Cecilia
OvertheweeksI had grown to feel a mild form of safety around Mateo and Santo. Well, as safe as someone who was constantly trying to stay aware enough to not lose their mind, could feel. Santo only came around to bring me food, while sometimes begging me to just end this and tell Ronan everything. At this point we all but played Pictionary to decipher my “big secret” but I still appreciated his company to that of my cell mates.
They were about as exciting as wet cardboard.
The first time I came out of that box I decided I would never breathe the truth from my lips while my heart was still pumping blood. My contempt for Ronan had grown so deeply I hoped to God my Tio would find me, and they would both end each other and rid me of all of my problems in one fell swoop. It was the practical and efficient end all if you asked me.
I didn’t sleep much now either, I sure as shit couldn’t let my guard down around the two whispering Russians. They scared the hell out of me, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know what the Black Crows were doing with them here. Mateo came down once a day sometimes, and just sat next to me, letting me lean my head on his shoulder until I fell asleep. He never actually said more than a word or two, he mostly just played classical music on his phone. He was always gone when I woke up of course, but I was grateful for the moments of calm I was given around him.
I looked into his inky black eyes, and he extended his hand to me. I took it willingly as he led me past the kennels, through a living room, into a bathroom where a barstool was placed in front of the sink. I looked at him with confusion, unsure of what was about to happen.
“Sit,” he said, tilting his head towards the stool.
I sat on the chair with my back to the sink and he lifted my hair up off my shoulders and placed a towel over them as he brought my head into his hands. I heard the sound of the faucet and I flinched before feeling the warmth of the water touching my head and relaxing from the wonderful sensation. We got showers maybe once every three or four days and the shower didn’t get close to warm.
To say that I was in heaven was an understatement, but then he poured the shampoo into my hair and began to work his fingers through my scalp, lathering it with the delicious coconut smelling suds. I fought back but my body betrayed me, the tear escaped me before I could will it away and I just hoped that he hadn’t noticed how weak I already was.
It was such an insignificant act of kindness bringing me to my knees.
I still knew the game being played; I still knew its rules.
I couldn’t pretend like I didn’t want to cling on to any small amount of good I could find here though; I was already crumbling. He rinsed the shampoo out of my hair delicately and I didn’t know why, but my mouth began to work on autopilot. It was like something inside me just needed to get the words out, just so maybe someone else would know why I was hurting so much.
“My family home burned down when I was eight,” I said, barely a whisper out of my mouth and his fingers came to a slow motion as he listened. “My Papá basically threw my sister and I out of our bedroom window to save our lives, the room was already on fire by the time I woke up to falling on the lawn.” He cleared his throat and continued to work his fingers through my hair diligently. He squirted another tube into his hand and coated my hair in the conditioner before I spoke again. “When I was fifteen most of my family was killed in a drive-by shooting. I was locked in a closet for over twenty minutes after I had been shot, while car after car took out my family.” My eyes looked up at him to find his black eyes piercing through me as he started piecing together just how cruel his brother could be. “I found my Mamá dead in her bed after I had been living with Ronan for almost three years. That’s when I left.”
He rinsed the product from my hair and shut the water off before he squeezed the water out of my hair and began to wrap the towel around my head. “So, what? You’re a magnet for accidents, and you left to keep him safe, Sunshine?” He asked, and I shook my head at him.
“They weren’t accidents,” I whispered and reached up for the towel, our fingers grazed just slightly as he let go. I sat back up, pulling it off and letting the cascade of wet hairs drench my clothes.
The distance between us was almost fictional, just fractions from touching.
My chest was heaving with my breathing as his fingers grazed my jaw, then he lifted my chin up to look at him.
“Will you tell me?” he asked, but I shook my head instinctively. I tried to look back down but he didn’t let me and his grip on my jaw tightened just slightly. “What will it take?” he growled the words out in question.
“I don’t know,” I answered, some semblance of the truth willed its way out of me “I’ve locked it away too tight.”
He huffed a breath out that was full of frustration, but I could see in his eyes that there was understanding there too. He released my chin and tucked a strand of wet hair out of my face behind my ear.
“What if we trade secrets?” he hummed in my ear.
“You keep secrets from Ronan?” I raised my eyebrows in question at him. If they were keeping secrets from each other, then soon there would be cracks in their little operation. The thought alone made me want to smile at the idea of them crumbling.
