Brody grinned. “Thanks, Lil’ Bit.” With a peck on my cheek, he set me on top of the bar and retrieved his phone. “Okay, I think that’s enough family togetherness for today. We’ll call everyone later once we’ve celebrated privately.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at Val’s growl of disapproval. We’d come a long way from trying to kill each other to being insanely protective of each other. I suppose blood really was thicker than water.
Once we stopped trying to spill it, of course.
Everyone said their goodbyes, and Brody ended the call with promises of video and a visit to the estate. I mixed a few more drinks, and after pacing the floor for fifteen minutes, he gave up and closed the bar early.
As soon as Frankie left, Brody locked the door behind him and swept me into his arms. “I get to kiss the bride now.”
I laughed and ran my hands through his thick hair. “That’s only when we get married.”
“When have we ever followed tradition?” His lips twitched in a half smile seconds before his mouth claimed mine in a slow and seductive kiss. Brody’s fingers tightened in my hair, and he pulled me closer. He tasted and took, and I happily gave.
I told him once that my kisses were all his, and I meant it.
His mouth left mine and marked a heated trail across my jaw and down my neck. I closed my eyes, reveling in the feel of his lips on my skin, and the feel of his ring on my finger.
“You know, I never thanked you.”
Brody pulled back and eyed me closely as he brushed a piece of hair away from my face. “For what?”
“For exposing who I really was. I hated you for it at the time, but if you hadn’t, I would’ve died. I was convinced you wanted to take my life, and you ended up saving it.”
He backed me against the bar, and the space between us disappeared. “I think we saved each other.”
We did. In every sense of the word. We risked our lives for each other, but it was so much more than a sacrifice of pain or a gift of life. Both of us were headed down our own dark path when they unexpectedly crossed. It would’ve been so easy to keep running deeper into the shadows until those paths consumed us, but circumstance, fate, or whatever you wanted to call it, stepped in.
We still walked in the dark, but we didn’t walk alone. This life we led wasn’t bathed in sunlight. Neither of us was all evil, and neither of us was all good. Extremes were what brought down empires.
And what we’d built was indestructible.
As if reading my mind, Brody brought my left hand to his lips and kissed the diamond now residing on my third finger. “So, what do you think, princesa? Ready to be a queen again?”
It was funny. Reclaiming my crown was why I came to Houston, but it turned out that the one thing I wanted ended up being the last thing I needed.
“Only yours, counselor. Only yours.”
STAINED WHITE LINES
Every great rivalry has a beginning.
Ours is no different.
Mexico.
Colombia.
A feud borne in blood and sealed with a vow.
My sister’s wedding was supposed to symbolize the joining of our two empires.
But betrayal changed everything.
Carrera.
Santiago.
One bullet started a war.
Two stained our history red.
Introduction
Dear Reader,
When I wrote the last words of Drawn Blue Lines, I thought I’d closed the proverbial book on this series.
I thought wrong.
It seems these border busting alphas weren’t done with me yet, and they saved the most explosive part for last.
Stained White Lines isn’t a standalone book, so if you haven’t read the first three books in the trilogy, you might be a bit lost at times. Previous plotlines are referenced throughout this story, but if you’re a romance rebel and want to jump in with both feet, go for it!
The following book is a collaboration with my author friend, Catherine Wiltcher. She will introduce you to Dante Santiago, overlord of the Colombian Santiago Cartel from her Santiago Trilogy. You’ll want to know him because Stained White Lines serves as the prequel to our upcoming Carrera/Santiago crossover duet, Corrupt Gods. You can even preorder both books in the duet at the end.
So enjoy the clash of the cartel titans as the reaper meets the devil.
Because all hell is about to break loose.
xoxo,
Cora
For Catherine.
Sorry about all those three a.m. texts.
Eventually, I’ll figure out that time zone thing.
Playlist
Eye of the Storm - Watt White
Closer - Kings of Leon
This is My World - Esterly, Austin Jenckes
New Kings - Sleeping Wolf
Alive (Chris Lord-Alge Mix) - P.O.D.
The Beginning of the End - Klergy, Valerie Broussard
Numb/Encore - JAY-Z, Linkin Park
All I Want - Kodaline
I Remember You - Skid Row
Only One King - Tommee Profitt, Jung Youth
End of Me - A Day To Remember
Next Girl - The Black Keys
Feel It - Michele Morrone
New Blood - Zade Wolfe
The Legend Begins - Mawr, Silverberg
Listen to the Stained White Lines playlist.
Prologue
Valentin
There was too much red.
It stained the wine in my glass. It spilled out of the middle of a perfectly white iced cake. It covered the shoulders of a newly married bride. It wrapped around the rustic canopies and lay draped atop scattered tables. It set me on edge, and I didn’t like it.
I was at my own home, tense as hell, and there was too much damn red.
Red was a complicated color. Ask most people what it represented, and their eyes usually glazed over as they went on and on about passion and love.
That was their world. It was full of hearts and flowers and goddamn rainbows. It was a world where everyone followed the rules, worked honest jobs, loved thy neighbor, and fucked missionary style every night of their miserable lives.
Then there was my world. One where red symbolized anger and hatred and ruled kingdoms. One where every shade signified punishment, consequence, and blood.
Red was the sound of war and the smell of death.
It thrived in a world those cabrónes pretended didn’t exist. The one that broke the rules and created its own. The one that owned all the jobs and their neighbors. And the one that had no problem bending his woman over a wedding reception table and fucking her raw.
Their world gave. My world took.
Over the years, I’d coated myself in many shades and layers. I’d built an empire on all three, long ago accepting the permanent stain into my life.
Until today.
Today, we said the vows, made the promises, and pretended to be part of their world. The hearts and flowers and passion and love world.
Today was meant to be white.
But it wasn’t.
It was stained with red and the black cloud of Dante fucking Santiago’s presence.
I ignored Eden and Ava’s mosh pit of red hair as they huddled together and made my way over to the bar, avoiding the attendant’s plastic smile as I grabbed a bottle of red wine and a glass. Try me, bitch. She quickly backed up, and no one said shit as I walked away. My gaze shifted across the estate grounds to where my sister stood on a raised platform, commanding everyone’s attention with her back to a herd of incessantly loud women.