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

  But no… That would be too simple. The reality of what he intends sinks in with the impact of a stabbing blade, and I bolt upright, feeling along the sheets for anything I can use as a barrier between us.

  “Stay the hell away from me—”

  “I have no qualms in filling in for her,” Domino says, confirming my worst suspicion. Heedless of my refusal, he advances, lowering his gaze toward the mattress—I didn’t even realize that I’ve gathered the length of my chain, holding it loosely in a fist. When he takes another step, I brandish it, but my hand shakes so badly it sways, rattling against itself.

  “D-Don’t touch me!”

  “I suggest you save your fight for later, Ada-Maria,” Domino warns, taking yet another step. “Trust me, I am more than eager to experience firsthand how much the daughter of Roy Pavalos values her life, and I’d prefer you not to exhaust yourself before then. But—”

  He lunges. One of his hands snatches my forearm, shoving me facedown against the mattress. My heartbeat surges through my ears as I feel the metal snatched from my grasp. Without warning, my throat is wrenched from behind, raising my head from the bed as I gasp at the air.

  “I think I’ll bathe you, first,” Domino murmurs as he maneuvers to stand before me, chain in hand. “I want you clean and dressed before dinner.”

  I’m flashed back to our last “meal.” Who could he serve to me next? My mother?

  “No!” I sink my nails into the sheets beneath me, digging my heels into the mattress.

  I barely see his arm move before I’m lurching forward, hitting the floor on my knees, my ears ringing.

  “Come,” he says, manipulating the leash so that I lurch another inch across the floor. “I won’t enjoy having your skin covered in bruises by the time I can enjoy you, Ada-Maria. At least, any that aren’t inflicted by me.”

  I choke, horrified by the insinuation. Rape?

  No, a childish part of me whispers. He’d have to be interested in me sexually for that. My cheeks flame when I replay all the times I would prance before him, hoping to grab his notice. When each attempt failed, I consoled myself with a logical explanation for his lack of interest in addition to taking his job too seriously—he is homosexual.

  That pathetic attempt to soothe my own pride might be my sole salvation now. I cling to it, finding the strength to crawl after him as he marches toward the door.

  The length of chain is about ten feet long, meaning he’s already left the room by the time I stagger to my feet and follow.

  Again, this strange dwelling takes on a newer identity depending on the time of day. At night, it’s a fortress. By day, it’s an ethereal wonderland, and during this twilight hour…

  It’s hell. Ignited by the glow cast by the setting sun, the walls gleam orange like flames. Everything takes on the reddish sheen, and with his white clothing, Domino resembles a creature composed of shadow and fire.

  Without warning, he turns into a room just before we’d enter that circular foyer. I recognize it the second I cross the threshold after him—the bathroom Ines brought me to the other night.

  Beside her, I’d been able to appreciate the beauty of it.

  Domino’s presence transforms the sleek design into a torture chamber. The gold fixtures are potential posts he can wrap my leash around, the walk-in shower a likely death trap. My mind spins, envisioning all of the many ways he can hurt me here. He wants to.

  When he turns to me, I take a step back, shuddering at the look I see in his eyes.

  But I forget that he has the leash in his grasp. He winds a few more inches around his wrist—a warning. The chain is a rigid line between us. Any more pressure, and he’ll be choking me.

  “A bath or a shower, Ada-Maria,” he proposes. “Your choice.”

  “Shower,” I blurt, preferring the barrier of a glass stall to having him stand over me in the tub.

  He nods. To my shock, he releases the chain, letting it clang to the floor. Then he maneuvers around the room, gathering various supplies as he goes. From a golden rack of cream-colored towels, he takes one and fetches a bottle from beneath the countertop. Bounty in hand, he walks right past the shower stall to the tub. He runs the water, adjusting the drain to let it fill. Eyeing me from over his shoulder, he says, “A bath it is.”

  I grit my teeth, irritated to have fallen into his trap so easily.

  “You can wait as I prepare it,” he adds. “I’ll undress you myself.”

