13. Dante
13
DANTE
M y fists are clenched so tight my fingers start cramping. I reach for my cell and Joseph answers on the first ring.
“What’s up?”
“Get over to the main house. We have a situation.”
“On my way.”
I hang up and barely glance at Eve as I exit the courtyard. I hear the soft scrape of her chair as she stands to follow. Not stopping to wait for her, I cross the hallway and enter the kitchen.
Sofía looks up from the stove in surprise. “I-Is everything okay?” she stutters, her eyes widening as she takes in the state of me. She knows exactly what happens when things go south in this place.
“Where’s Valentina?”
“She’s out back, sorting the food delivery from this afternoon. Se?or, wait!” she cries, as I circle the island and head next door.
Valentina turns as I enter the storeroom. One look at her face tells me all I need to know. You treacherous fucking bitch . No wonder she’s been so jumpy all night.
She stands there like a statue, clutching a packet of some shit or another. A deer caught in my headlights. Three years I’ve taken care of her. Three fucking years. Her deceit burns like fire in the pit of my stomach. I treat my people well on the proviso that they swear absolute loyalty to me in return, something this woman has clearly forgotten.
“She told you, didn’t she?” she says, trembling. “I knew she would.”
“How much do they know?”
“Nothing, I swear it. Se?or, please… I haven’t told him anything. You have to believe me!”
I can hear her teeth chattering inside her deceitful head. None of this moves me one iota.
Slowly, deliberately, I take out my gun and release the safety. In spite of what Eve thinks, I don’t hit women for sport, but I do torture and murder anyone who betrays me.
Valentina glances at my weapon and the color drains from her face. She knows how this is going to play out for her. “He was going to murder my family,” she cries, her face dissolving into misery. “My little brother… He’s only seven!”
Innocence is a smokescreen. A fairytale. When I was seven years old, I’d already killed a man.
I aim my gun at her head. “Who did?”
One word. One answer. That’s all I need from her, but she shakes her head. “I can’t, se?or. You know I can’t… He’ll kill me .”
“And what the fuck do you think I’m going to do to you?” Her face is only a foot away from the muzzle now. This could get messy.
“Dante, stop!”
My gaze shifts to the doorway. Eve. What the fuck is she doing here?
“Get back upstairs,” I roar.
I don’t want her seeing me like this. Imagination and reality are two very different beasts. She thinks she knows me, but she could never comprehend the true depths of my depravity.
“Not until you lower your gun.” Her voice is shaking, but she’s holding firm. “You heard what Valentina said. She didn’t have a choice.”
Bullshit. There’s always a choice. Except for you, Eve.
“Dante?” The great shadow of my second-in-command appears behind her. I watch his icy-cool gaze take in the cowering Valentina and my outstretched weapon. “What do you need?”
“Take her upstairs,” I say, nodding in Eve’s direction.
“Don’t you dare touch me!” She takes a step away from Joseph who catches my eye briefly. “There’s no way I’m leaving you here to hurt that woman!”
“You will if you know what’s good for you.” Eve fights like a hellcat for what she believes in, but this two-faced bitch isn’t worth it. “Do it, Joseph. Room on the left after mine.”
Joseph nods, sizing Eve up before grabbing her around her waist and tipping her over his shoulder.
“Put me down!” she screeches, bucking like a bronco .
My trigger finger tightens as I watch him clamp one arm over her smooth bare thighs to hold her steady. Seeing another man touching her is enough to make me lose it, no matter who gave the fucking order. I doubt Joseph will thank me for it later, though. Eve’s not going quietly. I listen to her curse and shriek my name all the way up the stairs.
“So, Valentina…” I turn back to my lying housemaid and aim my weapon at her head again. “Exactly how long have you been spying on me?”
I take a shower before I seek Eve out. My knife work isn’t as creative as my cousin’s, but it’s no less effective. At around two this morning, Valentina broke and gave up the name we were seeking. Three missing fingers will do that to a person. I’m surprised she held out for as long as she did.
The name itself offered up no surprises.
Emilio.
So, my brother has started keeping tabs on me. He knows Eve is still alive, and he knows I’m fucking her, but he has no idea how I feel about her…yet. He knows her name though, and that’s bad enough.
Emilio’s as fanatical about loyalty as I am—it’s a given in this business—but I know how his mind works. He’ll interpret my lies about Eve as some kind of conspiracy once he figures out her father’s a DEA stooge, and what she likes to wax lyrical about in the nationals every week.
