Crown of Solana

by Susan Sheehey

  A black military boot moved under his gaze. Blood spots covered the toe. He strained to look up.

  Black pants, up to a gray t-shirt, and a tattoo of vines and thorns covering a thick neck. Lastly, black eyes with a matching snarl. Vasco.

  “Feeling numb yet?” The bastard smiled. “The paralytic has quite a sting at first, doesn’t it?”

  Paralytic? His mind grew fuzzy, and his arms heavy. A burn spread through his limbs, and he couldn’t feel his face anymore. Until it slammed into the tile floor. The whiskey. The shithead drugged me.

  He gasped for breath, the world squeezing in on him. Then the world flipped over—no, he flipped over. Vasco stared down at him with an evil grin. He wanted to kick him. Spit on him, rip his throat out, and snack on his vocal chords. But none of his muscles would move.

  “Before we start the fun, I’m going to take great pleasure in telling you how you ended up in this position.” He knelt over him and pulled his knife out of his ankle-sheath. Blood coated the blade. “How did the great Lozano fall?” He smiled. “Your precious son gave you up.”

  The man’s face was so close, if he tried really hard, he could muster a spit or at least a snarl. But his mouth wouldn’t move. My son would never.

  “Seems Ricardo wanted out of your lofty empire so bad, and you pissed him off just enough for him to put a contract out on his own father. The lofty price? Half your fortune. Along with your stash here. Which is impressive, by the way. For the special privilege of removing a particular thorn from his side. That’s enough for me to retire early. But it’s not the money I’m after.” He knelt even closer, and the man’s hot breath covered his face. “I couldn’t resist your blood on my knife.”

  The tip of the blade dug into Lozano’s neck; excruciating. But his muscles were frozen. He couldn’t flinch. He couldn’t even scream. Then Vasco pulled the knife away and held it over his eyes.

  Then he held it up to his nose and inhaled the coppery smell. In one sickening move, he licked it off. “You have too much iron. Probably should tell your doctor.” His grin turned wicked. “However, your son told me that real torture for you is something more specific.” Vasco sheathed his knife and left the room.

  If Lozano could feel his lips, he was sure they were trembling. His worst fear. Both Ricardo and Raul knew his terror of the dark. Dying surrounded by a black shroud. Which meant his son really did turn on him.

  Patricide.

  Lozano focused hard on moving his arms. Gripping his fingers, curling his toes, bending his legs; anything. Something to rip this bastard’s head off. Then he’d devote all of his time, money, and effort into killing Ricardo. Right after he severed Sophia’s limbs off in front of him.

  Move, dammit!

  Nothing budged.

  Vasco came back into view, wearing that same sickening grin, with a black plastic body bag in one hand and a concrete block in the other. “Wish I could take my time with this, but the party is about to be crashed.”

  He rolled the bag out on the floor next to Lozano, the plastic crinkling close to his ear. Then Vasco rolled him over, face down. The crinkling increased, and with a final roll, Lozano stared straight up at the ceiling tucked inside the black bag. His heart raced a million beats a minute, and the familiar ache of an oncoming episode ripped at his chest.

  Vasco zipped up the bag, all the way to Lozano’s neck. He gave him a wink, then started doing something with his feet. Suddenly, he knew. He was tying a rope to his ankles.

  Before long, the world moved above his head. First into the living room, then out the back door across the patio. His skull scraped against the threshold and pavestones, every stab and prickle making his eyes water. He couldn’t blink the pain away. All he could do was keep staring at the sky changing above his head. Dark clouds overhead, threatening rain any second. Finally, they reached the grass, soft under his body, but Lozano wasn’t any more relieved. He knew where they were headed.

  To the cliffs at the back of the property.

  He’d lost track of the number of carcasses buried over the years just beneath his limp body. He expected any moment for their arms to punch through the ground and pull him under. He almost wished for it. That end would be better than what was coming.

  Just when they reached the edge, Vasco stopped and disappeared from view. A few spits of raindrops landed on Lozano’s face, the ache in his chest now a crippling stab. His breaths were short, weak, and painful.

