Sweet Collateral

by LP Lovell

  He nods stiffly, acknowledging my words but sure as hell not liking them. The truth is, it was the best Carlos could do for his little brother, and that’s sad.

  We wait and wait. The more time that passes, the more edgy Carlos becomes. It’s been fifteen minutes and I’m ready to send someone else in after him when finally, the bar door opens and Lucas walks out.

  “She’s in there,” he says when he gets in the car.

  “Who? Anna or Una?”

  “Both, I think. I spotted Una lingering near the back, hood up, trying to blend in. Anna was talking to a guy…” He gnaws on his bottom lip and fidgets in his seat.

  “Which guy?” I practically growl.

  “He was Sinaloa.”

  I reach for the door handle and yank it so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t break.

  “Rafe.” Carlos shouts. “You can’t just storm in there.”

  “Anna is in there with Sinaloa soldiers, Carlos.”

  He swipes a hand over his face and groans. “I know, but be fucking rational. You’re ten times more likely to get her hurt running in there.” He looks at Lucas. “Were they hurting her at all?”

  Lucas shakes his head, keeping his eyes downcast.

  “This is not up for discussion.” I take my gun from the back of my pants and step out of the car, but the second my feet hit the rutty concrete, my phone rings. Taking it out I glance at the screen and see Samuel’s name flash up.

  I answer it. “Yeah?”

  “I have him,” he says simply.

  “And his men?”

  “Dead. We have his east side compound.”

  “Good. Wait there.”

  Hanging up, I turn and face the open door of the car. “Everyone out. We’re going in. Kill every Sinaloa you see.”

  Carlos throws his door open. “This is risky. Dominges…”

  “Is with Sam. He’s fucked. Now all we have to do is pick apart what’s left.”

  He scrubs a hand over his jaw. “And you storming in there wouldn’t have anything to do with Anna?”

  I check the clip on my gun and slam it back in place. “I’d lie to you, but you know better.”

  He sighs and pulls his hood up a little. “Okay.” He goes to jump out of the car, but I place a hand on his chest, halting him. “Not this time.” He glares at me, and I smile. “Just give it a few weeks. Hobbling around…you’ll get yourself shot. Properly this time.”

  I wave the guys out of the second Hummer before walking across the street to the bar. The scent of beer, body odor, and smoke hits me the second I step inside. There’s a moment where no one even looks up, but once one person does, they all do. And then all hell breaks loose. My face is well known around here and feared, but in this bar; on Sinaloa territory, I’m like the devil himself. Guns are drawn, and I spot Anna a second before the bullets start to fly. The guy next to her has his hand on her thigh and his lips far too fucking close to her neck. She’s smiling at him in a way that has my blood boiling in my veins. I shoot that fucker first and she ducks beneath the table, allowing me to focus on not getting shot. Aim and shoot, aim and shoot. That’s all I do until I’m out of bullets. By the time the shooting stops, the bar is a bloodbath. Bodies lay everywhere, most Sinaloa, but some bystanders caught in the crossfire. Glancing across the room, I spot a lone figure in a booth in the corner, hood pulled up. Reaching up, they lower the material, and I’m met with Una’s fierce glare.

  “Your lack of finesse is really starting to fuck things up for me,” she snaps, pushing to her feet.

  Anna scrambles out from under the table, and I grab her wrist, yanking her towards the door. “Rafe. Ow!” She stumbles after me, tugging against my hold, but I don’t care. My temper is at its limit, and I need to leave before someone dies. Namely Una. “Rafe!” I drag her to a Hummer and open the passenger door, shoving her inside before I slam it. Ignoring everyone, I get in the driver’s side and start it, revving the engine. The wheels spit dust and gravel everywhere as I floor it out of the alleyway and into the streets of the city.

  All I can fucking see is her smiling like some cheap whore. My Anna. Slamming my hand over the steering wheel, I ram the accelerator pedal to the floor.

  I’m not doing this with her. I’m done.

  71

  Anna

  “Rafael…” I reach out to touch his arm because honestly, he’s scaring me.

