Sweet Collateral

by LP Lovell

  There’s a beat of silence and the mental battle rages in my mind as long seconds pass. The feelings I’ve tried so hard to lock up are rattling against the bars of the cage I’ve forced around them. Closing his eyes, he tugs me close and rests his forehead against mine. Such a simple yet intimate touch and I bask in it, my fragile heart fluttering erratically, begging me to simply fall into the protective warmth of his arms.

  “Please,” he whispers, his voice raw and exposed. “Please go back to New York.”

  No matter my feeling for him, I’ve always been a slave, and he’s always been a cartel boss. It’s only now that I’m starting to discover who Anna Vasiliev even is, and I know she’s not going to be so easily controlled by a man, even him.

  “This was a mistake,” I try to step away, but his arms lock firmly around my waist before I can force more than an inch of space between us. Hot breath rushes over my neck, and I shiver. My lungs falter for air as his lips brush my neck, and my nails dig into his arms. I’m not sure if I’m trying to pull him away or hold him tight. I’ve never been so conflicted. “We’re never a mistake, avecita.”

  “Or maybe that’s all we were.”

  His lips brush over the corner of my mouth and it’s like liquid fire is pouring through my veins. “You don’t believe that.”

  He’s so close, and my head is buzzing with the low hum of white noise drowning out everything rational. The heat of his body combined with the desert sun scorches me, but I can’t find it within me to care. I think I want him to burn me and perhaps I always will.

  “I love you, avecita,” he breathes, and my heart lets out a pitiful cough. "If Dominges finds out you are here, he will hunt you, just to get to me. The things I’ve done in the past few months…” I doubt anyone else would spot the air of regret that clings to him. He’s a cartel boss, but he’s a better man than he would have people believe. “Dominges wants me on my knees, and you are the perfect tool to put me there. Even your sister cannot stand against an entire cartel.” She said as much herself when I decided I wanted to come after the Sinaloa. “In war, we must be willing to sacrifice, but I won’t sacrifice you. Don’t ask me to.”

  “Dominges won’t even know we’re here.” He says nothing, and I sigh. “You may not have much choice. Una will be back tonight with Sasha.” I hate that this is always so complicated and fraught with danger. I hate that I can’t hate him. “You can’t control everything, Rafe. There is no version of this where I turn tail and run back to New York.”

  I see the pain etched into his features clear as day. This isn’t just male ego, he’s scared for me. After what happened to Maria, I understand, but I don’t want to be sheltered by him. I reach up and smooth the tight frown line from between his brows. “What if we’re stronger together?” I ask, and the faintest trace of hope whispers in my ear, gentle fingers caressing over my fraught soul. What if this didn’t need to be a battle between the girl I want to be and the girl he wants to protect?

  A sad smile pulls at his lips. “You will always be my weakness.”

  That hope snuffs out and my heart sinks. “I understand.” This will never be an equal partnership. Rafael want to coddle me. “But a man guards his weakness, so I will make a deal with you. You can stay in Mexico, but you stay with me. Your sister is welcome, but nothing happens without you running it past me.”

  “I can’t promise that. Una likes to work to her own parameters.”

  “That’s the deal, little warrior. You can stay in Mexico. You can even go after Dominges, but under my protection.” I chew on my bottom lip and his gaze tracks the movement.

  “Una knows what she’s doing—”

  “Una is not the pawn he seeks. I’ve already proven that I will sacrifice my cartel for you once. Dominges will not forget it.” When he pulls back, his expression has shifted into one of steely authority. My Rafael is gone and in his place is the ruthless cartel boss, feared by so many. “Do we have an alliance?”

  What choice do I have? Go back to New York or go against him, inciting a fight between him and Una. That’s the last thing I want. “We have an alliance. As soon as Dominges is dead, I’ll be gone."

  “Ah, little warrior. I let you go once. I asked you to leave a second time, and you refused." There’s something fierce and possessive in his eyes that has my stomach tightening. “If you think I’ll watch you walk away when this is all over, you’ve forgotten one thing.” His fingers wind around my throat, and he pulls me forward until his lips almost brush mine. “You’re mine. You will always be mine.”