It doesn’t help that one of her articles helped expose a minor partner of ours last year. The guy was unreliable, she did us a favor, but that’s not how my brother’s going to see it. He’ll want contracts out on her and her family immediately. There’s a storm brewing on the horizon, perpetuated by a blue-eyed angel who has no idea what she’s set in motion and would no doubt revel in it if she did.
Back inside my bedroom, I sit with my hands steepled in front of me as I listen to Eve crying herself to sleep through the wall. It’s a pitiful sound. How can thirty seconds of this wound my soul, whereas some maid can scream at me for hours and I don’t feel a thing?
I need to twist tonight’s revelation to my advantage. This game is all about staying two steps ahead of the enemy because that’s exactly what Emilio is now. He drew first blood by infiltrating my compound. We had an understanding. I toe the line on the proviso that he leaves me the fuck alone.
Joseph knew the score as soon as Valentina screamed his name. For too long my brother’s been listing the balance of power in his favor, and I’ve been content to sit back and let him.
Not anymore.
Stepping out into the hallway, I pause with my hand clenched around the handle of Eve’s door. You want to talk about loyalty, big brother? Well, you just crossed the fucking line.
“Did you kill her?”
Eve’s voice drifts out to me from the darkness.
I choose not to answer. Instead, I close the door behind me and inch slowly toward the bed. The shutters are drawn, and I can’t see a fucking thing.
“Did you, Dante?”
Her voice is hesitant and scared; scared of my answer, scared of what I’m capable of, scared of what I’m planning to do to her now.
“No, Eve. I didn’t kill her.”
Not yet anyway. She’s strung up in one of my warehouses, approximately twenty-four hours from bleeding out.
“Did you hurt her?”
“No more than what was necessary.”
The grim silence that follows tells me she doesn’t like that subtext at all.
From the slivers of moonlight creeping in around the edges of the shutters, I can see the outline of her body. I want nothing more than to climb in next to her and claim her goodness for myself like the selfish bastard that I am. Five hours of inflicting pain on a person will do that to a man.
“Are you still hungry?”
“You think I can eat?” she says incredulously. “After how you talked to me over dinner, and what I saw in the kitchen? After laying here for hours imagining what you were doing to Valentina?”
“You need to temper that imagination.”
“And you need to temper your damn depravity! You’re despicable. They should lock you up and throw away the key!”
“You’d still visit me though, my angel… You wouldn’t be able to resist.”
To my surprise, her mocking laughter goes right through me. It’s like jagged nails down a dirty blackboard .
“You think you’re so irresistible, don’t you? Are you familiar with Stockholm Syndrome, Dante? None of this is real. If I ever step foot out of this place, there’s only one direction I’m running… Away from you .”
“Oh, sweetheart, don’t kid yourself. You’ll never escape from me.”
She moves quickly for such a small woman. Bam! She slaps me so hard I stagger backward. I’m still seeing stars as I grab her wrist to block a second blow, twisting her body until she’s face down on the bed with her arms locked behind her back and I’m kneeling over her.
“Take your damn hands off of me!”
“It’s too late for that.” I tear at the hem of her T-shirt until it’s bunched up around her hips. “I’ve told you before about making sudden movements around me. Now I’ll have to punish you for it.”
I hear the breath catch in her throat. God, I love the conflict in her. I fucking live for it. She hates me and she wants me, and it’s driving her out of her mind. My eyes are starting to adjust to the lack of light now, and I can see the perfect curve of her ass just begging to have me sink my teeth into it. Instead, I raise my hand and bring it down hard.
“Fuck!” she screams, the intensity of my blow jolting her forward.
My dick leaps to attention. I’m such a sadistic asshole. Delivering pain and pleasure is so tightly entwined for me. I can’t see the point of one without the other. I want to make her hurt so I can soothe her afterward, twisting her emotions until she sees only me.
“Don’t cuss, it’ll only make it worse for you.” I grit my teeth as my erection catches against the zipper of my jeans. I can’t hold out for much longer. This woman has the ability to make me lose all sense and reason.
I bring my hand down again, a little too hard this time, but I can’t contain myself. She whimpers, but keeps her mouth shut, and it turns me on even more. I desire her strength as much as her light.
I deliver three more blows, each one as brutally precise as the last, before I rip her panties down her thighs and thrust two fingers inside her. Jesus Christ, she’s wet.
“That turned you on, didn’t it, my angel?”
“I hate you,” she cries, her voice muffled by the pillow.
“It’s a fine line between that and the alternative,” I snarl, reaching for my belt.