by Ally Vance
A temporary alliance between Dante Santiago and my father turned into a third-party massacre at my Tía Adriana and Tío Brody’s wedding. My mother, pregnant with me at the time, got caught in the line of fire, and it nearly killed both of us.
Papá laid the blame at Dante Santiago’s feet, swearing vengeance against his cartel and its bloodline.
I shake my head. “But that has to do with the Santiago Cartel, and—”
“Colton is the Santiago Cartel!” he roars. “He’s operating under a false name, María.” I wince at his mocking growl of my alias. “He’s Sam Sanders, otherwise known as Senator Rick Sanders’s stepson. You know, the former New York kingpin turned New York politician. Dante Santiago owns New York,” he stresses, shoving a hand through his thick, dark hair while pacing in front of me. “Jesus fucking Christ, Lola!”
The way he spits out my name, it might as well be a curse word.
“How could I have known that?” I insist, my voice shaking as I defend myself. “You and papá won’t tell me anything!”
Santi stops his maniacal pacing right in front of me. “You weren’t on a date last night. You were with him. No me mientas! Don’t lie to me.” His bitter expression turns deadly as he backs me against the building. “Troy Davis has been dragged from his hospital bed and is being chained to a metal beam right now,” he seethes, caging me with both hands. “His death is going to be long and painful before I shred him into unrecognizable ribbons of flesh. It’d be a shame if he suffers for someone else’s sins.”
My stomach lurches. “Fine! I was at Sam Colton’s party, but I swear Troy did put something in my drink. The last thing I remember is him taking me upstairs.”
My brother’s eyes are wild and crazed with hate as he draws his arm back and drives his fist into the wall. I cringe at the sickening sound.
“Sam didn’t touch me, Santi!” I scream, looking up at him with pleading eyes. “We never even spoke to each other.” Words as painful as they are accurate.
I’ve never had to fight for a man’s attention, but at that party, I locked gazes with the brooding boy with the dark eyes. I bit my bottom lip, letting it slowly slide through my teeth…teasing him. Enticing him…
And then nothing.
Sam fucking Colton regarded me as if I were nothing more than an inconvenience.
I never wanted Troy Davis. I simply wanted to force Sam’s hand.
Guess the joke’s on me.
“You think he didn’t touch you?” A cruel smile peels across Santi’s face. “Are you sure about that, chaparrita?” Cupping my chin, he leans close enough I can smell the nicotine on his breath. “This is why papá didn’t want you in America. You’re too innocent. Too fucking trusting.” His dark eyes flash with a hint of sadness as he pushes off the wall and walks away.
“Where are you going?” I call after him.
“To clean up your mess.”
“Santi!”
He pauses, but doesn’t turn around. “You’re my baby sister, Lola. A Carrera. By defiling you, Colton has fired the first bullet.”
I wince at the ruthlessness in his voice. “What are you going to do?”
“Fire the last.”
I shouldn’t warn him.
I should go back to my apartment and let Santi dish out whatever punishment he sees fit. After all, Troy tried to rape me, and Sam… Oh my God, did Sam Colton fucking brand me? We’ve never even said two words to each other before, but it seems he’s happy to let his knife do the talking.
I shouldn’t warn him.
The words repeat in my head as I pull my car into his driveway. They burrow deep into my psyche as I climb the marble steps toward his front door. They slice into my heart as I reach out a shaking finger and ring the doorbell.
Nothing.
I ring it again.
Nothing.
“Sam?” I press my face against the narrow window beside the door. There doesn’t appear to be any movement, but I still call his name. “I know you’re in there, Sam Sanders,” I say, hissing the now-familiar last name. “You don’t know who the hell you’ve fucked with. Why don’t you come out here and face me now that I’m conscious?”
Nothing.
Shit.
Exhaustion and nerves hit all at once, and I collapse forward, dropping my forehead against the glass. Heaving a sigh, I twist around until my back hits the bricks. Nice. Real smooth, Carrera.