  He slams a kiss over my lips, and any resistance I thought I had dissipates, like morning dew evaporating in the sun. The dam bursts. All the hurt and the rejection, the love and the need, the agony of the last few months drowns me. The sheer inevitability of the fact that we were always going to end up right here in this exact moment washes over me. Warmth blossoms throughout my chest, inviting and intoxicating. This is home. He is home, the only one I’ve ever known…but he cast me out. Slowly, my heart releases the chokehold it has on my rational mind.

  Shoving away from him, I place a shaky hand over my mouth. “I can’t do this,” I murmur.

  “We aren’t done, Anna. We’ll never be done,” he vows. “I’m sorry I sent you away, but it was the right thing to do.”

  “You broke us, Rafe.”

  “I know. And I hate it. Everything always seems so fucking dark without you, little warrior.”

  I inhale the cigar and citrus scent of him underlined by the distinctive scent of the desert. “You promised we were ride or die.”

  Pain flashes through his eyes. “Until I saw what happened to Maria.” He trails his fingers over my cheek. “Dominges won’t just kill you, Anna. You’ve made him look weak. I’ve made him look weak. He’ll rape you, and torture you just to prove a point.” On a shaky breath, he reaches around me and takes the gun from the back of my shorts, holding it out in front of me. “If you won’t leave, then you promise me… if he gets you…”

  I wrap my fingers around the hilt and grip the metal tightly. He’d rather I die. “I know.”

  He presses a finger under my chin, forcing me to look at him. Those dark eyes are hard and determined. “Don’t get caught, avecita.”

  “I won’t,” I whisper. And I hope that it’s a promise I can keep because for once, I hope that fate will actually smile on me.

  Despite everything, I want a future with Rafael. I’m willing to fight my own demons and his to get it. Dominges will die.

  66

  Rafael

  Twenty-four hours exactly. I’m waiting for some kind of stealth attack. Una is more than capable of it. Picking off my men and taking Anna would be her style, and it’s making me anxious.

  Anna shifts beside me. “She gave you twenty-four hours. She won’t renege on that. She’ll give you the chance to hand me over.”

  “You sure about that?”

  She tucks her hair behind her ear. “Nero won’t let her just attack you.”

  I laugh. “Ah, avecita, you assume Nero has her on a leash.”

  “She has to adhere to a degree of politics.”

  “That’s just it, she doesn’t.”

  The door to the warehouse opens, and I tense, waiting. Samuel walks in, his expression steely. “They’re here,” he announces.

  “Bring them in.”

  I glance around the warehouse, meeting the eyes of several of my men, all lingering nearby, armed and ready. I don’t want to hurt Una, simply because it would upset Anna. I want the Russian’s alliance just as surely as I have her sister’s, but Una Ivanov is an unpredictable animal, one that can never truly be trusted. She’s dangerous, and Nero’s backing also makes her powerful. In fact, the combination of the two of them makes them practically untouchable.

  Sam comes in a few seconds later with Una…and Sasha.

  “Shit,” I mumble under my breath.

  Anna’s hand lands on my arm as if to calm me, or maybe restrain me. “It’ll
be fine.”

  Una’s eyes narrow, honing in on Anna’s hand on my arm. “Wow, he works fast,” she says acerbically.

  Anna places herself between her sister and me. “I’ve made a deal.” Sasha hangs back, his sharp gaze taking in every single detail of the warehouse. I can practically see him spotting every exit, planning exactly how he’ll kill each and every one of my men and in what order. There’s always something inherently unsettling about the absolute iciness that seems to infiltrate his every action. Una alone is bad, but he makes me very uneasy.

  “You made a deal?” Una asks with a smirk.

  “We all want the same thing,” Anna says.

  Una takes out a knife, and Samuel reaches for his gun until she flashes him a halting glare. She twirls the knife in her hand as she paces a little way across the warehouse. “So, you came here to kill the men who imprisoned and enslaved you, and now you’re allowing him to imprison you and do it for you…am I right?”

