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

  “He’s gone, Cora!”

  “No! Papá!” She grabbed Tony Swan by the lapels of what might have been a dress shirt a week ago, and dragged him into her lap.

  Lars gritted his teeth, hesitating between getting Milo out the door—the man had gone into a catatonic state judging from his vacant eyes and parted lips—or shoving him in the direction of that secret little door and hoping the oaf could remember how his legs worked while he grabbed Cora.

  Angel took the decision from him.

  “Now you wake up?” Lars yelled as the young man limped over to Cora, grabbed her by the arms, and hoisted her to her feet.

  She screamed at Angel, fighting him to try and reach her father.

  “He’s dead!” Angel said urgently. “Dead. Like us if we don’t run.”

  But she was a blubbering mess.

  They weren’t going to make it. Outside, car doors slammed. Javier’s men—he had no doubt that’s who they were—wouldn’t know which hangar they were in, but if Cora kept screaming—

  Angel twisted her in his arms and slapped her. Luckily, on a different cheek to the one where Zachary had kicked her. She snapped her head back, gaping at him. And then he slapped her again.

  “Run!” he yelled as he grabbed her hand and pulled her after him.

  Lars bundled Milo through the back door, and cast a glance at the hangar’s gaping entrance. No one yet, but he could hear feet.

  His heart was beating a thousand miles an hour. He saw the quivering IT guy still huddled on the floor, hands over his head, weeping.

  Well, he couldn’t save the whole fucking world, now could he?

  He ran outside. Angel hobbled out behind, dragging a shell-shocked Cora after him.

  The hangar had been built at the base of a small rise. Lars pulled Milo up the slope, and then let him tumble down the other side, hoping the idiot would wake up when he hit the bottom.

  Angel and Cora followed, both scrambling to stay upright on the slope. They’d parked the stolen sedan on the other side of the abandoned airport; there no way to get it without crossing paths with Javier’s men. They’d have to move on foot until they were in the clear.

  Lars dragged Milo to his feet, and swiped his hands over the man’s face.

  Milo blinked at him, and then frowned. “Cora!” He turned, searching until he found her.

  Lars felt his shoulders slump when he spotted Angel leading her down the slope.

  “She’s alive. We all are, thanks for caring.”

  Milo glanced back at him, and then lifted trembling, blood stained hands.

  “Yeah, you lost it again. But let’s leave the psychobabble for later. We got company.”

  This time, Milo followed him when Lars ran forward. Then he realized Angel and Cora were lagging far behind and punched Milo in the shoulder.

  “Get her,” Lars growled, as he turned and headed back for the injured two of their pack.

  Angel put his hands up when Lars ran at him, but he fought back the guy’s feeble protests and scooped him off the ground. He was almost on a height with Cora, and lithe to boot, so he didn’t weigh much more than the girl. Milo grabbed Cora, and together they headed for the shelter of a nearby cluster of trees.

  From there, they’d have to try and pick their way through the wilderness without being spotted by Javier’s men.

  Lars set Angel down, and grimaced at the guy when he opened his mouth to speak. He lifted a finger, breathed hard, and said, “Not a fucking word.” Then he pointed between Cora—who Milo had just set down beside Angel—and the Latino guy. He wheezed a little before he could say, “Not from either of you idiots.”

  61

  The Elegance

  Finn’s body ached like he’d been hit with a car. At least, this was how he’d imagine it feeling. The only sounds were the furtive movements of nocturnal animals and the thud-scrape of his and Lar’s boots through the desiccated foliage.

  He’d have stopped walking a mile back already, convinced that everything he had to give was gone.

  And then Lars had spotted the suggestion of lights through the trees. Nothing more than a distant twinkle, but it was all he needed to keep going.

  “Hey, let me try walking,” Cora said, slurring due to how her cheek, and no doubt the inside of her mouth, had swollen. Lars had said something about Zachary doing that, but neither of them would ‘fess up about how it had happened.

