Hearts Of Darkness (The Santiago Trilogy Book 1)

by Catherine Wiltcher

  “Take her upstairs,” I say, glaring in Eve’s direction.

  “Don’t you dare touch me!” she cries, taking a step away from Joseph who catches my eye briefly in amusement. “There’s no way I’m leaving you here to hurt that woman!”

  “You will if you know what’s good for you…”

  Even so, I feel an odd sense of pride. Eve Miller fights like a hellcat for what she believes in but this two-faced bitch isn’t worth it.

  “Do it, Joseph. Room on the left after mine.”

  Joseph nods, sizing Eve up before grabbing her around her waist and tipping her easily over his shoulder.

  “Put my down!” she screeches, bucking like a bronco. My trigger finger tightens as I watch him clamp one arm over her smooth bare thighs to hold her steady. Just seeing another man touching her is enough to make me lose it, no matter who gave the order. I doubt Joseph will thank me for it later, though. Eve’s not going quietly. I hear her curse and shriek my name all the way upstairs.

  So… Valentina,” I say icily, turning back to my treacherous housemaid and aiming my weapon at her head again. “Exactly how long have you been spying on me?”

  I take a shower before I seek Eve out. My knife work is not as creative or prolonged as my cousin’s but it’s no less effective. At around 2am this morning Valentina broke and gave up the name we were seeking. Two missing fingers will do that to a person, I’m surprised she held out as long as she did. The name itself offered up no surprises.

  Emilio.

  So my brother’s started keeping tabs on me. He knows Eve’s still here and he knows I’m still fucking her but he has no idea how I feel about her… yet. He knows her name, though, and that’s bad enough. Emilio’s as fanatical about loyalty as I am – it’s a given in this business – but I know how his mind works. He’ll interpret my lies about Eve as some kind of conspiracy, particularly once he figures out her father’s a DEA stooge and what my angel likes to wax lyrical about in the nationals every week. It doesn’t help that one of her articles helped expose a minor partner of ours in Miami last year. The guy was unreliable, she did us a favor, but that’s not the way my brother’s going to see it. He’ll want contracts out on her and her family immediately.

  There’s a storm brewing on the horizon, perpetuated by a blue-eyed angel who has no idea what she’s set in motion and would no doubt revel in it if she did.

  I dress quickly and step out into the library again. Once inside my bedroom I settle on the edge of the chair, elbows on knees, my hands forming a steeple in front of me as I listen to Eve crying herself to sleep through the wall. It’s a pitiful sound that tears at me like the claws of a tiger. How can thirty seconds of this rip my soul apart whereas some maid can scream at me for hours and I don’t feel a thing?

  I need to figure out how to twist tonight’s revelation to my advantage. This game is all about staying two steps ahead of the enemy, because that’s exactly what Emilio is now. He drew first blood by infiltrating my compound. We had an understanding, or at least I thought we did. I toe the line on the proviso he leaves me the fuck alone. Joseph knew the score as soon as Valentina let slip his name. For too long my brother’s been listing the balance of power in his favor and I’ve been content to sit back and let him, but not anymore.

  I pause for a moment, my hand resting on the handle of Eve’s door. “You want to talk about loyalty, big brother?” I mutter. “Well, you just crossed the fucking line.

  “Did you kill her?”

  Eve’s voice drifts out to me from the darkness.

  I choose not to answer. Instead, I close the door behind me, and inch slowly towards the bed. The shutters are drawn and I can’t see a fucking thing.

  “Did you, Dante?”

  Her voice is hesitant and scared – scared of my answer; scared of what I’m capable of; scared of what I’m planning to do to her now.

  “No, Eve. I didn’t kill her.”

  Not yet anyway… She’s strung up in one of my warehouses approximately twenty-four hours away from bleeding out.

  “Did you hurt her?”

  “No more than what was necessary.”

  The grim silence that follows tells me she doesn’t like that subtext at all.

  From the slivers of moonlight creeping around the edges of the closed shutters I can just make out the slim outline of her body under the white sheet. I want nothing more than to climb in next to her and claim her goodness for myself like the selfish bastard that I am. Five hours of inflicting pain on a person will do that to man. Instead, I find myself concerning myself with her comfort.

