Violent Ends (White Monarch Book 2)

by Jessica Hawkins

  “I was doing just fine until you took me.” I scowled. “Why are you teaching me this?”

  “Do you think I want a wife who’ll crumble the moment an attacker puts his hands on her? I need you to fight back.” The edge to his voice faltered as he added, “I need you to save yourself and come home to me.”

  I drew back. Cristiano wanted to arm me . . . but did he not realize I could use what I learned against him? There was almost something romantic in his response, and despite the heat, a shiver worked its way through me. “What if I am home?” I asked. “Barto got in.”

  “Believe me, I’m aware. I wasn’t planning to work on this with you so soon, but today was enough to open my eyes to the fact that I can’t be everywhere you are all the time.”

  That was why he’d reacted so aggressively, then. And scared the shit out of me just now. Not that I was about to admit that I probably wouldn’t have taken this little lesson so seriously otherwise.

  He widened his stance and looked down his nose at me. “First, you have to change your mindset. You’re in control of your life. You can take down an attacker of my size. With a knife to your throat, you might get cut, you’ll likely get hurt, but you can fight for your life and escape. Come here,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Get your ass over here now.”

  I took a moment to catch up and process what was happening. Cristiano was actually going to teach me this. How to fight. How to protect myself. That was something nobody else had ever given me. Not even Mamá. Protection had always come from someone else. But as this morning had proved, I couldn’t always rely on others. That put me at risk. And Cristiano, apparently, wasn’t having it.

  I exhaled and stalked toward him until we were toe to toe. “Now what?”

  “Turn around.”

  When I did, he carefully enveloped my shoulders and drew my back against his front. He positioned the sheathed edge of the blade to my neck again. “Show me how you’d fight me off.”

  I grabbed his forearms and pulled, but he didn’t budge.

  “You can’t compete with my strength,” he said, “so don’t try.”

  “Then I’d kick my heels into your shin or aim for your groin.”

  “Don’t tell me,” he said. “Show me. It’s how you’ll learn.”

  I stomped on his foot, but his shoes must’ve had steel toes for all the good it did. He just laughed. I couldn’t angle to kick him, so I bucked my hips back into his groin.

  “You’re moving too much,” he said. “Either you just slit your own throat or gave your attacker a hard-on.”

  Without thinking, I pinched the skin of his forearm between my teeth.

  “You’re a biter,” he said. “I sort of suspected you might be . . .”

  My tongue flickered over his skin, tasting salt. To my horror, my nipples tingled. I removed my mouth to see I’d left a red mark.

  “Usually,” he said, “your chin would be locked by my forearm. I’m just not holding you as tightly as I would if this were real.”

  “Maybe you should,” I said and mimicked, “How else will I learn?”

  “Relax, Rocky. We’ll get there. I’m just walking you through it now.” He strengthened his hold. “If you were ever in this position, it’d likely be a planned attack. But not necessarily. Given what we do, your attacker could easily be drunk or high—his pain tolerance will be elevated, and he won’t be fazed by a nibble, or, depending on what he’s on, something as severe as a stab wound.”

  “I wouldn’t ‘nibble’ an attacker,” I said. “I was demonstrating on you.”

  “Next time you demonstrate,” he said low and gravelly in my ear, “feel free to sink ’em in. I’ve been looking forward to unleashing your wild side.”

  “That makes one of us,” I muttered.

  I felt his silent laugh against my back as he straightened. “If you’re going to rely on inflicting pain, you’d better not miss, and you’d better not be half-assed about it. If you go for the eyeballs, gouge them. If you bite, draw blood.”

  I shuddered. “You’re going to teach me to gouge out someone’s eyeballs?”

  “No. Max is,” he said. “He’s an expert at it.”

  “What a weird expertise,” I said.

  “How do you think he got his glass eye?”

  I shuddered. “Yuck.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, the point is—if you try to hurt the assailant and fail, you may anger him.” Cristiano repositioned the knife under my jaw. “Listen. You don’t want the blade to go sideways or up, or else you’re dead. So what does that leave?”

