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Her hands were bound in front of her with rope, and the calm void of unconsciousness softened her features, making her look younger than he knew she was.
Nineteen. And she wasn’t going to see her twentieth birthday.
He reached over impulsively, moving the hair off her face with the back of his hand. He narrowed his eyes, taking her in. Full lips. That bronze skin the Colombian girls wore so well. She wasn’t his type, but he had to admit to himself that she was pretty.
He made his left hand into the shape of a gun and pressed it against her temple. Taking a drag of his cigarette, he blew a cloud of smoke in her face as he simulated blowing her brains out with a tip of his wrist.
It was almost a shame he was going to ruin that pretty face with a bullet.
CHAPTER FOUR
MARIANA
When I awoke, red, crushing pain greeted me. I squeezed my eyes shut again, desperate to get back to that place where the darkness sat in my limbs, cool and comforting. But there was no peace to be found.
I was moving. Rattling around in the back seat of what looked to be an expensive car, travelling at some speed down a bumpy road. My hands were bound in front of me with thick rope that looked like it belonged on a boat or wharf, not on a girl’s wrists.
I could tell the car was expensive even before I opened my eyes. The smell of artificial air freshener invaded my nose as I felt soft, supple leather at my back and underneath my thighs.
People like me didn’t travel in cars with leather seats, unless they were cracked and rough, the kind of frayed, hard leather that dug into your skin and made you wish you could afford to buy a car-seat cover to save your back and ass.
I sat up, just in time to glimpse a large apartment block the locals referred to as La Casucha Hacienda passing by the window. The Slum Estate spanned several blocks of crumbling high-rise apartments joined by courtyards, and littered with used syringes, broken glass, and local thugs who liked to hurl abuse at anyone who dared walk past. It was a place most didn’t venture near, but when your family was a part of the cartel, you ended up knowing half the people who lived in La Cas on a first-name basis. My heart rose and then crashed as I recognised the familiar route.
They were taking me home.
I’d been upright maybe three seconds before a hand closed around my loose ponytail and dragged me down, the side of my face coming to rest in a man’s lap. What felt like expensive material brushed my face and I smelled tobacco and peppermint among the designer fabric. Whatever thick weave these pants were made of didn’t feel like the scratchy, cheap suits my father wore. And my father didn’t even use aftershave — he probably just slapped straight tequila on his cheeks after he shaved.
Terrified, and not expecting the sudden movement, I fought as hard as I could — which wasn’t very hard with the way I was positioned and my hands useless in front of me. Still, I gave it my best, turning my head and sinking my teeth into the leg of whoever was holding my head painfully close to their crotch. I gagged on the taste of dry cotton as fingernails dug into the back of my neck.
‘Fuck!’ the man roared, wrenching me back from his leg. A hand pushed my face forcefully away, so that I landed on the other side of the back seat, the back of my head slamming into the window.
I brought the back of my hand up to my face and tried to wipe some of the cotton lint out of my mouth. As I did, I glanced over at the man who would become my damnation.
I knew straight away who I was with, and the reality of my hopelessness began to sink in to my gut, hot and prickling. Emilio Ross, infamous kingpin of South America’s most powerful drug cartel, the Il Sangue Cartel, and my father’s long-time employer. With his dark eyes and pointed European nose, he reminded me of a wolf. And I was the goddamn lamb. Well, this lamb was going to put up a fight, even if it killed me.
‘Guess I won’t be putting my dick in your mouth without a gun to your head,’ he observed in English, goading me. He was probably in his late fifties, and my stomach turned at the thought of anything of his anywhere near my mouth. His eyes were dark brown with tiny flecks of amber in them, amber that reminded me of fire. Asshole.
‘Sounds like fun,’ I responded in Spanish, sarcasm so thick it almost dripped from my lips. ‘I wonder if you can pull the trigger before I bite your dick off?’
My mama always said it would be my mouth that got me into trouble. And my mama was always right.
The fire-eyed man laughed.
‘It’s been a long time, Mariana,’ Emilio Ross said casually, his voice deep and loud. ‘I haven’t seen you since you were a small girl.’
I still remembered the last time we’d spoken. I couldn’t have been more than eight, and he was visiting my father. I had scurried away to my room after being forced by my father to say hello. The fact that Emilio remembered the fleeting visit troubled me greatly.
‘Not long enough, obviously,’ I said to him, still speaking in Spanish.
He drew his brows together, smiling. I amused him. ‘Do you speak English, puta?’
‘I speak Fuck You,’ I replied, in perfect English.
He chuckled. ‘You’re not like your father,’ he said, his gaze moving from my eyes lower, lingering on my lips and breasts before flicking back to my face. A smirk grew on his mouth like a jagged crack in his face.
‘No,’ I replied flatly, still in English. ‘I’m not.’ After a year at an American boarding school and two more in a stateside university, English came to me just as quickly as my native Spanish tongue.
‘You must know that your father owes me a lot of money, puta?’ There he was, calling me a bitch again. I suspected it was because he only knew a few Spanish swear words.
