Fabián
C ollege parties were shit. College parties hosted by the rich and pompous were even shittier.
Unfortunately those same rich and pompous hijos de puta, the ones that looked down on me and my kin, were the same ones that helped line our pockets, keeping them fat with money in exchange for the drugs they used to get high with.
And unfortunately, my father was always making us keep our ears to the ground in order to discover when each and every party would be hosted.
Not like we had to listen too hard or crash them anymore like we had to do years ago. Not when the hosts now invited us as VIP guests because the rich always needed their fix.
And the Raven Brothers were available to provide their poison of choice.
Shitty music bounded off the walls of whatever rich heiress’ house we found ourselves in that night. I forgot her name. Not that I remembered much about our clients unless they refused to pay. Then I noticed.
And I made them pay.
Bodies were packed together at the house. Yet when they saw my brothers and I arrive, they parted, making a clear path for us to swagger through. Though we walked in quietly, our presence was loud, because every little thing about us set us apart from the young elite.
I clicked my tongue as my gaze bounced around, doing a slow perusal of the place, scrunching my nose as I took in a few of their expressions.
Some of them stared at us like we were anomalies. I supposed we were in their circles. With our leather-clad bodies and decorative beads and feathers adorning our longer-than-society-deemed-appropriate hair.
We looked like what they considered us to be.
Criminals.
The small blades at our throats gleamed against the bouncing, colorful lights in the room. A promise. A threat. To anyone who would dare want to fuck with us and ours.
“They look at us like their shit don’t stink,” César, my older brother, said, cutting through the awkward entry.
Eyes pressed heavily on us and we mostly tried to ignore them.
“Ignore it,” our eldest brother, Sebastián, ordered. Of all of us, he looked the most out of place at this party. At thirty-two, he was older than everyone here and it was far too obvious; eyes that were like mine, with a few wrinkles on the corners, and a severe expression that was more intimidating than it could ever be welcoming. “Let’s hurry up, sell the shit, and get the fuck out of here.”
So we did what we came to do. The Raven Brothers: Sebastián, César, myself, and our cousin Santiago. We pushed through the party, swapping packets of powder and weed, aphrodisiacs and gummies for wads of cash until our pants were full.
When we finished, we gathered near a dark couch made of the same expensive leather of César’s car.
“Done?” Sebastián asked. His impatience bled through his tone, and I could understand why.
He was sick of dealing to college kids. He wanted more out of the family business. More responsibility, more action, more everything .
He was too old to be hanging around us, an argument I’d heard him give our papá often enough. But our father was a bastard, and he lived to see us suffer. It was like fucking entertainment for him.
“Chill out, Sebas,” César admonished with a wink. “It’s a party. Have some fun.”
Sebas snorted. “As if I could have fun with a bunch of kids.”
I smirked, knowing these kids, as he called them, were all legal adults. Probably all around my age. However, I knew what he meant. When you’d lived and seen as much as we had, everyone else in the room seemed younger somehow. Especially these people, who probably hadn’t seen a day of darkness their entire lives. Not when they had the pesos to buy lights by the ton.
“ knows how to have fun, right?” César rammed his elbow into my side, the force of it making me stagger. I righted myself, ready to turn that glare in his direction, when my attention caught on someone across the room.
The world stilled for a single fraction at the sight of her.
It tunneled into a single moment, onto a single person that stood across the room. Her back was to me at first, but she turned her body slightly to the side and I caught a glimpse... It was just a glimpse that I needed to know that this woman?
She was going to be mine .
The low lights haloed across her dark hair, casting an almost orange glow around her outline, making her look like some sort of ethereal being. One I knew I had no business approaching, but I couldn’t help myself. My feet carried me in her direction, aware of my brothers and cousin calling me from behind, but I didn’t listen nor did I care. The only person I could focus my full attention on was her, and I hadn’t even caught a full glimpse of her face just yet.
As I approached, her friend shoved an elbow into her side, much like my own brother had done to me, getting her attention, warning her about my approach no doubt.
I stopped shy of her back. Close enough that her scent filled my nostrils, enticing in a way that made me feel primal and needy, a strange combination I’d never truly felt before. I wasn’t sure what her perfume was, but I was addicted as it filled me.
Leaning forward on my boots, I said, “Hey.”
I could see the exact moment she tensed. The exact moment her shoulders moved up and down as she took a breath before slowly turning in my direction.
The impact of seeing her full-on nearly had my fucking head spinning. She was beautiful in the way that angels were supposed to be. It was in the way she exuded brightness, a light that was sure to blind anyone who looked at her hard enough. But I’d gladly live the rest of my life in the dark if it meant having looked at her once, just once.
