Their Cartel Princess: The Complete Series: A Dark Reverse Harem Box Set Page 25

  But she had nothing left. She’d given everything. She kept waiting for another surge of adrenaline. Another push from her desperate body.

  Waiting on a miracle.

  She wasn’t surprised when it didn’t come. Her life lacked miracles and second chances. She got only one chance at anything, ever. There were no more cards in her deck. It was fold or call, and her opponent didn’t have a face. There was no way to tell if it was bluffing or not. She had precious few chips left, and this game had just gone on too long. She swung her arm out, stretching for the shore, grasping for it.

  Her hand slithered over a dome of smooth rock. Instinctively, she tried to grab it. She scrabbled for purchase, found none. The rock disappeared, leaving her in dirty brown water that tasted too sweet.

  Movement caught her eye. A shadow, plummeting from the ridge. Long and thin, too small to be anything significant.

  Finn.

  Her heart squeezed. They’d killed him. They’d shot him and tossed him over the side so they wouldn’t have to bother with disposing his body.

  But that wasn’t a free fall. Finn had his arms out in front of him.

  A dive.

  He was coming after her.

  A flicker of pain from her shoulders and thighs.

  And she was still alive.

  She was alive.

  Cora gritted her teeth and forced her legs to start kicking. Dragged at the water with cupped hands cramping with the demand.

  Holding her own against the inexorable flow of water, but barely. Perhaps Santa Muerte had become impatient for her payment, and she’d decided Cora’s drowned body would do nicely as recompense for the help she’d offered.

  “Cora!”

  She kicked, but feebly now. It took everything she had to keep her head above the water. And still it would lick her face and shoot up her nose, trying to drown her as hard as she fought it.

  “Cora!”

  Finn. She couldn’t hear the word, despite how she yelled it in her head.

  Her legs gave out. Then her arms. The water grabbed her with greedy, invisible hands and pulled her down. Wet, noisy darkness filled with bubbles and tentacled monsters brushing her feet and arms. A light, flickering, fading. Her body burned with an internal fire.

  Not because she was alive.

  But because she was dying.

  The Rio Grande barely moved down here. It was calm and silent and almost cathedral-like in its beauty.

  She sank to the bottom of the river. Furry weeds brushed her hips. Slimy. Soft. Dancing gracefully for her as they closed over her. An air bubble shimmered up to the surface.

  Had that been the last air in her lungs? Pain surged through her. Pounding against her lungs. But it was distant too. Her body twitched. Then jerked. Smaller bubbles rose, snatched from her hair and her clothes. She convulsed violently, instantly soothed by those caressing fronds.

  And then nothing but brown air she couldn’t breathe and a bed of weeds to cushion her dead body.

  46

  Come Back to Me

  Finn swam with the current. Then he didn’t need to swim at all; it was all he could do to keep his head up. He’d seen Cora for a brief second, black hair plastered over her head, and then she’d disappeared. He took a breath and dipped into the water. It was impossible to see anything in the brown water. He came up for air gasped like a fresh-caught fish when he broke the surface. He swung around, paddling furiously.

  Where was she?

  “Cora!” He swung around. Nothing.

  He dove down, eyes burning as they scanned the water. He broke the surface, hauled air into his lungs, and went down again. Water roared in his ears when he came back up. He swiped his hands over his eyes. “Cora!” his yell was furious, panicked, terrified. “Cora!”

  But there was nothing except him and the water.

  His lungs ached, but he forced another breath into them until they pained even more, and went down again. Something beckoned him from that murky abyss. A slim hand, waving at him from a forest of bristle-brush weeds. Limp and delicate, like a lily. Finn snagged her wrist and kicked hard to the surface.

  She was too light. Like she’d lost something — her soul — and it had been what kept her body on the ground when she walked.

  He didn’t look at her. He knew if he did and her eyes were closed, and her mouth hung open, that he might just lose all motor function. So he grappled with her until he had his arm around her throat and kicked for the shore.