  “Down.”

  “Right. Now, the weakest part of me within your reach is my wrist. Sneak your hands up—slowly,” he added as I followed his instructions, “so I don’t know it’s happening. If you can create some kind of distraction—asking random questions, for example—that helps, too.”

  I slid my hands up the front of my body. “Have you ever been to Disneyland?” I asked.

  He barked a laugh, and I seized his wrist. “Not yet,” he said. “Now pull down, away from your throat.”

  “I just did that. I’ll never be able to budge you.”

  “That’s why you have to know a man’s weak spots. My forearm is a bar—you won’t move that, but with practice, you can move my wrist.”

  I didn’t see how that was possible, but I tried. I focused on the weakest part of his wrist until I’d drawn the knife a short distance away. “Like that?”

  “Yeah. Now trap my forearm with your right shoulder, and rotate—no, don’t twist,” he corrected. I resumed my original position and tried again with less twist, and more rotate. “This is where you leverage your body weight,” he said. “Always put your body into it. Rotate toward me.”

  Since Cristiano wasn’t using his full strength, I was able to keep a hold on his wrist and turn into him, contorting his arm at an unnatural angle so the knife was now aimed at his side. “Then you’d stab me,” he said. “Keep going.”

  I glanced up at him. “Stab you?” I asked hopefully.

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “No. Keep rotating.”

  I reversed under his arm, bringing his wrist with me until he was forced to bend at the hip, and I was standing over him.

  With his face inches from my hip, I suddenly remembered the phone. My heart, already thumping, began to pound as his eyes shifted.

  How would I explain it if he found it? Would he even give me a chance to?

  My mouth dried as possible punishments ran through my head. Cristiano had earned his nickname, El Polvo, for a reason. The Dust. He’d poured sand down the throats of those he’d deemed deserving of a slow, painful death—and no doubt he’d find a certain poetic justice in that particular fate for a snitch with a big mouth.

  “Wrestle the knife from me if you can,” he said.

  I released my breath finally, praying I could get upstairs soon and stash the burner.

  “But if not,” he added, “at the very least, you can knee me in the face and run away.”

  I released him. “You’d catch me.”

  “I would, yes.” One corner of his mouth quirked as he straightened. He looked almost comical in a loosened tie, wrinkled dress shirt, and slacks, with sweat dotting his collar. “But we’re going to train you so nobody can catch you, mariposita.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Solomon, Alejandro, Max, me. We all fight differently, so you’ll learn from each of us.” He unknotted his tie and slid it off. “Your main goal is to incapacitate the attacker long enough to run away,” he said. “You’re tall but skinny—we’re going to build up your strength so you can fly. Solomon will teach you to assess the situation and make a quick decision—outrun him, stab him, or knock him unconscious. It’ll depend.”

  “Kill him?” I suggested.

  “If that’s what it takes,” he said grimly.

  “Who’s Solomon?”

  “Our resident expert on martial arts. As former Israeli military, he�
�s got experience in street fighting, Krav Maga, Muay Thai, and more.” He sniffed, wiping his upper lip on his sleeve. “Let’s try again.”

  “Are you sure you’re up for it?” I asked. “I’m not the one breaking a sweat.”

  He scowled. “I weigh twice what you do, and the sun is fucking strong today.”

  I shrugged, not bothering to hide my amusement as I turned my back to him.

  As his arm surrounded my shoulders, and he pressed the knife to my skin, he said, “Natalia?”

  “Yes?”

  “If we’re going to keep doing this, don’t wiggle your hips. It won’t do either of us any good if I develop a conditioned response to holding a knife at your neck.”

  As his meaning registered, I flushed and glanced at the ground. “I didn’t move my hips.”

  “Maybe it’s a subconscious way of physically preparing yourself, but either way, make it stop.” He raised the knife, forcing my eyes up. “Be stealthy,” he said, “but don’t hesitate. You’re not grabbing my wrist—you’re yanking it. Use speed, leverage your body weight to bring it down.”

