10. Savage
Chapter 10
Savage
“The fuck took you so long?” Vito calls from across the room when I open the door to the cottage. “I called you like an hour ago.”
He swaggers up to meet us. His glassy eyes suggest the tumbler of whisky dangling from his side isn’t the first drink he’s had tonight.
“We were kinda busy,” Nyx mutters. She stands off to the side, peering around the room as if she’s never been inside a cottage with a bound captive before.
“Too busy to spend some quality time with your family?” Vito slings his arm over my shoulder and urges me closer to the woman we dragged in here earlier today.
Fuck. Guess I’ll have to add ‘kidnap and interrogate sister-in-law’ to my list of things that weren’t on my bingo card for this week. Might as well toss the thing out at this stage, because it’s obvious it’s not a winner.
Andy tugs restlessly at the ropes binding her in place. Besides the touch of red in said captive’s hair—and I’m convinced Viv either wears a wig or dyes her hair—I don’t see any resemblance to my father’s girlfriend.
It’s a very niche lie, easily disapproved, but suspicion is encouraged in a cartel.
I take a seat on the coffee table in front of Andy, and she eyes me just as suspiciously, although fuck knows why. I’m not even holding a knife. Vito brings me and Nyx a tumbler of whiskey. I take my glass and immediately set it down beside me.
I need a clear head right now.
“You didn’t think to tell us who you were when we saw you at Gomez’s house? We could have put a bullet in you.”
“Why? Who is she?” Nyx says as Vito settles beside her. She throws back her whisky, and he gives her a grim look when she holds out her empty glass in his direction.
“That’s a twenty-year-old—“ Vito starts, and then cuts off with a prissy, “Never mind.” He goes back to the kitchen and fetches the bottle, sloshing some into Nyx’s glass as he sits down again.
“Family, supposedly,” I tell Nyx. I don’t consider anything confirmed until I’ve heard it from Andy’s mouth herself.
The woman scowls. “Like you would have believed me.”
“You had a gun on us,” Vito says. “We’d at least have listened.”
“Damn, girl.” Nyx gives me a wide eyed stare when I glance at her. “What? Credit where credit’s due.” Nyx points at her, then at me. “He’ll argue with you if you tell him the sky’s blue.”
I smile at my wife. It’s not a pleasant one, I can tell from the way she draws back like she’s wondering if I’m going to lunge at her. Then I turn that smile on Andy, and she withers like a daffodil under a blowtorch.
“So what changed? When I left, your name was Jane and you were prepared to die on that hill.”
Her eyes cut briefly to Vito, her eyebrows drawing down in sudden unease. “Your cousin can be…persuasive.”
Not even going to consider unpacking that.
“Vito said Gomez had a job for you?”
“Do we really have to go through all of this?—”
I lace my fingers together, hands dangling between my spread legs. “I need to hear it from you.”
Andy gives me a long suffering look. “Yes. Gomez had a job for me.”
“A job your mother set up?”
Andy rolls her eyes. “Yes.”
“Her mother?” Nyx asks. I hold up a finger in her direction without taking my eyes off Andy.
“But when you got to his house, he was already dead.”
“Jesus, who died?” Nyx glances at Vito, who’s busy warming his glass in his hands.
Andy side-eyes Nyx. “More like slaughtered. Him and his whole family.” She smiles grimly. “Although I guess it doesn’t matter to you people.”
My eyebrows shoot up to my fucking hairline. “You people ?”
“Cartel scum like you,” Andy says sweetly through her teeth.
Nyx slurps appreciatively at her whiskey. “Preach, sister.”
“Jesus, tell us what you really think,” Vito mutters.
Andy shoots Vito a glare. “You want to know what I really think? I think it’s a blessing if anyone associated with a cartel is killed, because that’s Darwinism at its finest.”
She gives Nyx a wary look when my wife starts cackling.
“Bit hypocritical,” I tell Andy. “Or does your mother not count as someone ‘associated’ with the cartel?”
Andy looks away and mutters, “God.”