  I let out a low growl. “I am not imprisoning Anna.”

  Anna takes a step towards her sister. “This is the smart thing to do, Una. They help us, we help them, and we can take down the entire Sinaloa.”

  Una looks from her sister, to me, and back again. “And did you come to this agreement willingly or were you backed into a corner?” Anna says nothing. “That’s what I thought.”

  Una rounds Anna’s still form until she’s standing right in front of me. “You overstep. Anna is not yours. The only reason you’re even aware of her existence is because you were charged with taking care of her…for me.”

  “Make no mistake Angel de la Muerte, Anna is very much mine.” Una has the blade of her knife at my throat in a heartbeat, and I hear the unified sound of several guns being raised. Glancing over her head, I see Samuel with his gun pointed at the back of Una’s head. Sasha places a gun to Sam’s head.

  “Tell your men to stand down,” he says coldly.

  Sam grits his teeth. “Fuck you, Russian.”

  “Stand down!” I call out before Sam gets his brains blown out. My men hesitantly lower their guns.

  I focus on Una again. “Anna will always be mine, because I love her.” Una’s jaw ticks and the knife flinches against my throat, digging into the scabbed remains of the wound Anna inflicted last night. My heart beats heavily, and I wait for her to open my throat. Her arm tenses and I suck in a readying breath.

  “Stop!” Anna shouts, pointing a gun at her own sister. Her arm trembles and her expression is pained. Una glances at her, stilling.

  “You would choose him?” she asks.

  Anna sucks in a sharp breath. “I won’t let you kill him.”

  Una seems to deliberate for a moment before the knife disappears from my throat. She flips it over in her hand and shoves it into her thigh holster. “This doesn’t need to be a choice,” Anna says.

  Una walks away and takes up her position beside Sasha. The action is seemingly absentminded, but I remember Nero once saying that Sasha is like a brother to Una. The look on Anna’s face would suggest that it stings.

  “I’m willing to lend you all the manpower, guns, and protection at my disposal,” I say to Una. “All I ask in exchange is that Anna remains under my protection.”

  Una snorts and folds her arms over her chest. “So, you would keep my sister locked in your gilded cage?”

  “No,” Anna says. “Dominges is mine. I’m simply allowing Rafael to…oversee things.”

  “Why? We don’t need him. His cartel is barely surviving this war.”

  “The more manpower we have, the more chance we have of succeeding.”

  “Dominges is one man,” Una says.

  “I don’t just want Dominges.”

  “We’ve been through this. We are not taking down an entire cartel.”

  “No, but they can.” Anna points at me. “And then…”

  “And then what?” Una tilts her head to the side.

  “And then we can get the girls out.”

  Una spits a curse and tilts her face to the ceiling. “No. This is not the plan, Anna.”

  “What girls?”

  “My sister fancies herself some kind of savior. Anna wants to save the slaves. Just call her Moses.”

  I frown. “The Sinaloa have hundreds of slaves.”

  “What’s the point of all this if they’re just left there?” Anna asks. “I won’t abandon them.” My little warrior is so strong, but this is a fools errand.

  Una’s gaze swings to me. “I agreed to kill Dominges and his inner circle. I’ll stick to that, but as for rescuing girls…that’s on you. I’m an assassin, not a saint.”

  “My focus is on taking down the Sinaloa right now,” I say, avoiding the subject somewhat because I hate to disappoint Anna, but I can only handle so much. I won’t make her false promises. “I’d rather work with you than against you.”

  Una gives me a hesitant nod, holding her hand out to me. I take it and her body visibly tenses, relaxing only when I release her. The girl is a raging psycho. I don’t know how Nero does it.

  “You’re welcome to stay here. Traffic in and out of the compound poses a risk of being followed.”

  She gives a stiff nod and flicks white-blonde hair over her shoulder as she turns and heads for the warehouse door. Sasha falls into step beside her and Anna makes to follow before I grab her wrist.

