1. Rio
Chapter one
Rio
A n unexpected wrinkle in our plan.
Wrong place, wrong time.
A distraction.
All these thoughts cross my mind after I pull the trigger. I pulled the trigger, snuffing out another dangerous lowlife, when I heard a feminine gasp, only to look up and see the wide green eyes of a beautiful distraction slanted my way.
I may have cursed under my breath.
I'm so tired of this endless war. The last thing I need is a complication. Especially a soccer mom in yoga pants and an oversized sweatshirt.
I share a look with Santiago and Matty and they both say the same thing. Don't hurt her.
I don't want to know why my lawyer and my enforcer are both pleading for her safety. But that's something I'll have to figure out later. Right now, I can't let a witness out of my grasp. We own the cops, but we still don't need the headache.
I stalk towards her, but she doesn't move. I scoff. Clearly, she has no survival instincts. I grab her upper arm, my gun hidden behind my thigh with the other, and shove her toward my car.
Her wide, fucking gorgeous eyes look up at me. Her plump lips pout open in shock. My cock chooses this moment to come alive, taking in her soft, pink lips and how delicious they would look wrapped around it.
Annoying.
It hadn't been interested in anything for months, but apparently, it didn't give a shit that she'd just witnessed me commit a murder and would try to turn me in at the first chance.
I open the door and shove her into the passenger seat of my Expedition, watching her closely as I round the hood and slide into the driver's seat. I switch my gun from my left to my right hand and lay it against her thigh as I start the car.
She shivers. She's shaking as she takes me in, the bullet-proof SUV and the gun resting against her thigh.
I imagine the backs of my tattooed hands as they dig into the bare flesh of her thighs.
Fuck, I need to get laid.
Finally, her survival mode kicks in.
"I didn't see anything."
"Mhm, " is all I respond with.
I reach between her legs and notice she flinches. I shove my hand inside the purse between her legs to pull out her wallet, only to have a baggy of weed fall out as well.
I raise an eyebrow at her and she blushes. So, that's why she was on the wrong side of town, buying weed, likely off of one of my guys. I'll have to have a chat with them about picking and choosing who they sell to.
I open her wallet, find her ID, and plug her address into the GPS.
"Wrong place, wrong time, mami," I tell her, my voice low and slow.
"I didn't see anything!" Her voice is anything but. It's high and fast.
I pull out onto the main road but remain silent.
“I... I…I have kids.” She pleads, trying to convince me not to murder her.
“Good for you.”
I'm a sick fuck who is enjoying her torture probably more than I should. I press the gun against her thigh to keep it in place, while I let my thumb rub little circles on her yoga pants.
"Are you scared of me?" I ask, a sadistic joy in my voice.
She bites her lips and nods. Of course, the fuck she is. But something about her sends a bolt of adrenaline through me. Most of the people I interact with fear me, but they pretend they don't. The very best soldiers fear and respect me, but their answers are always self-serving. They think they'll slide into my favor based on their response. They think if I want fear, they'll give me fear. If I want respect, they'll give me respect. But is it truly respect if it's fabricated? Is it truly fear if it's fabricated? Fuck, I hate the duplicity of it all.
This little woman to the side of me, though? She shivers. That's not a response you can fake.
My entire life consists of playing chess and placating egos. I didn't quite understand the grasp of it when I took over my father's empire. He made it look so important, so glamorous, but after running the Columbian mafia in DC for ten years, I finally understand what he enjoyed about it. The power. Being powerful stroked his fragile male ego until it became his entire personality. It's not surprising he let his ego lead him to an early grave.
The Italian mafia in DC pissed in his cheerios one too many times and Dad's ego couldn't sustain it. He retaliated and was put down like a rabid dog. I can't say I was disappointed.
I have a different motivation to keep the Columbian mafia strong in DC and to keep control over our sections of the city and the people underneath my protection. And it has nothing to do with ego.
“Look, I didn’t see anything. Even if I did, what do I care about one drug dealer killing another? It has nothing to do with me. I won’t say a thing. Can we just pretend I was never there?” She pleads.
“Oh, but you did see something.”
“But you can’t kill me. A rich, white soccer mom? If I die or go missing or whatever, the cops will be all over you.” She hedges.
"You think I don't own the cops?"
Her swallow is audible.
It's a quiet twenty minutes, but I can hear her brain working. Trying to come up with an escape plan.
It isn't until we pull up to her house that she really starts panicking. Her breath starts coming in fast and her eyes dart between me and her house.
Now she gets it. I know where she lives. If she talks, there will be consequences.
I could have left her at the front door and called it a night. But something about her wide eyes, plump lips, and innocence has had my cock half-mast the entire drive. Like I said, something that hasn't happened in months. I want to know more about her. I want to see the inside of her house.
