Their Cartel Princess: The Complete Series: A Dark Reverse Harem Box Set Read online

  39

  The English Man

  She woke to the smell of car oil and manure. It hung thick in the air. She inhaled it with every shallow breath. The weight of the rusty chain around her neck kept urging her down, down, down. Too heavy. Too big, for such a little girl. The floor left dark grease on her elbows and knees. Sticky. Stinking.

  Someone tugged the chain; a flash of pressure on her throat, making her gag.

  Cora clawed at her neck, but there was nothing there.

  She was losing herself to the past.

  But she could feel that chain — the memory of it — cold and heavy. Dragging her down.

  She was too weak to sit up. Would they drag her on her back until she found the strength to scramble to her feet and follow them to the other side of the shed? Would they let her use the bucket today? They would watch — they always did — but it was better than smelling like pee. She knew, if she wanted, she could be clean. But then she’d have to let them wash her.

  She felt tears coming, but she didn’t want the rag in her mouth again. They always shoved that dirty cloth between her lips when she started crying.

  Sometimes, they forgot to take it out.

  Elle was alone in the shed. Sofia was gone — they’d dragged out her tiny body yesterday. Elle was glad; it had puffed up until it looked like a stuffed pig. And the stink had been everywhere. In everything. She could smell that rancid stink even when she’d pressed her face into her tattered dress.

  There were five men here. The farmer. The driver. The cigarette man. The English man. And the businessman…dressed fancy like Papá, in a white suit and red tie. He’d let Mama lean against him as he led her, limping, across the oil-and-blood-soaked floor of the shed. Murmuring, ‘Stay with me, Naomie. I’ll let them go, if you stay,’ in her ear.

  Her mother would always come back a day later.

  Her mother…

  Mama wasn’t here anymore. The businessman had come for her this morning. Elle didn’t want her to come back. She prayed to La Flaca that Mama wouldn’t come back. She begged for Mama to die.

  Because then she wouldn’t have to see the desolation in her mama’s eyes.

  The farmer liked to hurt Elle. Slapping her. Kicking her. Pulling her up by her hair.

  But not the English man. He would help Mama up by her elbow so she could sip water from a cup. He brought them scraps of food and a salve for Elle’s neck where the chain chafed her. But he would watch when the farmer hurt her. He’d stand in the corner, blending effortlessly with the shadows as if they welcomed him, and she would feel his eyes on her.

  She never understood why he wouldn’t help her.

  Elle pressed herself into a ball when she heard the key in the lock. A squeal, and then the door opened. The farmer — his dungarees stained at the knees — hauled her mother inside, tossed her to the floor and left, locking the door behind her.

  Mama was clean. Her hair shone. She wore fresh clothes.

  But there was a darkness in her eyes like her pupils were bleeding.

  As soon as the farmer’s footsteps faded, Mama dragged herself closer to Elle.

  Mama smelled sweet and coppery, like roses and drying blood. There was a tiny crust of blood on the inside of her left nostril. A stain on that otherwise immaculately cleaned face.

  Mama pried Elle’s hands from her neck where she clung so desperately for the scant comfort it offered and pressed something into her palm.

  A key. It stank of metal and felt oily to touch, but she held as tight as she could.

  “He’ll come back for me. When he does…you use it, Elle. You use it,” her mother whispered in her ear. She’d always had such a mesmerizing voice. Lilting and strange with her American accent. “There’s a path. It goes—” Mama flinched and touched her belly as if she had a tummy ache, her voice dropping low for a moment “—behind the house. Follow it. Find a road. Find someone to help you. A washerwoman or a maid. But not here. Go as far as you can. You tell them what happened. Ask them for help.”

  The businessman came for Mama two days later. Days that stretched into an eternity. Days where the only thing that brought her hope was the English man’s hands as he spread that cooling, stinking salve on her neck. The taste of the spicy chicken and slivers of sweet cake he fed her and Mama with his scary, twisted hands. She’d been terrified to go near him the first time she’d seen him. He’d tried to hide his disfigurement, turning his body to hide his hand behind his hip. But when he held the water cup for her, she’d seen it.

