“Take off your mask,” he snarls at me. “I want her to see how much you enjoy watching me fuck her.”

  “I’m going to fucking kill you,” I growl as I fist the mask at the top of my head and begin sliding it up my face. “And then I’m going to kill every last man in the Padilla Cartel.”

  Lex’s eyes flicker, her brows furrow and she inquisitively mutters my name, “Andres…,” before slipping back into unconsciousness.

  He slaps her face hard, and I clench my jaw. Holding the knife to her throat, he grips his cock preparing to force himself into her. His attention diverts from me to her ass, and I cease the only opportunity I’m going to get before he defiles her.

  Standing from the chair, I throw myself at his body. We both tumble to the floor, and I reach for the knife in his hand. Violently, we grapple on the floor, both of us fighting for the upper hand. Both of us knowing that the loser of the fight is a dead man.

  His legs straddle my waist, my hands wrap around his wrist and he uses all of his body weight to try to push the knife in his hand into my chest. The tip of the blade pierces my skin, and I struggle to keep it from pressing further.

  Driving my leg between his thigh, I roll my body on top of his and shove the blade in his hands through his neck. Not waiting for him to bleed out beneath me, I climb from him, and crawl across the floor to Alexys.

  Lifting her head to ensure she’s okay, her eyes flutter and she mumbles, “I knew…,” before drifting back to sleep.

  “I’m here,” I brush the hair from her swelling face.

  Pulling the blanket from the couch behind me, I wrap her battered body in it before lifting her into my arms. Pausing to grab my discarded mask from the chair, I carry Lex’s limp body to my car. Settling her into the front seat, I buckle her in and kiss her forehead, “I’m so sorry, mi reina.”

  forty one

  ALEXYS

  Every inch of my body throbs in pain. My eyes flutter, and I vaguely see a red-headed woman standing over me before the light coming through the window forces me to close them again.

  “You’re okay, Alexys,” her voice is soft and comforting as she gently grasps my hand. “You’re safe. Understand?”

  Squeezing her hand, I nod my head as a tear rolls down my cheek.

  “I’m going to the door for just a second,” she returns my squeeze. “I’ll be right back.”

  Struggling to open my eyes, I release her hand and struggle to whisper the word, “Okay.”

  “Andres,” she shouts from the hall and promptly returns to me just as she promised. Her hand slides into my palm, and I clench my hand around hers again.

  “Where am I?” I question, struggling to take in my surroundings through my hazy vision.

  “We’re at Alejandro’s,” Andres’s voice is soft as he rushes from the doorway to my side. His hands tenderly grip my face causing me to wince at his touch. He places a kiss on the bridge of my nose and whispers, “I’m so fucking sorry.”

  “I’m going to go check on Jorge,” the redhead gives my hand to Andres to hold.

  He grasps it tightly as he sits beside me on the bed.

  “The men?”

  “You don’t have to worry about them,” he tenderly tucks my hair behind my ear , “They were taken care of. And no one will get to you here.”

  “You…were…both…there,” I recall seeing him and my masked man at my apartment.

  Or is that just a hazy dream?

  “Did you…” I struggle against the overwhelming pain to remember. “Are they dead?”

  “You’re—” my words silenced as he places a finger against my lips and gently shushes me.

  “We have a lot to talk about,” he strokes my lower lip, “but not right now. The doctor has you pretty medicated for the pain, and you need to rest.”

  Medicated for the pain?

  It’s not fucking working.

  I don’t have the strength to argue with him right now. My body knows he’s right, and fighting against impending sleep is a battle that I am not going to win. My eyelids are heavy, and I stop struggling against their weight.

  Andres continues to hold my hand, his thumb rubbing over the back of mine as I begin to drift back to sleep.

  “I’m so sorry, mi reina,” I hear the faint words, and I’m unsure if they come from the man sitting beside me or if I’m dreaming.

  Rolling over, I see Andres slumped over in a chair near the bed. He is fast asleep.

