by Jane Henry
My Redemption
Boston Doms, Book 7
Jane Henry
Maisy Archer
Blushing Books
©2017 by Blushing Books®, Jane Henry and Maisy Archer
All rights reserved.
No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Jane Henry and Maisy Archer
My Redemption
EBook ISBN: 978-1-61258-336-5
Cover Art by ABCD Graphics & Design
This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as Blushing Books' or the author's advocating any non-consensual spanking activity or the spanking of minors.
Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Epilogue
Jane Henry
Maisy Archer
EBook Offer
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Chapter 1
“Tell me the story again,” Diego Santiago demanded, staring dispassionately at the man tied to a chair in front of him. That man, otherwise known as Ricky Hernandez, slumped against his bindings and gasped a shuddering breath against ribs that were definitely bruised and possibly broken.
“It’s like I told you, Padre,” the man pled. One of his brown eyes was swollen shut, but the other watched Diego with a sad, wary gaze, knowing that Diego held the man’s life in his hands. “The girl was locked up in the cell, just like she was s’posed to be. I was sitting in the hall watching TV. She musta come up behind me, knocked me out, and took off!”
Diego clasped his arms loosely behind his back and paced in front of Ricky’s chair as if he were considering this information. He purposely kept the corners of his lips turned up in a slight smile, as though nausea and rage weren’t burning a hole in his gut, and his entire right hand wasn’t swollen and throbbing from the punishing blows he’d already delivered. In Salazar’s crew—or was it Santiago’s crew now that Diego had been in charge for the past six months? Jesus. There was an idea that would have his Mamá turning over in her grave—appearances were everything.
He lifted his gaze and surveyed the men who had arranged themselves in a loose circle around Ricky’s chair. More than a dozen of them returned his stare, all armed to the teeth and in various stages of inebriation, from stone-sober Banyon to completely-shitfaced Marco, but not a single man moved or spoke. All of them were completely transfixed on the scene.
They weren’t happy at the sight of one of their own, a man they considered their brother, receiving his punishment. There but for the grace of God, and all that shit. But there was a grim acceptance about them. Until this morning, if anyone had aimed so much as a disrespectful word in Ricky’s direction, let alone a violent blow, these men would have thrown down without qualm. But now, Ricky had committed a crime against them, and they’d bear witness to his beating with the same stoicism.
Growing up in this neighborhood, Diego had quickly learned that justice did not involve the police, let alone a trial with a robed judge and pricey lawyers. Here, justice was immediate, brutal, and often fatal. Betrayal was the highest crime of all, and there were no loopholes or technicalities that would let you skate once you were caught.
Which is why you’re fucking lucky you haven’t been caught, he thought wryly. Then he quickly locked that thought away and focused on Ricky once more.
“I want to believe you, Ricky,” he lied. “But I’m having trouble here. The girl was in a locked cell, cuffed to a bed.” He swallowed down his revulsion as the scene flashed in his mind. “And you want me to believe that she somehow managed to uncuff herself, unlock her cell, hit you over the head, and then drag your sorry ass back into the cell and lock you up? Is the girl a fucking magician? Hmm?”
He took a step closer and tilted his head to look at Ricky, who remained silent. “No, amigo, she’s not. So, here’s what I think happened.” He smiled, and let his voice turn friendly. Just a couple of buddies, just a pleasant discussion. “I think you were fucking horny last night. How many times have I told you that your dick was gonna get you in trouble?” He shook his head in what might have passed for fond exasperation in any other circumstance. “I think you decided that you were gonna have a taste.”
Ricky swallowed. “No, I—”
&n
bsp; “Ah-ah-ah,” Diego interrupted, shaking his head but smiling once again. “Who’s the guy who’s always bitching about how stupid it is that we transport pussy, but I don’t let you sample the goods?”
Ricky’s one good eye slid shut. “Me,” he admitted, defeated.
“Uh huh. So, last night, you unlocked the girl’s cell, and freed her from her cuffs. Then you fucked her, and in the process of that, she managed to escape. Sound about right?”
