2. Nyx
Chapter 2
Nyx
I’m not sure what’s worse. Trying to keep a smile plastered on my face as the Domingo Cartel’s Capo’s mistress, Viv, chatters to me like a parrot on Adderall, or trying not to side-eye my five-foot-six two-hundred-eighty-seven pound Colombian babysitter, Matty.
The winner— loser? —is my husband’s goon, Matias.
He’s taking the whole ‘Don’t take your eyes off of her’ thing way too seriously. As soon as he climbed into the Rolls, he told the driver to lower the privacy screen. Now, half-twisted around in his seat, he stares suspiciously at me and Viv like he’s convinced we’re planning an attack on Capitol Hill.
I’ve only ever known him to always be this suspicious…else I’d have been worried that he was on to me. After all, I am masterminding an escape from a Colombian cartel…and my beautiful, savage husband, Caesar Domingo.
Ironically, I’m literally in the impromptu wedding dress I’d been wearing at our shotgun wedding only a few hours ago. Not that it means I’m getting cold feet. He said I’d be safer as his bride, and I believe him. But what he hasn’t said is that he’s done everything in his considerable power to find my sisters, and even if he did, I wouldn’t believe him.
I’m not a patient woman.
If he thinks I’m going to wait around while God knows what is being done to my sisters, then he’s a few beans short of a burrito. And I don’t say that because I’m stereotyping his Colombian heritage. I’m saying that because I’m actually pretty damn hungry, and I love burritos.
Now I wish I’d made up a Mexican restaurant for me and Viv to go to instead of a sushi joint. Like La Buena Papa, the restaurant where I met Caesar what feels like an eternity ago.
If I could time travel, would I have made the same decisions? Saving Princess from a fate worse than death? Inadvertently becoming an unsung cartel hero by alerting a capo—the one I’d been hired to kill— that he was in danger? Ending up in the arms of a devastating handsome man with throat tattoos and a cock with as much, if not more, power than he himself possessed?
It would mean I’d never have met Savage. The man who kidnapped me, imprisoned me, fucked me within an inch of my life, and then forced me to marry him so I’d be safe.
And I said yes, even though I didn’t really have a choice. Because despite knowing what a monster he is, despite wanting to gouge out his eyes and castrate him, he made me fall in love with him…just like he made me do a lot of other things I didn’t want to do.
This wild ride has barely lasted a month.
And now I’ve been enmeshed in some cartel war that’s gotten my sisters snatched. Now I’m stuck figuring out who kidnapped my babies. Where they’ve been taken. How to reach them. How to extract them. And, lastly, how to blind, castrate, and behead the person responsible.
Viv clasps her ring-bedazzled hands together so hard they clank, ripping me out of a glorious daydream involving more blood and gore than a Quentin Tarantino film.
“I can’t wait to tell my daughter about this.” Her shoulders drop a moment later, mouth drooping at the corners. “If she’ll take my call.”
“Oh, right.” I give her an awkward pat on the knee. God, I forgot about her daughter, how they don’t talk to each other anymore.
I’m a hard ass, but I know what it feels like to get the cold shoulder. It hasn’t always been smooth sailing in the Gray household. We went through hell and back after Mom died, specifically because I struggled to keep it together for a while.
By the time I found my feet and my recent trauma had been distilled into good ole PTSD, Athena and Phoebe had already formed the Newly Orphaned Coalition—a group I was vehemently denied membership to. The sizzling slopes of Hell turned into World War Gray, which only recently simmered down into a cold war.
I’m still not sure whose side I’m on.
“You two get in a fight or something?” I ask reluctantly, if only so Viv won’t think I’m a complete asshole. The last thing I need is her deciding she doesn’t want to have lunch with me and turning this hearse of a car around. Then I’d be stuck at the Domingo cartel’s villa-cum-prison, a pair of bodyguards surgically attached to my body while my husband is off flaying faces.
Viv starts fidgeting with her chunky gold necklace that could probably pay my rent for a year or two if I hawked it at the right pawn shop.
“We were on our own since her father ran off to California with some hussy. I tried to keep my nose clean, but things were tough back then. She was so smart. Got a job after school to pay for the rent and food.”
I’m liking Viv’s daughter more and more.
Maybe because she sounds like the kind of go-getter I was back at her age. But I dropped out of school. What the fuck was the point when I already had a job paying more than minimum wage?
“She sounds smart.”
“She’s a freakin’ genius.” Viv shakes her head. “Straight A’s in school. Even got herself a scholarship for college. She always wanted to be a nurse.”
A smart go-getter who doesn’t mind some gore? Viv’s daughter sounds like a catch. But I can already see the problem. How frustrating for someone like that having to deal with a junkie mom who, let’s be honest, would probably have become a prostitute to support her habit if her daughter wasn’t supporting them both?
“She was a year into her nursing degree when I got involved with some really bad men, and some even worse drugs.”
Viv purses her lips and then moves them up and down a few times, like she’s chewing on her words.
“Those assholes took Andy from me when I couldn’t pay for my drugs. I was so doped up, I didn’t even know what was happening until they’d snatched her right out of college.” Viv digs in her purse and plucks out a linen handkerchief, dabbing it futilely at the trickle of tears making their way down her creased cheeks. It’s the first time I notice just how much makeup she’s wearing. She went especially hardcore with her blush and lipstick.
I give her another pat, but I’m not sure if it’s for comfort or to encourage her to finish the story. Even Matt’s gone quiet, watching us almost reverentially in the rearview mirror instead of putting a crick in his neck like before.