  “Are you still hungry?”

  “You think I can eat?” she says incredulously. “After how you talked to me over dinner and what I saw in the kitchen? After laying here for hours imaging what you’re doing to Valentina?”

  “You need to temper that imagination.”

  “And you need to temper your damn depravity. You’re despicable. They should lock you up and throw away the key!”

  “You’d still visit me though, my angel. You wouldn’t be able to resist.”

  To my surprise her mocking laugh goes right through me like jagged nails down a dirty blackboard. “You think you’re so irresistible, don’t you? Are you familiar with Stockholm Syndrome, Dante? None of this is real. If I ever step foot off this place there’s only one direction I’m running – away from you.”

  “Oh sweetheart, don’t kid yourself. You’ll never escape from me.”

  She moves quickly for such a slight woman. Bam! She slaps me so hard that I stagger backwards. I’m still seeing stars as I grab her wrist to block a second blow, twisting her body until she’s face down on the bed with her arms locked behind her back, with me kneeling over her.

  “Take your hands off of me,” she cries.

  “It’s too late for that.” I tear at the hem of her t-shirt until it’s bunched up around her hips. “I’ve told you before about making sudden movements around me… Now I’m going to have to punish you for it.”

  I hear the breath catch in her throat. God, I love the conflict in her. I fucking live for it. She hates me and wants me, and it drives her out of her mind. My eyes are starting to adjust to the lack of light now and I can see every perfect curve of her ass in front of me, just begging me to sink my teeth into it. Instead, I raise my hand and bring it down hard across her tender flesh.

  “Fuck!” she screams, the intensity of my stinging blow jolting her forward.

  My dick twitches. I’m a sadistic asshole. Delivering pain and pleasure is so tightly entwined for me. I can’t see the point of one without the other. All of a sudden I want to make her hurt so I can soothe her, twisting at her emotions until she sees only me.

  “Don’t cuss,” I growl, my jaw gritting as my erection catches against the inside of my fly. “It’ll only make it worse for you.”

  I can’t hold out much longer. I need her too much. This woman has the ability to make me lose all sense and reason. I bring my hand down again, a little too hard this time but I can’t contain myself. She whimpers but keeps her mouth shut and that turns me on even more. I desire her strength as much as her light.

  I deliver three more blows, each as brutally precise as the last, before I rip her panties down her thighs and thrust two fingers inside her. Jesus Christ she’s wet.

  “That turned you on, didn’t it, my angel?”

  “I hate you,” she replies, her voice muffled from the pillow, her cheeks wet with tears.

  “It’s a fine line between that and the alternative,” I snarl, reaching for my belt.

  14

  Eve

  The pain from the first blow forces tears from my eyes. Damn, that hurts. But there’s a craving in me that’s superseding the worst of the discomfort. I’m suddenly aware of every curve and crevice of my body, from the heaviness of my breasts pressed tightly against the mattress to the aching need deep within my core, a core that’s now flooded with wetness. Everything is being pulled tighter in
to focus with each new blow. It’s degrading being treated this way but the rush of dark, euphoria is unlike anything else. With a start I realize that I want him to do this to me.

  I count five agonizing, intense, exhilarating blows before he finishes and leans over me, assaulting me with the scent of hot, excited male and I feel his fingers roughly pushing inside of me.

  “That turned you on, didn’t it, my angel?”

  “I hate you,” I lie, my voice muffled from the pillow, my cheeks damp from my tears. If I keep saying it out loud then maybe my words will disguise the truth from the both of us.

  “It’s a fine line between that and the alternative.”

  He’s right. I’m not fooling anyone in this room.

  He removes his fingers and releases my arms from his vice-like grip. I whip my body round to face him, thankful for the dark so he can’t see my blushes. I watch silently as he stands and strips, first his t-shirt, then his jeans. In the dim light I can see he’s not wearing any underwear and he springs free, primed and ready. My core is burning. I’ve never desired anyone as much as I desire him now. To demonstrate this I don’t wait for him to undress me. Kneeling before him, I slide his t-shirt over my head and remove what’s left of my panties.