“Aw, come on. Someone tell me what’s going on? This is like watching Days of our Lives in Spanish with the subtitles turned off.” My wife turns to Vito, since I’m too busy staring at Andy, trying to catch the slightest hint that she’s lying.
Vito sits back. “You know Doc?”
“Nope.”
“Right. You two probably just missed each other. He went AWOL a few days after the whole drive-by thing.”
I clear my throat, trying to signal to Vito that he needs to shut the fuck up about cartel matters in front of unvetted family.
Vito doesn’t even look at me. “ Anyway , Doc’s this awesome guy, stitches everyone up and shit.”
“But now he’s dead, right?” Nyx chimes in as if she’s struggling to keep up.
“Yeah, super fucking dead. And we found her—” the whisky in Vito’s glass sloshes around as he points at Andy “—at the scene of the crime.”
“He’d been dead for at least a day,” Andy says dryly, but her eyes remain on me like we’re in a blinking competition.
“ Anyway , now she’s claiming to be Viv’s daughter.”
Nyx shoots to the edge of the sofa. “ You’re Andy? God, your mother’s been yakking about you the whole day!”
Andy looks as mystified as Vito when I glance at him. “Bro…The fuck’s going on?”
Nyx points at Andy so wildly that the strawberry-blonde winces and tries to lean back in her chair. “Why don’t you ever message her back? That’s just plain cruel.”
“Um…” Andy looks at me like I somehow have control over my crazy wife. “What’s happening?”
“She had lunch with Viv today,” I tell Andy.
“Oh.” Andy frowns at me, then turns that look on to Nyx. “That was you with her at the sushi place?”
I sit back, crossing my arms over my chest as Nyx starts chatting with Andy about Viv and some falling out the two of them had, how she has to do the right thing and forgive her mother. When they start an animated conversation about how much they both hate cartels, I stand and beckon for Vito to follow me into the kitchen.
Nyx takes my place by the coffee table, sipping at her rapidly emptying whisky glass as she chats with Andy.
“She mention anything about Nyx to you?” I ask Vito.
He shakes his head, leaning on the kitchen counter as he stares across the room at Andy and Nyx. “Not a word. But she also didn’t speak about Viv much. Sounded more like a Hail Mary when she finally admitted to it. Kinda makes sense if she hates the thug life that much.”
“So, if she’s telling the truth, she just happened to arrive at Doc’s house hours after he was murdered.”
Vito hangs his head. “Poor Doc, man.”
Felipe Gomez has been the cartel’s doctor for decades. I’m pretty sure the old timer delivered me back in Colombia. He didn’t deserve what happened to him and his family.
“Where’s her phone?”
He fishes it out of his pocket and turns on the screen. When he sees it’s password protected, he taps the kitchen counter. “Give me a sec.”
I watch him with narrowed eyes as he goes over to the girls. They have their heads down, whispering almost conspiratorially…unless I’m being too paranoid.
Matias and Samuel confirmed that Nyx and Viv were having lunch earlier today. It’s the only reason I didn’t abandon Doc’s crime scene to chase down my fucking wife. I thought she was having a good time, not that she was getting ready to bolt.
Yes, they’d only just met.
No, I don’t think Nyx makes friends easily.
But when I heard Nyx had pulled a runner, I knew the only reason she’d been with my dad’s girlfriend in the first place was because she was using her to escape the villa.
Her reasoning at the time was valid. She thought Donny was the key to finding her sisters, that I wasn’t interested in helping her. So she followed the crumbs.
Who knew they’d lead to a gingerbread house owned by none other than Sullivan fucking O’Brien.
I drum my fingers on the countertop. Nyx is giving my cousin the stink eye, and although Andy is turned away from me, her posture is stiff enough to suggest that she’s not about to hand over her pin code.
Vito grabs Andy’s bun in a fist. He wrenches back her head, bending to whisper something in her ear as he points to a corner of the room.
Nyx’s expression goes from angry to confused to shocked. Vito releases Andy, and she ducks her head, cowed.
“Christ,” I murmur. What the hell happened when I was gone?