  It took too long.

  Dragging her out was too difficult.

  She was too heavy.

  His chest too tight.

  He couldn’t breathe, looking down at her slack face as water dribbled from her nose and mouth.

  He twined his fingers and slammed the heel of his hands into her breastbone. Water spilled from her mouth. He pumped his arms, leaning into her, willing every drop of water to ooze from her.

  “Come on, Cora.”

  She shifted as he pushed onto her breastbone, but those pale lids didn’t flicker. Those blue-tinged lips didn’t move.

  “Come on!” His heart raced a thousand miles an hour. “You don’t get to do this,” he yelled, the words burning his throat. “You don’t get to take the easy way out.” He lifted her head, tipped her head to the side.

  No more water came out.

  He dropped her again, threw a quick look around.

  Both banks of the Rio Grande were empty. No men in black. But they could be coming up through the smattering of trees, keeping behind cover until they’d come right up behind him.

  He couldn’t stay out here.

  Finn grabbed Cora’s limp body and tossed it over his shoulder. He stumbled, barely catching himself on the ground before tumbling forward. He was too weak. His legs had no strength in them.

  His jaw ached when he bared his teeth at the world.

  Fuck. You.

  The thought was a furious battle cry. He got one leg under him. Then the next. Took a staggering step forward. Then another. Another.

  One in front of the other, until the trees spread cool shadows on his wet skin and made him shiver.

  A minute later, his legs caved in. He could go no further. Cora flopped to the ground beside him without complaint.

  Probably because she was dead.

  Why did you bring a dead girl with you? Dead body. Dead weight.

  He howled, muffling the sound in her wet hair.

  But his beast was right. He should have left her out there. He’d have been long gone without her.

  Leave her. She’s no use—

  He turned her onto her back, willing his beast’s caustic hiss from his mind. She’d never have left him behind. She’d never have given up on him. She’d be down here, giving him CPR until those black-clad men grabbed her arms and hauled her away.

  Because she was an angel. A fucking angel.

  He slammed the heels of his hands into her breastbone.

  “You come back!” he yelled, not caring if his words carried or not. “You fucking come back to me.”

  There was warmth on his cheeks. A coldness in his chest. Both spreading, as if the one was trying to cancel out the other.

  “You come back to me.” The anger had left his voice. Frustration faded, too. “Please, Cora.”

  He grabbed her jaw, held her nose closed with shaking fingers.

  Her lips were those of a dead person. Cold. Wet. Unmoving. He emptied his lungs into her. Again. Again.

  Urged her heart to start beating with his hands on her breastbone. Watching her face. Watching her eyes.

  “Please, Cora.” His voice shook as hard as his arms now. A shiver clicked his teeth together. “I’m here. You can touch me.”

  He slapped her cheek, forced air into her lungs again.

  Nothing.

  “Please, baby girl. Don’t go.”

  Her lips were so cold.

  “I need you.”

  Her body so still.

  “Come back to me.” />
  He breathed into her, trying to will his life force through those blue lips.

  And then he whispered words even a living person wouldn’t be able to hear.

  “Please, Cora. Come back to me. I need you.”

  Epilogue

  Shoes crunched on gravel, the sound almost drowned out by the repetitive bark of a dog. Tires had left trenches through the shale, some of those gravel stones still bloodstained, but the vehicles that had made those marks were gone. As were the bodies that had bled onto them. All except three were being sent back to Mexico.

  Zachary West, capo of the Plata o Plomo cartel, surveyed Noah’s whitewashed farmhouse. He’d been here once before to meet Noah, even though the man had just been a halcon, one of his many eyes and ears. Meeting them in person before recruiting them was the only way to gauge their loyalty — if he couldn’t see respect shining in their eyes, then he refused to use them.

  Noah’s respect had run deep. Perhaps too deep.

  A man with a bandanna over his nose and mouth opened the screen door for Zachary. He nodded, and the man stepped through, holding the door open from the inside.

