Chapter 37 Cecilia
CECILIA
Well…that was a whole bag of crazy I didn’t have a reaction for.
I craved death more than any creature that ever walked this Earth, but somehow, I knew Santos álvarez wouldn’t be the cause of my demise.
I thought surely, he was enraged by the truth of me he’d seen in those videos, that he was coming for me because he couldn’t bear to let someone as vile and disturbed as me, continue to live.
Someone who ruthlessly killed whoever my papá would point my way or throw into a dungeon with me.
Solo los que son fuerte aguantan. Only the strong endure.
And I fucking endured.
But his confession that he hadn’t seen them was too suspicious, telling me I needed to dig deeper into this, and figure out what was going on. This was something else, and I was gonna get to the bottom of it before he ended up doing something he would regret.
I knew Santos well enough to know that whatever was bothering him would stay that way until one of us pried it from him and he likely wouldn’t give us the chance. I sighed heavily as I sat on that ledge, mourning the friendship we once had. It seemed I didn’t have anything else to lose any more.
Santos was now just another name on the ever-growing list of things being Celia Flores had cost me.
Or maybe he’d just changed too much for me to realize I’d lost him long before I came back here.
We all changed over the years, and I was better off finding out exactly who these men really were now, than to cry over the boys they used to be.
Clearly, I didn’t have a clue.
I turned myself around, feet dangling in the air as I challenged death herself and basked in the glory of the sunrise.
I ignored the sickening feeling in my stomach that stirred inside me just from the scenery of the height alone.
I’d been locked up in some form or another these last couple of months and just getting to exist and breathe in fresh air, was a freedom that made me want to ignore even the basic survival instincts that were screaming at me to get down.
I kept waiting for Ronan to come bursting through the door and put me over his shoulder to drag me back into the kennels, but he never came.
He was keeping his distance too, but at least with him, I knew why.
Once the pink rays began to fade into the true morning light, I decided I had enough of this so-called freedom.
I resigned to my fate and decided to head back inside.
Before I could even turn around on that ledge, Mateo’s husky voice was in my ear forcing goosebumps all over my flesh at his proximity.
“There you are,” he whispered, planting a soft kiss on the sensitive part of my neck, and I tilted my chin up towards him to give him better access. “How’d you get all the way up here?”
“Would you believe me if I said I ended up here on my own?” I questioned him with a smirk.
“Absolutely not Sunshine, after the attack, the elevator doesn’t even work without our thumbprints now.
But if no one is dead, and you’re alright, you can keep this one secret,” he said with that dimpled smirk and I turned my head and planted a kiss on his lips, my cheeks heating from the memory of last night.
I felt his lips pulling into a smile letting me know his thoughts were in the same place.
“Something is going on with Santos,” I said to him, unsure of how much more I wanted to give away.
“Ever since he came back from Ocean Valley,” Mateo confirmed exactly what I had been thinking. He helped me spin around on the ledge so that I was still seated but facing him now, and he stepped in between my legs.
“Ronan is a loose cannon who makes his problems everyone else's. Santos is the exact opposite… he bottles it all up until all he can do is collapse under the weight of his own bullshit,” he said.
“And you?” I raised an eyebrow as I tried to figure out where in that spectrum he fit.
“Somehow, I ended up as the psychopath with the healthiest form of communication methods. You can thank my therapist,” he grinned this time, showing his teeth, and I couldn’t help but return the expression.
His hands were immediately on me, one over my breast and the other clutching the back of my head almost painfully as he pulled a kiss from me.
“I want you,” I breathed out, pulling back from him, and reaching my hand into his sweatpants to find that the monster hiding inside was already awake.
He groaned out woefully and dropped his head to my shoulder.
I stroked my hand up and down, squeezing his length, feeling the thick, delicious vein that led all the way up to the tip.
“As much as I want this, we can’t do it here, we need to go inside before Zerkos comes crashing through that door,” he said, his voice full of regret, but I knew it was just a matter of time before I had to tell Ronan. And why shouldn’t he know? I was as much Mateo’s as Ronan was mine.
Whatever the hell that meant.
“It would be pretty fucking awkward if I walked in on you two like this wouldn’t it be?” The low bravado of his voice announced his presence as if I had summoned him myself.
“Shit,” Mateo mumbled, his forehead still on my shoulder as I pulled my hand out from his pants.
I raised an eyebrow at Ronan, who stood on the other side of the rooftop, leaning casually against the door with a frown on his face.
“Don’t stop on my account,” he pushed off the door with his foot and casually made his way over to us one step at a time, so goddamn slow I realized I was trembling the closer he got.
I hopped off the ledge and put myself in between them once I saw Ronan’s hateful stare wasn’t focused on me anymore but directed at Mateo.
He was just inches away from me now, the anger etched into him so deeply that I had forgotten why I wanted to cause any pain to this beautiful creature in the first place.
The emerald forest in his eyes was nearly succumbing to the ring of fire around his pupils and it threatened to swallow it whole from the inside, making it so his eyes almost looked yellow.
“If you wanted to be a Crow-Slut, you should have just told me from the beginning, I would have provided much cushier accommodations. The whores stay on the third floor,” he lashed out at me with his words and before I realized it my hand swung out to strike his face, he caught my wrist before I could make contact.
“Try that again. I dare you,” he growled out through his teeth.
Never being one to back down from a challenge, I swung out with my free hand. He captured it as well bringing both wrists high above my head as I struggled to free myself from his hold. I squealed in anger at how his size could make me feel like a doll, a plaything in his possession.
I fought and pulled against his hold, the tear in my back burning but not stopping me.
When he didn’t budge, I swung my head back and bashed my forehead into his nose, forcing a pained cry from him.
He brought both of my wrists into just one of his hands and grabbed my ass with the free one, pulling me against him.
“You were expensive, so unless you have a couple mil lying around, I’d behave, or you will regret it,” he promised vengefully into my ear.
“I thought you owned me before, you spent a lot of money just to own me again,” I smirked back, narrowing my eyes at him. Shit, I was royally fucked if he spent that much to save my ass.
Being indebted to Ronan Zerkos was not part of my plan.
“You’re not gonna hurt her,” Mateo said firmly from behind me, forcing both Ronan and me to break our staring contest and look back at him.
“I don’t need to hurt her to prove a point,” he huffed as he walked me backward until my ass was on that cold ledge again. My eyes widened from the shock of it against my bare skin.