  Feeling lucid for the first time since my apartment, I push back the covers and sit up. My hand grasps at my stomach and I groan. Gripping the large dress shirt that I’m clothed in, I lift it to find numerous butterfly bandages running along the length of my stomach. The wound beneath them has begun to heal, but it is still very tender.

  My legs wobble slightly when I stand from the bed. Regaining my bearings, I take a few unsteady steps until I am standing over Andres and stare down at him.

  “What the actual fuck?” My hand slaps across Andres’s face, startling him from his sleep. Lifting it once again, I swing it toward him. His large hand firmly wraps around my wrist, roughly holding it in place as he glares up at me.

  “I’ll give you that one. I maybe have even deserved it,” he snarls as he rises until he is towering over me, “but don’t you dare fucking hit me again.”

  “You may have fucking deserved it?” I yell, trying to yank my arm from his tight grip. When I can’t free it, I begin futilely striking him in the chest with the fist of my left hand. “You have no idea what you fucking deserve.”

  “What the hell is going on in here?” The redhead I remember from waking up rushes into the room and shouts, before stopping in her tracks when she sees me out of the bed.

  “Isabella,” he glares in her direction, “please leave before I say something that will cause my brother to kick my ass.”

  He continues to eyeball her, waiting for her to walk from the room.

  She holds his gaze, completely unthreatened by him, before responding, “Only because I’m pretty sure that she’s going to kick your ass.”

  She turns on her heels and pauses in the doorway. Her voice full of the experience of someone who has been there before me, “And she’s right. You fucking deserve it.”

  forty two

  ANDRES

  “You’re a fucking asshole,” Lex’s fist pounds against my chest again, and I grab her wrist as she is about to strike me again. She struggles against my grip as I force both her hands behind her back. For a someone who has been recuperating in bed for the past two days, her current rage has her stronger than ever. Being careful not to hurt her still healing body, I pin her hands to her lower back and hold her mere inches from me.

  Her chest rapidly rises and falls, but these heaving breaths aren’t filled with her usual excitement and anticipation. They are seething with anger.

  Very much valid anger.

  “Let me go, Andres,” the angry words spill from her mouth with venom as she continues to fight against my hold.

  Not responding, I stand fast in my stance and grip, giving her the opportunity to wear herself out. She fights me hard and repeatedly yells various curses and insults at me. I silently take them all, letting her place all that anger on me where it truly belongs.

  When she finally begins to settle, I raise an eyebrow and mockingly question, “Are you done, mi reina?”

  “Not even fucking close,” she retorts. “Get me some pants, and I want some panties. I’m going home.”

  “No. You aren’t. You have three dead men and cops all over your apartment, mi reina,” I loosen my grip on her wrists. “Fine. Then I’ll go to Jessa and Deanna’s. I want to be anywhere but here. Anywhere but with you.”

  “For your own safety, you aren’t leaving this apartment right now. Three well-armed men didn’t just randomly stumble into your apartment. They didn’t pick you on a whim. They fucking went after you to get to me.”

  She stares at me in silence, her eyes still filled with ire and disdain.

  “I’m the fucking devil in disguise. You’ve seen me. You know who the fuck I am,” I place my hand on her side as I speak. “I’ve killed more fucking men than faces that I can remember. I’ve done it to protect the empire that Alejandro and I have built.”

  “It’s a fucking transportation company,” she huffs and condescendingly rolls her eyes.

  “No one gives a fuck about Marcano Enterprises. The empire they want is our fucking drug cartel,” her eyes widen at my words. “There are plenty more men roaming this city who will eagerly do far worse to you than what happened the other night. To you and Isabella. There is nothing they wouldn’t do to the both of you, just to hurt Alejandro and me. That will never happen to you again. I refuse to let anyone lay a fucking hand on you again, mi reina.”

  “Stop calling me that!” she seethes. “Mi reina…I’m not your fucking queen.”

