Dirty Angels

by Karina Halle

  “Right in here,” Este said, leading me through a doorway and into a black-and-white tiled kitchen that smelled of fried pork. At a round table sat an older man with grey, slicked back hair and a mustache. He was dressed all in white and was wearing small round glasses as he looked over the newspaper. He didn’t even glance up at me.

  Beside him, sipping on a mug of tea and staring at me with vague surprise, was Javier. This was the first time I was able to get a good look at him in daylight. He was wearing a white dress shirt with the top few buttons undone. A gold watch glinted from his wrist while his elbows rested on the table.

  In some ways Javier was an unusual looking man. He wasn’t movie star handsome—or even Telemundo handsome. His mouth was a little too wide, his nose was a bit crooked, perhaps a tad puffy from last night. He wasn’t terribly tall, and his body was sleek with an athletic build, not as muscled as Esteban. But he had sensual lips, dark, expressive brows, and high cheekbones. His hair was dark, shiny and thick enough to make any man or woman envious, a shaggy and slightly long cut. Then there were his eyes, that stark, golden gaze that cut you from the inside out. You couldn’t help but get sucked into them, swirling into whatever darkness lurked below. They were relentless, terrifying, and oddly beautiful, just like the man himself.

  Javier took his eyes off of me and fixed them on Esteban. “I wasn’t expecting her.”

  Esteban let go of my arm and nudged me toward the table. “She wanted to come. I told you I could convince her.”

  I swallowed hard as Javier looked back at me, searching my face. I wasn’t sure why Esteban lied—he had certainly not convinced me of anything—but I wasn’t about to call attention to it either.

  “Well then,” Javier said, nodding at the empty seat across from him. “Sit down. Eat Este’s breakfast.”

  I didn’t want to move, but Esteban nudged me again, harder this time, until I practically fell into the chair. The mugs and glasses of juice on the table rattled, spilling over slightly, and Javier briefly shot Esteban a deadly look, though I couldn’t tell if it was for my unceremonious treatment or the spilled drinks. Most likely the latter.

  “I got her to wear the dress too,” Este added, standing behind me and resting his hands on the back of my chair.

  Javier’s gaze slid over my body before resting on my face, looking remotely suspicious. “So I see. I hope you like it, Luisa. If you don’t, there’s more where it came from.”

  I could only stare blankly at him, too overwhelmed by the situation.

  “Oh, and where are my manners?” He looked over at the grey-haired man. “Luisa, this is The Doctor. Doc, this is our dear houseguest, Luisa Reyes.”

  The Doctor eyed me dryly before turning back to the paper. “Yes, I met her the other night.”

  “Ah, but the other night was so … chaotic, don’t you think?” Javier folded his hands in front of him. “Perhaps proper introductions are still needed. You know who I am, so you say. The man behind you is Esteban Mendoza. Another partner of ours, Franco, is running errands. I’m afraid you don’t want to get on his bad side—again.” He gestured to my cheek which was still tender, thanks to the hit it took the other night. I’d made a note not to look at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, but I knew it was deeply bruised.

  “There are a few more people you’ll see milling about, but their names aren’t important. They won’t have much to do with you unless you make trouble for yourself. It seems as if that’s something you like to do—I recommend you don’t. We don’t want to do any harm to you. That said, we’re not completely against it either.”

  I snorted and gave him the most disgusted look I could muster.

  It made him smile, cunning and cruel. “So you know how to find humor in life. That will go a long way, my darling. But you should also know when I’m serious. We’ve given the demands to your husband. The ball is in his court.”

  I couldn’t help the smirk that sneaked angrily across my face. “He’ll never make a deal with you. You’ll see.”

  “I think you underestimate your worth,” Javier said earnestly.

  “And I think you overestimate my husband,” I said. “You would have been better off just killing him instead of taking me. That was your biggest mistake.”

  His jaw flexed very lightly, as if he were biting something back.

  “There was no mistake,” he said carefully. He paused. “So you would have preferred we kill your dear Salvador?”

