knuckle under my chin once more. “And now, I’m touching you again.” He placed his hands on my jaw, cupping my face as carefully as he might cradle a baby bird. He tilted my head up until I could look nowhere but into his eyes. “I put my hands up your skirt earlier. And where was your Diego?”