  Vasco returned, dropping the concrete block on the grass. He tied the rope to the block, his eyes fully black and flashing with evil.

  Son of a bitch. He’s getting the same high right before a kill.

  Lozano raged inside, desperate to scream. To call for help, get the attention of whoever was supposed to crash the party. Someone. Anyone.

  “The lights are about to go out,” Vasco sneered. He rolled the bag over, onto Lozano’s shoulder so he peered over the cliff’s edge, into the sea’s crashing waves seventy feet below.

  The world swirled in front of his eyes. Dizzying, nauseating, and the same view with which so many of his other victims’ lives ended. He’d never survive the drop. Good. Then I won’t have to live through drowning in the dark.

  “Can you smell it?” Vasco’s voice contained an edge of exhilaration. Lozano wanted to puke. “The bodies of all the people you’ve thrown over here? The salt decomposing their flesh and bones. That is, if the sharks haven’t gotten to their corpses first.”

  He rolled him back to the grass and closed the bag the rest of the way. Everything turned dark, the only light squeezed between the tight tangs on the zipper.

  “Thanks for the retirement fund. I’ll enjoy spending your empire, though probably not as much as Ricardo. Watch that last step.”

  He rolled once more, and the ground fell out. Tumbling, spinning in mid-air, and sickening. Because he couldn’t see the horizon. The crashing of the waves grew louder in his ears and the salt-smell stronger. All too soon, he slammed into the waves. His bones crunched. Stabs ripped through his head and chest, and cold water invaded the bag. He managed a last breath, though shallow and full of pain, just before the sea enveloped his face.

  The dark. Worse than any broken bone or paralyzed muscle. The bag squeezed in on him the further down he dropped, smothering his face and crushing his chest. Sucking the light away.

  The dark. The monsters.

  He screamed, and not even his air bubbles were visible. The fucking dark.

  “THIS IS IT.” FLYNN HELPED Alanna into her silk blouse, tying the strings around her back. The shirt left most of her back bare, and the sarong-pants wrap a matching ivory-white that ruffled gently in the breeze from the open bay windows in their room. “The start to the rest of your life.”

  “And yours. One less threat to worry about.”

  “Did you tell André the news?”

  “Yep. He’s getting ready to tell Gemma.”

  He finished tying with a kiss on her elegant neck. “Are you ready for this?”

  She turned in his arms, her grin brilliant and sparkling, just like the rest of her. “Are you?”

  When her arms wrapped around his neck, his chest filled with hunger. A hunger for Alanna. He lifted her up off her toes from the small of her back and squeezed. “Why do you think I hung around all this time?”

  She smirked. “The free food?”

  He tilted his head down and kissed her. She didn’t wait to open for him, and he tasted every inch of her mouth. Delicious. He turned and carried her petite form to the cushioned chair by the teak writing desk. She wrapped her legs around him, never releasing his mouth. The fervor between them made his dick harden and stretch against his deck shorts.

  There’s no way I’ll make it to the sailboat.

  He sat in the chair and let her straddle him. Her center rubbed against him, eager and wanting. Grinding, warm, and relentless.

  “We can start our date right here,” she murmured against his lips. “And finish it on the boat. Over an
d over.”

  “As many times as you want.” He threaded his fingers through her hair and cupped her head like a chalice. A sexy, ravenous chalice from which he drank his fill like a survivor on a desert island.

  She pulled back, the lust in her eyes as palpable as between her legs. She licked her lips and moaned in delight. Without a word, she leaned toward the table behind them and quickly signed a paper on the desk. A blue folder sat next to it, with a golden hawk stamped on the top.

  The pen slapped against the paper when she finished, and her whole body warmed beneath his touch. She looked back at him with another grin. “It’s official.”

  He couldn’t help his lips curling up in pride.

  “I have one request before we leave on our date,” she continued with another lick of her lip.

  “Already so demanding.” His heart skipped when she undid the top button of his linen shirt, the same color green as his eyes.

