“Why the fuck were you on your own in an alleyway at night?” I grit out through clenched teeth. “Tell me the truth before I kill you, like my father ordered.”
I hear a collective murmur from the ranks. It’s unheard of for a man to disobey a direct order from the cartel king, never mind let a potential threat to our kingdom walk free.
Lessening my vice like grip, I give her the chance to answer my questions.
“I was trying to stop the bleeding,” she chokes out on a sob. “Someone shot him. I was leaving the jazz bar after my shift. He dropped at my feet.”
“Bullshit! You expect me to believe you’d help the man who wanted you dead?” The laugh bubbling from my throat is both deranged disbelief and searing pain.
A horrifying weight of deceit. My instincts told me she was far too innocent. Once before, I stared into those beautiful wide eyes of hers and felt my dead heart jostle when all I found was her inner turmoil. I got off on the lust she tried and failed to suppress.
Something about her naivety spoke to me in a way I’d never expected. She felt like sunlight after war––a lifesaving lungful of oxygen with a sharp kick of heroin. Deep down in my gut, I knew she was the most addictive drug I could ever survive.
So rather than heed an instruction, I had duped my father into thinking I’d killed her all because she fascinated me in a way that was unnatural and unacceptable. Carina was a seductive siren in the madness of my mind, coaxing me to her sandy shores where I found a filament of peace for a brief moment in time. And then I let her go.
“It’s the truth.” Her chin wobbles beneath my palm, dragging me out of the vivid memory that reminds me of what she did with that sinful mouth of hers. “I don’t have any weapons. And how the hell would I know he’d be in that alleyway, in that part of town?”
I hollow her cheeks once more, irritated at how being this close to her makes me relent a fraction. It’s a plausible answer, as much as it kills me to admit it to myself. “Then why the fuck would you help him?” I hiss with a sardonic grimace, the words burning my throat.
“Because he’s your father.” Her lashes lower and she swallows. “I was helping him for you. For whatyoudid to save me.”
The tremor in my hand starts as mild. I shove her face away from mine, taking a deep breath while she just sits there on her knees with bloodied hands trembling by filthy thighs. But when she raises two fingers and subconsciously pads the scar I know exists on her lip, my patience snaps.
An uncontrollable urge to both fuck her, mark her, and make her mine mixes with the desire to kill her. It twists within me like a fiery serpent. I lift the gun to the sky and shoot. Carina tries to scurry away, but I’m too fast, too fucking pumped with adrenaline and poison.
My own blood-stained hands seize the fragile bones in her wrists. Big tears tumble when her hot little body slams into mine. A deeply magnetic gaze paralyzes me. I’m dying to bury myself inside her and forget about trauma for the next few hours.
Our connection, although violent and cataclysmic, is undeniable.
“There’s one more thing I should have done before I gave you freedom.” I jab the barrel of my gun into her navel and gaze at the thin circle of fire bordering her enlarged pupils.
“Do it!” spits a guy on my right—from the men I’d forgotten were watching. “Slaughter the bitch. Do it for Elias.”
Diego bustles in beside me, brandishing his handgun, pointing it at Carina.No…my fucking prisoner. I spin on my heels, unwilling to release her and warring within myself for a speck of decorum, so this doesn’t end up as a massacre.
“Are you telling me what to do?” I snarl, balancing on rationality.
“She has his blood on her hands, Tommy,” he growls back at me, slightly tamer than before. “He’s dead, because of that lyingputa. You said it yourself.”
Diego jostles his gun too close to me, the ultimatum of rebellion vibrating from his form to mine. But what angers me the most is the audacity of his actions—his obvious disrespect toward me.
I lean into him, teeth bared. “You think I’m weak, Diego? Incapable of justice? Softer than my father? Or maybe you think I shouldn’t be in charge. Is that it, huh?”
The whites of his eyes gleam with provocation. “Show us you’re the rightful leader and shoot the traitor. Elias wouldn’t hold back.”
I laugh coldly. “I’m my father’s son—nothim. I’ve nothing to prove to you.”
My guard dogs howl from indoors, ready to be unleashed on my order. He shuffles from foot to foot and in a thoughtless second cocks his gun and points it at Carina’s face.
I’m fire and ice. Choking flames and an avalanche of snow.
Without delay, I step between her and the threat of death. I want an excuse to terrorize someone and it’s going to be this motherfucker—because it can’t be her. Not yet.
“Loyal men don't point a gun at their king, Diego.”
Shane appears tight to my side in solidarity and points his rifle at my new enemy. “Lower your weapon,” he says calmly. “Or I’ll blow your brains out.”
Diego offers it to him slowly, his face contorted with bitterness. “Elias knew how to control insurgents. She’s the enemy here, not me.”