“I-I didn’t free her,” Ricky protested. Somewhere behind Diego, one of the guys snorted. Ricky was looking for that technicality, that loophole that didn’t exist. Poor bastard. “And I didn’t get to fuck her. I don’t know how she hit me. I—”
“No, estúpido pedazo de mierda, you just went inside the cell, with your fucking keys on you, whipped your cock out, and let her get the jump on you.” Diego took a step forward and reached out his left hand, grabbing Ricky’s hair and yanking the man’s head back. “Am I missing anything?”
A sob erupted from Ricky’s throat. “Padre. Boss. I swear… Her hands were still tied. I don’t know how it happened! It was an accident. I didn’t mean for her to escape. I didn’t—”
“You didn’t mean? It was an accident?” Diego spat. “Was it an accident when you stepped into that cell, cabrón? Was it an accident when you defied my very clear orders that you assholes are not to touch these girls?”
Ricky wept openly now. “I’m sorry, Padre. I’m sorry.”
Diego’s gut twisted and his jaw locked. “Not sorry enough, Ricky,” he decreed. And then he brought his right arm back and forward, crashing his fist into Ricky’s jaw. The reverberation of the punch traveled like a shockwave up Diego’s arm, and pain radiated from his knuckles to his shoulder. The chair toppled backwards, crashing to the ground. Ricky’s head hit the pavement with a dull thud, then he moaned and fell silent.
Diego stared at the motionless man for a moment, his own chest heaving, before turning to Banyon. “Get him up and into the cell. No doctor. And you give him nothing for the pain. No meds. No drugs. No booze, not even a beer. Water, if he wakes up. That’s it. I want him to feel every second of his pain. This is the price of betrayal. Entiendes?”
“Si, Padre,” Banyon agreed. He butted Nico with his shoulder, and the two men stepped forward, silently hauling Ricky’s chair back up.
“Look hard,” Diego told the others. “This is a man who placed his own desires before his allegiance to our crew. This is a man who fucked up. I want you all to remember this: when you fuck up, there will always be someone who will capitalize on your mistake…” He let his voice get deeper, silkier. “And there will always, always, be consequences.”
Marco shuddered and several other men averted their gazes. Message received. Diego turned on his heel and headed for his office at the rear of the warehouse without another word.
Christ. How had this bullshit become his life?
He shut the office door behind him and snagged the bottle of aguardiente from the low, wooden sideboard with his left hand before collapsing into his desk chair. He hadn’t allowed himself to get good and drunk since the day he’d learned that Chalo Salazar—his hated enemy, his former boss—was dead. Alcohol had seemed a fitting solution to the tangled morass of emotions that had swamped him then though, and damn if he didn’t feel the same way now.
He removed the stopper from the bottle with his teeth, spit it out and took a deep swig, throwing his booted feet up on the desk. He clenched and unclenched his right hand experimentally. Fuck, that hurt. Beneath the myriad small scars he no longer noticed, the knuckles of his callused hands were red and swollen, but he continued the motion, relishing the sensation. He was no stranger to this type of pain, and it rarely lasted as long as he needed it to.
I want him to feel every second of his pain, he’d told his men. This is the price of betrayal. And Diego was a lot of things—a criminal, a traitor, an undercover investigator, and a very, very bad man—but he wasn’t a total hypocrite. His job was to lead this group of men, to keep them as safe as possible in this dangerous profession, even when that meant doling out punishment. But he also accepted his own pain—welcomed it, even—as the price of his disloyalty.
Though fuck if he knew who he was supposed to be loyal to these days. He’d been living a double life so long, the lines between Padre the criminal and Diego Santiago the undercover investigator were blurred nearly beyond recognition.
A knock on the door had him looking up in surprise. He’d expected his men to avoid him after this afternoon’s little show, lest they call attention to themselves.
“Come in,” he instructed, letting his feet fall to the floor. By force of habit, he reached into the back of his jeans for the Ruger he always carried in his waistband, but only remembered too late that his bruised hand was in no shape to be clutching a piece.
Fortunately, when the door opened, the head that poked inside was a friendly one.
“I keep telling you, you need to carry in the front,” Tomás said in amusement, closing the door behind him and taking a chair in front of Diego’s desk without waiting for an invitation. “You lose precious seconds in a fight if you’ve gotta wrestle that thing out of the back of your pants, hermano.”