  Her eyes flashed a devilish intent. “Take me on this table. Right now.”

  He didn’t have to be asked twice. He instantly stood and laid her back on the table, right over the document she’d just signed.

  With a bite of her lip, she reached back and pulled a pin from her hair, letting the dark lengths drape over the table’s edge. The peaks of her nipples strained against the fabric.

  He slipped his fingers beneath her shirt and slid his hands up her belly toward her breasts. Heat radiated from her smooth skin. Every inch raised that delicious coconut scent from her body wash. “You smell like paradise.”

  When he reached her breasts, braless and eager for his touch, he squeezed. His dick stretched farther at her hum of pleasure. Teasing her nipples with circles and light pinches elicited the same moans from her lips.

  “I’m not going to last very long if you keep up with that,” she panted.

  He chuckled and gave an extra pinch. She reached down and helped pull down his shorts and briefs together, his dick jutting out thick and ready.

  “You’re so impatient.” He grinned.

  Her gaze locked on his, and she pulled on the single string of her sarong pants. Slow, suggestive, and wholly erotic. The fabric fell away, revealing her sweet sex, pink and plump. And bare.

  He raised his eyebrows. “No panties.”

  Her smirk turned devilish. “I wanted you to remember our date.”

  He snickered. “There’s no chance of me forgetting a second of you.”

  After rummaging in his pockets on the floor, he found a condom and slipped it on. Anticipation shook his hands, which he settled by gliding them up her thighs to her hips.

  “It’s hard to believe I’m this lucky,” he breathed. “To have you in my life.”

  Her smile lit up the room.

  “The chance that our lives would have even crossed paths…I can run the numbers, if you want.”

  “Later,” she giggled. Her fingers reached down and stroked his shaft. His dick jumped at her tight grasp. “For now, run this number all over me.”

  She guided him to her entrance, and he thrust home. Alanna gasped. Searing heat squeezed around his cock, snug and slick. The guttural moan from his chest couldn’t be contained. His muscles contracted, and he gripped her hips tighter. Her pelvis wiggled against him, rocking in primal need.

  Pink rose on her cheeks, and goosebumps covered her breasts. Her hands reached for him, to grip onto his arms, his elbows, anything she could reach. “More,” she panted.

  His shaft pulled out to the tip, and he rammed home again. She yelped and closed her eyes through a smile.

  “More of this?” he asked and slammed into her again. And again.

  “Yes,” she cried out. “All of it.”

  He moved one hand to her neck, caressing her glistening skin, and gripped her shoulder. “I’ll give you everything you want,” he whispered. With the other hand on her hip, he pistoned into her, over and over. She squealed with every thrust and gripped on to the edge of the table behind her head.

  The pressure built in his cock and coiled around his sac, tightening up into his gut.

  “Yes,” she screamed. Letting go of the desk, her hands found his chest and scratched at his skin, trying to hold on to him. “Yes,” she hollered again. With a final bite on her lip, her whole body jerked under him. Her channel squeezed and throbbed around his dick, pushing him over the brink as well. He growled through his climax and held on to her hips as she jerked and moaned through hers.

  Here on the table where she signed her life into finality, and his into reality. They were joined together for the road ahead.

  THE SUN’S RAYS BURST THROUGH thin clouds on its way below the horizon. The urge to press the horse faster under Gemma’s legs coursed through her body. But she’d promised the doctor if he cleared her for riding, she’d keep the horse at a walk. Not even trotting. But the surf splashed against Cherub’s hooves, and the feeling was glorious.

  André followed on Archangel, his chestnut stallion a few yards behind. His casual cotton shirt and pants, and ease in the saddle made him look as though he were born to ride a horse. The sun in his face made him that much more impressive.

  They’d taken a path through a forest of palm trees and fauna, every step of their journey bombarded by pungent flowers and iguanas skittering away. The strong scent of the salty ocean filled her pores.

  Each second on Solana grew on her; easier to fit in and become more comfortable.

  More like a home.

