Page 79 of Empire of Carnage
If he were any other man, I’d be riddled with insecurities and shaking from self-consciousness. But he wasn’t going to survive to tell the tale of the Latina who couldn’t dance well, and the closer I got the more I realized that wasn’t what he was thinking at all. He licked his lips in a suggestive way and spun his chair to the side, away from his desk to give me room to climb over him.
I turned around and folded in half, touching my ankles and shaking my ass directly in his face while he made low hums of approval. The song switched toAerosmith’s‘Walk This Way’ just as he pressed his face to my crack and took a real-time grown man sniff.
I paused, mortified before continuing to move my hips like I wasn’t eighteen kinds of uncomfortable. I flinched at the feel of his hands as they gripped my cheeks and squeezed hard just as I came back up.
“You better get used to men touching you sweetheart,” he said in his sharp accent. “Otherwise you’ll be back on the streets soon,” he threatened, letting me know that even the employees in this hellscape were hardly there by choice.
I turned to face him, knowing I was risking him recognizing me by giving him the time to stare, but not once did his eyes move up from my chest even when I climbed onto his lap to straddle him. I took the opportunity to grab his glass from the table, grinding onto his erection to keep him focused on me until I poured it into his mouth.
He moaned, swallowing the drink as I licked up droplets from the corner of his lips hoping it wouldn’t be enough to fuck me up on the drug. His hands ran up my sides and he cupped my breasts over my bra, squeezing too hard without care. I fought a wince, biding my time until the heroin kicked into his system.
I had no idea how long it would take, but I trusted Dominico when he said he gave me enough to tame a lion. Sokolov wasn’t a lion but I knew his obsession with using the drug meant he not only peddled it himself, he favored it. I knew the drug world well, and I wasn’t above it. I knew as the leader of the cártel I would suffer serious losses if I refused to distribute them.
The thing was… drugs weren’t the problem.
It was society’s response to it. It was the way addiction was handled with either a prison sentence or death. People like Sokolov depended on addicts falling prey to these drugs so that he could keep them in his vicious cycle of imprisonment. I saw the look in the cocktail waitress’ eyes when I told her the boss was angry.
Sure there was fear, but the hazy look in her stare told me she wasn’t fully here either. I remembered the feeling well. The song switched again to something with a hard beat that I didn’t recognize, and the Russian crime lord pulled me closer against him, pushing my hips down into his unimpressively semi-soft erection. My legs dropped from the sides of the chair, so I arched my back, pressing my tits into his face to distract him from my hands reaching into my boot for my knife.
His eyes drooped and he leaned his head back into the chair, but in the same motion it fell down like it was too heavy for him to control. I smirked.Gracias Dominico.Maybe it was daddy issues, but in a way, I seemed to find a paternal-type bond through him. One that didn’t require lessons in a torture chamber.
I wasn’t angry at my papá. He did what he thought was right, and in a way, all histeachingshelped me to survive, molded me to become who I am today. But I also knew it was my duty to make sure a child was never robbed of their innocence in the way that I was. President Ramírez’s request wasn’t outrageous, and it was something I intended to do myself once I had been fully established as thesolehead of the cártel.
I gripped his short blond hair tightly in between my fingers and yanked his head up, his eyes struggling to blink open as I brought my face as close to his as possible.
“Te acuerdas de mi?” I purred into his ear while looking into his eyes and waiting for the acknowledgement to flash through them.
His eyes narrowed as he tried to piece together who I was but either he was too high from the possibly lethal dose of heroin I’d drugged him with, or I’d really just been a blip in his life. I still had nightmares from his cage and the pendejo couldn’t even be bothered to remember my face.
“Where is Carolina Flores?” I gritted out, yanking his head hard with one hand while the other fished inside my boot for the knife.
Finally that spark of recognition lit up in his pupils, and just then gunshots rang out outside the door.
30
Mateo
She’d been gone way too long, and rather than believing she somehow might be in trouble, I had a feeling that she’d gone out of her way to find trouble herself. She just couldn’t wait, she wanted to see his death and she wanted it by her hands.
As much as I wanted to see the bastard bleed under me I knew it was her right just the same, if not more. I wasn’t angry that she wanted it that badly, I was angry that she kept risking her life so carelessly. We all were.
I flipped up my phone and texted Santos;
ME:Celia just went rogue. May need backup.
Santos: Rgr.
I casually walked through the main area into a narrow hallway with a lit up bathroom sign. I pushed through the women’s bathroom to see if I could find her, ducking low to search for feet but all I could see was a pile of clothes in one corner. I pushed the stall open and sure as shit it was her clothes and her bulletproof vest.
Goddamnit.
Just as I exited the bathroom some big guy walked past me and made his way to the end of the hall, standing post in front of a door. Well, well well, thanks for making it easy for me pal. As I walked closer his face turned with curiosity, like he wasn’t sure if I actually had the audacity to square up to a man his size.
I remembered his face. I remembered him in that room when Celia was tied up and drugged after being sold to us.
So I wouldn’t feel so bad about killing him to get to her.
“Oh, hey big guy,” I cooed out with my hands raised up in the air to the scarred-up, ten-foot tall motherfucker guarding what was surely Sokolov’s door. “Remember me?”