  “Don’t, Anna,” he growls. I snatch my hand away, his words burning me. I’ve seen Rafael mad, but this is different. This is directed at me, and I’m not sure how to handle it.

  “I was trying to get information on Dominges,” I tell him. Dominges is in the wind, and honestly, I’m desperate. All I keep thinking of is that boy, and that if I can get to Dominges then at least his life wasn’t lost for nothing. I need this, more than I ever have before. Not for the girls trapped in his compounds, or my own sense of justice. I need it so I can barter the weight of my wrongs against this one right thing.

  Rafael huffs a humorless laugh. “By acting like a whore.” That word on his lips feels like a knife to the chest. He hates it. He hates when I call myself a whore, and I never thought he would say it to me. Ever.

  “I’m doing what I have to.”

  “No, you’re doing what Una tells you to.” He won’t even look at me.

  “You don’t own me, Rafael. I told you I came here to kill Dominges, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “And you’re just going to pretend like you didn’t completely fall apart last night? You’re on a one-way path, Anna. Keep going, and I won’t be able to save you this time.”

  “I never asked you to save me!” I shout, my voice hoarse yet deafening in the space of the car. He slams the brakes on, and the car screeches to a halt in the middle of the road.

  He slowly turns to face me, his expression hard and implacable. The muscle in his jaw tics and I know he’s close to the edge, so very close to losing it. It’s only when I stare into his eyes that I see the fissure of panic, the slow unraveling of the man who has been my rock.

  “Walk away.” He says it like a command.

  “No.”

  “Okay.” And then he simply puts the car in gear and pulls away. Okay? That’s it? Of all the things he could have said, I think that simple response scares me the most because Rafael never just lies down. Not when he clearly feels so strongly about something.

  Silence reigns as we drive through the back streets of Juarez. We pull up to a chain-link metal fence, and we’re waved on through the open gate. He parks in front of a single story brick building that looks like a motel. Several of Rafael’s men greet us, armed with rifles. One of the motel room doors opens, and Samuel steps out, standing with his arms folded over his chest.

  “Where are we?” I ask.

  “You wanted Dominges…” Rafael throws the door open and steps out, rounding the front of the vehicle. Yanking the passenger door open, he grabs my wrist, dragging me roughly from the car. His grip is bruising, his patience non-existent.

  “Rafael.” I fight his hold, digging my heels into the dirt floor, to no avail. He’s scaring me, and my heartbeat ticks up with each passing second. Samuel frowns at the scene unfolding in front of him, his lips pressing together tightly as though he’s trying to bite his tongue. I look frantically at him in the hope that he’ll help, but of course he won’t. Shoving past him, Rafael pushes the door open and pulls me inside, closing it behind us.

  “Rafael, what the hell are you doing?” I can hear the tremor in my own voice, and I know he does too. I expect him to soften at the sound of it, but instead, he smirks. There’s something feral and violent lingering just beneath his demeanor, swirling in those dark irises, barely leashed. For the first time, I’m not entirely sure what he’ll do.

  Gripping my jaw, he twists my head sharply to look at the room. I still; sucking in a sharp breath. The dirty looking room contains a bed and a small table. And between the two items of furniture is a lone figure, tied to a chair. His
suit is dirty and tattered, and his chin hangs limply against his chest. A gash on his forehead slowly drips blood onto the leather toe of his shoe. Rafael slides his hand from my face to my hair, fisting it roughly and dragging me closer to the battered figure. With a well-positioned finger to the forehead, he tilts the man’s head back, and I’m met with the beaten and bloodied image of none other than Dominges.

  I swallow heavily, and my hands start to shake, from what? Anticipation? Relief? I’m not sure. “You found him,” I breathe.

  “Seems you were whoring yourself out for nothing.” Rafeal shoves me away from him and takes a gun from the back of his pants, holding it out to me. “Shoot him.”

  I glance at the beaten, barely-living man. He deserves this. He deserves everything he gets for what he does. The things he allows to happen to those girls, the things that happened to me. I lift the gun, calling on all my strength, but still, my hand shakes.

