Blood Money (Dark Cartel Romance) (Dinero de Sangre Book 1) Read online

  More than I intended…

  “Tristan?” I croak. “What happened?”

  Though I already know exactly what. He’s dead.

  Domino snaps his fingers, and another figure enters the room, someone taller than Ines. A man who sets a tray onto the table. It contains a bottle of wine and two glass flutes.

  “My favorite vintage,” Domino says once the man retreats. He grabs the bottle, reading the label. “The perfect drink to celebrate this occasion. Though, you may prefer water—” He snaps his fingers again, and the man returns with a glass pitcher of clear liquid. He pours some into one of the glasses and offers it to me. “Allow me to propose a toast. To the future, Ada-Maria. May we all receive that which we deserve.”

  A quiver shoots through my belly. I feel more dazed than ever. Like thinking at all requires the same effort as trudging through quicksand. Still, I try, straining to focus.

  “Take it.” He moved. Without my realizing it, he stood, glass in hand, and approached from my left, offering the water to me.

  I reach for it and promptly spill half of the contents onto my lap. It’s enormously heavy, like a lead weight in my grasp.

  Unconcerned, Domino has already reclaimed his chair and began to pour himself a serving of wine.

  “To new beginnings,” he says, inclining his head toward me. He’s drained half of his glass in a single swig by the time he cuts his gaze toward me. A glimpse of real emotion disrupts that blank, callous mask—anger. “You should drink,” he warns, keeping the rim of his own glass near his mouth. “Otherwise, it’s bad luck.”

  My hand jerks forward before I even process the motion, and more liquid spills down my front. It’s ice-cold, each drop hitting my skin with a sensation reminiscent of stabbing needles—but that isn’t what has me sitting straighter, every nerve on red alert.

  His eyes find me, drinking in my body with an open curiosity he never displayed before.

  I know I’m beautiful. Ten years after outgrowing an ugly duckling phase, it’s an admission that no longer makes me feel like a conceited bitch to proudly state. I have my mother’s oval face and slender body, paired with my father’s large gray eyes. My body is the one attribution that I bring to the table when it comes to the Pavalos family arsenal.

  My mother had her sweet, religious devotion and prominence in the local church.

  My father had his political pull and the shadowy endeavors that bring in the bulk of our fortune.

  I had my sex appeal. The ability to lure men into bed with only a smile and a nicely cut blouse. It was my sole thing of value. My sole purpose.

  I’ve spent years training myself not to flinch when men of all shapes and sizes undress my body with disgusting, searching glances. After all, it was their privilege to stare.

  All on Papa’s say-so, how fucked up is that? The thought is one of the many dangerous ones that only creep in when I’m too high to keep them at bay. My therapist tried to insinuate that might have been one reason I found it so hard to stay clean.

  Your entire life feels beyond your control. At least this way, some of that control is yours to harness.

  I can’t even control who I fuck and why—but I know, deep down in the part of me still tethered to some semblance of logic, that Domino never looked at me with anything remotely close to lust.

  It was one of the reasons he unsettled me. One of the reasons why I’d obsess over him. When a man looked at my tits, I could gain his attention and use it to my advantage.

  Domino only ever looked into my eyes with a deliberate focus. As if, to him, I was never worthy of anything more than a passing acquaintance. I always assumed it was a result of his loyalty to my father, that he didn’t sexualize me out of respect.

  Now, I realize just how damn naïve I’d been.

  Without Papa here, those dark eyes dissect my body mercilessly, honing in on my tits and the hardened nipples protruding because of the cold. He inspects every inch of me he can without being hindered by the table. By the time I remember how to move, he’s already taking another sip of his wine.

  “We have much to discuss, Ada-Maria,” he says. “I think our meal might be ready.”

  This time, he claps his hands together, summoning a train of four people who stream into the room from the direction of the terrace, each holding a different platter of food. The smells are dizzying, triggering another wave of nausea. The fact that my stomach is empty might be the only reason why I don’t vomit again.