  “If you killed him, I wouldn’t be here right now, wearing a whore’s dress and being forced to eat your shitty food.”

  A genuine smile spread across Javier’s face, lighting his eyes up like citron stones. There was a beauty to it that shocked me, making me momentarily forget who I was dealing with.

  He laughed, nodding his head. “You are something, aren’t you? You know, by the time you leave, I think the two of us will get to know each other very well. I might even end up liking you.”

  I didn’t return the smile. No, you won’t, I thought. Because I won’t give you what you want.

  It was all for show now, all of this, the banter, the pretenses that this could be a cordial experience. It didn’t fool me for a second. After all, there was a V that needed to be carved into my back.

  “I’ll have you know,” The Doctor said, slowly getting to his feet, “that the food is only shitty when Este is cooking.”

  “Hey,” Este said from behind me, sounding hurt.

  The smile suddenly departed Javier’s face. He looked to Este and The Doctor. “Do you mind giving us some privacy? Luisa and I need to talk. Alone.”

  I felt Esteban hesitate at my back, but he and The Doctor left the room by way of the kitchen door. Sunlight, heat, and birdsong streamed inside for a moment. I breathed in deeply, trying both to find my courage to face Javier alone again and to take in the smell of the surrounding mountains. It smelled clean, like sunbaked leaves and dry air. It reminded me that life was going on outside this house, and that it could be beautiful.

  “What are you thinking?” Javier asked me in a low voice, sounding genuinely interested.

  I would not let him in. I looked at him point blank. “About how you’re going to kill me.”

  He raised his brow. “And how do you think I’m going to kill you?”

  I shrugged, pretending that even talking about it didn’t scare me. “You’ll probably slice my head off. That’s what Salvador does … when he’s in a good mood.”

  He stared at me intently. “It wouldn’t be the first time for me. But the blood is starting to be a real pain to clean up.”

  “Then how will you do it?”

  His brow furrowed. “You really think I’m going to kill you?”

  “If Salvador doesn’t give you want you want, then yes. But before that, you’ll start sending him my body parts. My fingers and toes first. Perhaps my ears. A tit.”

  He leaned back in his chair and shook his head, looking disturbed. “You are a morbid little woman.”

  “I didn’t used to be. Then I became the wife of a drug lord.”

  He licked his lips, looking me over. “You’re very good at pretending not to be afraid. But I am very good at seeking the truth in people. You can’t go far in this business without becoming somewhat of a mind reader.” He folded his hands behind his head, looking utterly casual. “And I can sense your fear, buried beneath all your bravado. I can smell it.”

  I ignored him and looked up at his wrist. His watch had moved over an inch and I could see the word “wish” tattooed beneath it in English.

  “What does your tattoo mean?” I asked.

  His face froze for a moment then relaxed. “It’s English.”

  “I know how to read English,” I told him. “I worked at a bar in Cabo San Lucas for the last three years.”

  Oh damn, big mistake. He didn’t need to know anything else about me.

  “So I heard,” he said. When he noted my expression he added, “Don’t look so surprised. I had peopl
e researching you for some time. I know a lot of things about you, Luisa Reyes.”

  “I’d rather you call me Chavez,” I told him. “The Reyes name means nothing to me.”

  “Apparently. So why did you marry him then? Money?”

  “What does the tattoo mean? You tell me something, I’ll tell you something.”

  He pursed his lips for a moment and then nodded sharply. “All right. The tattoo is for a Nine Inch Nails’ song. I got it when I was young and stupid and living in America.”

  That couldn’t be all there was to the story, but his face was completely unreadable.

  “So you married him for money?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I nodded. There was no chance of me telling him the real reason. As long as my parents were alive, this monster would never know about them. “He took an interest in me, and of course I said yes to him.”

  “Of course,” he said slowly, a hint of disappointment on his brow. “Well, Luisa, I hope it was worth your life.”

  My heart thumped uncomfortably. “I thought you said you weren’t going to kill me.”

