by Lana Sky
At the sound of that name, Jaguar inclines his head, his lip quirking downward. “Anything I promised you beforehand is invalid,” he says. “Considering that you’ve been lying to my fucking face from the very start. What have you told her, huh? And why are you so damn fixated on keeping her? It couldn’t be because you’re planning on taking her for yourself, right from under my nose?”
These past few days, I’ve become so accustomed to reading Domino’s every nuanced expression, that I think it’s the only reason why I catch the flicker of alarm that crosses his features.
Apparently, so does Jaguar because he laughs. “Don’t look so surprised, Dom-Dom.” Turning on his heel, he strolls for the balcony. “You may have your own network of spies and allies, but so do I. Some of the people who you think are in your corner have always been squarely in mine. I’ve known for months that you’ve been planning and squirreling away your money and assets where you think I won’t see it. You’ve been clever,” he admits, gripping the railing. “Very, very clever. But not clever enough. You see, Dom-Dom, you can’t outsmart me. I am always one step ahead, and the next time I catch wind of you plotting behind my back, I’ll come back here and run a knife through Ines’ throat and use her blood to water your pretty little flowers. I fucking dare you to try me.”
“You’re bluffing.” Domino scoffs as he barks out a laugh of his own. “Always taking shots in the fucking dark. Your paranoia will be your downfall, Julian. So eager to find a hint of betrayal. If you thought I was dealing behind your back, you wouldn’t come here with open arms to sunbathe on the fucking terrace.”
“You’re right.” Suddenly serious, Jaguar turns around, his eyes glinting with a calculating gleam. “I’d set this place on fire with you inside that pretty little house, and I’d use the screams of you, and all of your traitor staff, as the soundtrack to a nice barbeque I’d hold right here on your so-called terrace.”
He doesn’t look relieved of his suspicions. If anything, his raised eyebrow conveys irritation, as if he’d been confident of a win only to have his power play foiled.
Because, in this game of verbal poker, Domino has an unshakable poker face. I can’t get a read on him either way, and I realize that all those years playing toady for my father paid off to his benefit. He’s mastered the art of deflection.
Deep down, some sick part of me might be impressed before I remember that neither of these men has my best interest at heart. If anything, I sense that I’m some kind of toy being yanked back and forth between the two of them in a twisted game of tug of war. Who will win? I honestly can’t decide which victor I prefer.
“Fine.” Jaguar throws his hands into the air, his grin firmly in place once more. “You win. Why don’t you tell Ines to find us something to eat, and we can discuss our differences like men, over dinner.”
“Ines!” Without taking his eyes from Jaguar, Domino waits until the woman appears dutifully near the entrance to the house.
“Yes, sir?”
“Have cook prepare us some tapas and serve them in the dining room.”
Jaguar claps as she scurries away. “Wonderful! After you.”
“As you wish.” Domino snatches my wrist before heading inside. I scramble to keep up with him, noting the slight changes to his appearance that I missed. He’s wearing jeans—the first time I think I’ve seen him in such casual attire since he brought me here. His hair is windswept and wild, his shirt a plain gray tee shirt that betrays the tension coiled in his muscles. He looks…
Tired. Like he raced here, not expecting Jaguar to arrive so soon—a surprise I think the other planned for that very reason. He wanted to both unnerve him and catch him off guard. And he primarily wanted to speak to me alone.
I shudder at the potential reasons why, and decide to fixate on the only damn thing worth contemplating now. How the hell can I escape both men? Despite all of Domino’s taunts about what awaits me in Jaguar’s domain, meeting the man firsthand has cemented that I don’t want to find out. My throbbing lip is warning enough—Jaguar’s Guarida will make my time here, with him, seem like paradise and the thought of that utterly hollows me.
I go numb, reduced to staring blankly at the surface of the glass dining table as Domino shoves me into a seat beside him. Surprisingly, Jaguar takes one directly across from us without comment. Though I sense his gaze on me continuously, noting every little thing down to how many breaths I take.