  Although the day had started out nerve wracking, because they still hadn’t heard back from Stefano. She’d been on edge, thinking the team had failed. Now they could possibly be lying dead somewhere thousands of miles away with no way of reaching home.

  When André had suggested a ride, she jumped at the chance.

  Cherub rounded a bend in the beach, and a secluded cove came into view, with their destination front and center. A waterfall plunged into a small lagoon a hundred yards from the beach, an oasis in heaven. A red quilt spread on the sand just on the edge of the lagoon, beneath a thin silk canopy tied to a trio of palm trees. The twilight picnic was complete with oversized burgundy pillows, dinner placements, candles, and champagne on ice.

  A superb distraction.

  She rode closer and dismounted. A flicker of pain nudged at her insides, but she waited it out by brushing Cherub’s mane as a thank you. Her prince followed behind her and jumped from the saddle. Two servants came from nowhere and escorted both horses off for a rest, water, and carrot treats.

  André gestured to the quilt, his smile so irresistible. Full of pride and love. “Alas de Ángel. One of the most beautiful natural wonders on Solana. Other than you.”

  Damn, he’s good.

  “Remind you of anything?” he asked.

  Gemma bit her lip through a mischievous smile. “Yep. Trying to replicate our date by the pond back at Reyna’s ranch.” Where they’d shared the most fantastic round of sex she’d ever had. She’d grown addicted to André after that…a special kind of love/hate addiction. “Only far more fancy. But you had me with the horses.”

  She settled back onto the pillow, letting the sand conform to her body beneath the blanket. The slight breeze from the rushing waterfall into the lagoon combined with the ever-present ocean waves in the air, cooling the early evening to a perfect temperature. Beside them sat several trays with fresh fruit, cheese, grilled shrimp, and other delicacies. One of them looked like caviar. The heavenly scent from the lemon salmon made her mouth water. Alfred’s certainly outdone himself. He must really want that job.

  “This a great way to seduce a woman.” She cocked an eyebrow at him.

  André smiled as he started to uncork the champagne. Sparkling cider from the label. “I had good news. Wanted to share in a unique way.”

  Her ears perked up. “Good news from Stefano?”

  He smirked. “Patience.” He poured two glasses and handed one to her. “Doctor’s orders, no alcohol. But we still need to celebrate.”

  She g
rabbed the flute, tapped the edge with his, and sipped. The cranberry flavor bubbled in her mouth, cold and ticklish to her nose. “I’m all for celebrating. Spill it.”

  He settled in beside her, both of their feet spread toward the beach. Waves filled the silence as he drew out the suspense. “Stefano’s team reported back. They’re on their way home.”

  Her heart soared. They survived. But her levity stopped. “Lozano?”

  “He was already dead.”

  The words took a moment to process in her brain. “What? How?”

  “They found his head henchman gutted on the kitchen floor, six more guards, dead throughout the grounds, and all of the safes empty. The guns and money had been stripped.”

  The lead weight refilled her stomach. “Vasco…”

  “There’s no way to know for sure, but he suspects so.”

  Her heart squeezed. “That bastard is everywhere. So where did they find Lozano?”

  “You sure you want to hear this part? It’s…graphic.”

  “I want every detail.”

  He pressed his lips together after downing his cider. “They found Lozano in a body bag, tied to a concrete block at the bottom of the bay behind his estate. From his body temperature and coloring, he’d drowned not more than an hour before.”

  “Ho-ly-shit!” Gemma dragged the words out as her brain processed the news. “They missed that prick by an hour.”

  “Less than that. The man needed time to empty out Lozano’s stash of weapons and money.”

  She shook her head. So close.

  “Stefano said the number of hastily dug shallow graves in the backyard was insane. They managed to dig up one of them and found human bones. Alongside Lozano in the water, there were at least twenty other concrete blocks scattered nearby attached to ropes or chains. The sharks had already eaten the rest.”

  “Where’s Vasco?”

  André paused. “Does it matter?”

  Her lips parted. Did he really ask that? “Of course. Otherwise, we look over our shoulders the rest of our lives.”