“It doesn’t matter. You knew enough not to bring the phone into my house, and to cut off that line of communication. You did it anyway, knowing what it could cost you. You broke an unspoken rule that I did speak.” His pupils seemed to eat his irises—completely black eyes with not a single fleck of light to be seen. “You fed information to an enemy.”
“Not on purpose,” I said, battling against a rising wave of dread. I looked to the gun. I’d thought loyalty couldn’t be forced, but maybe I’d been wrong.
“You haven’t learned your lesson, even though Diego so brutally taught it to you,” he said. “So I ask you again. Who are you loyal to?”
I didn’t want to show fear, but I couldn’t help it. Cartel law was no joke. I’d been shielded from it, but I was no longer someone’s innocent daughter. I was in this life now for better or worse. And I wasn’t going to cower.
“My answer is the same. Myself,” I said, mustering all the conviction I could, even as I wrung my trembling hands in front of me. “Every man in my life who means anything to me has broken my trust—even you.”
“I can’t break promises I never made,” he said coolly. “Deceiving me has consequences, but when the going penalty is a slow, tortured death, I hope you’ll find this punishment more than fair.”
With a knock, Cristiano looked over my head and called through the door, “Espérate.”
He’d told someone to wait. “What are you going to do?” I asked, glancing back.
“You wanted to be a captive. You wanted me to impose my will. That’s what I’m doing.”
My heart stopped. “Who’s at the door, Cristiano?”
“Scratch. Best tattoo artist in the region. You’re a member of the Calavera cartel now—and now you’re going to own it.”
A pit formed in my stomach as I looked between Cristiano and the door. “You’re going to—to brand me?”
“You’re already branded, sweetheart, but this way, there’ll be no question.”
My heart pounded. Cristiano was going to put his mark on me. Permanently. There would be no mistaking who I belonged to with the Calavera name inked on my body. It was barbaric, possessive, and it was making my breath come fast. Part of that was anger that he could be so callous—but most of it was something else. Something deeper. Murkier. Cristiano hadn’t even officially claimed me yet, but he wanted to tell the world who I belonged to.
And that spoke to an inky darkness in me I’d been trying not to give into for as long as I could remember. It nudged the basest of my desires awake, just like the ones Cristiano had whispered in my ear on only my second night in his bed.
“I won’t relent until your body has drunk every last drop I have to give. Until you’re mine through and through.”
The tender place between my legs responded to the claim of ownership now just as it had that night. Why did I want to be dominated like this? Why had I never known it until Cristiano?
I’d struggled for control since I’d stepped foot into the church. I was terrified but also tempted to let go, just for a little, just to see how Cristiano would respond.
“There is another option,” he said, tilting his head.
I released a breath, but disappointment tinged my exhale. Why? My body wasn’t his property. But if ever there were a man who could own a person in every way, it would be Cristiano. And he’d picked me to be his. He’d married me, brought me into this cartel, and he was going to fuck me, no question. He’d decided I was his, so I was. What would a tattoo mean or even change?
But I wasn’t as easily fooled as I used to be. “Another option” would only cost me in some other way. “What is it?”
“One last chance to pledge your loyalty to your husband. But now, I want you to do it on your knees.” He walked around to my back and cleared my hair from my neck. After a soothing squeeze of my shoulder, he grazed his hand down and very gently molded his hand to the curve of my ass. “You will beg my forgiveness, you will promise never to betray me again—and then, I’m going to let you off with a warning. But not before I put you over my knee and punish you with a spanking.”
I inhaled a sharp breath, my ass cheek already stinging with his promise. His enormous hand heated my skin while barely touching it—with only the thought of him exerting his dominance.
My legs threatened to buckle. Which was exactly what he wanted—to prove he could get me to my knees, and then that he could get my body to betray me by making me enjoy my punishment.