  One by one, the different dishes adorn the table, each more complex than the last. Fresh rolls. A salad. An array of fruit. A plate of roasted meat appears to be the crowning dish.

  My mother couldn’t have done better.

  The smells churn my stomach.

  “This meal is in your honor, Ada-Maria. I hope everything is to your liking.” Domino waves his hand, cueing one of the servers to cut the roast, while another sets about compiling two plates with equal helpings of the various dishes.

  They place one in front of me.

  “Eat,” Domino says.

  I’ve spent enough time around men in power to know an order when I hear one. Unfortunately for him, this is one realm in which I’ve always had control over. Not even my father could take that tiny shred of power from me. Aware of him watching, I clamp my lips together.

  “I said eat.”

  His voice… It sounds like the man I’ve always known to cling to my father’s coattails, but with subtle changes. Like a familiar song played backward, and the once unthreatening melody takes on an unsettling tempo.

  “Did you hear me, Ada-Maria?”

  I push the plate aside. Or I try to. I’m too weak to make it move more than a few inches, but the impression is the same regardless.

  “Where is Papa?”

  He cocks his head and swipes his thumb across his lower lip. “You should eat.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I lie. My words slur, my pitch wavering. “What the hell is going on—”

  “Eat.”

  “Who the hell do you think you are to speak to me like this?”

  The latter half of that statement is still on my tongue—I am a Pavalos! The magic phrase that has been able to cow anyone from childhood bullies to government officials. The only worth my life seems to hold these days.

  But his voice overpowers me before I can even utter it. “I’ve humored your disobedience once,” he says. “You already owe repentance for being twenty-two minutes late—despite poor Ines’ best efforts to remind you of our engagement. Don’t make me add rudeness onto your impending punishment, Ada-Maria.”

  The air escapes my lungs, squeezed out by how violently my chest contracts.

  Roy Pavalos had a beautiful, playful cadence that could turn any compliment into a song of the highest praise. At least when he wanted to.

  Otherwise, he could stop the devil himself in his tracks with one word alone. My father, the power player. The admirable politician. The brutal crime lord.

  I’ve never known anyone capable of rivaling the power he could command through his voice.

  Until now.

  I don’t recognize this man. That familiar face takes on a newer entity—that of a dangerous figure I’m ill-equipped to face alone.

  Where is Papa?

  “For the last time, I’m telling you to eat.”

  I snatch a fork and stab it into the nearest item on my plate—a few leaves of a garden salad. I shove them into my mouth and chew, tasting nothing but salt. Blood.

  A gag contorts my throat before I can help it, and green-colored liquid spills onto the table’s polished surface.

  “Try the au gratin potatoes,” Domino says. I notice that he doesn’t touch his own food.

  I shake my head, my stomach heaving. “I’m not hungry—”

  “I see you’ve made your choice.” He smiles in a startling display of white teeth. Against his skin, they seem to glow. “Let’s take a walk on the terrace, shall we?”

  He stands. Three stride
s bring him to my side before I even finish processing his suggestion. His hand lands on my shoulder, and my entire body goes numb. I’ve had to endure so many different kinds of touch in my life. Wanted. Unwanted. Reviled.

  He inspires so many reactions at once my body overloads on them.

  “Join me, Ada-Maria.” His voice sounds deeper than before, sinking into my muscle and bone like a wrench that physically yanks me to my feet. My head swims as I find myself staggering in his wake. Around the massive table. Through one of the archways into the warm night air that completely displaces any remaining chill, slicking my skin with a sheen of sweat.

  The scent of barbecue grows stronger. Potent. Pork, I think…

  Though it’s been so damn long since I’ve imbibed anything more than lettuce and boiled eggs. And crusty restaurant bread.

  “You didn’t try the meat,” Domino admonishes. His voice seems to carry further out here—a wide, circular balcony overlooking a bubbling fountain set within a square pool illuminated with delicate orange lanterns. A private garden, but not the one on my father’s estate—or any that I know of for that matter.

  “Where are we?”