He didn’t dismiss my question, surprisingly, and instead leaned impossibly close to me, and whispered into my ear, “I could think of a few off the top of my head.”
Obsidian eyes and that dimple once again turned my insides into butter before I could help myself and I was squeezing my thighs together to keep myself in check. Down girl. “You go first,” I urged him on.
“No, that’s not how this works,” his tone was gentle, but his words were decisive, he was in control of how this was going to play out and he knew it.
“I didn’t steal the guns from Ronan, not really. I didn’t sell them either.”
He stared at me with a curious look on his face. “What did you do with them then?” He asked me but I clucked my tongue and shook my head at him.
“That’s another secret, for another time, and you owe me one already. Pay up.”
He just threw his hands up and shrugged at me making me realize I had been gotten. It was hard not to feel angry, even though Mateo had no allegiance to me.
Every time I started thinking he might be a good guy, or that he may just be in my corner for a split second, he would betray me again and shatter the tiniest piece of trust we had built. Like the first time, he threw me in that box, and then acted like it pained him to see me after it was over. It was my own fault though, there were no good guys left, especially in the places I was searching. His erratic behavior still frustrated the hell out of me, and I couldn’t tell if it was just a game he played, or if he was just surviving too.
Sometimes I wondered if it was a defense mechanism, to keep people at bay.
Maybe Mateo Kane might have been just as fucked up as I was.
“How long have you been waiting to let that go?” He was so close I could feel the hotness of his breath on my neck, and smell the trademark scent of his leather jacket mixed with pine from his cologne. His thumb was smoothing down my jaw again making goosebumps appear all over my flesh.
I shook my head slowly, refusing to allow him to have any more of me but we were standing so close that our lips grazed, almost electrifying me from the contact.
“We need you to play the part tonight,” he said, pulling away and clearing his throat as he cut through some of the fog in the room that felt like a hypnosis, breaking whatever spell he had me under.
“The part?” I questioned, unsure what he was trying to ask of me.
“The others are ready, but I can see through you, nothing that’s happened in the last two months has changed you,” he said, narrowing his eyes at me like he was unaffected by my vacant expressions and the mask of a broken woman I had been putting on each day.
Two months.
Shit.
I couldn’t believe I’d allowed that much time to slip away from me unnoticed.
“And?” I questioned again, not letting my surprise show.
He squinted his eyes like he was in pain and pressed his thumb to one side of his temple before he spoke.
“While I find your resolve incredibly attractive, Ronan needs you broken. Everything will go a lot easier if you play along,” he said, half warning, half pleading for me to make the right call.
“And if I don’t?” The monster part of me that never backed down reared its ugly head out, mentally slipping on her boxing gloves.
“I’d hate to see him create a worse punishment for you Sunshine. Don’t speak, do as you’re told, and be the trophy we need you to be tonight. Can you do that?” His voice was so soft and his tone so gentle that I was nodding in agreement before I could think twice about what I was agreeing to.
“It’s been two months?” I asked him, unable to hide my surprise as I realized how differently time moved when you had absolutely nothing to live for.
“It’s been nine weeks,” he corrected me, clasping his hand around mine and leading me back to the kennel where the door gaped wide, and the rest of its occupants were gone. He paid no attention to that as he grabbed the burlap sack on the dresser that I wore on my way down here weeks ago. He placed it on my head, and I instinctively reached out to him grasping his arm with both hands to keep me steady as he navigated me through the halls to the elevators.
After going up and down a few times we finally reached the penthouse again and he removed the sack from my head as the elevator opened up. The place was immaculately cleaned, and the black marble floors shone brighter than the last time I was here with its gold speckles glimmering from the sunlight that poured through the windows.
There were additional wet bars placed throughout the grand living area and more couches and chairs then I recalled the last time. He led me through the room into the hallway where it was divided into three openings. We took the entrance to the left through a door which I could only assume was his bedroom. It was half the size of the living room, but it was still unnecessarily big, with a large king size bed in the middle neatly made with black satin sheets. There were two white boxes on the bed along with a small black bag. Another brown bag rested against the box with the LV logo on it and I raised my eyebrows at him in a silent question.
“You can get ready in the bathroom,” he said pointing to the En-suite, as he sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his temple.
