Cristiano had demanded ownership over my orgasms, and it shamed me how easily my body had complied.
“Natalia?” Alejandro asked, pausing with his hands hovering in the air. “Are you paying attention? Adjust your back foot inward a bit.”
“This would go a lot faster if you just arranged my legs the way you wanted them,” I said.
Either he blushed or he was getting a sunburn. He looked away and continued his narration on how to protect my liver from a potential strike.
Alejandro wore a long-sleeved shirt despite the heat, and I wondered if it was due to the raised, pink skin peeking out from his collar. I’d first noticed his scars in the church as he’d stood by and watched Cristiano marry me. “You look hot,” I told him.
“It’s pretty humid,” he agreed. “I think we’re in for another storm.”
Every person in this house had a story that could help piece together the mystery inside these walls. The chef had served me politely enough, and Jaz had reluctantly helped me around the house, but nobody wanted to talk to me.
Alejandro’s scars might tell his story best of all. “Why don’t you take off your shirt?”
“Ay.” He widened his eyes. “Have you met your husband?”
“Sometimes I wonder,” I said to myself. “But what do you mean?”
“He’d wring my neck. Cristiano’s become a jealous bastard.”
I coughed a laugh, shocked. Would he call his boss a bastard to his face? For the first time, a thought hit me—maybe he would. Maybe they were actually friends. I hated to admit that would explain the easiness between Cristiano and his staff much better than the story I’d concocted—that Alejandro’s and the others’ loyalty and respect had been forced on them.
“Maybe if it was Eduardo training you with his pot belly and limp.” Alejandro snickered. “But I’ve had my fair share of female admirers, and Cristiano knows it.”
I laughed at his unexpected confidence. “You’re about as humble as he is.”
“I’m not bragging, just relaying the truth.”
I eased into a smile, biting the inside of one cheek as I glanced at the edges of his scars. “Can I ask what happened?”
“Um.” He scratched behind his ear. Maybe it was forward, and none of my business, but he’d actually been acting friendly, unlike others. “I’ve had them since childhood. I was an orphan, and not a very happy one.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Are they from your foster parents?”
“The keepers of an orphanage. They seemed welcoming enough in the beginning, but looks are deceiving, Natalia.”
He said it as if imparting wisdom. I was surprised he’d said it at all. Even though Cristiano had said I could ask the staff questions, I’d assumed Cristiano had put some kind of moratorium on most topics. “How did you end up here?” I asked.
“I grew up near Tijuana.” He wiped his sweaty temple with his shoulder. “Once I was old enough to run away, I went wherever I could to make ends meet. I met Cristiano in Bolivia when I was nineteen, and he took me under his wing, so to speak.”
“How?” I asked. “Did he live there?”
“No, he was there trying to start a business.”
“What business?”
“The Calavera cartel,” he said as if it was obvious. “It was a small operation then, but I didn’t have much else, so I joined the cause.”
The cause. Sure, if he thought the fortune they all made off their business dealings was a worthy movement. “You mean you worked for him.”
Alejandro shrugged. “When Cristiano learned my story, he asked if I could fight. I’d never been formally trained, but I’d picked up plenty of moves on the street. Within only a week of knowing him, he brought me to meet others like me. Friends that would become family.”
Others like him. A shiver worked its way down my spine. Was Cristiano’s “small operation” in Bolivia to lead the lost and desperate into a life of their choosing, or of servitude? “Do you mean other orphans?” I asked, picturing Cristiano as some kind of savior in disguise, looking for workers the way my father had brought boys to the ranch.
“No—well, not exclusively.” He reached his hands toward the sky, exposing a sliver of his washboard abs. “Mind if I stretch? My joints are stiff, which is why I’m pretty sure it’ll rain tonight.” I gestured for him to proceed. Whatever he needed to keep the conversation going. “I was talking about Max, Eduardo, Jaz, Daniel, Solomon, Fisker—you know. The others.”
The misfits Tepic had mentioned. I couldn’t very well call Alejandro that to his face, though. I nudged the toe of my new, ultra-fancy performance sneakers in the grass. “I don’t understand.”
“Those of us who had no one.” He linked his hands and turned his palms up before bending to one side. “Society cast us aside and forgot about us. Our families turned us out or sold us.” His forehead wrinkled with a frown. “Hasn’t Cristiano explained this to you?”