  “My cook will be insulted, Ada-Maria,” he says as if I never spoke. Why? I struggle to follow the conversation. Something about the meat. “He prepared it just for you. It took him days to research the recipe best able to make such an exotic protein palatable. I’m disappointed.”

  We round the curve, and more of the terrace comes into view—an even wider section with white couches arranged around a fire pit. The stench of burning and smoke is suddenly stronger, irritating my eyes.

  As they water, I spot the source of the smell—the meat is cooking here on a spit set above the flames. It’s large. A cow? Or maybe a pig, set far enough back from the flames themselves that the meat blisters and crackles from the heat, but isn’t burned. But wait…

  “He hasn’t come up with a name for this new dish yet,” Domino continues. He releases me and approaches the spit, inspecting the cooking meat.

  Something about it keeps drawing my notice. The shape isn’t right… The proportions are far too slender to belong to any pig I’ve ever seen. Science was never my forte, and my education doesn’t extend beyond high school. I’m no expert on biology—but I do know the human body. Men, to be exact.

  The way they carry muscle. How their limbs can contort and how foreign they can appear when limp and flaccid.

  Blood rushes to my head, deafening me to anything else he might say. Not only is the shape of this “animal” unusual, but the skin…

  It’s darker in places and nearly stark white in others. Like clothing?

  Slowly, my gaze roves to Domino, and I find him watching me. The orange glow of the blaze reflects off his eyes. My suspicion wasn’t wrong. He is the devil, gloating mercilessly as realization dawns over me with a horrifying certainty.

  That is not a pig.

  Domino’s lips part, and I hear his voice again. Only him, as if this low, callous baritone is meant just for me. “I’ve suggested Pollo de Roy. It has a rather literal meaning, but I think it gets the point across.”

  Spanish was one of the few bits of study my father instilled in me, though I’m nowhere near fluent. I have to parse through the words as my eyes return to the spit. Pollo, chicken. Except this creature is far too large to be that of one small bird. De, means of. The last word I can’t make sense of.

  Roy…

  A flicker of material catches my interest as the spit slowly turns. Fabric? It’s slender, dancing in the breeze. At one point, it might have been a light blue despite parts of it blackening by the proximity to the flames.

  My father’s signature color. He always claimed it complemented his gray eyes, identical to mine. They were one of the few things we actually shared. Our eyes. Our tempers. Our penchant for sinning mercilessly to get what we wanted.

  “I wish you could have sampled a taste, Ada-Maria,” Domino says, his tone richer than ever, as if he’s on the verge of laughter. “I’ve heard the flavor compared to chicken, but I’m inclined to describe this particular protein as tasting more like the finest fat, suckling pig.”

  Blackness. When my vision returns, I’m on my knees, tasting salt and earth. The once peaceful terrace is now ablaze with grating, loud noise. A keening cry-like sound that pierces my eardrums. I want it to stop.

  It’s only as my throat aches with my next intake of air that I realize the sound is coming from me.

  Screaming.

  Endless screaming.

  Chapter Four

  “Mr. Domino requests you in twenty minutes.” The persistent, soft murmur draws me from a sleep too heavy to feel natural.

  My body is a mass of varying aches and pains, each one blaring for attention the second I peel my eyes open to a mockingly bright ceiling.

  Clara is my usual maid, but she knows better than to wake me up unceremoniously—unless Papa demands it, of course. Usually, by that point, I’m already late. What party or function am I doomed to be tardy for today?

  Groaning, I roll onto my side, still processing her words. Mr. Domino. I stop dead, registering that name at the exact moment that I realize this room isn’t my own.

  The walls are white, the floor a familiar tan marble that seems to be the signature sight of this unending nightmare. The bed beneath me is larger than mine, the sheets the same shade as the walls.

  The room itself is spacious, with a row of curved French-style windows—each one shrouded in lacy white curtains—letting in golden sunlight from the left.

  At the foot of the bed stands a woman I vaguely recognize, her graying hair pulled tight into a bun.