  He gave me a small smile. “I never said that. I only asked why you thought I was. If Salvador does not comply, we probably will have to start sending him little pieces of you. Or we may just chop your head right off and send him that.”

  It was hard to ignore the fear now. I don’t know why it suddenly felt so real. I guess sitting across from him, looking at Javier Bernal, made it hard to ignore. Still, I straightened up in my seat. “You’ll have all that blood to clean up.”

  He shrugged lazily. “True, but that’s what Este is for, after all.” Suddenly the look in his eyes darkened. “You like him, don’t you?”

  I frowned, totally confused. “Like him?”

  He gave me a dismissive wave and got out of his chair. I could see now he had on dark blue jeans with a hand-tooled leather belt. That, combined with his pristine white shirt, made him seem so elegantly casual.

  So elegantly dangerous.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, coming around the table. “Get up. Take off your dress.”

  I blinked at him. “What?”

  He kicked at the leg of the chair, moving me back a few inches. “Do it. Please. Or I will do it for you. Would you like that?” He reached out for me and I balked from his touch. “Because I think I would.”

  I didn’t know what to do. I felt frozen, stuck to the chair, unable to move.

  He didn’t wait for me. He quickly reached down and put his hands around my waist, lifting me straight out of the chair. He was deceptively strong, and he placed me on my feet with grace, as if we were a figure skating pair.

  He held me close to him, hands still cupped around my waist, staring down at me like he was trying to hypnotize me with his eyes. “You are my enigma,” he said gruffly. “But I never leave anything unsolved.”

  Before I could say anything to that, he pulled the dress right over my head and tossed it on the ground behind him. There I was, standing stark naked in his kitchen, still dirty from my escape. I felt like the dirt was in every corner of my soul while I stood there and he looked me over with an unmeasurable smile.

  He stepped back and I did what I could to cover myself. He quickly swatted my arms away. “No, no, Luisa. You just stand right there until I tell you otherwise.” He slowly walked to the side of me, pushing the table out of the way. “You were a beauty queen, this should be nothing but second nature to you.”

  “I was never a whore,” I managed to say, keeping my eyes focused on a blank spot on the wall. I wondered if Esteban and The Doctor knew what was going on, wondered if one of Javier’s guards would come sauntering in here. I tried to push the memories of Salvador and the humiliating things he had made me do out of my head. It was all I could do to stay strong.

  “You’re right,” he said softly, stopping behind me. “I can see you were never a whore. Your purity shines through you. It’s intoxicating.” I felt him step closer, his breath at the back of my neck. He breathed in. “More intoxicating than the finest liquor.” He breathed out, slowly, blowing a few strands of hair. “And this is why I refuse to believe that Salvador won’t give me what I want, not for as long as I have you.”

  I closed my eyes, knowing I couldn’t change his mind, not now.

  He pressed close to me.

  “I will break you,” he whispered in my ear, his breath hot. He ran his hands down my sides, then reached around my breasts, finding the nipples. I steeled myself against him, not allowing myself to feel anything. Though his touch was soft and gentle, his intentions were not. The intentions of men never were.

  I swallowed hard and said as steadily as I could muster, “Then do your worst. And you will see that the worst has already been done.”

  He sucked in his breath, just for a moment. Then he said, “Is that so?”

  “You’ve only stripped me naked.”

  “Are you asking for more?” he asked softly, his lips now at my other ear, my nipples finally starting to pucker under the rhythmic teasing of his thumbs. My body was responding in a way it shouldn’t, in a way I never thought possible. “I’m not done with your back, you know. There are more letters in my name.”

  One of his hands traced the letters J and A. I winced from even that light pressure on the wounds but quickly buried the pain. Thankfully, his fingers didn’t linger there. His hands began to drift down my bare back. They swept over my ass, sliding his finger underneath my cheeks, in the soft spot where they met the thigh. It nearly tickled me and brought out a low groan from him.

  I’m not here, I’m not here, I’m not here, I chanted to myself.