  Soon, thirst overcame fear.

  How cold that water had been.

  He had a calm, gentle voice. He almost never spoke, but when he did, he sounded like Mama. A languid drawl she found difficult to understand. The other men sounded like her and Papá. Rateros1, all.

  When her mother left, clinging to the business man’s arm, Elle could barely wait long enough for her heart to stop hammering. The key went into the padlock around her neck that held the thick chain in place. She struggled to open it — couldn’t even see where the key went in — but eventually, it popped open.

  The shed door was unlocked. She didn’t know why, didn’t care, but when she pushed it open and it gave, she didn’t even stop to see if there was anyone around.

  She ran.

  She ran, and she never looked back. Her feet were bruised and bleeding before she stopped running. But there was no one to find. No one to help. Just endless dust and sand and boulders and cacti.

  Elle woke up in the back of a truck. Her father’s face loomed over her, pale and shell-shocked. But his eyes flashed with pride and a love so intense, her pain had fluttered away. She let out a choking sob, clutching his wrist so he wouldn’t disappear into smoke.

  “I’m here, mi corazón.” He stroked a knuckle down her cheek. “Papá’s here.”

  1 Rats, snitches

  40

  Blood & Roses

  Light cut through the darkness — it would have severed her legs if it had had any substance. She blinked, narrowing her eyes as she swung to the doorway. A flashlight glowed, pointing down and reflecting back to the person holding it. Sneakers appeared. Neat, but old. Stonewashed jeans. A flannel shirt. Noah, with his wavy brown hair flopping down his forehead. An easy smile for her when their eyes met.

  He held a flashlight loosely in a hand. Its light speared into her eyes as he snapped it up. She instinctively closed her eyes, but then forced them open again, a hand held to block the intense radiance. He bent down beside her.

  “How do you feel?” he murmured.

  “Nice.” And better now that it wasn’t just her and the dark anymore. She didn’t flinch away from his touch when he stroked her hair. There was the tiniest jangle of metal against metal.

  He was unlocking her from the chains.

  Noah stood. Held out a hand. “Time to clean you up.”

  Cora took it and she stood, eyes downcast. Noah led her away like a man leading his date from the dance floor.

  He took the first step leading out of the basement, and then glanced back at her as if expecting resistance. But there was nothing except leaden resignation inside her.

  She knew what was coming.

  Pain.

  Degradation.

  Hunger and sadness and anger…and then nothing. When you broke, everything snapped. There was no more pain, no more fear, but there was also no more life in you. Your thoughts became too faded to make out. The signals your body sent were muddled, so agony became pleasure and you laughed instead of cried. Sighed instead of screamed.

  Loved, instead of hated.

  No. I won’t.

  It was a silent promise. A curse. A revelation.

  But wanting wasn’t having. She was bound here. Her body trapped by the drug this man had injected into her. But her mind was free. It could flutter away from here. So she let it. She opened the windows of her soul and sent her conscious mind free.

  When Noah reached the top of the stairs and turned to make sure
she was coming without a fight, her body smiled at him.

  But, by then, Cora was long gone.

  Noah led her through the old farmhouse until they came to a door. Then a room beyond was so gloomy as to be dark. Was it night time already? She’d lost track of everything down there in the basement, with just her fractured memories to keep her company.

  He urged her down onto the corner of a massive four-poster bed and then went to lock the bedroom door behind them. The key went into his back pocket. He gave her an unpleasant, crooked smile, and then slipped through a door.

  It smelled musty in here, like the inn in Alpine. Her spine became jelly, and she let herself flop back onto the stained, faded coverlet. The four-poster had a curtain of thick, faded red velvet encircling it. Tassels — stiff with age — dripped down the hems. Above her, in the shadow of the bed’s peak, something moved. A spider, spinning a web.

  She didn’t like spiders. They made her skin crawl. But she didn’t want to move, either. She just wanted to lie here and not think about the smell in her nose or the feel of the cool, slightly oily fabric under her.