Her eyes were a mixture of brown and green, framed by long, pretty dark lashes that cast soft shadows against the tops of her cheekbones. Full lips curved into an almost shy smile that threatened to steal the breath from my lungs.
Even in the dim room, I could make out the flush rise from her neck to her cheeks. “Hi,” she responded.
“May I have your name, preciosa.” I didn’t phrase it like a question.
“Ofelia Reyes Munoz.”
I smiled at the perfectly tragic picture I was sure we were going to make. And the thing was, I didn’t care, even though I knew I should. I should turn around and not tangle my web of darkness and deceit in her perfect little life. But as her hand closed around mine and she smiled shyly back at me, I knew she was already so deeply entangled in it, and she didn’t even know.
“ Cuervo,” I introduced. And by then, my mind had already been made up and there was no going back.
It was fate, seeing her here. And the visceral reaction my body had to hers couldn’t be ignored. Not when I wanted her. Desperately. In a way only fools wanted something that was equally beautiful and dangerous within the same span of breath.
My fingers tightened against hers and I pulled her closer, though she went willingly enough, falling against my chest.
Our hearts beat in tandem against one another, like they were singing a song only we were privy to while the rest of the world fell away around us.
And for some crazy reason I knew right then, and without a single doubt, that this? Me and her? We were meant to be.
“Dance with me, Ofelia?” I asked.
Her smile only grew. “I’d love to.”
There were snickers all around us as I pulled her closer still, trapping our held hands between our chests, the only barrier between us as we swayed back and forth with one another. I wasn’t even sure what music played on the speakers around us then. It didn’t matter, because all I saw was her.
“So, Ofelia...” Her face flushed as I said her name. “Do you come here often?”
A soft snort came out of her, and she looked up at me, a wink of teasing in her bright eyes. “Really?” she asked. “ That’s the line you’re going with?”
I twirled her, breaking our conversation momentarily before pulling her back where she belonged. “I haven’t seen you before. That’s why I ask.”
“So you come here often?”
“Often enough.” The wads of cash and bags of weed weighed heavily in my pockets just then. A stark difference in our way of living hidden in the recesses of dark leather. “Which is why I know for a fact, I would have remembered you.”
I liked the way her eyes rolled as she looked up at me, even with her smile still remaining in place. “I’m sure you say that to all the girls.”
Never . Because none of the prissy rich heiresses had ever caught my attention. She didn’t look prissy, though I was positive she was an heiress. Her skin was rich and unblemished, every strand of hair firmly in place in a knot behind her head. Even her clothes looked more expensive than my entire wardrobe. Even then, she didn’t turn her nose up at me like the rest of them. There was something about her aura, something about her that I was drawn to. Even now, as we swayed slowly back and forth to music that was likely far too fast for whatever it was we were doing, she captivated me.
“Only to the ones with tragic Shakespearean names like Ofelia.”
Her full little mouth dropped open in obvious shock. I twirled her again, and when I pulled her back, the expression was gone, replaced with a pleased smile. “ You like Shakespeare?”
“I’ve read a bit... Don’t look so surprised.”
“Sorry, sorry. I’ve just never met a man who likes the classics before.”
“My papá used to punish us when we were bad and force us to clean my mamá’s library. It was huge and she had an extensive collection.” I smiled at the fondness the memories brought. Back when life was so much simpler. When we were still too young to understand the darkness in the world. “Sometimes I’d slip a book off a shelf and go through it and a lot of it just... stuck.”
“Who’s your favorite poet?”
For some reason this felt like a test. Like maybe too many hijos de puta had lied to her about liking the same things she did, so she was trying to see if I genuinely meant what I was telling her. It made me wonder just how many pendejos had lied to her, just like it made me want to rip their fingers from their hands for daring to do it in the first place.
Her eyes widened as I began to rattle off a list of my favorites. The list mostly consisted of indigenous poets of our generation who were on the rise to fame, but she must’ve known every single one of them, because her brows rose higher with each name.
“That’s an impressive list.” Her cute little face flushed brightly, even in the dim lighting. “And here I was going to say my favorites are Shakespeare and Poe, but that seems lackluster now.”
I twirled her once again, but this time when I pulled her back to me, there was no barrier of our joined hands getting in the way. I pressed her tightly against my chest, splaying my palm along her lower back, teasing the edge of her wool academy uniform. Beneath, I could feel the graze of her warm skin against mine, and I suddenly wanted more of it.
I bent so my breath swept the edge of her ear. “Don’t ever let anyone make you feel bad about the things that you love, preciosa,” I whispered. And when I pulled away, she was staring at me with an expression I couldn’t quite decipher.
“Now,” I continued, “I want you to tell me more.”
“More what?”
“More about yourself.”
Her voice was addicting, and I wanted to drown in it.
“Well, what do you want to know?”
I smiled. “Everything.”