  “Whether or not you want it,” I grip my t-shirt at the back of my neck. Pulling it over my head, her eyes fixate directly on the tattoo covering most of my chest, “You will always be mi reina.”

  “What if I don’t want this?” She turns her back to me and stares across the room before continuing, her voice so soft I have to strain to hear her, “What if I don’t want to be yours,”

  “You don’t have a choice. You’ve never had a choice,” I take a step forward until my chest is nearly pressed against her back. The backs of my fingers dust down her upper arms as I whisper, “Neither of us ever had a fucking choice.”

  With both of us rooted in place, the only sounds in this room are those of our breathing. I listen to hers, the harsh angry breaths slowing to soft, steady ones.

  “I have a fucking choice,” her voice trembles as she speaks. “Get out.”

  “Leaving this room won’t rid you of me,” my voice gruff as I walk to the door. “I didn’t just claim your body. I’ve invaded nearly every last fucking inch of you. I’m in your dreams…I’m in your nightmares. Nearly every thought that passes through your mind involves me. Try to deny it.”

  She slowly turns in place until she is facing me in the doorway. Her eyes are red and well with tears, her breaths silent as her chest rapidly rises and falls.

  “I can see it in you,” I turn my back to her. Facing the hall, my fingers grip the door hard enough for it to pain my hand, “because I’ve been fucking consumed with you since the first moment I saw you.”

  Her thoughts are clouded with anger, but I know that she is just as consumed with me as I am with her.

  “You’re fucking obsessed with the man in the mask. With me,” I slam the door and stalk toward her. “And it’s fucking maddening, isn’t it?”

  forty three

  ALEXYS

  The door slams with such force that I startle. My eyes bolt from the floor to the man hastily stalking toward me. Andres crosses the room to me with a fire burning in his dark eyes.

  I’m so fucking angry with him.

  The lies…

  The deceit…

  But most of all, the fact that he’s fucking right.

  Pulling my face to his, he presses his lips against mine. His tongue grazes over my lips, waiting for me to part them.

  Waiting for me to give him permission.

  Instead of taking my mouth, he kisses my lips and cheeks. Patiently waiting for me to be the one to cave.

  For me to give in to my obsession for him.

  “I’m yours,” his lips carry up and down my neck, “just as much as you are mine.

  “You own every bit of me,” his lips dust over mine and I can feel the vibrations as he speaks. “Even my cold black heart.”

  My lips part slightly, and the tip of his tongue licks along the small opening before he presses into my mouth. I can feel the longing ache between us as his fingers lace into my hair and he kisses me. Walking me toward the bed, his tongue entangles with mine as he deepens the kiss. Not needy or aggressive, but slow and passionate.

  Breaking our passionate embrace, he grips my shirt, and pulls it over my head. His eyes look over my body, painfully taking in the cuts and bruising marring most of my body.

  “Even now,” he gingerly lifts me onto the bed, “you’re the most beautiful fucking woman I’ve ever seen.”

  Removing his pants, he climbs between my thighs, carefully situating himself on top of me, and braces his weight on an arm beside my face.

  “Eyes on me, mi reina,” his thumb runs over my lower lip as he tilts my face toward his. The fat head of his cock rubs along my pussy and he rests it against my entrance. “I want you to see my eyes when I slide inside of you.”

  His dark eyes are unwavering as he leisurely presses inside of me. Being careful of the healing wound on my stomach, his hips undulate, working his length in and out of me.

  “You feel so fucking good wrapped around my cock,” he groans into my ear before kissing along my jaw and down my neck.

  Every slow stroke he makes drives me toward the edge. My fingers grip the rippled muscles of his back, and I can feel them flex beneath my fingers with every thrust he makes.

  “Andres,” I groan his name as he slides into me again. My fingers grip the hair at the back of his head to bring his lips to mine. He doesn’t hesitate to comply, and his tongue claims my mouth with the same needy tenderness of his cock in my pussy.