  My feet twitch against the floor. He’s at least four feet from the end of the chain. If I can drag it toward me in time, I might be able to make it through the door before he could catch me.

  “Try to run,” he says above the roar of the water. “Ines may be off this evening, but Pedro and Miguel are not. They’ve been forewarned to merely apprehend you, should you try to escape, no matter how violent your attempt might be. Have no fear, Ada-Maria—only I can inflict punishment upon that beautiful body.”

  Chills. Despair grips me, so overwhelming that I croak out a sob before I can stifle it. My heart aches. Every breath is a struggle, and I almost wish he’d grab that chain and choke me now. End this.

  Instead, he sits on the rim of the tub, watching me as though my terror is an amusing show. I feel my knees buckle, threatening to pitch me to the floor while I’d beg him to let me go. I might do it too.

  If a part of my brain wasn’t stuck on that one word. I’m sure he meant it as a threat, but it sticks out regardless, diminishing the overall malice.

  “I’m not beautiful…t-to you,” I add hastily. My self-esteem never hinged on his notice—but if it did, my vanity would be nonexistent. “You never wanted me before.”

  “And you sound so damn proud of that, Ada-Maria. Like you’ve solved some million-dollar puzzle.” He laughs while reaching back with one hand, dipping his fingers beneath the rising water. The amount of steam issuing from it already has me on edge, but he doesn’t react as though it’s scalding. Finished, he flicks his fingers at me one by one, spraying droplets of water onto the floor. “Trust a Pavalos to take pride in whether or not her attacker wants to fuck her. Because you’ve wanted me to for a long time, haven’t you?”

  I feel my cheeks catch fire. “N-No!”

  “Liar.” He levels his gaze over mine with a piercing intensity.

  Too intense. I look away, and he laughs again.

  “Don’t think I haven’t noticed all the times you’ve pranced past me in some skimpy little dress, hoping to have me drooling like the other men in your father’s employ. It was always a game to you, wasn’t it? Seeing how many you could get to fuck you. Want to fuck you. It’s the only thing you had to look forward to in your sheltered, pathetic life. Has no one told you that beauty doesn’t last forever, Ada-Maria?”

  If they did, it was some bitchy blogger or a jealous cunt from primary school. My mother is the perfect, shining example that beauty can get you anywhere and last as long as you damn well want it to. Even if you had to claw at it with Botox injections, fillers, and liposuction. Beauty is a construct, she liked to say. One that she perfected how to wield to her benefit—at least while in public. Pretty makeup can hide everything, even sickness and decay.

  “You’re right. I never thought you were beautiful,” Domino says.

  I’m pathetic enough that the admission stings. Despite everything, I’m not immune to that one form of insult.

  Rejection based on my appearance alone.

  “Beauty is too delicate a word to describe what you are.” He nods toward me and inclines his head. “I’ve changed my mind. Undress. Now.”

  My heart plummets through my body, hitting the floor. I can taste my own fear, as potent as blood. I don’t know what I’ll do. Run, I think, as my toes twitch again.

  Then it creeps in—that sick, twisted voice whispering from the back of my mind. Undressing myself would be better than having him do it. He’d most likely rip the dress from my skin. This way, I can keep some modicum of decency.

  Besides…


  The only way men use moments like this to regain control is by using lust as a cudgel to induce fear. In this case, I don’t have to worry about that.

  I have the upper hand.

  “The water’s almost ready, Ada-Maria,” he scolds. He snaps his fingers, and it’s a second before I realize that he didn’t intend to summon anyone. He only meant to spur me on.

  My hands shake so badly I can barely hook them beneath the thin straps of the dress. I’m sloppy and rough, refusing to take my time or give him a show. Instead, I jerk the material over my head and throw it toward his feet.

  I don’t know why, but it feels more liberating than humiliating to stand here, knowing that I’ve defied at least one of his sick games. I don’t cower.

  Until he stands. The way he looks at me…

  My fragile assessment of him shatters. That gleam in his eye isn’t disinterest.

  It’s predatory.