Within minutes, Ines scrambles in, carrying a tray of tapas that she places on the table’s center along with a fresh bottle of wine and more glasses.
I reach for one, desperate for something to dull the fear I’m barely able to keep at bay. My fingers have just grazed the goblet when I see a shift of movement in my peripheral vision. Domino. If I’m not mistaken, he shook his head. Don’t.
“I don’t think I’m very thirsty,” Jaguar declares as I withdraw my hand.
If his refusal foils some plan of Domino’s, I can’t tell. His expression is more guarded than I can recall, even from his days at my father’s side.
“Where is Alexi?” he asks. “I would have thought you’d want to spend your time getting reacquainted with her.”
“Lexi-Lex, is taking a walk,” Jaguar says dismissively. “Let’s talk about Ada-Maria instead, shall we? As smooth a talker as you may be, Dom, I don’t think you need three extra days. In fact, given the state of her, who knows if you’ll lose control and render her unconscious for another week. I want her in the Guarida safe and sound tonight. If money is what you want, I’ll pay whatever you think she’s worth. If it’s the sex you’ll miss, I’ll leave Lex here to satisfy any need you may have—bondage included.”
“I don’t think she’ll like that very much,” Domino counters.
Jaguar chuckles, shaking his head. “She’ll like whatever the fuck I tell her to. Unlike you, I know how to handle my women. If I tell my Lex to walk, talk, and act like Ada-Maria here, I doubt you’ll be able to tell the difference. Unless her sexy little pout isn’t the only thing you want her for.”
“You promised me three days,” Domino repeats. “I want what I’m owed.”
“And you promised me that I could have Ada-Maria Pavalos in exchange for my assistance arranging a hit—albeit a sloppy one—on Don Roy. Do you realize how precarious a position it places me in? To go against a man so revered in our circle? Many, many of my enemies might assume I’m vulnerable and see it as a time to strike.”
“You wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t like the position it left you in,” Domino replies, his head cocked, brows furrowed. “Right at the top of the pecking order. If anyone dares go against you now, they risk getting the same treatment. No one will take that risk.”
“Not even you?” When his question is met with only silence, Jaguar sighs. “I don’t like fighting with you, Dom-Dom. No two brothers should ever let something as trivial as pussy come in between them.”
I stiffen when I realize he’s referring to me. The sick part? I don’t think he intends it as an insult. To him, that’s all I am—a hole to be bought and sold.
But does Domino see me the same? God, I hate that I still can’t get a read on him. I’m tempted to reach for the wine again and drain the whole bottle. My nerves are so scattered, my pulse racing. I feel my fingers twitch for my glass, but this time a firm, unmistakable pressure lands on my knee. His hand. The touch alone conveys his meaning—do not drink.
I let my hand fall to the table, and this time Jaguar tracks the movement, his eyes glittering with interest.
“I hate to pull the rank card on you, Dom-Dom,” he says. “Really, I do. But I am the leader of the Guarida, and if I say I want her tonight, then I’m going to fucking take her tonight—”
“Fine.” Domino pushes back from the table and shrugs. “Take her.”
My blood runs cold at his tone, paired with his disinterested expression. He means it.
But Jaguar, on the other hand, doesn’t seem satisfied. “I have to admit that I’
m skeptical of your sudden change of heart,” he admits, his voice grated with a rare hint of open annoyance. “You wouldn’t be up to your old tricks, now would you.”
“No. I just hate hearing my leader beg me for pussy,” Domino replies. “Take the bitch. I think she’ll like being put on display for the bastards at your little den.”
Jaguar raises an eyebrow. “Who said anything about putting her on display? Oh no, Dom-Dom…” He strokes his chin, drinking me in with his gaze. “I think I might keep her for myself. At least until I discover what it is that has you so damn enamored.”
The hand on my knee grips tighter. Too tight. Wincing, I try my best to smother the pain.
“I never thought you’d want my sloppy seconds,” Domino says in a tone that’s the polar opposite of the violence I feel in his clenching grasp. He sounds unbothered to the point of boredom, his eyebrow cocked to match Jaguar’s open skepticism. “I always assumed that my tastes in women were far different than yours.”