Nyx is staring at Vito like she’s seen a ghost.
Vito heads back my way. “Seven seven nine four five,” he says as soon as he’s in earshot.
I unlock Andy’s phone, and take a few minutes to scan through everything for intel.
There’s surprisingly little to find. The only person in her contacts she regularly texts is “Mom”, and even those texts are sporadic.
Their chat history goes back several months. Most of it is ‘Mom’ asking Andy how she’s doing, if she’s managed to find a job yet, asking if she has enough money, making sure she’s looking after herself. It’s nauseatingly sweet, and even a little sad, seeing as Andy took months before finally responding…only to insist her mother stops contacting her.
There’s a two month gap, before ‘Mom’ starts up again.
She got Andy a job, please call back, this is real.
When Andy didn’t respond, ‘Mom’ texts her Doc’s name and address.
Mom
PLS GO SEE HIM
THIS IS WHAT U WANTED BABY
Then there’s a string of messages from earlier today, all about Viv’s visit to a sushi place her ‘daughter-in-law’ told her about. A picture of a pretty, if slightly out-of-focus water fountain. A plate of sushi. A random tree.
I switch off Andy’s call ID in her phone settings and dial ‘Mom’, staring up at Andy as I make the call. The women are silent now, Nyx watching me over the brim of her whisky glass.
A few rings later, Viv answers the line with a reedy, “Hello?”
When I remain silent, her voice becomes wary. “Is someone there? Hello?”
I end the call and turn my attention back to the phone.
“And?” Vito asks. “She’s legit?”
“Seems that way.” I toss Andy’s phone on the counter, and the clatter makes both women glance over at me. “Untie her.”
“You sure? It’s usually more fun when they can’t get away.”
“Vito…”
“Yeah, yeah.” He’s already walking over to them. I follow him a moment later, my eyes on Nyx as she watches Vito untie her new friend. Andy stands to stretch, groaning as her neck and back clicks.
“There’s been an update,” my wife says, boring a hole through my skull with her stare. “She’s coming with me.”
I stop with my tumbler raised to my lips.
“Where?” Vito asks.
I wave away his question, then gesture from one woman to the other. “You discussed this with her?”
Nyx shrugs. “You said you didn’t want me going alone.”
I take a slow sip from my glass. They all watch me like I’m the timer on a nuclear bomb.
My eyes flicker to Vito. “We’re going get some shut eye. Keep it down.”
He instantly loses all interest in the rest of us, turning to Viv’s daughter with a broad smile on his face. “Hear that, Andy? We’ll have to be real quiet tonight.”
Christ, I almost feel sorry for Andy. But then I remember her calling me cartel scum, and the feeling passes.
I cock my head at Nyx, and she pats Andy on the shoulder. “We’ll catch up later.”
Andy lets out a frantic, “Don’t leave me here with him!”
Nyx shrugs. “Think of it as immersion therapy for your cartel phobia,” she says, and then trails after me as I head for one of the bedrooms, whisky glass in hand.
I lead Nyx to the cottage’s master suite and close the bedroom door behind her.
Then I lock it, just in case.
Nyx perches on the side of the bed. Its headboard and frame looks like it washed up on shore. Whoever decorated this place took the beach theme way too far. The blue-and-white striped coverlet, the bleached jute rug, the bare hardwood floor.
She puts her drink on a nightstand made from repurposed wooden shipping pallets and uses her toes to ease off her sneakers without bothering to undo the laces.
“Thought we were going back to the villa?” she says.
I huff softly through my nose as I slip off my jacket and lay it over the dressing table’s chair. “That was back when I thought I was calling the shots. Turns out, my wife’s the one in charge these days.”
“Okay, but hear me out,” she says, now barefoot as she comes to me and grabs my shoulders. “Me and Andy going undercover makes a lot more sense than a hundred cartel men blowing up a building, or whatever the hell you’d been planning.”
“That’s just it, Angel. You don’t even know what I was planning.” I gently peel her fingers from my shoulders.
She falls back, crossing her arms over her chest as I sit on the edge of the bed to strip off my clothes.
