Chapter 1
Marisol
In my next breath, I would either start a war between the two most powerful cartels in Mexico, or I would resign myself to a hellish existence as a cruel man’s captive. My freedom was within my grasp. All I had to do was agree to help with one small, essential task. Then, the bloodshed would begin.
The words clogged in my throat, every fiber of my being resisting the responsibility for so much death. My life wasn’t supposed to be like this. I wasn’t supposed to be here, trapped in a world of vicious drug lords and their brutal power plays.
And what would my fierce captor do to me if he discovered my betrayal before I could run away to safety? Raúl’s hard, jade green eyes flashed through my thoughts, sending a shiver down my spine. Just the memory of his forbidding scowl was intimidating enough to make my knees weak.
“If you’re afraid of Raúl Guerrero, don’t be,” my would-be accomplice, Daniel Vera, said with a dismissive shrug. Daniel might be one of the most influential men in the cartel, but he was young and arrogant to the point of stupidity. Anyone with half a brain would fear Raúl.
“Guerrero will probably be dead by sunset,” Daniel reassured me, his cocky smirk emphasizing the sparseness of the beard he’d attempted to grow. “Even if he manages to survive the night, he won’t last long. He won’t be able to come after you.”
The thought of my captor dead because of my actions—his dark eyes flat and his stony features slack—made my stomach turn.
I swallowed down my nausea. Raúl was a criminal, and I’d seen him do monstrous things. I shouldn’t feel sick over the prospect of his death. The world would be a safer place without him in it.
Raúl can take care of himself, I reasoned. I wouldn’t be responsible for his demise. He’ll survive.
I just had to be far, far away from him by morning. As long as I was out of his reach, he’d be too busy with his criminal power struggle to waste time coming after me. Especially if I was no longer a significant hostage.
Because I wasn’t betraying Raúl solely to secure my own freedom; Carmen Ronaldo was in a far more dire situation than me, locked in the penthouse ten floors above. For weeks, the captive cartel princess had been subjected to an insane drug lord’s possessive lust. I couldn’t leave her trapped in that hell, not when I knew the agony she suffered at Stefano Duarte’s hands every day.
“You can stay with me,” Daniel offered, his oily grin belying the reassurance in his tone. “I know you want to escape from Guerrero, but you don’t have to risk going on the run by yourself. It’s dangerous for a pretty woman like you to be out there all alone.” He stepped toward me, ignoring my attempt to shrink away. He advanced until my back hit the wall. “Come home with me. I’ll protect you.”
His hands bracketed my hips, trapping me. My chest tightened, and my fists clenched at my sides. I took a quick breath and forced them to unfurl, offering no resistance. Whatever happened next, I could endure it. All that mattered was getting Carmen to safety and securing my own freedom. I wouldn’t risk that by lashing out at Daniel, even though his unwelcome touch stirred old nightmares.
“I’ll help you access Duarte’s penthouse and free Carmen, so you can take her to her allies,” I promised on a whisper. Declaring my betrayal aloud put me in far more danger than what I might face in the world outside this drug lord’s fortress, but it was Daniel’s suffocating nearness that robbed the forcefulness from my words. His heavy cologne smothered my senses, the sickly amber scent thickening the air to molasses.
“And after that?” he prompted, one hand skimming up my side to paw at my chest. “Will you come home with me? Guerrero’s been guarding you like a rabid dog, but he can’t keep you from me now. Once he’s dead, I’ll give you a safe place to stay. You won’t be forced to work as Carmen’s maid anymore. You’re too pretty to be wasted scrubbing floors.”
I closed my eyes and sucked in a lungful of sticky-sweet oxygen. The heat of his groping hands seared my flesh, layering over the toxic taint that other men had branded into me. I hadn’t felt a monster’s violating touch in the weeks since Raúl had taken me as his hostage. My captor was beastly, but in a perverse way, his fierce captivity had started to feel like protection. No one had dared to come near me while Raúl was my jailor, and beyond all reason, he’d never forced himself on me.
No matter how often his granite jaw sharpened with unmistakable hunger, no matter how many times his massive body flexed with the impulse to claim me, he’d always restrained himself. He honored the promise he’d made to his boss on the night I’d been taken: No one touches her. I’ll see to it myself.
Carmen had surrendered herself to her enemies in exchange for Duarte’s word that I wouldn’t be harmed. She’d saved my life on the chaotic, violent night when Duarte’s cartel had assaulted hers, but she’d condemned me to being held as a hostage. Trapped in a world of criminals. Vulnerable to callous, greedy men like Daniel.
Before I could force down another cloying breath, my memory of Raúl’s vicious snarl became real. I cringed, pressing my back tightly to the wall, as though I could sink into it and hide from his wrath. I’d heard him make this feral sound once before, on my first day in captivity. He’d killed a man with his bare hands as punishment for daring to touch me.
Daniel’s groping hands left me abruptly. His sharp shout boomed through the cramped corridor, then cut off with a sickening crack.
My eyes flew open, and my lungs froze. Raúl was terrifying to behold, the beastly nature that he barely managed to contain overtaking him completely. One of his massive hands encircled Daniel’s throat, pinning him against the wall. Daniel’s designer shoes dangled a few inches above the crimson carpet, his much smaller body lifted in Raúl’s meaty fist as easily as a ragdoll.
Raúl bared his teeth on a rumbling snarl, his heavy brows lowering to cast forbidding, skull-like shadows over his eyes.
“No one touches her.” His ragged words held a fevered edge, as though the promise he’d made his boss on the night of my abduction had become an obsessive litany.
Daniel’s heels drummed against the wall, leaving dark scuff marks on the ivory paint. His cheeks had darkened to an alarming shade of purple, and his mouth gaped in a desperate attempt to draw breath that Raúl denied him.
My captor’s massive frame swelled, his muscles tensing.
“No!” I gasped, a heartbeat before he could crush Daniel’s throat. If Raúl killed Daniel, my dream for freedom would die along with him.
Raúl’s body jerked, and he let out a low grunt, as though I’d thrown my full weight at him to stop his violent act.
Hard, deep green eyes turned on me, and a small squeak slipped up my throat; a mouse confronted by a hungry lion. His hand remained locked around my accomplice’s neck, but Daniel was still alive, even if his eyes were rolling with terror.
“He touched you,” Raúl grated out, his lips peeled back from his flashing white teeth. The small scar on his upper lip puckered, the indelible mark of his brutal nature enhancing the danger that pulsed from him with each of his heaving breaths. I knew he was strong enough that holding Daniel wasn’t causing this exertion, but restraining himself from finishing the kill seemed to be costing him more energy than running five miles.