“Pussy is pussy,” Jaguar snaps. “And what’s ‘sloppy’ between brothers? Perhaps we can initiate little Ada-Maria into the family? Then I wouldn’t have to worry about you always trying to slip away, so desperate to gain your… What do you call it? Your freedom?”
“We are not brothers,” Domino says coldly, and his unfazed mask cracks—violently. His eyes flash, conveying raw, open hatred so intense that I stiffen in the face of it.
“Oh yes, we are,” Jaguar counters, his smile equally feral. “In every way that matters, my friend. You belong to me. You are my family, and if some blond little bitch will make you act like it, then we both can take turns fucking her all you like. One big happy familia—”
“Enough.” Abruptly, Domino lurches to his feet and slams both hands flat against the table. For a second, I truly think he’ll lunge across it.
If he fears the same, Jaguar doesn’t seem frightened. If anything, he looks… Excited. Like he’d love more than anything for the chance to fight. Destroy. Make someone else bleed.
“I…” My weak argument dies in my throat before I can even voice it, but the sound I make has both men turning to me.
Domino looks furious, his knuckles whitening as he clenches both of his hands into fists. Jaguar, however, laughs.
“Enough fighting,” he says softly. “I think I have a better idea of how to end this. Let’s let the little minx decide for herself where she would like to spend the next three days. Here, with you? Or with me?”
I’m not stupid. He’s not asking as much as he’s warning. All that talk of alliances and training. If I don’t pick him now, as far as I know, I’m still destined to arrive at his Guarida within a few days. And I suspect that if I dared to choose against him, he’d make me utterly regret that decision.
In fact, he’s such the obvious choice in terms of self-preservation that it’s laughable to even consider choosing Domino. He’s already sold me to Jaguar and made it clear that his interest in preserving my life extends only to finding Pia’s body and whatever secrets regarding my father he thinks I know the answer to. Trusting him at all would be foolish. Stupid. I’d deserve the inevitable betrayal he’ll commit against me, and I wouldn’t even have the benefit of being surprised by it. The man has made it clear that he owes me no loyalty, and—after what he’s done—I certainly don’t owe him a damn thing.
Even his promise to protect me was coded in his trademark doublespeak.
But…
Therein lies the dilemma. Domino is a known evil. I have some experience, no matter how thin, navigating his moods. I’ve even learned how to manipulate him in my fragile, pathetic way, but it’s more knowledge than I have against Jaguar.
He is an unknown entity and one that I suspect I won’t be able to survive so easily.
Chapter Twenty
“Since when do you let your women call the shots?” Domino remarks nastily, and I realize why—he knows the conclusion I’ve come to, and exactly who I’ll pick. Hell, haven’t I been taunting him with that very reality all this time? I’d gladly fuck any man who isn’t him and beg for the pleasure.
“Now, now,” Jaguar scolds. “There is a first time for everything. After all, it’s rude to discuss business so openly in front of the merchandise. Let’s let Ada-Maria choose for herself.” He turns his gaze on me, softening his expression in a way that reminds me of a parent asking a naughty child which choice of punishment she’d prefer. A beating or a whipping?
It was a choice I was presented with often in my early life—and one I quickly learned to master. A beating left bruises and marks that could ache all over my body. A whipping, at least, would be regulated to my back, and the results of which would be far easier to hide.
“Would you like to come with me tonight, and meet your new friends at the Guarida three days early, or stay here with dear old Dom?”
Once I hear it stated out loud and so bluntly, I don’t hesitate. “Domino.”
The silence that falls is beyond unsettling. Like a bomb has gone off, ending one battle in a long-fought war decidedly. The losing side conceals his anger behind a cold grin, but even the victor looks shaken. Far from triumphant, Domino is left frowning, his confusion so blatant that I start to fear it can’t be for show.
I chose wrong.