I have no idea what I’m doing. I came here with no plan and no forethought. All I know is that I can’t get Santi’s words out of my head.
“Sam didn’t touch me, Santi! We never even spoke to each other.”
“Are you sure about that, chaparrita?”
I thought I was. But fuck, I can’t remember much of anything. And if Santi is right, and this S carved on me stands for Santiago, at some point late last night, I was alone with Sam Colton.
Something dark and forbidden flares inside me. Something I can never speak of or acknowledge. The thought of Sam touching me should sicken me, but it doesn’t.
It excites me.
“It’s just the drugs,” I say with a groan, pushing away from the house. “Whatever Troy slipped in my drink messed up my head.” Sighing, I turn to leave, when a yellow paper stuck to the far side of the door catches my eye.
The closer I get; I realize it’s a Post-it Note someone has scribbled on. Ripping it off the door, I read it word for word and line for line. Then I read it twice more. Each time, more heat crawls up my neck, staining my face.
As I read his words for the fourth time, I swear I can feel him watching me.
The mouse’s job is to not get caught… Unless that’s what she wants. Better luck next time, chaparrita.
Chapter Five
Sam
Senator Rick Sanders doesn’t raise his voice.
Even as a kid, growing up with my bratty twin half-brother and sister, I can’t recall a single time he yelled at us to, “go tidy our rooms,” or for me to, “stop fingering that hot girl in the pool when there was a bedroom upstairs.”
His methods of showing his displeasure are far more refined. When he’s really pissed, like he is now, his gray eyes darken to cold steel and the sharp lines of his Armani suit take on all the comfort of razor blades.
It’s his tone that chills the most. His easy drawl drops to a low and vicious rasp where every word, every vowel, every inflection returns to the tough Brooklyn streets where he grew up.
“What the fuck did you do, Sam?”
“You know what I did, Daddy-O, and you know why I did it.”
Leaning back in my chair, I gaze unseeingly at the white architrave in his five-million-dollar penthouse apartment home office. I was summoned here first thing, which I was fully expecting. My two bodyguard-cum-jailers work for him, not me. I knew a call to the senator would have been made the moment Lola Carrera walked into my apartment.
Still, they have their uses. Tapping phones is another trick I learned before my eighth birthday. After that, I graduated fast. These days, there isn’t a computer system I can’t hack, which is why I know my worth to an organization like Santiago’s.
Has she woken up yet? Is she hurting? Did she find the note?
“Nina is angry with you as well.”
“Why?” I scoff. “She’s not my mother. The first Mrs. Sanders is dead, remember?”
So is my deadbeat, piece of shit dad, if we’re skipping down that happy trail. He was found with his throat slit the day Rick discovered I wasn’t his. My stepfather doesn’t like loose ends.
“Manners, Sam,” he mutters, his subtext clear. Stop acting like a dick.
I can’t help it. Lola is mine, not theirs. Still, Rick’s been a pretty good father to me over the years, so I need to lighten up a bit.
“You’re just a kid playing in an adult world with very adult rules.” The senator fixes me with a glare, and I return it with a grin.
“Want me to tell you how pretty Lola is, Daddy-O? Are you jealous? Before my
stepmother came along, you’d screwed half of Manhattan’s trophy wives, plus their mothers-in-law.”
There’s a deep rumble of laughter from behind me. It’s a slow, dangerous sleeper of a sound, but it hits me like a steam train. Spinning around, I see the tall, inimitable, scary-as-fuck figure of my godfather darkening the doorway.
“The boy’s got your mouth, Sanders,” he says, striding toward us. Black jeans. Black shirt. It’s kind of fitting after all the death he’s dealt in the last fifty years. “I believe the age-old nature versus nurture debate just got resolved.”
“Go fuck yourself, Dante,” my stepfather drawls, not surprised in the slightest by the Colombian’s appearance. He tosses a couple of photographs across the desk at him. “Turns out we share the same exquisite taste in women if the Carrera girl is anything to go by.”