  With a growl he comes for me then, driving into my body with all of his tremendous weight, cupping my face in his hands as we tumble backwards together onto the bed with me trapped underneath him. He’s savage and animalistic with his touch, scratching my breasts and thighs with his fingernails in his haste to mold himself to me. I spread my legs wide, locking my ankles around his waist as powers into me with one, ruthless thrust as if he can’t hold back from me a second longer.

  “My angel!”

  I cry out in response, arching into the dense wall of his abdominal muscles as his thick cock forces its way into my body.

  He’s driving in and out of me at a feverish pace now. My fingertips find his ass, digging deep, demanding more of him, feeling the powerful muscles flex as they work hard to comply. His hands are buried deep in my hair, holding me immovable beneath him. The slick sound of skin on skin fills the darkness all around us. A soft sob escapes my lips. The tension between my legs is building, building… I’m hurtling towards that precipice at lightening speed.

  “Do you feel me, mi alma? Do you feel how much I desire you?”

  “Harder,” I gasp, “Fuck me harder, Dante. Take it all away.”

  He falters suddenly, his head snapping up, his piercing gaze penetrating the gloom of the bedroom.

  “Don’t stop,” I beg him, “please don’t stop.”

  “Kiss me,” his urges, his lips seeking out my own as they collide in a blaze of passion, his tongue skillfully dueling with mine as his picks up his crazy pace again.

  Quickly, so quickly, the fire in my core returns, dousing every nerve. It’s more intense this time, a heady, speeding rush of pleasure, and I cry out as I struggle to control the strength of the flames. Raking my fingernails down his back, I tear myself away from his mouth, screaming out his name as he drives me all the way over the edge. At the same time I feel his cock jerking inside me as he comes too, flooding me over and over with his warmth. It doesn’t seem to weaken his desire; he’s still pounding into my body regardless.

  My second orgasm follows quickly after the last. After the third and fourth I come close to blacking out. He’s not letting me catch my breath. There’s an edge of pain to my pleasure now. It’s like I’ve come full circle but I can’t stop craving this physical connection with him.

  I never ever want to break away.

  The next morning I awake with the warmth of him still wrapped around my body. His erection is pressed against the small of my back, his heavy forearm slaked across my waist, weighting me to the bed.

  “Good morning, my angel. Did you sleep well?”

  “Promise me you didn’t hurt her,” I say quietly. Last night my dreams were twisted visions of bloodied limbs and piercing screams. I can’t get Valentina out of my head. I want to see her. I want to beg for her forgiveness for telling Dante about what I saw.

  “You must be hungry. I’ll arrange to have something bought up for you.” He rises from the bed and the movement in the mattress rocks me as much as his silence. I’ll get no assurances from him. Perhaps that other girl, Sofía, might be able to tell me? Perhaps she knows where he’s holding her?

  “Where are your clothes?” I ask, silently revelling in his naked glory as he stalks across the room. There’s not an inch of fat on that perfect plane of olive skin, only a faint disfiguring underneath his left rib cage and his right hip. Battle scars I think quickly, glancing away before he catches me staring.

  “Right here,” he says, bending down to pick his shirt up of the floor.

  “I don’t mean those. Where do you keep all your other stuff?”

  “Why concern yourself with that?” He looks bemused as he pulls his shirt over his shoulders and starts on the buttons.

  “Why? Because it’s weird. There are no jeans or shirts hanging in your closet next door but every time I see you you’re dressed differently.”

  “Black magic,” he drawls, reaching for his jeans.

  “I know nothing about you, Dante. You’re like some enigma with a penchant for illegal activity.”

  “You know a few things, my angel, you just choose not to accept them. You choose to close your ears and eyes to exactly what I do because it’s unpalatable. I’m not judging you for it, Eve, but let’s not dress it up as something its not.”

  “Maybe I’m ready to listen,” I say quietly as a vision of Ryan flashes before me eyes. “You could start by giving me a straight answer when I ask you a question.”