  He hadn’t seen; he’d been too preoccupied.

  A desperate shove sent that thought far away. The last thing he needed now were those vignettes of violence that had played non-stop in his head for the past hour. Right now, he had to concentrate on keeping one foot in front of the other.

  “Hope to fucking god that place has food,” Lars muttered beside him. Then, with a grunt, he set Angel down. “I’m done, buddy. You’re gonna have to drag yourself the rest of the way.”

  “Finn.”

  He looked down at Cora. Luckily, in the dark, he couldn’t see much of her face. But when it had still been light enough to see, there’d been swelling on the left side of her face. Drying blood on her chin and throat.

  His muscles pleaded with him to listen to her, and after another few steps, he caved in and set her down. She slung her arm around his waist and together they hobbled forward.

  Angel was having more trouble. Lars stood back, watching Angel as he tried to drag his wounded leg behind him. They’d applied a hasty tourniquet—Lars’s belt—and that seemed to have slowed the bleeding, but his jeans were still black with spent blood, and the amount of it worried Finn.

  “Fuck my life,” Lars said under his breath, and went to prop Angel up on the one side. It meant the tall man had to stoop, and he threw Finn a scathing glare as if he and Angel’s height discrepancy was something Finn was personally responsible for.

  The source of the twinkling lights came into sight a few minutes later. A gas station and, peeking out behind it, something that could have been a motel.

  “Ah, Jesus,” Lars murmured reverentially.

  The gas station’s signboard illuminated their path now.

  “You’ll have to book us in,” Finn said. Of the four of them, Lars merely looked as if he’d had a roll in the dust. “You got cash?”

  Lars rummaged awkwardly in his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He flashed Finn a smile so wide his teeth threw back a splinter of light. “Got plastic.”

  “We’ll keep out of sight. You let us know when it’s clear.

  They circled around so they wouldn’t get in sight of anyone working the register—god knew they had to look like the survivors of some b-rated horror movie.

  Finn jostled Angel from Lars’s grip and helped him and Cora to a nearby stand of scraggly trees. Lars gave him a mock salute, scanned the motel’s near-empty lot, and hurried over the parking area toward the reception.

  ‘The Elegance’, Finn read on the motel’s signboard.

  That name stuck with him for some reason, and not just because the motel was anything but elegant.

  Then he thought of the botched accident the night he’d met Cora. The first time he’d touched her, trying to find a pulse. His body sagging when he’d finally found one.

  The man who’d shot Jackson in the back and then nearly gotten away with Cora.

  The card in his pocket.

  ‘The Elegance’, with its shitty print.

  It could have been coincidence, but he believed in those as much as he believed in the fucking Easter Bunny.

  But what choice did they have?

  The way Cora stood beside him, her breath buffeting his bare arm. And with Angel pressed to his other side, they created a warm cocoon around him.

  Which was fucking perfect, because he’d never been so cold in his life.

  Lars came out of the reception room a few minutes later, did another casual scan of the parking lot as he moved across it, and went to stand in front of door twelve. Then he looked around again, and lifted his chin to where Finn huddled with
the others.

  Finn hoisted Cora and Angel to a stand, and they limped and hobbled over the parking lot, trying to stay in the shadows as much as possible. Lars had already opened the door, and Finn nearly fell through the doorway, so eager was he to get inside.

  Lars gave him a bemused smile. “Guy behind the counter’s so high, I could’ve taken a room key and he wouldn’t have noticed.”

  “We can’t stay here,” Finn said, and that wiped the mirth right off Lars’s face.

  “You really have lost it, haven’t you?” Lars waved a hand that took in him, Cora, and Angel. “Perchance you’d like to look in the fucking mirror?”

  “This place—” Finn paused and then gave his head a shake. Words rattled out of him, probably making no sense. “The guys at the blockade. That night we left Swan Manor.”

  Lars crossed his arms over his chest but didn’t say anything.

  “One of them had a card. This place. A card for this motel.”