So, I pull her keys from her purse and walk around to her side of the SUV, opening the door for her and giving her an 'after you' motion. She hesitates for barely a moment before she swallows and follows me as I let myself in the front door.
She shuts the door behind me and stands there nervously, shifting weight from foot to foot.
"I've got money, some jewelry. It's mostly fake, but I can get you more." She pleads.
"Mhm," I reply casually, walking around her space and taking in the details.
"My husband will be home any minute." She says with more force, and I smile.
"No, he won't."
"Yes, he will! He just got off work!" She shouts, her voice wobbly, belaying the lie.
"Let me guess. Hubby's away on a work trip, kids are with grandma, so you thought you'd revisit the old days and get high?"
I finally turn to assess her and her fair skin pales even more, that slack-jawed, deer-in-a-headlights look plastered on her beautiful face. My cock kicks up, demanding to be placed between her lips.
I subtly adjust my pants. Fucker.
I point to the family photos when I don't get a response. A thin, white-collar man appears in a few of the ones when the kids were the youngest, and then not in any taken in the last handful of years. But there's a man's raincoat hanging from the hangers by the door.
I look down and sigh.
"I just..."
She looks so utterly defeated, and my cock doesn't like that.
“I’m not going to kill you.” Annoyance laces my voice, although I'm more annoyed with my cock than with her.
“Then… then what are you going to do?”
I sigh.
“Do you have a pipe?”
Her face is back to surprised, and slightly confused.
“Oh…no…” she says sadly, as it dawns on her that she bought weed without any real way to smoke it. Clearly, she hadn't thought the entire thing through.
“Oh!” she says, lighting up with genuine joy.
She runs to the recycling bin and pulls out an empty can. She grabs a kitchen knife and my alarms go off. But instead of launching at me, she pokes holes in one side before flattening it. Then she holds it up, beaming at me with pride.
I shake my head and laugh a little. Who the fuck was this soccer mom who knows how to make improvised smoking devices out of the trash? Maybe I'd underestimated her. Maybe there's more to her than she appears.
Now, I'm definitely staying.
She grabs a lighter from a junk drawer and the baggy from her purse before just sort of staring at me.
"You're right, you know. 'Rich white soccer mom drowns in her own pool after smoking pot', isn't a great headline." I say, moving past her and sliding open the back door for her. And just because I like her a bit nervous, I add, "I’m going to keep an eye on you while you smoke to make sure you don’t do anything stupid. As long as I don’t hear about you going to the cops or news about what you saw tonight, I’ll let you live."
She whispers a 'thank you' before sliding past me. I can't help the leisurely perusal of her body as she passes close enough to me. I can feel the heat coming off of her body.
I really have no interest in killing a suburban soccer mom, but if she's a threat to my carefully constructed regime, I won't hesitate to put her down. I might even lose some sleep over it.
She sits on one of the lounge chairs by her pool cross-legged, looking much younger than her 30-something years.
She gives me a quizzical look before offering me her smoke. I shake my head before taking off my leather jacket and sitting on the lounge next to hers, facing her. It's August, and August in the DMV* is always stiflingly hot.
"A good drug dealer doesn't smoke his own shit."
She peeks out of the corner of her eye, checking out my arms and my tattoos. I smile.
She lights the weed and sucks in through the drink hole of the can, trying to hold the smoke in her lungs but failing. She tries to stifle her coughs, tears squeezing through her pinched lids, but loses the battle.
Yeah, mami, weed's not like it was back when you were in college anymore.
"So, you're just going to sit here and watch me smoke?" she asks once she's regained her composure.
I nod.
“So, what’s a good girl like you doing, buying drugs from a low life while her husband and kids are gone?” I ask finally .
She frowns, her hands wavering as she tries to find the words. “I don’t know who I am anymore.” She says quietly. The deep, aching sadness weighing her words hits me like a punch to the gut.
I frown. Here's this rich white woman, with 2.5 kids and the picket fence, and more money than sense, and she looks so incredibly small and lost.
“I used to have passion and energy. I had plans and dreams. I rode horses and partied with my friends. We went on adventures, and I was fearless. And then…” She drifts off, staring holes through the pot and coke can in her hands. More silence interrupted only by crickets and nighttime sounds fill the surrounding air around us, while she's lost in some memory.
“And then I don’t know... I don't know what happened next, but it seems like I gradually lost my old self and became a new person. However, the new me isn't someone I'm familiar with.”
She shakes her head as if to shake away the bad thoughts and takes another drag of the weed.