He was tall and lean, like Diego himself, and when both men wore jeans, dark t-shirts and their hair pulled back into short queues, as they did today, it was easy to see why some people thought they were blood relatives as well as brothers in arms. Given Diego’s father’s reputation with the ladies back in the day, Diego figured it was a good possibility.
Diego put the gun down in front of him, rolling his eyes as he kicked his feet back up on the desk and took another deep drink from the bottle he still held. “Better that than carrying up front and accidentally shooting off my own balls.”
Tomás raised one eyebrow. “Oh, I dunno, Padre,” he said, deliberately using the nickname Diego had first earned himself years ago, when his priest-like celibacy had become a matter of speculation and mocking among the guys. “It’s not like you’re using that shit, anyway. What’s this, your fourth year con solo tu mano for company?”
“None of your fucking business,” Diego replied. In actuality, he’d passed that mark some months back. “Worry about your own dick.”
Tomás smirked and leaned back in his seat, turning his gaze to the ceiling, but Diego kept his eyes fixed on the man’s face. No way had Tomás come back here just to shoot the shit. Not tonight.
Sure enough, before a full minute had passed, Tomás looked squarely at Diego. “You shoulda killed him.”
Diego set his teeth together but said nothing.
“Ricky disobeyed, flat out. He put us all at risk,” he said, holding up his hands as if to prevent Diego from interrupting, “and more than all that, the man broke your number one rule when he went in that girl’s cell, Padre.”
“As I recall, you didn’t like my rule in the first place,” Diego remarked, tilting the bottle to his lips without looking away. The alcohol slid down his throat, the burn not nearly as potent after the third swig.
Tomás shrugged. “Majority of these girls sold themselves into prostitution in exchange for a way across the border. They were turning tricks before they got onto the cargo ships, and they’ll sure as hell be turning tricks when we take them wherever they’re going. Do I think it’s stupid that you want us to stay hands-off while they’re here? Sure. But it don’t matter what I think.”
“You don’t get hooked on your own product,” Diego said, repeating the rationale he’d been using since the day he took over the organization. “Chalo had that rule back when we ran drugs for the cartel, because he knew that users take risks that endanger all of us. Same shit goes with these girls as Ricky just demonstrated.”
“So you said,” Tomás agreed. “But you’re not hearing me, Padre. It don’t matter what I think. And it don’t matter what Banyon or Juancho or Robby or Marco or Ricky think, neither. From your first day running this show, you told us we d
on’t touch the girls we transport, and you told us what would happen if we did. Now, Ricky’s gone and done it, and more than that, he let the fucking girl get the drop on him and sneak out of the damn building.”
“Which is why I beat the shit out of him.”
“You let him off easy.”
“I fucking didn’t.”
“You did! And don’t bullshit me, Padre!” Tomás folded his arms across his chest and glared. “You knew exactly what you were doing. What I want to know is why. El Padre is the meanest motherfucker on the east coast. He doesn’t tolerate mistakes, and he doesn’t leave loose ends. Why pick now as the time to go easy on Ricky? And what are you gonna do about the girl? She heard our names. She knows our faces. Now we’re all in jeopardy and El Jefe is gonna be pissed.”
Heart beating way too fast, Diego set the bottle on the table, put his boots on the floor, and leaned forward. “You questioning the way I run this organization now, Tomás? You think you could do better? You wanna deal with El Jefe yourself? Make your own rules? Huh?”
The other man’s eyes widened, and he held up his hands in protest. “No! No, man. Jesus. You took a knife for me two years back. I had your back when shit went sideways with the Locos. I’ve always supported you. Fuck. I just want to understand.”
“You don’t understand shit, Tomás. The girl is gone. Running around the damn city trying to find her is just gonna call more attention to us. Our contacts at the police will alert us if the girl makes a report. And I will handle El Jefe when he calls.” He gritted his teeth. He was not looking forward to that phone call one little bit. “Now I suggest you get out of my office before I start wondering if Ricky is the only one who needs punishment,” Diego added softly.