  “It’s probably the only motel in town,” Lars said dryly. He ripped his phone from his pocket, showing Finn the dead screen. “Which I would have confirmed, had I not run out of battery life about seven hours ago.”

  “It’s not a coincidence.”

  “Probably not,” Lars agreed with a sour twist to his mouth. “But I don’t give a fuck. That guy behind the counter wouldn’t be able to pick me from a police lineup. Even if I was the only guy in the fucking line up. Got it?” Lars walked over to the closest bed and sat down with a massive sigh. “Now, how we going to decide who gets to shower first?”

  62

  Interesting relatives

  Angel won the toss, and he limped off to the tiny bathroom and closed the door hard behind him.

  “Something I said?” Lars shouted after him, and then lifted his hands when Milo shot him an accusing stare. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Forgot this place is crawling with cartel.”

  Milo’s eyebrows lowered at the comment. He went into the small kitchenette and began rinsing his face in the basin. Good thing too—it looked like he was wearing a shitty Halloween getup with all that dried blood flaking from his face. Then, without a word to either of them, Milo went to the far corner of the room, wedged himself in between the wall and the side of the single bed, and put his head in his arms like he was going to catch a quick forty before they had to be on the move again.

  When Lars turned to Cora, she was watching Milo with a blank look on her face.

  Jesus, she looked like she’d been in a car accident.

  “Hey, let’s see your face.”

  She started at his voice, and turned stiffly on the bed to face him. Her eyes flashed up and to the side, glancing everywhere but on his eyes as he gently took her chin in a hand and turned her face to the light.

  “Your gums stop bleeding yet?” he asked.

  She nodded, and then looked like she was going to be sick.

  “Hey, dental work’s come a long way,” he said. “We’ll have those pearly whites back in there in no time. Give me a smile.”

  She glared at him.

  “Come on. Let me see how bad it is.”

  Cora slowly turned her lips up. Her eyes flickered—perhaps with pain—and then she forced a wide smile on her face. Lars twisted her head.

  “See? Only one gap shows.” He touched the corner of her mouth and moved her smile down. “Keep it there, and it’ll just be our little secret.”

  She rolled her eyes at him and then looked toward the bathroom. “Shouldn’t someone go check his gunshot?” she asked thickly, glancing back at Lars with concern writ bold in her eyes.

  “Fine,” he sighed, pushing himself up. “But then you forfeit your turn. I’m taking a shower next.”

  She shrugged, as if the thought was the last thing on her mind. It shouldn’t have been; the rest of her looked almost as bad as her face. Blood had seeped through the thick padding of bandages on her knee, and both her legs were scraped raw. Her right hand was as badly scraped as her cheek, from when she’d fallen off the horse, and she let it rest in her lap as if it hurt too much too move it.

  Well, they were alive. But barely.

  Lars knocked hard on the bathroom door.

  There was a tremulous, “Si?” from inside.

  “Housekeeping,” Lars muttered. “Put away your junk so I can get a look at your leg.” He counted to five and pushed through into the bathroom.

  Angel’s hair was still wet from the shower, but he’d managed to sling a towel around his waist. He sat on the closed toilet seat, gingerly examining what looked to be a nasty bullet hole in his right thigh.

  Lars went to his knees on the scrap of ugly toilet carpet and peered at the precise little hole. Blood slowly filled it, and then began oozing out onto Angel’s skin. Lars almost blotted it away with the edge of the towel, but it was probably as dirty as the rest of this hovel of a motel.

  “Need to get supplies,” he said. He grabbed a thick wad of toilet paper, hesitated, and then shook his head. It would likely get stuck inside the wound and fester.

  “You wash your hands in there?” he asked, pointing to the shower.

  Angel gave him a long-suffering stare, so he tipped his chin and then took Angel’s hands, crisscrossing them over the wound.

  “Keep applying pressure. Don’t be a pussy about it either. Do it hard enough so you feel like passing out. Without, you know, actually passing out.”