  There was an en-suite bathroom. Water began chugging into a hidden bath. Somewhere outside, a dog was still barking. On and on, like barking was its sole existence. The noise became a rhythmic pounding in her head.

  The sickly-sweet smell of roses filled the air.

  Roses and blood.

  The blood came from her, from her clothes.

  She was dirty. Tired. Sore.

  Her fingers went to her jeans, slid inside.

  No wonder the thick fabric had kept chafing her as she’d walked up those stairs. Her underwear was gone.

  She shouldn’t be in here. Shouldn’t have let him bring her. But something had snapped down there, in the dark when he’d said those five words.

  Time to clean you up.

  It wasn’t Noah who’d said them, but the cigarette man. Even his breath had smelled of stale cigarettes when it tickled her ear. She was six again, and the choice was to stay dirty or be washed.

  At least there wasn’t a rag in her mouth. And there wouldn’t be if she didn’t cry.

  She’d be brave today. No tears.

  Maybe Mama wouldn’t scream if she could keep herself from crying. Then they wouldn’t knock Mama unconscious with a fist or a boot. And she wouldn’t have to watch her unmoving body, wondering if she’d start swelling up like Sofia.

  Noah came to fetch her as soon as the bathwater stopped running. The air inside the bathroom was muggy with steam, but it made undressing easier. He didn’t do it for her but watched as she did, standing behind her and staring hard enough that she could feel his eyes on her skin. Last to go was the pendant around her neck. She put it between her shirt and her jeans, shielding it without knowing why.

  Shouldn’t let Santa Muerte get wet.

  She should have been shaking, but this all felt like it was happening to someone else. A familiar sensation, that dissociation. That other person — little Elle — who endured the bad things for her.

  Her eyes fluttered open. Focused, eventually, on Noah. He was at her side, body warm against her nakedness. Still with all his clothes on. She wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

  “You need to piss?”

  She did. Her hands fumbled with the toilet lid. If the smell of roses hadn’t clung to every molecule in the air, then she might have gagged. But she just closed her eyes and sat and peed. She was going to be clean after this. It didn’t matter how dirty the seat was.

  It didn’t matter.

  Elle didn’t care.

  There was a rattle. She opened her eyes. Noah brought a pipe to his lips. Thin mouthpiece, bulbous at the other end. Inside, crystals. He held a lighter under the bulb and inhaled the dribble of smoke moving up the mouthpiece.

  Noah blew out an impossibly thick plume of smoke.

  She laughed. She laughed so hard, she could barely breathe. Sitting buck-naked on a filthy toilet seat, steam writhing through the air, she laughed like he’d just told her the funniest joke in the world.

  Noah’s eyes narrowed. “Whatcha laughing at?”

  She cut off with a choke. She swallowed saliva, coughed so hard she almost threw up, and half fell, half slid into the bathtub.

  Water and suds went everywhere. It slapped on the floor like a wet hand, soaking Noah’s shoes.

  Noah glanced at her without expression and then flicked on the lighter again and took another long hit. He blew out hard and then gave her that same crooked smile. She slid her hand out to either side of the bathtub’s rim. It was glorious inside here; hot and wet and so sweet. The suds wrapped her in a blanket no eyes could pierce. “What is that?” she asked, eyes on the pipe.

  He laughed. His eyes flickered over her mouth, her eyes, her nose. Her throat. To the suds — as if he could see her through them.

  “Sorry, honey — this is off limits.” He came closer, closing the toilet and absently setting the bulbous tube down on its lid. He ran his hands over his face. Standing, he paced once, and then glanced back at her. She followed, wishing he would stand still. Not caring if he did.

  Those crystals had looked so delicate. But their effects weren’t delicate. It looked like Noah was ready to explode. His face turned red and his veins throbbed in his neck as if his pulse raced at a thousand miles an hour.

  He crouched beside the bath in a rush. She jerked, sending another wave of bubbles over the edge.