  “Cristiano?”

  He shifted behind me. “Hmm?”

  “Did you know, according to Jewish folklore, a pomegranate has exactly six-hundred-and-thirteen seeds?”

  “What?” he asked. “I—”

  With his wrist firmly in my grip, I rotated, and this time, while we were tangled, I poked the sheathed blade into his ribcage. “Bang, you’re dead,” I said quietly.

  His eyes met mine over his shoulder. A moment in our shared history passed between us. I’d just repeated back to him the words he’d said to my nine-year-old self in my parents’ closet before he’d whisked me away down the tunnel.

  “Who knew pomegranate trivia could save your life?” he asked, and I was grateful for a reprieve from the gravity of the memory.

  We separated, and I was surprised to find myself out of breath. At least I’d have more than enough free time here to get in shape. “Supposedly King Solomon had his crown modeled after a pomegranate. Thank you, religious studies,” I said. “Can I see the knife?”

  His eyebrows rose. “Not yet.”

  “Afraid I’ll hurt you?”

  He removed the knife from its leather case and showed me the fine, smooth edge that ended in a sharp point. “You’ll hurt one of us if you try.”

  “So that’s it?” I asked.

  “For today, yes. It’s an introduction to get comfortable with panic. If we reenacted this for real, you’d be dead before you even registered what was happening.” We briefly met eyes, and he added, “I don’t want that, so you’ll have to learn how to stay calm and practice these moves until you know them with your eyes shut.” He turned the blade, and it caught the light. “When I’m not here to practice with you, Alejo or Solomon or someone else will.”

  I squinted up at him. In the sun, his coal-black eyes were closer to the color of coffee beans. “You don’t want me dead?” I asked, testing out how it felt to tease him.

  He put the knife away and wiped his hands on his pants. “Of course not.”

  “Just trapped.” My humor faded. I glanced beyond the cliff, out toward the Badlands’ gates.

  With a knuckle under my chin, he gently turned my face back to his. “I want to make sure you’re prepared,” he said. “At some point, you may find yourself in a position where you’ll need to defend yourself.”

  I’d already found myself in that position. “What makes you think I wouldn’t use what I learn against you?”

  Searching my eyes, he lowered his hand back to his side. His demeanor shifted away from its rare lightness—espresso beans darkening to pitch black. “Dinner will be served shortly.” He turned toward the house. “Wash up.”

  10

  Natalia

  Dinner will be served shortly. Wash up.

  Like any other command from Cristiano’s mouth, he’d ordered it nonchalantly and with no room for argument.

  It wasn’t nonchalant to me.

  Balanced on the edge of his bed after our impromptu street fight, I waited for him to vacate the shower. Since the day before, I’d been married off, shuttled to a new home, shuttled back to my father’s, told this was my new life, and held at knifepoint.

  And now, Diego was trying to turn me into an information mule. I’d wrapped the phone in a bra and shoved it to the bottom of my overnight bag until I could decide what to do with it.

  Use his desire for you against him, Diego had said.

  Wiggling my hips against Cristiano had been enough to get his attention. It was becoming obvious it was important to him that I be willing, but I was sure his patience had a limit. A perverse side of me wanted to tempt him just to prove that he was no better than his father or brother. That I was here because I had to be, and that he’d fuck me against my will with no more thought than he’d give to fucking me against a wall.

  But did I have the guts?

  I tiptoed to the bathroom, careful to stay out of view. In the mirror, I could see the hazy outline of his bronzed, naked form through the steamed-over shower door.

  He flipped off the water and stepped out before I could retreat. “Well, well,” he said, nude and dripping on the bathmat.

  My face burned. I was mortified, but for some reason, I didn’t want him to know it. I fought my instinct to run and hide in the closet and held his gaze instead.

  I could face him.

  Just as long as I didn’t look down.