  The farmhouse reeked of death and decay.

  Zachary’s footsteps and the ceaseless barking from outside were the only sounds as he moved to the bedroom door. It had been broken apart; splintered wood lay everywhere.

  There was a pair of men inside the bedroom, swatting idly at flies with assault rifles dangling from their hands. Zachary walked up to Noah’s body. Flies had turned what was left of his face black. A quick scan revealed only a duffel bag stowed half under the bed.

  He drew it out, set it down on the bed, unpacked it.

  A fly batted against his cheek, but he’d long ago learned to ignore life’s small annoyances.

  A girl’s clothing.

  Votive candles.

  Items Noah had taken from the overturned SUV when he’d gone to the accident scene on Zachary’s instruction. This falcon had been following Cora and her impromptu bodyguard for the past few days. It was something Noah was impressively talented at. When he was sober, he could coax information from anyone without resorting to violence. But high…

  Eleodora Rivera should never have graced this disgusting farmhouse with her presence. Noah had been sent to watch her, report back. Not snatch her and drag her to his hidey-hole. Noah was an animal when he was intoxicated on meth — and Zachary could hardly bear the thought that an animal like him had been so close to his precious Eleodora.

  Zachary laid the girl’s trinkets out on the bedspread, folding the clothes neatly on a pile. Two votive candles; one white, one black. He lifted the votive candle in a gloved hand and wiped his thumb over the cheap imitation of a skeleton dressed in feminine robes. One skeletal hand held a globe, the other a scythe.

  He’d heard talk that El Calacas Vivo worshiped Santa Muerte. That the death saint had a part in how successful the cartel was in annihilating its enemies.

  Zachary smiled to himself.

  It had taken a strong man to get through the bedroom door. A vicious man to ruin a junkie’s face like this. Apparently, Santa Muerte employed questionable help.

  He set down the votive candle and gestured at everything on the bed.

  “Bring it.”

  One of the sicarios came forward and quickly packed everything back inside the duffel bag. Then he left the room, strap over his arm.

  “Knife.” He held out his hand, and a knife appeared in it a few seconds later. It was warm, like it had been hugging the sicario’s body.

  Zachary walked over to Noah’s body and flicked his fingers so the flies would unsettle. One of the bullets had torn away a part of his jaw and lips, exposing the inside of his mouth. Flies hurriedly crawled out when Zachary pushed the knife inside to scoop out the halcon’s tongue. He lopped it off as close to the base as possible, speared the thick piece of flesh on the tip of the knife, and rose.

  The two sicarios followed him outside. A white, heavily-scarred pitbull strained at the end of its choke chain, jowls foamy with saliva. It hadn’t ceased barking since he’d arrived. Not rabid — just angry. Frustrated.

  They had that in common, him and the dog.

  He’d had everything planned for months. And then Swan had suddenly decided Bailey could no longer be trusted. Had brought in a stranger capable of smelling a trap a mile away. Zachary had regrouped, and Noah had picked up their trail like the bloodhound he was, but… then Noah had gone rogue.

  If Santa Muerte was challenging him, then she’d better have a better hand to play than a muscled bodyguard and some dumb luck.

  He crouched a few feet away from the dog and held out the knife with its graying chunk of meat. The dog barked a few more times, and then caught scent of the meat. She blustered, gave another bark, and then sat on her haunches. Her ears had been clubbed, but not her tail. That swished through the dirt, raising a plume of dust behind her as she ran a foamy tongue over her jowls.

  Zachary moved closer. The dog made to snatch Noah’s tongue from the tip of the blade, but he pulled it back with a “Tsk.”

  The dog watched him; wary, drooling. When he held out the meat a second time, she took it between careful, yellowing canines.

  She didn’t bother tasting that morsel — she swallowed it down whole.

  Zachary scratched her behind a disfigured ear, making a crooning noise in the back of his throat.