  He glanced over his shoulder and then urged the guy to his feet. When his towel began slipping, he hastily tucked it around Angel’s waist and then led him from the bathroom.

  Cora looked up, and then hurriedly looked away.

  Yeah, he didn’t quite know what to make of Angel’s bruises himself. They weren’t all fresh, and told a sickening tale of abuse. He set the guy down on the edge of the bed.

  “Keep pressing. Cora, you shower so long. I’ll be back now.”

  He expected Milo to look up, to question where he was going, but the man hadn’t moved.

  Lars ducked out the motel room, and tried not to hurry as he made his way toward the gas station.

  Cora almost didn’t have a shower. She could already feel the pain of warm water hitting her torn skin. But the smell of blood, sweat, and puke was making her nauseas.

  She stripped as carefully as she could. The small trash bin in the kitchenette hadn’t been used—the plastic lining was still clean. She wound that around her bandage and tried to keep that leg out of the shower’s spray.

  She’d been right, of course. It hurt like nothing else. But she lathered soap onto her skin and did her best to wash all the blood from her.

  There were clean—if threadbare—towels in the bathroom cabinet. She wound one around herself and used a second to blot at some of the scratches on her legs and arms that had started bleeding when she’d washed away the congealed blood.

  She tried desperately not to look at herself in the mirror, but caught glimpses of her swollen face too many times. Curiosity eventually got the better of her, and she turned slowly to her reflection.

  Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back. She lifted a trembling hand to the lump on the side of her face. Her mouth was still coated with copper and, when she couldn’t stand the sight of herself anymore, she bent over the sink and rinsed her mouth out. The water ran pink for several rinses.

  Salt water would have been better. Did this place have salt? When she straightened, Finn stood behind her in the mirror.

  “Shit!” Although, with the swelling in her mouth, it came out more like, “Shid!”

  She let out a harsh breath, hand clapping on her breast. Her heart thundered like it was trying to get out. “Oo sca’d me,” she mumbled.

  “You done?” Finn asked, his voice hollow.

  There was still blood on his face. And she knew it wasn’t his. Some dark streaks in his hair, hard and stiff now like a macabre version of hair gel.

  She swallowed, and backed out of the bathroom as he stripped his shirt and unbuckled h
is pants. She pulled the door closed behind her, And then squeezed her eyes shut to will away the image of Finn wearing such an intense look of pleasure on his face as he—

  “Señorita.”

  She spun to Angel, and shifted her towel so it could make her more decent. But Angel didn’t seem to care how naked she was. His dark eyes drilled into her.

  “I won’ ‘ell them,” she said.

  Angel blanched, and then gave a quick nod of thanks.

  She sank down beside him, studying a hideous, and thankfully faded, portrait of a forest scene. It looked like it came from the 1920s.

  “Zachary has your brother?” She swiped away a trickle of water that was running down her neck from her wet hair. She touched his hand, and he flinched, so she drew back.

  “Si.”

  “I would have done the same thing.” Cora drew a ragged breath. “It’s different, when it’s family. You’d do anything—”

  “No,” Angel cut in. “I put you in danger. After you trust me. You bring me with…I betray you.”

  She pressed her mouth closed. Angel studied her hard for a few seconds and then looked away with a disgusted grunt. He peeled his fingers from his leg, and a slow, thick wave of blood coated his legs.

  “Angel…”

  His face was ashen. Should she be tying up his leg?

  She was about to stand and find something to stem the blood with when Lars came through the front door. He saw them on the bed, and his face hardened.

  “Why don’t you get dressed?” he suggested calmly, shooing her away with a hand.

  “My clothes are filthy,” she murmured.

  “So your plan’s to walk around in a towel the rest of your life?”

  “Lars, what do you want me to—?”

  “Christ, move already,” he snapped. “This guy’s bleeding to death while you’re harping on about clothes.”

  Her mouth fell open. He made to grab her arm, but she scrambled away from him before he could touch her. “You’re the one that—”