“I love my kids…I’m a GOOD mom…but my husband’s cheating on me with his 20-year-old secretary, and he doesn’t even have the decency to hide it from me. I have no friends, no hobbies, no dreams anymore…I haven’t even touched a horse in years…I wake up every morning a slave to my to-do list and I realized I have nothing to look forward to….”
I'm silent, giving her the space she needs to confess something I'm not even sure she's admitted to herself.
“I just…” She sighs, and it sounds like her bones are tired. “I just wanted to do something for ME. Something selfish. Something…something the new me would never do… ”
"Even if it got you killed? It's not safe to be on that side of town at night alone, mami."
A sad laugh escapes her as she leans her head back against the lounger and closes her eyes.
"I thought about that. My parents would raise my kids, maybe not the way I would, but they'd be provided for, and then I could finally rest..."
She stills as if the realization of her words hit her just as hard as they hit me.
"Jesus, Princess, that's depressing as fuck."
She takes another toke before tucking her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.
"This was stupid. A little weed isn’t going to fix fifteen years of losing myself. This was stupid, and it almost got me killed. I should be grateful for my current life. I have everything I could ever want…I think. My bills are paid for. I have a big, beautiful home, and three wonderful children, and I don’t have to work. Lots of people want what I have and here I am complaining."
I turn on the lounger, placing my feet on the ground and my elbows on my knees.
"Just because people have it worse doesn't mean you can't feel what you feel. Yes, you have a lot more than most, but you don't have happiness. You don't have dreams. You don't have hope. You're a woman, alone, out to sea, and that's something to be sad about."
She opens her eyes, glassy now, but raw, honest, and takes a long, slow look at me. I know what she must see - a gangster, a thug. Black hair shaved short because I don't have time to give a shit about appearances, black t-shirt, black jeans, black tattoos from my neck down to my knuckles. I'm the epitome of bad news.
But she relaxes.
"What's it like being a drug dealer?" She asks.
I chuckle. The question is so unexpected it catches me off guard. "I'm not really a drug dealer, mami, I'm the jefe."
"The boss."
One side of my mouth quirks up into a grin.
"Yeah, Princess, the boss." I turn to settle back into the lounger. I guess it's time for my confessional.
I don't know if it's the weed, the night, or the fact that this soccer mom has zero agenda or even understanding of my life, but I get the urge to open up to her.
"It's hard. It's moving people and products around, sending messages, and defending territory. It's maintaining what we have without constantly fighting the assholes who want to take it. And everyone wants to take from me - my time, my money, my assets, my territory." I let out a similar sigh to hers and realize just how tired I am as well.
"And what do you get in return?"
I raise an eyebrow at her.
"If everyone's always taking and taking, what are you getting in return?"
I shake my head. Fuck. Nothing. I get to know that the people I'm responsible for are provided for, even if they'll never be 100% safe. I can make my enemies fear retribution if they go against me or any of my people, but that'll never stop everyone.
I guess that's something me and Suzie Homemaker have in common. She's got her kids as a reward, and I'm sure they are rewarding, but kids are also demanding as hell and a ton of work - if you care and want to do a good job. And it seems like she does.
I let my mind wander a bit, ruminating on how I got here, and if it was worth it, until I hear faint snoring coming from next to me.
I look over at Suzzy Homemaker, where she has her cheek still resting against her knees, her lips parted in a sexy little pout as she snores.
I laugh, maybe my first genuine laugh in a long time, before gently taking the can and weed from her hands.
I go into the kitchen and bury the weed and can under some trash in the trash can before reaching into her purse and pocketing the rest of the baggy. I didn't like the idea of her smoking alone. I wasn't really worried about her drowning in her pool. It just seems so fucking sad.
I go back outside and squat beside her, slipping one arm under her knees and one against her back before slowly lifting her.
"Alright, Princess, let's get you back to your tower," I whisper, noticing how her head lolls against my chest and how her hair is inches from my face.
I could just move an inch and kiss her hair. And no one would know.
So, I do.
I've never been romantic with any of my partners. Never had the time nor the inclination. I knew they either slept with me for the thrill of it or the power. They didn't give a shit about me, no matter how good they thought their acting skills were .
But they also knew I'd need to marry and produce an heir. Such were our outdated, old-school rules that kept the underworld running.
Without an heir, there would be warring factions for the next head. Warring factions meant we were all weaker as an organization. Things got messy, and it opened the doors for coups or takeovers.
I learned early on not to associate with women who had that certain gleam in their eye - the one that said they saw the power and the money that came with being my wife.
The women eager for a quick, no-strings-attached-fuck were the ones to go with.
And with them, it was all about just getting a release. If I was even remotely affectionate with any of them, they'd get the wrong idea.
But here? In the middle of one of the richest counties in the US, with a peacefully snoring suburban Princess in my arms? Why not?