2. Dante
2
DANTE
“ W e’re ready to go when you are, jefe .”
I nod in Tomas’ direction, but my eyes are fixed elsewhere. I’m striding up the aisle to where Rodrigo is sprawled out across his seat, tapping out a message on his cell. Two seconds later, I’m hauling him to his feet by his neck and slamming him against the side of the aircraft. He’s a big man, but I’m a fucking mountain.
The plane goes deathly quiet around us. No one makes a move. No one intervenes.
No one dares.
“You ever say shit like that to me again, I’ll cut out your tongue.” My voice is calm, but my words are spiked with intent. My grip on his throat tightens. “Well?”
Rodrigo’s remaining eye is bulging out of its socket in fear. “Sorry, Se?or Santiago,” he gasps out, his voice nothing but a harsh wheeze through a crushed windpipe. “It won’t happen again.”
Damn right it won’t. There is no place in this universe where this man is my equal. What he said to me in the SUV crossed a fucking line.
I release him with a hard push, and he slides to his knees, gasping for air. I take a seat at the back of the aircraft as far away from him as possible.
Breathe, Dante. Breathe.
My rage is blinding and bloody: a beast of unspeakable evil. Some days I can barely control this darkness inside me, and it’s not just Rodrigo and his careless comments that are fanning the flames tonight. This operation was meant to be a cut and dry. Twelve hours in Miami. That’s all the time I needed to take out a rival who’s been encroaching on our territory and messing up the natural order of things. But someone talked. Someone leaked the plan. Now I have ten dead recruits on my hands—skilled men I trained myself—and my target is still strutting about making a fool of me.
The aircraft begins to taxi. All the seats adjacent to me are empty. These men know better than to try and make small talk when I’m in this kind of mood, when I’ve nothing but harsh retribution on my mind. Tonight was a shit show, and I’ve no compensation for any of it, apart from the sweetest of kisses from the purest of angels.
I didn’t turn back after I released her from my arms. I didn’t stop to see her fall to her knees in tearful relief, but I imagined it all in my head. It played out like some perfect movie scene—the good girl granted a stay of execution at the last minute by the bad man. Because that’s exactly what I am, a very bad man.
I surprised myself by walking into that liquor store and holding a gun to her head. I’m not a man who makes his decisions lightly, but I wasn’t thinking straight. All hell had broken loose on us six blocks away, twenty vehicles were burning, and a local nightclub had been decimated by firepower. The authorities were all over it, and my men were on the ropes.
It wasn’t supposed to play out like that. My ops are swift and deadly. There’s no margin for error. I’ve built our entire fucking name on my particular brand of effectiveness.
I’d only just managed to escape when I messaged Rodrigo to meet me at the rendezvous point—a quiet street about half a mile from the target. She walked past me and caught my attention. Something about the generous curve of her breasts and the fact she’d tried so hard to hide them beneath her sweater; or was it how the evening breeze kept mussing up her hair and slicing at those cheekbones with strands of black silk.
Best of all was that sexy, determined look on her face. This woman had someplace to be. Somewhere that didn’t include yours truly . The thought had eaten away at me until I found myself stepping out of the shadows with my gun in my hand.
It was a perfect storm of attraction. She never stood a chance. Skin like porcelain, tall and slender with fire in all the right places, soft pink lips that called out to my dick like a siren… I’m not in the habit of making women bend to my will. I have the money, the power, and the looks to get what I want with minimal effort, but I had a hunch she’d need a little more persuasion, and damn I wanted to be the one persuading.
It caught me unawares.
I’ve learned to curb those sorts of feelings. I consider them dead to me, like a couple of other things called decency and compassion .
Once I made my move there was no turning back. It was a compulsion. An incurable sickness. Something inside me warped and snapped the closer I got to her… Then, there she was. Two feet away and smelling like heaven. Not that a man like me will ever know.
Everything about her was intoxicating, her soft ass pressed up against my dick, the way she’d felt in my arms—so slender and fragile—the smell of her fear mixed with her perfume.
Did she sense my lust for her? It took every ounce of restraint not to taste her, then and there, forcing her to submit to me before we’d even left the liquor store.
We’re airborne now. From my vantage point, I can see the top of Rodrigo’s buzz cut five rows away. In the car, he’d requested a share of her once I was done, like she was a whore I’d picked up on the street to lose myself in for an hour or two—a cheap and easy consolation for tonight.
His words were disrespectful to me, to her, and it stoked the beast inside. The thought of that prick laying a finger on that angel had made the ramifications of our aborted mission pale into insignificance.
I’m feeling the urge to unfasten my seatbelt and beat the living shit out of him. To finish what I started. To watch his ugly, scarred face dissolve into blood and bone beneath my relentless, pounding fists. The asshole will be dead in under a minute, and I can almost taste my satisfaction.
He’s not one of my usual men. He works for my older brother, Emilio, which puts an even bigger target on his back as far as I’m concerned. I have no loyalty to this man. If he survives this plane journey, he’ll never do another job for me again.
Miami is a couple of hundred miles behind us now, and I’m replaying that kiss in my head. She tasted like the sweetest damn honey. The way she’d kissed me back made a mockery of her prissy manner. I’d envisaged long nights of sin wrapped around her body, and I was halfway drunk on her light and innocence until some long-forgotten sentiment clawed at me from the darkness.
Mercy.
That bullshit didn’t belong in my aircraft hangar, but when I felt her fingers delving into my hair, I didn’t want her by force anymore. I couldn’t risk breaking her… I’m not known for tender touches and soft kisses. Hell, there are damaged women all over the world who can testify to that. So, I let her go.
I let her go.
Bad move.
Now, I can’t stop thinking about her. She’s planted a seed that I’m aching to fuck into fruition. My good girl, my angel , has another side to her, and it’s one that I intend to discover. One night, that’s all I need. Just one. When things blow over, I’ll return to Miami and take what I’m owed. This kind of lust will never be satiated until she’s in my bed with her fingernails tattooing her need for me across my back and that dark hair spilling all around her face.
Mine.
She has no choice in the matter.
I always take what I want.