I sighed as the nerves started to creep their way inside me as the unexpected floated its head above the water once again and I was forced to drown in the mess I created for myself. I grabbed the bags and the larger box and stepped into the largest bathroom I had been in, since my Tia’s house in Ocean Valley. I ran my fingers over the gold details on the clawfoot matte black tub in the center of the room and lazily made my way to the mirror and took a look at myself for the first time in months. Still the same old uptight bastard’s eyes haunting me, mocking me for being too weak and letting the pussy in between my legs dictate whether or not I was fit to be his heir.
I opened the bag and found a few bare essentials that would help cover the illusion of a captive and painted my eyes thick with eyeliner and black eyeshadow. There was a tube of mascara, and a few colors of lipstick to choose from and I had to question who did the shopping because there was no way Ronan or Santo picked out black lipstick. I felt the corners of my lips turn up as I decided to wear black as my armor for the night and coated my lips in the war paint before opening the white box with Versace printed on it. I huffed in annoyance at the unnecessary display of money and wondered if the others would be wearing designer dresses tonight as well.
Lacy black underwear was folded delicately in the brown bag, but even my annoyance was tamed by the contents of what was inside the designer box, because it was a masterpiece. The dress - no, the gown, was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen in my life. It was something I would have imagined seeing my Mamá wear at a party when Papá was in the mood to show her off, back when we still lived in Mexico. The straps were barely there and had no purpose at all as they fell down my shoulders, the sweetheart cut of the neckline hugged my breasts and accentuated the curve of my waist and the flare of my hips. There was a slit on the side that ran up high on my thighs as it fell all the way down to my feet along the small trail of a train. Not terrible, por una muerta.
I took one last look at myself in the mirror, seeing less of my Papá and a bit more of the woman who created me instead, unsure who I felt had betrayed me more. As I contemplated which of my parents let me down most, I remembered the biggest victim was Carolina, my sister. I gripped the edges of the sink as I forced back the pools of tears challenging to fall, and I bit my cheek until I felt the sting and tasted the metallic liquid in my mouth.
I walked out of the room and Mateo whistled a long exhale as he took me in from head to toe.
“Bellissima,” he said in a low hushed voice as he admired me from his place on the edge of the bed.
I arched an eyebrow and wondered if there was more Italian where that came from. Before I could voice my thoughts, he opened the other box, pulled out a pair of red-bottomed black heels, and held them on the edges of his fingers tips for me to take. He had changed as well and was wearing pristinely tailored suit pants with the tie draped across his neck undone. His hair was still ungroomed and fell over his eyes like he needed a haircut, and I wondered if he didn’t care to keep his hair “just so” and did whatever he pleased with it. Maybe he only cut it when the mood would strike him.
Ronan had the same appointment, I bet even now, every three weeks to keep his hair exactly the same and I smirked to myself as I appreciated their differences. Where Ronan was fire, consuming everything in his path, -whether in passion, hatred or anguish- Mateo was an ocean waiting to pull me under until all that was left was waves upon waves of his current washing through me, slowly cleansing me of everything I once thought I was.
I couldn’t deny that I didn’t just appreciate his company, but I craved it. Though part of me knew I had been broken, and that they did get into my head, I wanted to believe that every small intimate moment between us had been ours and ours alone. I glanced around the room a bit and curiosity peaked at the sight of the black grand piano next to the window, was it decoration? An heirloom? Did he play? I let my eyes wander around the room and noticed a few other instruments in their selective cases, and a few guitars hanging up on the wall.
“You look fucking edible,” he stood and pulled me in close, hooking an arm behind me and pressing his growing erection against me as he leaned into my ear and whispered, “be good.” He reached for my hand, “and I promise I’ll try to make it better.” His nose grazed behind my ear as his fingers traced over my black lips and goosebumps ran along my entire body from his touch. A whimper betrayed me as I turned my head towards his face, and he let a knowing grin show.
He led us out and back into the main room, where a few caterers were setting up and bartenders were getting their things ready. Close to the balcony door, there was a makeshift dance floor being set up and a DJ getting his table ready for the night as he talked to Santo. Santo’s eyes widened in recognition from across the room and he made his way to us in a few quick glides.