  Moving his lips away from mine, he continues to gently fuck me as he lifts his head and stare into my eyes.

  “Te amo,” he whispers before reclaiming my mouth and increasing the pace of his hips.

  Fighting the pain, my legs wrap around his waist. Pulling him close and urging him to take me harder.

  “I told you that you would be begging for me to worship you again,” he teases, slowing the depth and intensity of his thrusts. “You’re going to let me take my time, savoring you coming beneath me.”

  My back arches from the bed, and the entirety of his girthy length rubs along my g-spot. Clawing at his back as the orgasm wrecks me, his mouth covers mine and he swallows my screams.

  “Again,” he growls as he rubs his fingers against my clit.

  Heavy breaths tremble over my lips as he works in tandem to bring me quickly back to the brink.

  “Come for me again, mi reina,” he pants, clearly fighting back his own release. “I want to feel your tight little cunt squeeze around me. Clamp around me so fucking hard that I have no choice but to unload my cum inside you.”

  His fingers roll my clit and his hips drive into me. I cry out as another orgasm tears through my body. Andres moans, his cock twitching inside of me as I spasm around it.

  “Tell me again,” I breathlessly whisper against his lips.

  Lifting his head, I watch the corner of his mouth tick up in a smirk as he says, “You’re so fucking obsessed with me.”

  forty four

  ALEXYS

  “Are you still angry with me?” Andres wraps his arm around my waist as I pour two cups of coffee.

  “Yes,” I sarcastically snark, turning around and handing him the cup. “Black, just the way you don’t like it. I used the last of the cream. Oopsies.”

  “It’s been nearly two weeks,” he flippantly sulks.

  “And?” I take a seat at the table next to Izzy, “I’ll get over it when I feel like you’ve fully made it up to me.”

  The lies and deception hurt me more than the double, or triple, life that Andres was leading. I was angry and those feelings are still lingering, but it’s kind of hard to truly hate him for hiding his identity from me when I’m as mentally fucked up as he is.

  Who willingly lets a masked man eat their pussy in an alley?

  And that was just the start of all the fucked up things I did with this man, knowing that he was deranged. Hot as fuck, but definitely deranged.

  “Be grateful,” Alejandro chimes in as he enters the kitchen. “At least she’s letting you fuck your way to an apology.”

  As much as I have loved getting to know the two people closest to Andres these past two weeks, I will be quite happy when there isn’t another couple two doors down listening to what is essentially audio porn.

  “This one,” Alejandro stands behind Izzy and wraps his arms around her waist, “She cut me off and wore the skimpiest shit she could find for a week. Didn’t you, cerecita?”

  “In my defense, you did almost die and weren’t supposed to do anything strenuous,” she tips her head to kiss his cheek. “Ever keep anything like that from me again, and that week will seem like a walk in the park.”

  Both of these men…savage monsters that forced us to fall for them.

  “Is today the day?” I question, changing the subject.

  “Yes,” Alejandro answers.

  Locked away in this apartment for the past two weeks, the guys worked nearly day and night on finding every drop of information they could about the Padilla Cartel. With their entire organization laid out before them, they had decided to make their way through Mexico until all the streets ran red with Padilla blood.

  Thanks in part to some input from Izzy, two days ago a copy of enough information to eliminate the cartel from existence was provided to Andres and Alejandro’s inside contact at the DEA. Last they heard, a joint organization raid would be taking place today. As an extra precaution, Rafael has each man being followed to eliminate them by other, more violent means, if necessary.

  And after what they did to the families in Mexico, there wasn’t a man who works for Andres and Alejandro who wasn’t willing to get their hands bloody.

  Turning on the television in the living room, Andres flips through the channels. Each national news station is playing the same live video of the US Attorney General. Stopping on one of the channels, we all listen for a moment as he spews lies about an extensive months long investigation that led to the arrest of members of the cartel. He goes on speaking, but Andres clicks off the television.