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I touched my lips with my fingertips.
That was my first real kiss.
I’d had other kisses stolen from young guards and other cartel kids. But those kisses meant nothing. They were stolen from people I had power over. They were curiosities. They were pointless.
This was my first real connection. A kiss from a man that could overpower me. That wasn’t beholden to me.
And I wanted more. I ached for more. He’d shown me something, and now I wanted to walk that path and find out where it led. I needed to see what his hands felt like as they roamed over my naked, soft skin. I wanted to hear him growl and groan in my ear.
I wanted him to make me whisper his name as I whimpered and took him deep between my legs.
It was fucked. So deeply fucked and wrong.
I turned to look at the watch lying on the counter. I walked over and picked it up. Patek Phillippe. I’d seen this brand before. It was probably worth over ten thousand dollars.
I shoved it in my pocket and felt sick as I hurried back to my room. I shut my door and locked it. My leg hurt like hell. A deep, bone-heavy pulsing pain, like someone had kicked me over and over with steel-toed boots.
I trembled as I took the baggie from my backpack and dry swallowed a pill.
I stared at the stolen watch and waited for the sweet release of the drug to wash through my body.
Chapter 7
Jules
Oscar picked me up from school again the next day. “How was school, little girl?” he asked as he opened the back door for me.
I climbed in like jumping head first into hell.
He laughed as he got behind the wheel and pulled out. We didn’t talk on the way back to the apartment. I rubbed my leg and wished I’d taken a pill before leaving. I should’ve known Oscar would pick me up. Only the sweet haze of the drug kept me sane when that monster was around.
But my last pill was the night before, which meant I had to face this nightmare as sober as a stone.
“Did you find me anything yet?” he asked casually as he drove.
“Not yet,” I said, staring out the window at the buildings and houses flashing past. Stone front yard, Southwest-style houses. Spanish architecture mixed with classic American single-family homes.
“Not yet? You were alone all night with him. You don’t know anything?”
“He’s not going to spill all his secrets—”
Oscar slammed on the brakes and stopped short at a light. I slammed forward against my seatbelt and my backpack tumbled onto the floor. I picked it up, my hands shaking.
“That’s not good enough.”
“I asked him,” I said, heart racing. I felt sick to my stomach. I thought of that kiss and what it’d done to me, but it was tainted. Oscar tainted everything. “He told me he took over stash houses. He’s selling stuff out of them. I guess drugs Papa’s sending up.”
Oscar nodded slowly. “That’s a start.”
“It’s all I have right now. I can get specifics, I just need time.”
He grunted as he pulled into the parking structure. He found our spot and killed the engine. “I need more, little girl. Or I’m going to have to do something drastic.”
I let out an involuntary groan of fear and reached into my bag. I grabbed the watch I’d stolen, the ridiculously expensive Patek Phillipe, and handed it up to him. He took it and stared for several long, tense seconds.
“What the fuck is this?”
His tone sent a shiver of terror down my spine. “A watch. It’s an expensive—”
He turned and threw it at me. The watch hit me in the chest and I grunted. It was going to leave a bruise.
“A fucking Patek Phillipe? What is going through your stupid fucking skull? That’s a ten-thousand-dollar watch. Do you think he won’t notice you took a goddamn ten-thousand-dollar watch?”
“You said to—”
“I said to get me cash,” he said, seething and glaring like an enraged animal. “If a watch like that goes missing, he’ll assume someone stole it. He’ll fucking assume it was me.”
Oscar got out of the car before I could argue. He came around, pulled open my door, and reached inside.
“No, Oscar—”
He grabbed me by the hair and the wrist and yanked me out. I gasped as he threw me forward. He ripped my backpack out, unzipped it, and dumped the contents onto the ground. My books, pencils, pens, notebooks, and a little baggie of tiny white pills scattered all over.
Oscar threw the bag at my face.
“Pick it up,” he said, staring hate.
I scrambled to listen. I’d seen him like this before, and it was never a good idea to fight back, not when he was so angry. It wouldn’t end well for me.
I got half the bag packed when Oscar stiffened and suddenly stopped to help. I looked up, frowning, and spotted Carmine walking toward us.