  He let the dog lick Noah’s blood from the blade and then rose, dusting his hands after he handed the knife back to his sicario.

  “Let her feast on her master,” Zachary said in his slow, Alabama drawl. “Then bring the pup to me.”

  One of the sicarios followed him around the side of the farmhouse, and back to his SUV. He climbed inside and then leaned out to the man.

  “Find the girl,” he said.

  II

  Her Don

  “Evil is unspectacular, and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our table.”

  W. H. Auden

  1

  Cold Feet

  Cora’s heart tapped a slow, hard drumbeat. The smell of hay and Finn filled her nose. His lips snatched her mouth, his hips pushing hard against her, urging her onto her back. She let him, twining her hands in his hair as she struggled to focus on their kiss.

  Below, a horse whinnied quietly. Moonlight or Starlight moving around in their stalls.

  Her body tingled in response to the lips moving so masterfully against hers. She moaned into Finn’s mouth, squeezing her legs together to stem the thumping pleasure spreading between them.

  He twisted open her button and tugged down her fly in one, smooth motion.

  Another sound below. This closer to the hayloft.

  She jerked, breaking off their kiss. Finn’s hand disappeared into her jeans, touching her.

  “Wait!” she whispered, grabbing a hold of his wrist.

  “I’m here. You can touch me,” Finn murmured into her ear, one of his fingers sliding inside her.

  Her world shattered for a blissful moment.

  Another sound. Boots on floorboards.

  Heat flashed over Cora’s skin. She yanked Finn’s hand from her jeans, her heart squeezing painfully in her chest.

  A loud creak. Someone coming up the ladder.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Her fingers trembled as she pushed Finn away, but it was too late.

  A shadow loomed over her, growing darker and darker as it solidified into the shape of a man. She’d expected her father or Noah…but it was him. The English man.

  Brown hair, brown eyes.

  As nondescript as a mouse.

  As terrifying as a lion.

  “I’m watching you, Eleodora,” the man said in his softly slurring voice. “Soon…soon I’ll have you by my side.”

  Her heart thumped, thumped, thumped against her breastbone. Finn’s hand slid into her jeans again, stroking her harder, sliding two fingers inside her. Her body clenched him, keeping him inside.

>   The English man came to one knee and reached for her with his twisted hand.

  Cora wanted to scream. Fuck, she tried so hard. But this nightmare wouldn’t let her scream.

  Cora woke with her heart thundering in her chest, her skin vibrating with its pulse. Hay and the smell of horses filled her nose. And Finn. She jerked, pushing herself onto her elbows.

  But the English man wasn’t looming over her. His twisted hand was no longer reaching for her, insistent on corrupting her with its plague.

  She was naked, itching with hay, warm.

  And alive. Despite drinking half the Rio Grande.

  Santa Muerte.

  Her heart squeezed in her chest. She fumbled around her neck, found the necklace still in place, and folded her fingers over it. Had the thumb-drive inside her pendant survived her swim?

  “Cora.”

  She turned, staring at Finn with wide eyes. He searched her face as if he was drinking in the sight of her.

  “Finn? How—”

  He drew a massive breath and reached for her. Drew her against his bare chest. Pulled her down into the hay again.

  Just another dream? She blinked furiously, trying to fill the blank her mind had become. But it was impossible, pushing past threads of the nightmare. It clung to her like a dirty spider web, tangling in her hair.

  “Where—”

  “We’re safe, for now.”

  He had her tight against him. He wore just his trunks; where their flesh met, heat blossomed. She closed her eyes and snuggled against him, letting out a deep sigh as sleep took her again.

  Finn woke when dawn crept inside the barn and painted gold over everything. He ran his fingertips down Cora’s face. He probably shouldn’t wake her again, but they couldn’t stay here much longer. Someone would be coming to the barn to take their cows out to pasture.

  Thank God her skin had warmed. Every time he’d touched her since dragging her into this barn, her skin had seemed just as cold as before. It was like her body still drifted in icy water.