  “Oh, come on, princess,” Rafael drawls. Princess. He makes a solitary word sound so derogatory, as though I’m some weak girl. And yet, as barely more than a slave, he always called me little warrior. “You can do better than that. I thought you wanted him so badly.”

  “I do,” I whisper.

  “Oh, I know. Enough to defy me. Enough to let some dirty Sinaloa fuck touch what is mine.” His voice is eerily calm. Cruel.

  “It’s not like that—”

  “Come on, killer. Shoot him. Take it. Become everything you wanted to be.” Killer. The word burrows inside my head, and the cold, misted eyes of that boy mock me, dancing through my mind in their own grizzly horror show.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to focus and lift the gun again. When I open them, Rafael is standing right next to Dominges, the beaten man’s hair fisted in his hand as he holds his head upright. “Should I wake him, so you can look him in the eye as you kill him?” He tilts his head to the side, and I can feel his judgment because we both know how cowardly it is to shoot an unconscious man. Before I can reply, Rafael backhands Dominges and the man groans, his swollen eyes opening just a crack. “There you go. Look him in the eye. Remember everything he’s done to you, everything he made you.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I scream at him.

  He moves until his enormous frame towers over me. “Make a choice, Anna. Who do you want to be?” It feels like a trick question because one person is the girl I want to be, and the other is the one he wants me to be. Our eyes lock, and the anger, the violence, and the love, it all swirls between us in a turbulent storm, so vicious it threatens to tear us both apart. Stepping around him, I take a deep breath and lift the gun. “I have to do this, Rafe.” He doesn’t understand it, and maybe neither do I really.

  Again, my hand trembles along with my hammering heart. Dominges looks at me through swollen eyes, and I expect him to say something, beg maybe, but he doesn’t. He’s resigned to his fate, and that in itself feels like a sense of justice because I spent years resigned to mine, accepting it.

  “You’re an animal,” I whisper through my tightening throat. Still, he says nothing, and I take a step closer, craving the regret in his eyes. He stares down the barrel of the gun that’s barely an inch from his face now. And I see it, the trace of fear. My finger squeezes over the trigger. Bang. Blood spatters over the wall behind him, and his head falls backward at a horrible angle. I choke as I release the breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding.

  Rafael shifts behind me, the warmth of his body seeping across the small space between us and into me. Turning around, I lift my gaze to his, anxious about what I’ll see. His dark eyes are unreadable as he reaches out and swipes a finger along the length of my collarbone.

  “You look good in blood.”

  I open my mouth to respond, but his fingers dive into my hair, wrenching my head back so hard that it steals all the breath from my lungs.

  His lips slam over mine, our teeth clashing together violently in something that should be tender and sweet. I’m unfamiliar with this kind of brutality from him, and yet part of me wants it because I know this is the real Rafael, the beast that he keeps leashed. I wanted to be strong, strong enough to see this, to handle this side of him. I didn’t want to be protected or coddled, and it seems he’s done doing that.

  He yanks my head back even further until my spine bows over the bar of his arm at my back. His tongue swipes the length of my throat before he bites me. Hard. I gasp, my nails raking over his back.

  Everything happens so fast. One minute I’m standing there, the next my back hits the mattress of the dirty motel bed. My shorts are yanked off so roughly that the button pings off. His eyes are wild, every muscle bristling with bottled tension. He tears my tank over my head, tossing me around as though I’m nothing more than a doll. Feral eyes trace over every inch of my body, and a groan slips from his lips.

  “So fucking beautiful.” Wrenching my legs apart, he thrusts two fingers inside me. My oxygen cuts off for a second, and my vision blanks out. “I want to ruin you, Anna. Nothing so pure should exist.”

  I swallow heavily as his words evoke just a hint of fear. “Rafael.”

  His lips pull into a wry smile, and he pulls his fingers out, thrusting back in hard enough to shunt me up the bed. Leaning over, he kisses me. “Are you scared, little warrior?”

  Our eyes lock, and I know I could never truly be scared of him. “No,” I whisper.