“I can’t fuck this up, Caesar. Phoebe and Athena’s lives are literally at stake.”
“Think I’ve forgotten?” I toss my shirt over the chair. My jeans are next.
She’s quiet as she drops her head and shrugs out of her dress. My throat goes dry when the fabric slips from her skin, baring her curvy, muscled body in its black sports bra and nothing else, but I force my eyes to hers, and will my cock to calm the fuck down.
It doesn’t, of course.
Nothing and nobody is listening to me today.
“She’ll make a good wingman.” Nyx saunters over to me, fingertips teasing the edge of her bra as she positions herself between my spread legs. I’m down to my boxers, and my cock bounces happily in my lap when she leans into me. “You’re the one who thinks I can’t look after myself.”
“I never said that.”
“You sure as hell implied it.”
I sag back, narrowing my eyes up at my wife. My beautiful, fierce wife, who’s swaying from side to side between my legs like palm fronds in a strong breeze, eyes lidded, lips pursed.
“Are you trying to seduce me?”
“Only if it’s working, Papi.”
I grab her ass, squeezing hard enough to make her eyelashes flutter. “Not even a little.”
Her hands glide over my shoulders as she arches into me. “Guess I’ll have to try harder then.”
“Nyx, this isn’t a game. You could die. Or worse.”
She shoves me, sending me sprawling onto my back on the crisp sheets. “Worse?” she asks, cyanide sweet as she crouches over me. “Like what’s happening to my sisters?”
“I get it, Angel. Your sisters mean everything to you, and you’d risk your own life to get them back. But getting yourself killed won’t help them.”
“Oh, you get it? Really?” She props herself up on her elbows, keeping a good few inches between us as she stares down at me. “Because you’re giving hella only-child vibes right now.”
I turn away, sighing into the sheets, but she grabs my chin and drags me back to look at her.
Fuck, I’ve never been this cursed by a pair of eyes.
Because it must be a fucking curse. I think about her all the time. I want to be with her all the time. Inside her, all the fucking time.
Yet she keeps running away. Keeps pushing me away.
“You know two women in a club won’t attract as much attention as twenty cartel men,” she says.
I lower my voice. “And you trust Andy enough to stake your life on it?”
Nyx doesn’t seem to think her voice has any chance of carrying to the living area. “Unless you think she’s working for O’Brien, there’s no reason not to trust her.”
I grab her throat in one hand tight enough to feel her swallow. Her ass in the other, forcing her to grind against me.
“I can’t protect you if I’m not there with you.”
Her eyes flicker as I squeeze harder, blood suffusing her face. I can feel how wet she is through the damp fabric of my boxers. Above us, a ceiling fan whirs silently, stirring the air enough to send me her scent.
“I’ll keep a phone on me,” she murmurs. “The minute I think shit’s getting out of hand, I’ll call.”
I drag my cock free, fist it. “We have a vastly different interpretation of shit getting out of hand.”
She shoves herself up, hands on my chest, and then grabs my wrist. But she doesn’t pull me away, she just holds on as she slowly lowers herself onto my cock. I groan at the feel of her closing over me, her heat, the strength she grips me with. She leans into my chokehold, her fingernails digging half-moons into my skin.
“What if this is my only shot, Savage? If I fuck this up?—”
My fingertips sink into her ass cheeks, and she moans as I force her to slide back and forth, grinding her clit against my stomach as her pussy stretches for my cock.
“We’ll be giving O’Brien the upper hand if you go in alone. I’ll be blind, and he’ll have men reporting back to him. Fuck, he’s probably already monitoring your every move.”
She starts trembling, her eyes squeezing shut, and I stop with my length buried deep inside her.
“Do you realize what kind of man O’Brien is?”
“He’s just a fuckboy with some mob connections,” she mutters, rocking her hips to get me moving again.
I let out a dark chuckle. “That’s like saying Al Capone was just a bootlegger with a short fuse.”
She glares at me when I keep her pinned. “Then enlighten me, Papi. If you know Sullivan so well, tell me what I’m walking into.”