  “Stop.” His command sinks into my body, rooting me in place before I even register moving. I’d been poised to take a step back, my foot still hovering above the floor.

  “Ay, Dios mío. I always want to remember you like this,” he rasps.

  My pulse turns painful, every beat of my heart registering like the blow from a fist. Thump. Thump. Belatedly, I can recognize that there was no real admiration in his voice. Not like the way I’m used to men admiring me. With covetous need and naked desire.

  Domino speaks of me in this moment like I’m a toy on display. The way men boast about a piece of property they own. Or, the way my father sounded on the night of his first political victory. Like this small triumph was the first step toward his ultimate goal—utter domination of the city, its people. Everything.

  “Pink tweed skirt and matching jacket. A cream-colored tank top that displayed your navel despite the conservative dress code your father enforced in his office. Or at least, he wanted everyone else to believe he disapproved. I know for a fact that he told you what to wear. How to wear it. The mayor was meeting with him that day to discuss him potentially becoming a deputy during his next term. You were to catch his eye, and of course, you did.”

  I swallow hard, swaying as the memory catches me off guard. I can still see that day so clearly, just as he described it. Like a good, doting daughter, I intruded on an important business meeting to make some menial request—using the credit card for shopping was my reason that day, I think—but my real aim was whatever my father wanted to achieve by flaunting me before his opponent like prey. It was a game to him.

  I think he got off on it, far more than I did anyway.

  That day stands out to me for one reason alone. As I sauntered through my father’s office—an upscale building I’d visited enough times to know inside and out—a new figure stood guard outside the boardroom where Papa was holding his meeting.

  One look at him, and I felt tense and hot in a way I’d never felt before. Like my clothing was too tight, and the room was too small. Sex was a chore I’d grown bored of attempting sober, but I couldn’t help but wonder how this man would feel inside me. He was so tall I had to strain on tiptoe to get a better look at the hard planes of his face. His eyes were dark, shrouded by the brim of a straw cowboy hat he somehow wore without looking as stupid as he should have. The shadow cast by it enhanced his chiseled features, deepening the mystery of who he was and why he was there.

  Struck dumb, I’d inspected the rest of him, forgetting my purpose for being there at all. Tight faded jeans that clung to his muscular thighs, supporting a distinct bulge straining around the zipper where his cock would be, and a loose denim shirt that did little to disguise the bulk lurking beneath…

  Overall, he was the most handsome man I’d ever seen. When I remembered how to move, I approached him, swishing my hips the way my old friend once taught me, my head held high.

  As his eyes roved in my direction, I fixed him with my most charming smile. The one I’d spent hours practicing before a mirror to nail down that fragile line between sexy and coy.

  I wanted him to look at me the way the lecherous mayor in the next room soon would. I wanted those dark eyes to drink me in with a raw precision that warned he was undressing me with them. I wanted him to look at me as though he wanted to take me then and there. Strange, I remember remarking. I never craved that kind of reaction so badly before.

  He was a different sort of man. Perhaps that was part of the allure. He wasn’t a bold, rich bastard accustomed to taking who or whatever he wanted.

  No, he was someone who would look at me like a prize he could never attain. Unless I wanted him to.

  “Hello,” I addressed him in my lightest, flirtiest tone of voice. I even offered him a manicured hand—fully expecting that, like most men I encountered, he would brush his lips across the back of it rather than shake it. “My name is Ada—”

  “I didn’t know it was you,” the present-day Domino admits. He’s closer, stroking his chin as the fact that I’m naked grows more real by the second. His heat acts like a battering ram, rivaling the warmth emanating from the tub. “Not Ada-Maria, the chubby little ugly duckling I remembered, fully grown into a swan. I’d heard the rumors that you were quite the little whore. Still, I never imagined...”

  He stops, snagging a lock of my hair between two fingers. Slowly, he grinds the strands together and sighs.