  He grabbed a towel from a hook and came around to face me, scrubbing it through his hair. “How long were you standing there?”

  “I just walked in,” I said.

  “Two minutes earlier, and you would’ve gotten a show.”

  He wrapped the towel around his waist, and it was then I realized I’d been clenching every body part that could be clenched—teeth, fists, ass cheeks. I urged myself to relax. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “I’m not used to sleeping next to a woman I can’t touch,” he said. “It makes things a little hard . . . ¿Comprendes?”

  It took me a second, but inexperienced as I was, I understood. It literally made things hard. “Because you have no privacy?”

  “The physical contact we just had downstairs isn’t helping.”

  My heart thumped. I’d felt it, too, but I wasn’t about to admit it. And I’d been right. His patience was too thin for him to wait for me to be willing.

  Not that I ever would be, I reminded myself.

  “Good to know holding a knife to my throat turns you on,” I said.

  He arched an eyebrow and went to the mirror, inspecting his stubbled jawline. “Shower’s all yours. There’s a towel on the counter.”

  I picked it up, went to the closet, and closed the door so I could strip down. I found a deep drawer with a hamper in it, dumped my clothing inside, and secured the towel under my armpits before returning to the bathroom.

  Still wrapped in his own towel, Cristiano stood in front of the mirror and shaved up under his chin. His back was not only tan and smooth but very broad. I wondered if it could fit two of me. I’d never seen anything like it, the way his muscles rippled beneath the surface, the embodiment of his capabilities, his weaponry—his power.

  “You . . . you won’t look, will you?” I asked, pulling my towel tighter.

  With his head tilted back, he lowered just his eyes in the reflection. “If I do, I’ll have to jerk off again, and the shower’s occupied.”

  I frowned. “In a house this size, surely you can find somewhere else to . . . do that.”

  He rinsed the razorblade. “Is that an invitation to look?”

  “No.”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” he asked. “You belong to me.”

  “I don’t belong to anyone.”

  “You’re Natalia de la Rosa. You bear my name. You’ve said vows in front of God.”

  “That doesn’t make me your property,” I argued. I didn’t know why I bothered when he was clearly
trying to get under my skin. “Are you my property?”

  His eyes had moved down to my bare legs. “Sorry, what?” he asked.

  “Selective hearing,” I mumbled, opening the shower to turn on the water.

  “It’s cute,” he said.

  I glanced back. “What is?”

  “How you’re worried I’ll only look at you.”

  He was capable of so much more, as he’d proven out front. I was no match for his strength, and no matter how he trained me, I never would be. As if my feet were made of lead, I suddenly couldn’t move. “You said you wouldn’t force yourself on me.”

  “I did say that.” The razor scraped his skin. “But I can change my mind, can’t I.”

  It was a statement, not a question.

  A reminder.

  A threat.

  A bluff?

  If Cristiano had wanted to take me, there would’ve been no better opportunity than our wedding night. He could’ve dominated me if that got him off, or given himself permission if he’d needed it once I’d begged him to get it over with.

  But he’d held back in both situations.

  If he truly thought of me as property, he would’ve staked his claim on me. I was the one in command, and I suspected he knew I was nobody’s property.

  I dropped my towel. He froze, keeping his eyes on mine. My heart pounded as I bared myself to him. As I showed him my body on my own terms. As I demonstrated for him that I retained a small measure of control, no matter what he said or did.

  It wasn’t until I’d turned and stepped into the shower that I released a massive exhale. The last man who’d seen me that way had turned around and passed me off like a baton. I’d shown Diego much more than my body that night—I’d exposed all of myself and had held nothing back. At least, the self I’d been days ago. I hadn’t been enough. And I was pretty sure that was a good thing.

  I shook as I stood under the stream of water, but at least I still stood.

  But the problem with testing Cristiano’s control was that I didn’t know what might break it. Once he crossed the line, then I’d know where I stood. I’d know for sure who he was. I’d know my place here. His restraint put me in a frustrating limbo.