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“How did you get into the complex?” I instead asked. This wasn’t a building where a resident would hold open the door for anyone lingering outside. You got in only if you had a keyora resident buzzed you in.
He gave a weak shrug. “There are always guards who’ll grant someone admittance if given the right incentive.”
So he’d somehow gotten to one of the guys in the security office downstairs, then. “Did you pay him or threaten him?”
“A little of both. Now let’s. Fucking. Go.”
My phone again began to ring.Please be Danton. Please be Danton.
“You want to talk more, we’ll do it on our way to the car,” Marcos added. “Move.”
Even as cold fingertips scuttled down my spine, I didn’t obey.
He gave me a dark look, his gaze gleaming with malice. “Don’t make this hard.”
My gut tightened as he took another step toward me. “I get that you’re only following orders, Marcos,” I began, proud that my voice didn’t shake, “but you really should just leave. You don’t want to make an enemy of Danton.”
Marcos’ eyes blazed fire, and his upper lip quivered. “He had no right to claim you. You were promised to meyearsago, when you were fifteen.”
I froze. Wait, what?
“Jorge said I could officially have you when you turned eighteen—he’d want no one else as a son-in-law, he said.”
Son-in-law? Was he freaking serious?
“But when you reached that age, he moved the marker; told me I’d have to wait until you were twenty. Then it was twenty-one. After that, all I kept hearing was ‘soon.’ He dangled that future in front of me like a fucking carrot, ensuring my obedience just as he uses Teresa to ensure yours. If I take you to Jorge now, I finally get that carrot.”
I felt my fingers twitch. I wished I could say that Jorge had played him; that he’d never intended to give me to Marcos like I was a fucking bike or something. But I knew my father well. Knew that, yes, he’d have handed me over in such a way without a qualm.
More, he’d have threatened to take out any objections I made on my mother in order to keep me compliant, neverconsidering that I might have declared, “Enough was enough” and pointblank refused to cooperate. And Julian hadn’t even warnedme of Jorge’s plans togiftme to Marcos.
Honest to Christ, the men I’d grown up around were the biggest assholes ever.
“I never consented to walking down an aisle with you at any point.” I never would have. Not in a million years, no matter what Jorge threatened me with.
Marcos raised a brow. “Since when has your consent mattered to your father?”
“It clearly doesn’t matter to you either. I’m not an object to be taken irrespective of what I want, but I wouldn’t expect that to resonate with you. No, you’re too much like Jorge. Women are things to you. Second rate citizens. Which is why I don’t buy that you give much of a shit if you have me or not.
“It isn’t really about me. It’s about marrying into the family to secure yourself a solid place in the hierarchy. Then if anything happened to Julian, you’d become heir.”
“That’s what it’s mostly about, yes,” said Marcos with an easy, remorseless shrug.
Fucking power games. I lifted my chin. “I don’t care what promises Jorge made you, I’ll never marry you.”
“Only because Quintero’s on the scene. Before him, you wouldn’t have objected. Not when you knew that I’d stop Jorge from using you.”
Oh, how wrong the sack of shit was.
“Well, Quintero took what doesn’t belong to him, and now I’m taking it back. I would have come for you sooner, but Jorge refused to make any move that would set Quintero off—even the Cory business didn’t make him act. Fucker wasn’t supposed to pull a gun on you.”
I stilled as a thought floated into my mind. Feeling my eyes narrow in suspicion, I accused, “You sent Cory.”
Marcos’s shoulders stiffened. “That was Julian.”
I shook my head, a feeling of certainty building in the pit of my stomach. “No. No, you were behind it. Why?”
Marcos only stared at me, his mouth twisting.