  “Oh no, little warrior. You and I need a talk.” I pull her over to my office and close the door behind us. “You want to save all the slaves. Really, Anna?”

  Leaning against the door, she folds her arms over her chest. “I didn’t ask for your help.”

  “Didn’t you? Because I have a feeling that this wasn’t the plan until just now. And what the fuck happened in Romania?”

  “I killed Alexandru Dalca.” She drops her chin to her chest and waves of golden hair tumble forward over her face. “And rescued the thirteen-year-old girl that I found chained to his bed, naked and bleeding.”

  I lean against my desk, gripping the edge as I swallow down rage.

  “There were seven more in the basement. Living in cages in the freezing cold…”

  “You can’t save them all,” I say quietly.

  Glassy eyes lift to mine, breaking me just a little. “That girl was once me. I won’t abandon a single one if I can help it.”

  I try not to, but all I see is Anna, naked, bleeding, and chained. And I can’t even imagine her thirteen-year-old self like that. It makes me want to lock her away from anyone who would ever hurt her, just like Una said. Sad eyes meet mine, haunted by a lifetimes worth of demons. She’s so strong, my little warrior. She’s survived so much.

  “I understand why you want to save them, but it’s just not possible, avecita.”

  “Would you give up on me so easily? If I were in their position…”

  “You know I wouldn’t. I didn’t.” When the Russians took her, I thought I’d lost all sense of sanity. I’d have given anything for her. “But I love you, it’s different.”

  “They aren’t so fortunate as to have someone who cares.”

  The urge to touch her, to comfort her tender heart is so strong, but I remain rooted. “Avecita, you’re too soft-hearted for this.”

  “Not when it comes to Dominges. I want his entire cartel dead and buried. If we leave even a handful of Sinaloa men alive, those girls will die in captivity, and you know it.”

  “I can’t promise you I can save them, little warrior.”

  “I don’t need you to. Just win your war.”

  “With the Russians on side, its more likely.”

  She nods. “Good. I need to go and talk to Una. We were planning to go after one of their distributors tonight.”

  I stiffen at the thought of her running straight into the line of fire, but this is what I agreed to isn’t it? All of this is forcing me to fight against my nature.

  “It will be fine,” she says, flippantly.

  “You just killed the consigliere of the Sinaloa cartel. They’l
l be on high alert. Nothing about this is fine.”

  “Don’t even think about trying to talk me out of it. We have an agreement, an alliance. Not as your…whatever.”

  “Mine. Just mine, little warrior.” And I’d be happy to remind her of it.

  “This is an alliance between two people with a mutual enemy. Nothing more.” I’m not sure if she believes the lie or she just hopes that I will.

  Pushing away from the desk, I stalk towards her. She wants to play assassin with her sister, but I know how dangerous this city is, how lethal Dominges can be. Wrapping my hand around the back of her neck, I tug her forward. Her hands land on my chest, rapid breaths washing over my lips. “I’ll go with you.”

  “Strategically, it would be better if you hit them elsewhere at the same time. Confuse them and deal a double blow.” She’s right, but it doesn’t make much difference. “Samuel will go.”

  A small smile touches her lips, and she grabs my face, forcing me to meet her gaze. That simple contact is like a shot of everything I crave being injected straight into my bloodstream. She’s innocence and light and everything that’s sorely lacking in my world. “You’ll go yourself.” I open my mouth to respond, but she places her palm over my mouth. “I won’t be your weakness.” And I’m caught between wanting to lock her away, and this tentative fucking hope, because her words imply that we have a future, that she wants a future.

  “This is the way it needs to be, Rafe. Take it or leave it.”

  “Little warrior…you are trying to be something you’re not.”

  “What if I am though?”

  “You’re not.”

  “Maybe I’m right, or maybe you’re right, but if you never let me go, you’ll never see it.”

  I know I’m not going to win this fight with her, and if I push too hard, she’ll just go with her sister and do it anyway. “Fine.” I wind my fingers around her throat and turn, changing our positions and forcing her up against the desk. “But if you die... or get hurt.”