“They put her through hell, my poor little dolly. To this day, she’s never told me what happened to her. But I can imagine. I’ve heard stories.”
“Holy crap.” My stomach twists up at Viv’s story. That’s exactly what could be happening to my sisters right now. How can Savage not fucking realize what they’re going through?
“But my smart girl, she got herself out of there. And by then I’d managed to sober up. We moved across the state, got a fresh start.” Viv’s eyebrows twitch up. “That felt like the last of it. It was so good…for a while. Andy even went back to school for a couple of months. But then I fell in love with a Bogota man, and down the rabbit hole I went again.” She lowers her voice to a hush. “Bogota men are cruel, doll.”
I wince at the nickname, but say nothing. Viv nods as if I was sympathizing with her. “She knew I was in trouble. I couldn’t get out, no matter how hard I tried. So Andy…” Viv again drops her voice to a whisper. “My sweet girl killed a man for me.”
Matty huffs out a quiet, “ ?Qué embarrada! ”
I pat Viv’s shoulder, not even a little surprised to find a shoulder pad under there. Her outfit—like her—can only be described as high-end mob wife with her burgundy pencil skirt, cream-colored blouse, and ivory blazer with its flashy gold buttons.
“Now she won’t talk to me.”
“She can’t stay mad at you forever, can she? I’m sure it’ll blow over.”
“She can’t practice nursing anymore, because of what she did for me,” Viv murmurs, as if to herself.
My jaw clenches, and an uneasy silence filters through the Rolls.
“Shit, Viv, I’m sorr?—”
“No, see, it’s fine. I fixed it!” She gives me a trembling smile. “I found her a job. A nursing job. I’m sure she’s already hired.”
She sounds so fucking hopeful, it’s devastating.
Because if her daughter had gotten the job, she’d have called Viv already to thank her. Which means things went sour. Viv doesn’t seem to be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, so I’m guessing the poor woman hasn’t put two and two together yet.
I won’t be one to shatter her heart.
Giving her another pat, I wrinkle my nose as that puffs up some of her sickly sweet perfume. “Give her a call later, when we’re done here. Tell her about the sushi. Ask her about the job. I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear from you after what you’ve done for her.”
Viv nods, staring rigidly ahead as she dabs at the corner of her eyes. I have to stop patting her, if only so I don’t give everyone in the Rolls perfume toxicity. Viv’s eyes start leaking faster than she dabs up the tears.
Shit.
“Have—Have I told you how lovely your perfume is?” I squeak out, desperate to take the woman’s mind off her doomed relationship with her daughter.
“Hmm?” Viv looks at me like she’s waking up from a very bad dream. Then she blinks and smiles warmly. “Oh, it’s heavenly, isn’t it?” She wafts a hand around her impressive bosom, her smile lifting as she inhales every syrupy note. “Bryan gave it to me for our anniversary last month.”
“How many…months?” I venture.
“Oh, years, doll. It’s been five years.”
I’m at a loss for words. Five years? I don’t know how long cartel mistresses are supposed to last, but that seems like a helluva long stretch. Savage said his mother was murdered a while ago, so now I’m wondering if the timelines make sense. If Bryan was with Viv when his wife, Savage’s mother, was killed…
Well, that’s a godawful thought to have.
I’d feel sorry for Savage, if it’s true that Bryan had something to do with his wife’s death, but Caesar Domingo isn’t exactly a saint.
“Is it far?”
I blink at Viv, my mind scrambling hurriedly back to the here and now. “Oh, the Yen Garden?”
“Zen garden, didn’t you say?”
My chuckle sounds forced. Matty’s eyes are in slits when I happen to glance in his direction. “Just checking if you were paying attention.” I rub my rapidly moistening palms over my dress. “Should be there any minute now?—”
“We’re here, Mrs. Domingo,” the driver says.
Matty turns that glare onto him, giving me a moment to frown before I can catch myself. Then I peek out the window.
I’ve heard about manifestation and shit, but this can’t be real. In my frazzled state when I left the Domingo Villa, I hadn’t even thought about where the driver was taking us. I guess it’s possible a place like this existed…but in driving distance?
This must be a sign. No reason to keep second-guessing myself, then.
“Ooh!” Viv claps her hands. “We have to order saki!”
“Saki?” I manage woodenly, still staring dumbfounded at the sign as the driver comes around to open my door. Matty climbs out and stands a few feet away, close enough to grab me if I decide to bolt, but too far for me to knee him in the groin.
“To celebrate!”
The fact that I have godlike powers? I guess that’s worth a drink or nine. Why does this all feel like a cosmic practical joke? My eyes are locked to the wooden sign with the burned-in letters “Zen Garden” surrounded by Taoist labyrinths.
“I wish I’d known about the wedding sooner! I could have arranged an amazing bridal shower for you.” Viv pats my arm as we head into the restaurant shielded on either side by a tall hedge wall and a pair of tall, slender brown pots chastely spilling water over their rims.
“Yeah, Viv, you kinda had about as much warning as I did.”
Fingers dig into my arm, yanking at me. I spin on my heel, my sneakers digging into the gravel path leading deeper into the garden-area of the restaurant. “Are you joking?”
Viv’s eyes aren’t as cheery as before. There’s a concerned look in those blue irises, and it makes me wonder a lot of things all at once.
“What me and Caesar have is wild, and furious, and…unpredictable.”
Viv smiles, but I’m dying a little inside as I hear my own words.
Ours isn’t some whirlwind romance. True.
It’s a fucking hurricane that’s swept through my life, destroying everything in its path.
And I’m left standing here in the wreckage, wondering just how fucking long it’s going to take me to rebuild.