“Oooh, we should blame Anastasia and her tits of doom,” Brooklyn suggested enthusiastically.
“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Niall agreed. “Not Anastasia specifically, but the Russians. Vlad is out for my blood at the moment anyway, and my pa keeps leaving me all these angry voicemails demanding I return to the family to help clear up the mess I’ve made. I think he still wants to forge a deal with them, but from what I’ve heard, it’s marriage or death for me when it comes to our Russian friends. Seeing as I have no intention to divorce my beautiful new wife, I’ve offered them up the challenge of delivering me my death. Sure would make my life easier if the cartel swooped in and killed them all for me though.”
I scoffed at his casual suggestion that we set the Castillo Cartel on the Russian mafia, but Carmen didn’t look so sceptical.
“The Russians have been causing problems for a while now,” she said thoughtfully. “They bicker over the price of their cut from our imports and blow smoke out of their asses, while trying to claim their own superiority all the time. I wouldn’t object to cutting them down a size or two.”
“Really? I had the idea that saves us all?” Brooklyn whispered excitedly and Carmen flashed her a look which wasn’t even hostile.
“I take it this is your true captor, primo? The way you stand before her tells me you would die a thousand deaths to keep her safe.”
I nodded stiffly, unsure if I should be trying to shield Brooklyn from her attention or not, but of course mi sol didn’t give me that option. She bounded forward excitedly, offering out a hand with blood still lodged beneath her fingernails and grinning widely.
“I’m Brooklyn with a B, nice to meet you.”
Carmen took her hand and shook it without so much as flinching at the blood, despite her own pristine appearance.
“You’ll have to return the money,” Carmen added, looking to me. “Assuming you still have it?”
“I do,” I replied heavily, knowing that she was right, but in the grand scheme of things, returning that money was a price I would gladly pay fifty times over if it bought me a free life with my chica loca.
“Are you gonna be needing help with the Russians?” Niall asked curiously, accepting this turn of events as if it wasn’t in the least bit unusual. Like he had ruthless killers show up at his door every day offering peace and striking deals to take down major crime families.
If Jack had any opinion on any of this then he wasn’t voicing it, retreating into silence as he so often seemed to prefer.
“No,” Carmen purred. “I think I can manage that myself. Besides, Mateo will have to stay out of sight while I pretend he is recovering from the torture he endured. He will return to the fold a hero for never once spilling our secrets and for helping recover the money. I can handle the rest.”
“And you’ll even have those scars to help sell your story,” Niall said enthusiastically, slapping me on the shoulder and making me snarl at him like a rabid beast. “Bet you’ll wanna thank me for them now, eh?”
Carmen glanced at me curiously in response to that remark, but I remained silent on the subject as she released Brooklyn’s hand then stepped forward to embrace me. It took me a moment to remember what I was supposed to do, and I slowly wrapped my arms around her in return, the scent of her reminding me of a few happy moments we’d stolen together as children and something within me settling as I crushed her against me.
“I don’t know how to thank you for this,” I murmured as I held her tightly and she breathed a laugh.
“I love you, primo, but that won’t stop me from calling in this favour. One day soon, I’ll make my move, and I’ll need you by my side.”
A shiver tracked down my spine at her words because I had the feeling that I knew exactly what she was planning to do in the long term, and the thought of it was terrifying enough to make me flinch. Even so, she was offering me something I had never thought to claim and I would never be able to repay that debt, which meant I’d be there when she called. There was no doubt about that.
“I’m yours to command,” I agreed, feeling the weight of that promise settle over me heavily, though I doubted I would have to do anything at all for a long time yet. I’d worry about it when the time came.
“Then it is done.”
Carmen moved back, turning away from all of us and stepping over Pepito again as she climbed into her car once again.
Pepito hurried to close the door behind her, and the four of us watched as they backed away down the drive. No one said another word until their car was disappearing into the distance and heading out of sight.
“Well,” Brooklyn sighed wistfully. “I really, really like her.”
I was doing a worry handstand to get all my worries out and my polka dot yellow dress had flipped over to cover my face, so my underwear was on show. Niall had gone to face his dad at last in the wake of Carmen taking out the Russians and ending our problems so far as they were concerned.
That had been about a week ago and we’d all been waiting for the dust to settle following on from Vlad’s decapitation and the murder of most of the top men in his organisation. There had been all kinds of news reports about the massacre of the Russian mobsters, but none of them would detail the injuries claiming they were too brutal to describe. No one seemed to have realise that the cartel was responsible for it either, and I was like nine parts impressed and one part turned on by the badassness of Mateo’s secret cousin.
I’d been bugging Mateo to arrange a girls’ day for me and Carmen to do some murder bonding ever since I’d found out about it, but so far he’d told me she was too busy dealing with the fallout from the attack, so I had had to put a pin in that idea.
A couple of days after the Russians were hit by hurricane Carmen (though sadly Anastasia had survived with her tits intact), Niall’s dad had called him up and informed him that with half the Russians dead and the rest of them scrambling for any kind of power they could still claim, he was able to make a deal that didn’t involve marrying his youngest son off. So he’d called him back to the house to make peace.
I didn’t like it. I didn’t like that big house with its fandangles and the money which dripped from the walls and the taste of bad deeds which hung in the air. I didn’t like that fancy old man with his smoking jacket and sneering face and salt and pepper hair. I didn’t like my Hellfire being forced to play nice and do as he was told either. My Hellfire wasn’t made for following orders after all; he was a creature of chaos, and it just didn’t seem right to me.
Worst of all, Niall had said I couldn’t go with him when he went to meet with his dad, just in case Liam O’Brien decided to kill him. Then he’d run out the front door, locked it tight and driven away in his Jeep before I could follow.
Mateo and AJ had talked me down from trying to blindly drive after him and guess the route he took. Apparently, my intuition wasn’t enough of a roadmap to get me there, which was goose crap, but then Mateo had bent me over his knee and spanked my ass when I’d tried to slip out the upstairs window, so now I was under constant watch while I did emotional acrobatics.
“If you want a real distraction, Rook, come over here and let me give you one,” AJ growled from across the lounge.
“Let her stay there, I’m enjoying the view,” Mateo said and my legs flipped down as I lost my balance.