“Morena,phew,” he whistled, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. He wrapped his arms around me and gave me an exaggerated kiss on the cheek that had me failing at fighting back an ear-to-ear smile.
“That’s what I said.” The deep rumble of Mateo’s voice cut through the moment and my pulse quickened at both of their attentions directed at me. “Without the kiss,” he added dryly.
If Mateo was the ocean, Santo was the air. Everything about him was so light and free, and filled me with life like a lungful of the purest oxygen. Even when the past tried to weigh him down, he could rise above it. Laughing around him felt effortless, even in this own private little hell they had created. He was wearing dark navy dress pants with a button-down shirt that was a darker blue complimenting color. The bandana sticking out of his back pocket gave his roots away, and if I didn’t know he was a ruthless gang leader I would have assumed he was dressed for business. His wild curls bounced in front of his eyes with the slightest movement of his head and his smile stretched from ear to ear.
“Could I have a tequila? Please?” I asked him sweetly, wondering how far my freedom would go here tonight. If they were going to give me an inch, I would take a few fucking miles.
“Why not?” Santo said mischievously, as if he could read my thoughts and he made his way through the few people starting to gather in the room. I kept my eyes on the hallway where the bedrooms were, expecting the rest of the girls to come out of Ronan’s room at any moment with him in tow.
The elevators opened up time after time allowing different guests in, from tattooed grunts to well-dressed millionaire-looking types and their pedigreed escorts. Eventually, it was Fletcher who appeared with the three women, removing their sacks from their heads as they came out through the elevator doors. Absolutely no one paid any mind to the fact that they were in shackles, but I noticed I was given more freedom tonight. They looked nice, but I could tell they didn’t receive the same attentive care as I had tonight, and a part of me had to wonder why.
I normally didn’t see too much of Fletcher, it actually didn’t seem like he saw too much of me either, because anytime he showed up to take any of the girls somewhere he did his hardest to avoid looking my way. He guided the three girls to the large white leather couch and sat them there. Like little Barbies, perfectly trained for this moment, they sat there silently staring forward, with each of their legs crossed ever so differently. I huffed my annoyance, but Santo quickly tempered it with a large glass of Añejo that I instantly downed without any effort. Mierda. That felt good. I passed my empty glass back to Santo and flashed him my teeth in request for more and, it must have been the dress because he just shuffled along back towards the bar.
“Waiting for someone?” Mateo asked as he noticed my millionth glance over towards Ronan’s bedroom.
“I just thought they’d be coming in with him,” I shrugged and then he grabbed me by the wrist and led me to an area of the room where a dancefloor had been created for tonight’s purpose only. A few more tequilas went by, and I was starting to feel their influence on me to the point where the loud bass of the music was encouraging me to move freely.
Mateo stayed close behind me with a hand on my hip as we swayed to the beat of Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” on full blast. His hands would wander ever so often around the curve of my ass or to slide up to cup a breast with a soft squeeze.
I reached my arm back and draped it across his neck, bringing him in closer to me as we danced. My eyes drifted to the bar where Santo stood leaning back against it, with his elbows on the counter. His eyes were fixed on me, but there was something different about the way his gaze was capturing me tonight. Sweat was glimmering on my body from all the bodies pressing together, and I relished the freedom that this moment was providing me that I had so gravely missed.
Mateo’s fingers danced around the slit of my dress, his touch light, but electrifying. He’d occasionally slip a few fingers into the gown and let his hands trail around my thighs. Santo’s eyebrows furrowed in the middle, his hazel eyes burning me from across the room.
“That’s the look of a man who wishes he was in my place right now.” Mateo breathed into my ear, his words throwing me off completely. I shook my head in disagreement, but even I was having a rough time believing myself. Yeah, Santo was looking at me like I was Lembas bread, and he was Frodo on his way to deliver the rings, but I knew it was just the dress. Santo would never cross that line, though these days I wished he would, even if it was just to piss off Ronan.
Just to piss off Ronan?
Get it together.
Mateo pressed into me from behind and I swallowed a gasp of breath as his hands continued to explore my body like we were completely alone and not on a crowded dance floor. We danced for a few more songs, grinding against each other while Santo’s eyes never strayed from mine for even a moment.
“I need some air,” I told him, and he pointed to the balcony door. It was large, only a few people were out there, mostly smoking cigarettes in circles. I looked back at him because it seemed like a trick. Was he really going to let me go out there?