I catch a sideways glance, and my stomach drops. They’re all of Lola from last night, approximately thirty minutes before Troy exited stage left at a crawl.
The senator grins when he notices the look on my face. “We expected you to screw her, not brand her, you stupid dickhead.”
Wait, what?
“What happened to the pissed-off stepfather routine?” I say, blindsided as fuck.
Rick’s eyes glint in amusement. “He’s taking a cigarette break.”
“You knew she was here all long, didn’t you?” Shit. Shit. Shit. “When did you tell Santiago?”
“Santiago knew the moment she graced American soil,” my godfather interrupts, cocking a dark eyebrow at me. “When my enemy’s daughter happens to sweet-talk her way out of her heavily-armed Mexican compound and within touching distance of my territory, it would be remiss of me not to welcome her with open arms…”
Before I fucking crush her with them.
I fill in that last part for myself.
“You played me, Daddy-O.” Shades of red start misting up my vision.
“Reverse psychology, Sammy-O,” he says, handing my own mockery back to me, fighting another grin. “Tell the cool kid to stay away from the hot new chick on campus, then watch the sparks fly.”
“It was a test,” I grit out.
“A test,” he confirms.
“You never had any issues about me working for Santiago.”
“Sam, I’d be the last fucking prick to lecture you about blurred lines and morality, but if you’re planning to dance on the wrong side of the law, I’d prefer it if you partnered up with us.”
“Too bad I screwed it up. She’s been here a month, and I never said anything.”
Dante’s glare is punching a hole in my face. There’s a pause, and then his mouth tilts. “On the contrary… You stepped in when it mattered most. You can’t exact revenge on a body that’s already damaged.”
I know what he’s talking about right away.
“Troy Davis.” There’s another pause. “Is he dead?”
“He soon will be, but not by my hand. Carrera got to him first. If it were one of my daughters he’d drugged and assaulted, there wouldn’t be much of him left.”
The look on his face sends a shiver through my body. You don’t fuck with this man.
He gestures at the bar in the corner. “Sanders, are you going to get me a bourbon?”
“Get it yourself,” comes the easy riposte.
“The knife in the leg was a nice touch.” I watch, heart hammering, as he helps himself to my stepfather’s liquor. “I’d forgotten that one. Remind me to use it on the next Carrera we torture.”
“But not Lola.”
I say it too fast.
Too obvious, Sam.
“No, not Lola.” He shoots me a look over the rim of his glass. “I have more creative designs on her than that. Even more creative than carving my initial into her skin.”
I don’t correct his assumption. Even though that letter, that body, belongs to me, not him.
I gesture to the photos on the desk. “Tell me what you’re planning to do to her.”
The temperature in the room drops sharply.
“That sounded like an order,” Dante says idly. “Can you spell the word respect, or would you like my fist to give you a lesson?”
“Let it go, Dante,” my stepfather warns. “There’s no dick swinging in my office unless it’s mine and my wife is doing the honors.”
“Stay close to the daughter.” He finishes up his drink and pours himself another. “We arranged for her brother, Santi, to be out of town last night, but we won’t be that lucky again for a while.”
“Since when do my stepfather and godfather take such a keen fucking interest in my sex life?” I say, losing my cool.
“The moment you flashed up on Lola Carrera’s radar,” Dante clips back. “She sees you, Sam... And when a cartel princess sees, she doesn’t usually stop until she gets.” He slams his glass down, that wicked smirk catching at the corners of his mouth again. “That’s when you make things interesting. That’s when there’s no crueler torture than a bleeding heart.”
Chapter Six
One Week Later
Lola
This is a mistake.
I’m barely present, pretending to care as I go through the motions of making out with another random frat boy in the parking lot of my apartment building.
I should have never agreed to this date.
Alex-what’s-his-name’s kiss is wet and uninspiring, a pathetic substitute for the forbidden one I can’t stop craving. The touch of a man I dreamed of last night in such vivid detail, I woke up blushing from the sheer depravity of it.
