“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Instead of replying, I catch his mouth with mine and take what I want from him, while he takes what he wants from me. I don’t actually care if he ever kills or not, even beyond our stupid deal. I’ve already corrupted him enough, and in a way, knowing that I could kill him in a heartbeat and that he couldn’t return the favor makes this whole thing easier for me. I like knowing there’s an emergency exit, even if I don’t believe I’ll ever need to use it.
Because whatever this shit between us is or is not, the only thing we know for certain is that it’s forever. Only one of us gets to walk away alive.
And if we’re lucky, neither of us ever will.
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The End
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Thank you so much for reading Hard Candy! I hope you enjoyed Miel and Andrews’s story. If you did, please consider leaving a review. That would really help me out as a new author.
Want to go back to the beginning? Check out the Caged trilogy, where Miel and Andrews are first introduced. Caged is the story of Selina Palacios, a troubled heiress, and Javier Vega, the hardened criminal who takes her hostage in her own mansion.
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Excerpt from “Gold Cage”
A contemporary dark romance
"Dark, twisty, and all-around amazing!" ~ NYT Bestselling Author Anna Zaires
Orphaned heiress.
I was born into wealth, the daughter of Colombian coffee royalty. But when my parents were killed in an accident, and my brother was shot to death a few years later, I found out the hard way that money really can’t buy happiness.
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Reclusive socialite.
I’ve been living my life in limbo since the loss of my family, going through the motions in public, and then going home alone. You can’t have your heart broken if you don’t let anyone in, right?
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Defiant captive.
I thought I’d seen all life had to throw at me, but then Javier Vega and his band of dangerous criminals crash into my life, taking me hostage in my own home. They think I’m weak, prime for the picking, but they’re wrong. If I’m going down, I’m going down swinging.
Bang. Bang.
I jerk up in bed, panting and sweaty. It’s been a few months since I last had that dream, the one that begins with me happy and ends in gunshots. More of a nightmare, I guess.
I pull my long hair into a loose knot and hold it on top of my head, trying to cool off. It’s a useless gesture in the middle of another Atlanta summer scorcher. I’ll have to talk to Kate about cranking up the A/C. She’ll argue that she’s trying to save me money, as she always does, but I don’t know what the point is of an inheritance like mine if I can’t keep my own home cool.
Bang. Bang.
My heart somersaults. That wasn’t part of a dream, that was real. Gunshots, a little muffled, but definitely close. Definitely on the estate. I’ve only heard that sound once before, outside of my nightmares. My throat begins to close up at the memory, my instinct to curl up under the satin duvet and wait for help. My guards will handle the situation. That’s what I pay them for, after all. I grab my phone off the nightstand and call Eddie. He’ll tell me what to do. After an eternal minute, all I get is voicemail. Shit. What’s going on?
I spring out of bed, slipping into the first shoes I see, the glossy black Louboutins I wore to dinner, and grabbing the silk robe hanging by the door. I pull it on over my lace nightie as I dash down the hall, tying the belt tightly.
“Kate?” I call out, though I know my nanny-turned-housekeeper sleeps on the other end of the mansion. “Kate? Eddie? Alan?”
This place is deserted. Even when it was Mom, Dad, Max, and me, we rattled around this oversized palace like loose marbles. Now it’s just me and the tiny handful of help I decided to keep, and still I can never find anyone when I need them. Usually I don’t mind too much, reveling in the privacy or the occasional strange bedfellow to keep me company, but tonight the echo of my own voice down empty halls makes a chill dance up my spine.
At least I haven’t heard any new gunshots, I tell myself, forcing my scattered, still half-asleep brain to focus on the issue at hand. Although that silence probably means that the intruders are past the guardhouse and well on their way here. To me. Shit.
“Kate!” I try again, louder this time. I run halfway down the stairs but hesitate on the landing. I don’t know where to go. Dad always talked about installing a panic room, but that never came to be. For the first year I was alone, Eddie tried to get me to learn his emergency plan, but I never paid much attention, and eventually he gave up. Now I’m probably in huge trouble, and I have no idea what to do next. Call the police? I left my phone in my room, figuring Eddie would do that for me. Scream for help? My closest neighbors are well over a mile away.
I hear footsteps just outside, but before I can decide what direction to let my overwhelming flight instinct take me toward, the front door crashes open. I shriek in a caliber I didn’t know I had in me, jumping back as a handful of strangers storm into my home. There’s three of them, two men and a woman, all dressed in stereotypically clandestine dark outfits and carrying guns. Their gazes all fixate on me immediately—in my scarlet robe against the white wall, I’m like a bullseye—but my eyes lock only on the man in the middle. His dark eyes burn with a want so desperate it makes my blood run cold, a need so deep I know he’ll do anything to get what he came here for. For the first time, it occurs to me that this isn’t going to be a simple B&E, a petty robbery where I lose a couple diamond necklaces and get to carry on with my life tomorrow, a little shaken but nothing a bottle of wine or ten wouldn’t fix. No, this man isn’t an amateur thug here on a whim, and he’s not the kind of man that I walk away from in one piece. This is a predator, and there’s no mistaking what that makes me.
“Miss Palacios,” the man says, smiling venomously up at me, taking a step closer. He’s not very tall, perhaps only a few inches taller than me, but the way he carries himself all but doubles his height. He’s in a worn leather jacket, and shaggy black hair frames a tanned face. There’s a hint of stubble along his sharp jaw, and his lips twist up into a smirk as he drags those eyes over me. I can’t stop noticing the gun casually held at his side.
It’s too late for flight, so I throw my shoulders back and force myself into fight mode. Crossing my arms tightly over my chest, both to cover myself from the stranger’s leering gaze and to channel a sense of bravado I don’t truly feel, I cross the landing and preside over the scene with confidence. It’s what my mother would have done, I think. I hope.
“What do you want?”
The head guy gestures at the man behind him, and he takes off with a nod. Now it’s just him, me, and the woman in tight leather pants. Is that his girlfriend? Is this how I finally go down, after all the shit I’ve been through, at the hands of some crazy criminal couple? Where the hell are Eddie and Alan? Where is Kate?
“Your people aren’t going to save you,” the stranger says, as if reading my mind. I know he just guessed at my logical worries, but with the way his dark eyes bore into mine, I almost believe he can see right through me. “It’s just us now.”
“Did you hurt them?” My voice falters a bit, and I grip the bannister for support.
“No,” he says, and though I have no reason to believe him, I find that I want to.
“Then what the hell were those gunshots?” I demand.
“We were just introducing ourselves,” the man says, still with that goddamn smirk on his lips. The girl cocks her hip and crosses her arms, a much more successful execution of my own attempt at a violent pose.
“What do you want?” I repeat, knuckles white, voice tremulous. I can’t play brave for much longer. Whateve
r they want, whatever they came for, they won’t leave empty-handed, and they certainly won’t leave me unbroken.
“The only thing you have to offer,” the stranger says confidently, not even blinking. “We’re here for your money, Selina.”
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About the Author
Francesca's favorite fairytale as a child was Beauty and the Beast, and her obsession with twisted romances between captive princesses and growly bad boys only grew from there. She loves writing about badass women proving everyone wrong, and the obsessed alphas determined to tame them.
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When she's not entertaining dirty daydreams, Francesca is reading, knitting, quilting, baking, gardening, binging Netflix, and somehow finding time to eat and sleep.
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