  Javier walked around me, keeping his hands at my waist, until his face was right in front of mine. I opened my eyes to see that perpetual smirk twisting the ends of his lips. “I am far from done with you, Miss Chavez, the beauty queen.”

  He then crouched down, his hands sliding down my hips, the sides of my thighs. His touch was so gentle and so deceiving. I sucked in my breath, doing what I could to ignore the goose bumps of pleasure.

  “You’re doing this for revenge,” I said, staring down at him, refusing to look away, refusing my body’s betrayal.

  He smirked and started running his hands up my inner thighs. “On Salvador? Well, I suppose that is pretty obvious, my beauty.”

  “No,” I told him. “This is your revenge on women.” His hands paused at that, gripping my skin. “Because a woman broke you.”

  His eyes slowly trailed up to mine, simmering in a golden fury that belied his cold exterior. He straightened up, and that look of anger, of pain … was gone. The hypnotizing, handsome mask was back.

  “I don’t know what you are referring to,” he said with ease.

  I couldn’t help but smirk right back at him. I had found his sore spot. Someone had broken his heart. “No. Perhaps you don’t.” The tattoo had tipped me off. If it really had just been about a band, I would never have seen that look of fear pass through his eyes. Now I was thrilled I had something to go on, some way to get to him. “Perhaps you don’t want to talk about it.”

  “There is nothing to talk about.” This time he said it a little too easily. His voice grew husky. “Now, give me your hands.”

  He grasped both my wrists and brought them behind my back. Before I could look over my shoulder, I felt them being bound together with rope. Did he keep a length of rope on him at all times? Probably. That and a knife.

  “Get on your knees,” he commanded.

  “Here?” I asked, my breath catching in my throat.

  “Yes,” he said. He leaned in and said into my ear, “Here. Now.”

  I wondered what would happen if I refused. One moment he acted as if he would never hurt me, the next moment there was this dark malice in his soul, the part of him that chopped people’s heads off.

  Either way, the only choice I had was to be as unaffected as possible. So I did as he said. I dropped to my knees, carefully, with my hands bound behind me.


  “Good. Now put your face on the floor. Keep your gorgeous ass in the air.”

  I complied, leaning over until my cheek was pressed against the cold tiles. I couldn’t have felt more vulnerable, more humiliated, if I tried.

  And it seemed like Javier was a person to try. I heard him unzip his jeans, the sound seeming to echo off the kitchen walls, so simple and so terrifying.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and braced myself. As I had done with Salvador or whatever man he’d made me have sex with, I removed a part of myself from the situation. I swallowed the fear and the feelings, and I became a blank slate, a void that wouldn’t feel any pain, wouldn’t process any emotion.

  Javier could do his worst. I was ready for him. Ready to feel nothing.

  But the pain never came. I didn’t know if this was part of the game, but he never touched me. Was he waiting to pounce when I least expected it? Was he taking his time?

  I opened my eyes, and though I didn’t dare look over my shoulder, I caught sight of him in my peripheral. He was standing there, right behind me. But he wasn’t just standing there. He was moving ever so slightly.

  I heard a small moan escape from his lips and finally realized what he was doing—he was pleasuring himself.

  I felt a jolt of revulsion mingled with perverse curiosity. A part of me wanted a better look, wanted to see him in the act. Another part of me—the better part—wanted to pretend none of this was happening.

  So I closed my eyes again and tried to pretend I wasn’t there, but I could hear his palm sliding up and down on himself, skin on skin, his breath as it hitched in pleasure. I couldn’t shut it out of my mind. The more worked up he got, the more it teased me, taunting me to look. I could barely imagine a man like Javier wrapped up in the vulnerability of release, and yet it was happening right behind me. It was happening because of me.

  And yet he hadn’t laid a finger on me, not yet. He was getting off on just the sight of me, the bare sight of me before him. I didn’t know whether to feel humiliated or flattered.

  He is only making fun of you, I told myself. Just because he’s not forcing himself on you doesn’t make him any different from Salvador.