Nothing like the fumbling, hurried hand attempting to unbutton my dress.
This isn’t working.
“Stop!” Shoving him away, I tumble into the passenger’s seat, wiping the remnants of his sloppy kiss away with the back of my hand.
“Come on, baby,” he urges, diving his hand into my long hair and twisting the strands around his fingers. “Don’t play hard to get.”
Fuck, that hurts.
“I’m not trying to.” Wincing, I pull away, only to get yanked across the console of his sports car. “But I also don’t fuck on the first date.”
Or at all…
“That’s not what I heard.”
I glare up at him, his smug accusation as dark as my brother’s eyes and as cold as his soul. “What the hell did you hear?”
My date leans in, his breath hot on my cheek. “Everybody’s saying you fucked Troy Davis at Colton’s party.”
Emotion clouds judgment, and I don’t think; I swing, a damn impressive right hook catching him across the chin.
“Son of a bitch!” he yells, releasing my hair to cover his bleeding lip. “What the fuck?”
Holy shit, I have no idea what the hell just happened. It’s as if the brand on my hip has infected my blood with venom. I’m drunk with power and feeding off the poison coursing through my veins.
Maybe I’m not as innocent as everyone thinks…
“I’m getting out of this car now.” I smile sweetly, the glassy confusion in his eyes fueling my sadistic enjoyment. “And if I hear a word around campus that anything happened between you and me other than a kiss goodnight, your football career will be over faster than Troy’s.” And if Troy’s current warehouse situation is any indication, his life as well. “Are we clear?”
His face blanches. “Get out of my car, you crazy bitch.”
Opening the passenger’s side door, I blow him a kiss and make my way toward my apartment. It’s well after midnight, the darkness blanketing the sky matching the one filling my apartment as I walk inside. Although I can’t see anything, my confidence is in control, leading the charge, while common sense lounges somewhere three or four rungs down the ladder.
Arrogance can be your strongest asset or your weakest flaw.
My father’s words of wisdom filter through my head as I cross the threshold into the living room. Arrogance is why I don’t bother turning on the lights.
Or maybe the mouse just wants to be caught.
“You’re late.”
I stumble into the wall, letting out something between a gasp and a shriek, when the lamp beside the couch clicks on. Harsh yellow light spills across the room, illuminating the man sitting on my couch. His familiar slicked-back dark hair casts a stark contrast against the pristine white leather, giving him a sinister glow. Three buttons on his gray shirt are open at the collar, highlighting the tightly strained muscles in his neck that lead to one hell of a pissed-off scowl.
Adrenaline deflates from my chest, and I sigh in both relief and irritation. “Ay Dios mío, Santi. What the fuck?”
“Pack your shit,” he deadpans, his expression tight.
“Excuse me?”
“Did I stutter?” Rising to his feet, my brother crosses the room, all six foot four inches of him looming over me like a warden. “You’re leaving for Mexico tonight.”
I stare up at him, blinking rapidly as if the movement will force clarity into those five words. “What?”
“You heard what I said.”
“I have a life here, Santi!” I shout, my panic escalating as I move in front of him, blocking his path. “My own life with my own friends. I don’t want to leave it.”
“I didn’t ask what you wanted, chaparrita. You’re leaving and that’s final.”
Final. He growls the word like papá. As if his word is the fucking gospel. As if I’m not an adult with a brain and free will. Granted, an adult who got herself roofied and branded, but that’s beside the point…
I fling my arms around like a broken windmill. “Do I not get a say in this?”
“No.” I want him to yell. Instead, he remains rigid and stoic.
“Santi!”
“This is not up for discussion.” He steps forward, and I automatically step back. “I warned you to stay away from Sam Colton, and you wouldn’t listen. Now they know.”
“Know what?” I demand. “And who’s they?” He’s talking in circles. Maybe if my family would clue me in once in a while, I wouldn’t be on the outside constantly trying to decipher all their fucking cryptic talk.