“What are you gonna do? Jump? We’re fifteen floors up,” he chuckled, and I shrugged my shoulders realizing it was a stupid thought. The balcony was covered in hanging lights high above, a firepit was built into the middle and there were chairs scattered all around.
I crossed over to a railing and rested my elbows on it as I looked down below, letting the breeze dry the sweat glistening my skin.
“And who’s prize are you tonight, gorgeous?” An older, well-dressed man spoke from a chair to my side. He had mostly gray hair framing his face and on his head, -letting me know he was likely old enough to be my father- and a mustache that hung too long over his lips.
“I’m no one’s prize. I’m the curse that slowly drains the life of those who come too close,” I said to him in a warning, lifting my eyebrow up as he dared to get up and stand at my side.
“A pretty thing like you?” I couldn’t tell if he was being kind, creepy, or just trying to start up a conversation. I was pretty socially inept at this point, and most people put me off to be in their presence.
Overtly forward men, specifically.
“I have fangs, and trust me, my venom is worse than my bite. Sir,” I accentuated, implying I was well aware of our age differences as he continued to creep closer.
“A black widow then? Interesting,” he said without being phased by my warnings as he stroked his mustache down his face.
“I haven’t left a trail of my ex-lovers’ bodies just yet, but why do I get the feeling that would have excited you more than scared you?” I asked as I tried to figure out who this motherfucker thought he was. Maybe I looked like one of the many cheap escorts they’d sprinkled around this party for the purpose of their men getting their needs fulfilled.
“Dezmond Archer,” he said, and my brows furrowed at the familiarity of the name, “the first.” He clarified as he extended his hand in introduction.
“Well Dezmond, it was a pleasure, but I am afraid that’s as far as your pleasure will get with me tonight. I am not for sale.” I didn’t take his hand, so he retracted it back with a frown.
His gaze trailed back inside where I found Mateo staring daggers into the older man, by the time I looked back he was already gone into the crowd. I let my shoulders drop in relief as I enjoyed my moment of peace once again and stared out into the depths of the streets below us.
“Hope you’re not getting any ideas, Morena,” a husky voice growled from behind me.
“I used to think I was too brave to off myself, too defiant, too hard headed. That it was for the weak, and I was anything but weak. I think I’m ready to admit that I’m actually just scared of what might come after,” I confessed without turning around to look at him.
“Was he bothering you?” He asked, but I shook my head in response.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle myself,” I said, turning my face just a bit so he could see the smile.
He brushed my hair off of my back over my left shoulder and his fingers touched the words tattooed on my shoulder blade. The only thing I ever bothered to memorialize on my skin.
“Todos tenemos un poco.”He read it out loud. “What do we all have?” He asked me, roughly translating the words inked on my skin as he ran his fingers over the letters gently.
“′De músico, poeta, y loco, todos tenemos un poco.′ Just a little reminder, that we’re all a little bit crazy. Your Spanish really is shit huh?” I asked him, finally turning around to look at him.
“Yeah,” he shrugged, “I don’t think it was always that way, but once I learned English in school, my parents didn’t bother making the Spanish stick.” He said with a kind of sadness I understood. The loss of culture was like cutting a limb off and watching it decompose in your freezer while phantom pains itched throughout.
“It’s hard when you don’t feel like you’re from anywhere. Nowhere that’s really yours anymore. Nowhere you can call home.” I kept my head hung as I stared back out into the busy street.
“You called us home once.” He made his way next to me and mirrored my position on the balcony, staring out into the street. I sighed heavily, realizing my mistakes and decisions hurt him just as much as they hurt Ronan.
“I did.” I looked up at him and stared into his greenish caramel eyes. “And now he locks me in a box and brings my ghosts out to haunt me.” I pressed my hand to his chest and my lips flattened into a line.
“You have to know; I have no part in that. You know that right?” He grabbed my shoulders with both hands, and I brought my hand to his cheek softly.
“But you don’t stop him. None of you do.” His expression saddened and I knew it wasn’t fair for me to push my hatred and anger towards Ronan on him. “It’s okay.” I added as I tiptoed up and pressed a kiss to the corner of his lip. As much as I wanted to hold resentment towards Santo, I couldn’t.