  “I wanted to protect you from everything. Even me.” His jaw clenches and his eyes shut. “But you make me crazy.” He pulls his fingers out of me and brings them to my mouth. I close my lips around the digits, watching him as I suck the taste of myself from his skin. A feral growl tears from him, and he pulls his hand away, slamming it around my throat. His hips roll, grinding his hard cock against me. “See what you do to me.”

  He’s pushing every boundary I have, and yet I want it. I don’t want to be the precious little flower that he reins himself in for. I want this: his violence, his destruction, his unbridled lust. I’m ready.

  “Fuck me, Rafe,” I breathe, sounding far braver than I feel. Anyone else and I’d be a mess right now, but it’s him. My exception.

  The clink of his belt buckle sounds, and then he’s driving into me, claiming me, taking everything he wants, everything I’m willing to give. Harsh fingers dig into my hips and throat hard enough to bruise, and my back bows from the bed, my body contorting and writhing in time with his own personal tune. Gripping my jaw, he turns my head, pressing my cheek into the worn comforter.

  Hot lips brush over my cheek before he nips my ear. “Look at him, little warrior. Look at what you did.” I look at Dominges’ body bent as it is over the back of the chair. Blood drips steadily from the bullet that tore through the back of his skull. “So violent,” he groans against my ear, thrusting into me.

  He fucks me hard and fast, completely unlike any of the other times before. It’s different, but we’re different. Torn apart and brought back together. Both loving each other, whilst torturing each other. That’s what this is. It’s beautiful but painful. Love within war. The perfect contradiction—just as we have always been. I allow myself to get swept up in him, caught in the vortex of power and chaos that swirls so effortlessly around him. It’s infectious and hypnotic. Reaching for him, I grip his face in both hands and kiss him. His tongue invades my mouth just as surely as the rest of his body, and I moan, biting down on his lip. I lose any sense of time or reality until I’m left screaming his name, begging, pleading. A sick smile pulls at his lips as he watches me shatter for him. Grabbing my hips, he slams into me several times, spitting my name like a curse before finally pulling away from me.

  He staggers back a few steps, chest heaving and shoulders tense. The reality of the situation dawns on me, and I sit up, pulling my knees to my chest. What have I become? I’m here in some dirty room—that is undoubtedly used for paying customers to fuck unwilling girls in—fucking Rafael in front of Dominges’ dead body.

  Rafe drags a hand through his hair
, and then tugs his pants back into place. His movements are jerky and agitated, and I can feel the void of space opening up between us. He tosses my clothes at me.

  “Get dressed. We need to go,” he says, and then simply walks out, closing the door behind him. He left me in here naked, with a dead body. I’ve never felt more like a whore.

  I quickly dress and open the door, keeping my face tilted down as blood heats my cheeks. I know the men out here probably heard that.

  “Hey, you okay?” I glance up at the sound of Lucas’ voice. His eyes study my face, concern pinching his brows together.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Dominges?”

  “Dead.”

  He nods but says nothing else. Rafael is nowhere to be seen, but his guys are systematically going from door to door of each motel room, and pulling out girls. Each of them is led to a minibus waiting in the middle of the dirt parking lot. Carlos stands there with his crutches, helping each of them inside, one by one.

  “Where are they taking the girls?”

  “Somewhere safe.”

  “Rafael’s saving them?” I ask.

  Lucas shrugs one shoulder. “It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” It is, but he told me it couldn’t be done. Truthfully, I have no idea where Rafael and I stand, but he’s still rescuing these girls…for me. Or perhaps it’s not for me. He says he’s a bad man, and he is. A bad man with a heart of gold.

  “Come on. I’m driving you.”

  “Where’s Rafael?”

  “Handling business. They had guys hit almost every remaining Sinaloa compound tonight. It’s still going on. The city is carnage, but by morning, the Sinaloa cartel will have fallen.”

  I nod, remembering a time when Una told me an entire cartel could not be defeated. Looks like she was wrong. “Where’s Una?”

  “I’ll take you to her,” Lucas says, gently taking my elbow and steering me toward an SUV. He starts the car and winds through all the parked vehicles in the small lot. It’s like a military-style operation, moving women, weapons, drugs… They’re stripping the place.