Page 18 of Empire of Carnage
“Now we recoup. We lick our wounds, we plan well, and I get my papá’s men on my side. Then we kill the hijo de la chingada.” He and the Diablos who’d overheard all nodded in agreement as we walked through my family’s villa.
Flashes of celebrations, meals, even weddings for cártel families that were held in this property ran through my memory. My papá made this a home, but looking back this was no place for a kid to grow up in. None of us were sheltered from the violence or the blood. Even Carolina knew it well, but we were desensitized early on. He was my papá, I would always love him. But now that I had grown up, I could acknowledge that he made plenty of mistakes. There were some I was determined to never repeat.
Bringing children into this world was one of them.
I sat with my arms crossed on a metal bench while César and Santos used the shovel to attempt and pry the box open. It was three in the morning and far too late for this bullshit, but they refused to end the day without knowing what all of this was for.
I couldn’t blame them.
But I showed no trace of surprise when they finally forced the lid open, the smell of the past seeping out first before the contents became visible.
“What’s this?” Santos pulled the leather journal out of the metal box first, a wave of nostalgia hitting me as memories of my papa with that thing stuck under his arm filled my head.
“Secrets. Blackmail. Currency of the cártel,” I explained.
The Ortíz ledger was the reason why Augustin Ortíz was able to take the cártel in one fell swoop. He knew every dirty secret, every sellable crime any family had committed. And he used it like a leash to control his grunts, his own people. Following suit my papá had no choice but to continue in tradition. After all, why risk something new when you knew the old and tried way worked best?
No, this was what paid for their loyalty. Protection from their past.
“Jesus H. Christ,” Mateo said in disbelief as he stuck his hand into the box, hundreds of diamonds slipping through his fingers and falling back into the heaping pile they came from.
“This is the kind of money that’s gonna fuck with the economy when you put it back in circulation.” Santos scratched the back of his head.
“That’s the point. Then she’ll own the fucking country.”
It was easy to make this place feel the way it used to again, despite the fact my rat of a tío had tainted it with his presence not too long ago. I was here with the three men that I loved the most despite their aversion to me.
I knew the problem. I wasn’t a fucking idiot.
Between them thinking I was some fragile little fucking paper doll, and them trying to distinguish the boundaries between the four of us, everything was a mess. At least they’d now finally come to realize that there wasn’t a choice between the three of them. It was all or nothing. I meant it when I told them that, before the attack on the highrise.
Three weeks had gone by and all of our scars had begun to fade. Ronan was still in terrible shape which meant Emory was constantly on his ass to make sure he wasn’t overdoing it. “No sex for six weeks,” she reminded him. “Unless you want it to be your last time,” she said like the evil Irish witch she was.
Which meant Santos and Mateo weren’t touching me. I guess that was my own fault when I said all or nothing, but that was definitely not what I had meant. Things were just different now, and something told me they were waiting for Ronan to make the first move.
Which left me sexually frustrated and constantly on edge.
How was I supposed to concentrate on a war when there was so much sexual tension and testosterone just fucking floating around in the air at all times? I finally put my foot down and kicked Emory out of my room. I needed space to decompress and process all the fucking trauma I’d been trying to put behind me since it clearly wasn’t going to leave me alone until I went through it.
And man did I need to go through it.
Dark humor was starting to become a dangerous coping mechanism, and no one was laughing at my suicide jokes anymore. It didn’t matter. I learned long ago the only person who was capable of putting me six feet under would likely share the last name Flores. And now there was a good chance that Flores wouldn’t be me.
“Why is Emory telling me I have to share a room with Santos and Mateo now?” Ronan rumbled into my ear from behind, sending goosebumps down my neck.
I was folding newly purchased clothes and tucking them into the dresser.
“Well, I was hoping she would have taken the hint and boarded up with César, but it looks like she’s really making him work for it,” I said, turning around and placing a kiss on his cheek. “You can sleep with me. If you promise to be good.”
“How do you expect me to sleep next to you and not fuck you until my guts split open again?” He pressed me against the dresser, the hard steel of his erection strained against his pants.
I looked up through my eyelashes and bit my lip. Ronan was fucking massive. And now that I couldn’t find a single reason to hate him anymore, all I wanted to do was let him crush me under him and suffocate me until I saw stars.
“Well, you best be a good boy, or I’ll have you swap rooms with one of the others.” I smirked and he pressed into me harder. His fingers wrapped around the back of my neck, and he forced my gaze up at him.
“You might be their queen, but I’m here to remind you that my hand around your neck has always been your favorite collar,” he said, stroking my throat gently with his thumb.
“What do you call a man who owns a queen?” I asked.