  “Mr. Domino requests you in twenty minutes,” she insists. With a wave of her hand, she gestures to a metal clothing rack beside her. A single dress hangs from it—a frothy white wisp of lace and gauzy material that looks thin enough to rip should I attempt to put it on.

  At the base of the rack is a pair of delicate white heels.

  Neither garment is anything remotely close to what I own.

  Because I’m not at home. My head is throbbing, filtering thoughts stupidly slow. The memories from last night are scattered snippets, but a part of me instinctively shies from inspecting them. Not now.

  Instead, I focus on taking stock of my body as I sit upright and push the sheets aside.

  The mattress is surprisingly soft—therefore not the source of the pain shooting through my lower back and my hip. Wincing, I crane my neck to inspect the area and find myself having to yank up the hem of another thin white dress.

  It’s similar to the one awaiting me, though shorter. The material, however, is fine enough to see the mottled bruising forming over my upper thigh, before I even yank the fabric away. That’s not all. Small scrapes and cuts speckle my arms and legs, and my head feels so tender that even breathing hurts.

  “Please, Miss,” Ines calls. Something in her tone has me scooting to the edge of the mattress, despite the discomfort. Fear?

  She doesn’t meet my gaze long enough for me to be sure. Instead, she guides me into sitting on the edge of the mattress and tugs the dress I’m wearing over my head.

  Within less than a minute, I’m wearing the fresh clothing, and she’s urging me across the room to stand before a full-length mirror.

  “Wait, please.” She scurries off through a door while I face myself.

  I feel so disconnected from the body before me. Only those familiar gray eyes trigger any semblance of recognition, though the whites surrounding them are bloodshot. A dark bruise paints the flesh above my right temple, centered around a scabbed-over gash.

  Overall, it’s the dress that I find the hardest to stomach. It’s too pretty. Too sexy—a constant reminder of the dangerous reality lurking at the back of my mind. Something is wrong.

  Domino.

  He isn’t in this room now, nor is he visible beyond the doorway as Ines returns, a silver tray in hand.

  “Mr. Domino insists,”
she explains almost apologetically. I don’t understand her hesitancy. At first glance, the tray holds nothing overly menacing, just a matching silver brush and comb, a small glass bottle of amber liquid, and…

  “No—” The word slips from my throat as I step back, shaking my head. Panic is an animal clawing through my chest, threatening to unleash the full weight of all the memories I’ve kept at bay until now.

  “Please, Miss. Mr. Domino insists,” Ines warns. Again, something in her tone reaches through my building terror despite every cell in my body urging me to run.

  If I had any hope that my recollections were all a nightmare, this new development alone proves me wrong.

  No hero would insist on the woman he saved wearing what lies on that tray. Only a monster.

  “Please, Miss. We have five minutes,” Ines says, her voice wavering.

  I don’t move as she sets the tray on a nearby white dresser, carved with ornate reliefs of crawling vines and round fruit that resemble oranges. She lifts the brush and comb first, using them in tandem to tackle my hair. Then she dabs drops of the liquid over my neck. Perfume, I realize as the smell tickles my nostrils.

  It’s light and crisp, also reminiscent of oranges.

  Finally, Ines lifts the final object and approaches me slowly, as if giving me ample time to resist. When I don’t, she secures the item around my neck with a brisk familiarity that makes me suspect this isn’t the first time she’s done so.

  On how many women? Did they all wake up in this same white room?

  Were they all served pieces of their own father?

  No. I squeeze my eyes shut, blocking out the images. I can’t focus on them; I can’t. Ironically, it’s the same mindset my father himself taught me. Focus only on the present. What matters. Survival.

  Ignore the rest. Don’t dwell on what may or may not be—only the present.

  You are a Pavalos.

  “We have two minutes.” The quiet voice intrudes on the monologue, but I welcome the distraction.

  When I open my eyes again, I detach myself from the woman displayed on the glass before me and objectively inspect the item around her throat. It’s well-crafted enough to pass as some beautiful fashion accessory—not a collar.