I flip her onto her back and scoot her up the bed, cradling her head on a sea-shell print pillow.
“You think my uncle is a piece of shit? O’Brien runs most, if not all, of the human trafficking rings in the state. He has so much stock, there are rumors he holds private auctions for his more premium lots.”
“Auctions?” Nyx’s blue eyes are huge.
“Now you’re getting it.”
She looks away, mouth thinning into a line. “Fine. My plan might not be the greatest, but if I go in there with the force of the entire Domingo cartel behind me, there’s no way he’ll talk to me.”
Fuck.
I hate to admit it, but she’s right.
O’Brien operates in the shadows like the lecherous offspring of El Coco. If I storm one of his hiding places with a troop of men, the mob will see it as a declaration of war.
“Savage,” she prompts.
“Let me think,” I growl.
“There’s nothing to think about. You know I’m right. I can do this.”
“Let me show you I can do this,” she whispers.
“Are you trying to seduce me again?”
“Only if it’s working.”
I burrow my face into the side of her neck, grazing her skin, sucking hard enough to bruise.
“Tell you what,” I rasp in her ear. “Whoever comes first, gets their way.”
She moans and slides her legs around my waist, squeezing me tight. “Then you’d better start fucking, Papi, because all I need is sixty seconds of clit action to come.”
“No hands. Just dick.”
She flashes me a smile. “It’s cute that you think your dick’s enough to get me there.”
Goddamn this woman.
I pound into her so hard the repurposed driftwood headboard thumps against the wall. Nyx drags her nails down my back, head pushed back into the striped sheets as her body arches beneath me like a bucking horse.
She parts her thighs, staring between us. “That all you got, Papi? I’ve fucked myself harder with a dildo before.”
“Jesus, woman.” My thrusts become even harder, until I can feel her body shivering with shock every time I slam home inside her.
“God. Yes. Now you’re getting it.” Her head falls back, eyes fluttering closed. She shoves a hand between us, massaging her clit, her breath as fast and hard as mine.
I swat her hand away from her clit, but she goes straight back, a rebellious gleam in her eyes. So I snatch up both her wrists and lock them in a hand, pressing them into the pillow above her head.
When I grab her throat, I can feel the groan of pleasure she makes.
Keeping her pinned in place, I slow down my thrusts until I’m ramming home in a rush of power and speed, then slowly drawing out until just the tip of my cock is stretching her.
She starts shuddering, mouth open and eyelashes quivering. “I need more, you asshole,” she hisses, trying to buck her hips to create friction.
“What’s that?” I pause with my cock buried inside her. “You need something in your asshole?” Now I wish I hadn’t left my Beretta in my jacket. I enjoyed defiling her with it.
I release her throat, and she seems almost sad that I’m not choking her anymore.
“You know that’s not what I—“ She cuts off with a gasp as I smear my thumb through the juices dripping out of her pussy. I press my thumb against her hole, teasing her with a hard pressure that’s not quite enough to penetrate her.
“Fuck!” she moans.
Then I start fucking her with my cock again…slow and hard.
A pulsing pressure on her asshole, a violent thrust deep into her pussy. It doesn’t take long before she’s moaning and writhing under me. From the way her back arches, she’s getting close. But the frustration on her clenched jaw is obvious too.
I’m seconds away. But what keeps me from emptying my load is the desperation in her eyes when she was pleading with me earlier.
Control is all I have left in this life. I’m loathe to give it up, especially when I know just what a huge fucking gamble it is right now.
But Nyx needs this.
And I need her.
“I’m almost there, Angel.”
“Need. More,” she mutters through her teeth. She tugs on her hands, trying to get them out of my grip, but that only makes me tighten them.
“Then I guess I win.”
She whimpers when I slip my thumb inside her asshole, her eyes flying open. I force myself as deep inside her as I can go, and stay buried inside, moving only an inch or two as I fuck her asshole with my finger.
“Fuck,” she breathes, looking confused. “Fuck!”
“There she is,” I murmur, giving her a faint smile. “How’s that feel?”