  Noah didn’t seem to notice. Maybe he also didn’t care anymore. He dipped his fingers in the bubbles and rubbed them up her arm. Gripped her wrist when she tried to pull away and then began washing her arm in earnest. Massaging her biceps and forearms like he enjoyed the feel of her muscles moving under his fingertips.

  And little Elle let him, because why the fuck should she care?

  “Don’t leave,” Noah murmured. He paused, but for less than a second, and then started washing her again. Her shoulder now. Running his thumb hard over her collarbone.

  It probably hurt, but Elle never felt pain.

  “Stay. Stay here with me.”

  Hadn’t he said he was taking her to her father? That had been eons ago. A blur of memory — driving in a car with him. A phone call, the words she couldn’t remember. Red on his hands. She’d thought it was from a popsicle but—

  Blood.

  The thought lay there like a snake, blinking smugly at her.

  Cora roused her voice with difficulty and wrenched out a tight, “Who the fuck are you?”

  He watched her lips move and then rushed to his feet and began to pace. Like a lion, pacing the barrier of an invisible cage. Hungry. Frustrated.

  Her heart squeezed.

  Something was coming back to her. Like dawn, a subtle light spilled into her mind, chasing away the confusing shadows of apathy and illuminating a dry and barren wasteland.

  Her eyes flitted past Noah. To the bathroom door. Past it, to the sliver of the bedroom door.

  It was closed. Locked? And the key was in his pocket.

  And he was high.

  She was wet. Slippery, with the amount of bubble bath he’d thrown in here.

  “Who am I?” He frowned. Touched fingers to his chest. “Noah. We’ve met. You know me. I know you.”

  He spoke in a rush, as if he couldn’t get the words out fast enough.

  “I don’t know you,” she said, slowly pulling herself up into an upright sit.

  “I know you. Your father. I’m keeping you safe for him.” He pulled out his phone. Wriggled it. “I’ll let you speak to him, but you have to be clean. He wants you squeaky clean.”

  Cora blinked at him. Her heart began pounding in her chest.

  He took off your underwear.

  The thought flashed heat through her. Her first instinct was to wither away inside herself. To step back again. Maybe for an hour, or however long Noah’s stamina lasted. Maybe permanently. Because maybe little Elle could handle this, but she sure as hell couldn’t.

  I
’m coming, Cora, came Finn’s voice in her head.

  A hallucination.

  But he was out there. Somewhere in the world, Finn was looking for her. Trying to find her. She knew it like she knew the sky was up and the ground was down.

  A flash of anger tore through the apathetic haze descending on her mind.

  Cora stood. Water and suds poured from her in a deafening rush. Some slopped to the floor. Some clung to her hips and her breasts.

  Noah rushed over, paused a foot away, held up his palms.

  “I’m not going to hurt you. It’s not allowed.”

  She forced a swallow as her fingers prickled sharply. Noah’s smile hitched up, crooked as always.

  “I’m clean now. Can I have my clothes, please?”

  “You didn’t wash. You have to wash.”

  She couldn’t agree. Not with the wolfish gleam in his eyes and the way he looked like he wanted to lick his lips but had forgotten. He kept staring at her breasts, at the triangle where her legs met. And she let him.

  Cora Swan let him.

  Because it distracted him. He wasn’t looking at her face, which meant her eyes wouldn’t give her away.

  “Get in with me.” It was so damn hard to act like that was what she wanted. Especially with the thoughts filling her head.

  How fast she would have to run to make it to the door.

  How she was going to get the key from his pocket.

  “Don’t do that.” Noah ran his hands through his hair, grimacing at her like she was causing him physical pain. “I can’t.” He made a pained sound in the back of his throat. “You’re off limits.”

  Stills of the moves Bailey had hammered into her muscle memory flitted through her head, but she dismissed them one after the other.

  Too slow.

  You’re too slippery.

  Not enough momentum.

  Too risky.

  Not enough room.

  And then it came to her. And the thought was both terrifying and victorious.

  When he turned away from her again to pace, she snatched the meth pipe from the toilet seat.