  He turns to glare at me. “Likewise.”

  There’s a pause. “You know I’m not a receptionist, don’t you?”

  He smirks and turns for the door.

  “How long have you known?”

  “Toast or cereal, mi alma?”

  “Why haven’t you killed me yet?” I watch him stiffen. “You know, don’t you? You know exactly what I write about?”

  My heart is hammering in my chest. This isn’t about the safety of my parents anymore, this is about me and him. I need to see some sort of guarantee in those dark eyes because I don’t want to live the rest of my life in fear. I want to grasp at some semblance of a future or end it right here, right now in this bedroom.

  “If you’re willing to torture a girl for rifling through your stuff, what are you going to do to a reporter who writes the truth about the narcotics trade, and hates everything it stands for? Because that’s who you’re really working for, isn’t it, Dante? Cartels like the Santiagos?”

  He frowns. “What the fuck do you know about the Santiagos?”

  “I know they’re the lowest of the low. They’re cowards who hide themselves behind others. They manipulate this whole dirty business to line their own crooked bank accounts, to hell with the families they destroy along the way…” My voice catches in my throat. “There, I’ve said it, I’ve laid all my cards on the table for you so just kill me now and get it over with.” I close my eyes and wait for the bullet.

  Seconds bleed into minutes and still I’m left waiting. Eventually I force them open again. He’s standing there staring at me.

  “You’re right,” he says harshly. “Perhaps we’re both guilty of enforced ignorance. And no, I’m not going to kill you, Eve Miller… you know why? Because I know you’d never betray me.”

  He says it like he’s daring me to contradict him.

  “How can you be so sure?” I whisper. I’m not even sure of it myself. I’d jump at the chance to avenge my brother. I know I won’t rest until the Santiagos are held accountable for his murder.

  “Because you and me… whatever this is… it’s bigger than this business, my angel,” he says, his dark eyes raging at me. He walks back over to the bed and caresses my cheek with the rough pad of his thumb. “I’m not so naïve as to think that what I am and w
hat I do doesn’t affect you. I’m not conventional, Eve. I’m not some lawyer or a bank manager and I don’t purport to be.”

  “There must have a been a choice somewhere along the way… There might still be one.”

  He lets go of me and sighs. “Not for me.”

  “The past doesn’t always have to dictate–”

  “Do you follow your own advice, Eve, or is it just a guideline for men like me?” He sounds angry now. Exasperated.

  This pulls me up short.

  “You know about my brother don’t you?”

  “Yes… I’m sorry.”

  He almost sounds remorseful. I glance at him but his face is expressionless again. I couldn’t handle it if Dante had anything to do with his death, my whole world would crumble.

  Seeing the growing panic in my eyes, he leans across the bed and folds me into a tight embrace, as if he’s trying to halt my racing thoughts. He starts to stroke the back of my hair but they’re too singular and terrifying to dismiss so easily. One question keeps returning to me over and over…

  What if these hands are the same that killed my brother?

  Later that day I find the courage to venture downstairs again. Dante’s been absent since first thing this morning and I’m sick to death of these walls and the dark and twisted paths that my thoughts keep leading me down. Even the glorious sunshine beating down on the balcony hasn’t offered up much of a diversion for me.

  I’m wearing another white shift dress – cut low with large, copper buttons all the way down the front. Easy access, just the way he likes it. At least he won’t have to rip this one apart. It’s almost as pretty as the linen dress from last night and my stomach muscles clench as I recall the shocking events during dinner. That’s another reason why I’m leaving the sanctuary of my room. I’m on a mission to find Sofía. I need to assuage some of my guilt. I need to find out if Valentina is ok.

  The spacious lobby and kitchen are empty so I find myself wondering in and out of a labyrinth of beautiful but strangely sterile rooms, all featuring a similar theme of heavy dark furniture and white walls. There’s a starkness and parity to this place. Despite the elegance it’s not a home, it’s a shell. Eventually I find a couple of pictures hanging on the wall in a dining room but they’re of an unfamiliar landscape. Are these pictures of Dante’s home? Do they mean anything to him or they just throwaway artifacts?