“Fuck!” Her head pushes back into the pillow. “Harder!”
I give her what she wants, because that’s how this curse works.
My thumb pumps in and out of her asshole, timed with deep, hard thrusts of my cock. It’s barely a few seconds before her muscles clench my cock and thumb like a fist.
“Savage! Fuck!”
I bury my head into the side of her neck as her body goes rigid. “Jesus, I can feel how hard you’re coming,”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” she wails, her body spasming under me as she rides out her orgasm. It’s all I can do to keep myself inside her. I kiss her, my lips capturing every sound, every breath, every tremble from her mouth.
“Let me come inside you,” I murmur against her lips.
“No, Caesar, please,” she breathes, frantic. “Don’t.”
She couldn’t have stopped me, I know that. And fuck, how badly I want to fill this woman with my seed. I’ve wanted it since the day she broke my fucking nose.
What the hell does that say about me?
She tugs on her hands again, and I release her because the competition is over.
She won. I lost.
Seems to be a recurring theme between us.
But instead of going for her clit, maybe getting off again, she gently grabs my balls and guides me out of her pussy. Keeping one hand on the base of my cock, and the other cupping my scrotum, she draws me up the bed and comes to sit against the headboard.
I hiss when she licks the tip of my cock, her eyes locked with mine as she swirls her tongue around.
“You can come here, Papi.” She opens her mouth, sticking out her tongue.
“Jesus.” I feel like a fucking teenager, fumbling with my dick as I press my other hand flat against the wall above the headboard.
Nyx waits patiently, tongue out, mouth open.
I let out a groan as I feed my cock between those gleaming pink lips. The wetness and warmth of her mouth is instant, and sends a hard shudder of pleasure through me.
She reaches up to massage my balls as I start fucking her face, my hand sliding into her hair to keep her head in place so I don’t give her a concussion against the headboard.
I don’t last five minutes.
Her pussy only takes so much of my cock. But I can go all the way down her fucking throat.
And I do. Repeatedly.
Until she starts gagging and spluttering, spit drooling out of her mouth, her face flushed as I choke her windpipe with my cock.
Her throat spasms around my dick as she fights for breath, so I murmur a reassuring, “Almost there.”
She looks panicked, punching her fists into my hips.
“Almost, Angel,” I groan. “Just a few…seconds…longer.”
She grabs my balls and squeezes. The pain is intense, but the angry look in her eyes is enough to send me over the edge regardless.
“Fuck…”
My first load goes down her throat. But then she shoves me back so she can breathe, and a string of cum hits her lips.
“Open.” I release her hair and pinch my fingers into her cheeks, forcing her lips apart. “Beg for it.”
She glares at me as she sticks out her tongue, still coughing like a drama queen. You’d swear I’d been waterboarding her.
I grab my cock and aim my seed inside her mouth, shuddering at the sight of my strings of cum coating her tongue.
“Now swallow like the strong, brave little girl you are.”
She closes her mouth, throat moving, and then launches herself at me. Her attack is so unexpected that I’m on my back before I realize what the fuck happened.
Her mouth crushes against mine, and I laugh when I taste my cum mixed with her saliva.
Guess she doesn’t like being called a little girl.
I wreathe my hands into her hair, deepening our kiss until she’s moaning against my mouth and rocking her hips so her pussy grinds over my cock. She wants another round, and I plan to give her just that, but I need something else first.
I break off our kiss, but keep my lips against hers.
“If I let you out of my sight, how will I know you won’t just run off again?”
She’s panting for breath, her chest rising and falling against mine. Her lips quiver before she gives me a soft, slow kiss.
I break it off again.
“Nyx.” Cupping her face, I lean back, studying her eyes. “I need to know you’ll come back to me.”
“I will.” She puts her hands over mine. “I have to,” she whispers.
Some muscle deep inside my chest flinches. Either I’m going into cardiac arrest…or this woman is thawing out my frozen heart.
I go to kiss her, but before our lips touch, she murmurs, “I can’t leave Princess behind.”