“Fine.” Jaguar rises to his feet and snatches a cracker covered in some kind of sauce from the tray. “She’s made her choice, and I am a man of my word after all. Let’s shake on it.” He pops the cracker into his mouth and extends his hand, but when Domino starts to reach for it, he shakes his head and nods to me. “This bargain was between Ada-Maria and me,” he says. “I can swallow my pride and let bygones be bygones.”
Warily, I place my palm in his, and his fingers latch onto my wrist as his eyes stare dead into mine.
“It’s nice to see which sides we’re all on.”
He moves his hand as if he means to initiate a handshake, but the movement is too sharp. Lateral, not up and down.
I hear an unnatural crack first, and I start to incline my head for the source.
Then I feel it—pain! White-hot, it lances up my arm, and I’m screaming, doubling over with the force of it. My vision goes white. Everything sparkles, like some horrible, twisted high where my brain forgot to interpret the pleasure I should be feeling.
God, it hurts. Everything hurts.
And then, all at once, sensation returns to my fingertips. They’re on fire, burning so intently I can’t move them. They just flop onto the table as Jaguar releases me.
“Three days,” he shouts, but the blood rushing through my ears distorts his voice, muting the ringing baritone as if I’m hearing him from underwater.
And someone else, who sounds louder, more insistent.
“Hold it to your chest,” he commands. “Breathe in through your mouth. Breathe, Ada. I know it fucking hurts! Listen to me—”
“My wrist… My wrist…” It’s all I can say over and over on a broken loop. I’m on the floor, sitting amid a pile of broken glass, clutching my right hand to my chest.
Jaguar broke my wrist.
Somehow I wind up in a different room, with a familiar marble floor pressed against my cheek and my right arm extended in the air, doused beneath a rush of cool liquid.
My brain can only process what happens beyond the agony in bits and pieces. One, someone is standing over me, holding my arm aloft, and at a slight angle so that it’s extended over the tub, with my wrist beneath the faucet. My fingers hang limply, like a limb on a broken doll.
“That sick motherfucker.” The voice is Domino’s, and he repeats that assessment over and over, uttered with a different inflection each time.
That sick motherfucker, hissed with disgust.
That sick motherfucker… This time with an unsteady note in his voice I’m not used to hearing. Fear?
“When I get my hands on that sick motherfucker, I’ll kill him.” He means every word, voicing them with a clarity I haven’t heard from him since I woke up o
n the floor of this damn mansion.
Gone is the mocking hate, and the twisted innuendo.
He wants to kill Jaguar with every fiber of his being. Very, very badly.
“Why?” I croak, though I’m not sure what exactly I’m referring to.
Why is he crouched beside me, holding my broken wrist beneath running cold water with a care that shocks what little sliver of my brain is still fully functioning?
Why would he sell me to a man like Jaguar in the first place?
Why does he hate me so much?
Why? Why?
“Ines!” His raised voice echoes off the walls, answered within a heartbeat.
“I’m here, sir.”
“I think the bastard broke her whole damn arm. She needs something strong enough to get her through the night if we want to make it out of the valley in time.”
The urgency he speaks with leaves me dazed. The valley?
“There is enough for a decent dose,” Ines replies quietly. “But, you should know that this is the last of your supply.”
“Are you sure?” The tension in Domino’s voice calls to some part of me that stirs in response. He’s worried. “Fuck. I was planning to get some more today, but that bastard came too early.”
“Apart from whatever you have on you, this is it,” Ines insists. “Do you really want to use it now? It could be hard to find more once you leave.”
“Shit…” Domino clenches his jaw, and from this angle, he looks conflicted and so beautiful I hate him for it.
“Sir, you could go into withdrawal—”
“Give it to her,” he snaps with a nod.
“Alright.”
I sense someone approach me from the left, but when I try to turn to see who, Domino tugs on my arm, forcing me to lay on my side or risk aggravating my wrist. Only this position keeps the pain at bay enough for me to think.
And though I can’t see Ines grab my left arm and wrench up the sleeve of my sweater, I certainly feel the needle she jabs into the muscle a second later.