  “That little pink skirt… I wanted to fuck you in it then and there, Ada-Maria. I’d never seen an ass so fucking round. Tits the spitting image of what every woman these days goes under the knife to achieve. Lips so pink I could imagine you biting them as I fucked you deep. Never in my life had I wanted a woman like that. I could feel my cock straining like a motherfucker. My careful plan would have been ruined in a heartbeat—”

  I’m holding my breath, feeling my lungs strain for air. The worst part is that I can hear the truth. In every word. Every grudging bit of inflection. He wanted me.

  Two days ago, I would have been elated by hearing those very words.

  “But then,” he continues, “I heard your name. Ada, you said. As in Ada-Maria Pavalos. Nothing has ever killed my hard-on faster than hearing that. Consider it a gift, Ada. The sick, twisted, disgusting soul you are inside is revolting enough to override a body designed by the Gods and a face so beautiful it’s sin.”

  Shakily, I suck in air, hating just how deeply the insult wounds. I hear the words of my therapist, playing in a mocking loop. You have low self-esteem, Ada. You seem to equate your sexuality and beauty directly to your self-worth. I’m sure that if you looked deep within yourself, you would find plenty of attributes worthy of being proud of. You are more than a pretty face…

  The bitch was wrong, of course. I knew that without having to hear Domino state it so bluntly. I’m empty inside. A shell over which my father would paint whatever he wanted me to be in that moment. Doting daughter. Dutiful doll.

  A prize he could use to sway men to his side. Like the Mayor he met with that day. I spent that very night on my knees, choking down his cum with the same simpering smile on my face I’d attempted to charm Domino with. I think I would have fucked him even if Papa didn’t tell me to; so fragile was my pride in the moments after I’d entered that boardroom.

  “Hello,” I told the man waiting by the door. “I’m Ada.”

  His dark eyes flickered, but not with lust or an ounce of interest. To my utter embarrassment, he looked away. Then he opened the door for me.

  “Good morning, Ada-Maria.”

  Just that. Good morning in a flat, emotionless baritone. No innuendo. No flustered response. As shameful as it feels to admit in this present moment, I’d never felt uglier then. Not even during all those years as the “fat ugly duckling,” so awkward my father had no use for me.

  Wait…

  “How did you know?” Returning to the present is like surfacing from minutes spent underwater. I’m breathless, panting after every word. “My weight… How?”

  No one knew that. It was a time in my life when
my father had no use for me. Overweight with braces, cystic acne, and poor grades, it was more beneficial to him to have me shipped off from boarding school to boarding school.

  I had no one in those days. Just Pia and one other friend.

  The three amigas.

  “How did you know?” I ask, facing Domino. My father could have told him, but I doubt that. I personally went through our family photos and ripped up any that featured me in that state. I only kept one in a safe place no one else could find.

  “Know what?” His tone shifts again. Did I catch him off guard? If so, his face stubbornly gives nothing away. “That you were a chubby, awkward teenager? It’s not exactly an unusual origin story for a woman as superficial as you. Anyone could take one look at you and know that.”

  But they’d have to strip me to do so.

  I remember crying into my pillow every night, praying that I could go through a growth spurt capable of adding inches to my height while subtracting double from my waist. Pia was so pretty in comparison to me. Standing beside her, was like being reduced to a piece of scenery. All eyes went to her. Men, women, adults, and children alike. Beautiful Pia, with her enchanting hazel eyes, slender frame, and dark hair, could light up a room with just a smile.

  The same smile I stole from her years after her disappearance. I spent hours in the mirror trying to get it just right. But I never could.

  For ten years, I’ve held a secret I wasn’t brave enough to confess even to my therapist. That on my fifteenth birthday, I stood next to Pia, and I made a wish as I blew out my candles. Just one. No longer did I dream for another pony, or new clothes, or Daddy’s affection.

  I just wanted to be like her. As beautiful as her. As tall and as skinny.

  As desirable.

  A week later, she went missing, and six months after that, I shot up five inches and lost forty pounds almost overnight.

  But no one tells you that Cinderella was the only bitch in the world to undergo a transformation without scars to show for it. Rapid weight loss leaves tiny little silvery stretch marks that speckle the skin like veins. No matter how much you scrub, buff, or pay for laser removal treatments, they never go away.