Violent Delights (White Monarch 1)

I couldn’t fight Cristiano. I was in both God and the devil’s hands now. Wherever he chose to take me, I had to go.

“That’s it,” Cristiano said when I sank against him, his voice suddenly hoarse. “I suspect you’ll even like the feeling of surrender.”

For possibly the first time since it’d happened, I recalled crying into Cristiano’s neck as he’d taken me down the ladder into the tunnel. I’d had a strange albeit fleeting sense of safety. Despite all the things he’d done and the rumors I’d heard, I’d been programmed as a girl to see him as a protector no matter what he was, and somehow, a piece of that trust in him still remained.

The sun rose between two mountains as we steered away from endless desert. Wind whipped my hair the way it hadn’t in years—not since the last time my mother and I had ridden the Cruz property, cataloguing different types of vegetation, a project for my science class that’d turned into a regular weekend activity for us. The fresh morning air felt good—reinvigorating even. The thought came with a wave of guilt. How could I think that when there was a possibility Diego had taken his last breath?

Cristiano rode up the long drive toward the house. A team of men in black scurried around trucks and tanks like ants on a hill. They stopped to look as we approached, some of them raising their rifles, only lowering them once they saw me.

Cristiano halted the stallion, hopped down, and reached for me. I slid off the other side and gasped as I landed on my bare feet. Pain shot through my soles, but I ran into Barto’s open arms.

“We were looking for you all night,” he hissed.

“There was an attack,” I rushed out. “And a fire at the w—”

“I got your text.” Barto frowned as he rubbed between my eyebrows and showed me his soot-darkened thumb. “Diego took you there?”

“Is he alive?”

“I just spoke to him.”

Barto clutched me to him as my knees gave out in relief. With gritted teeth, I turned my glare on Cristiano, who stared daggers right back at us, his eyes narrowing on Barto. “He did this,” I told Barto.

“Who, Cristiano?” he asked. “Did he hurt you?”

“No, but—”

I jumped with a bang behind me. My father stormed down the front steps, the door swinging in his wake. “Natalia Lourdes King Cruz. Where the fuck have you been?” He stopped abruptly when he saw Cristiano. “You brought her back?”

“I called him about the warehouse fire,” Barto said.

“I was already on my way, so I said I’d look for her,” Cristiano said.

“And?” Papá demanded. In a rumpled button-down and jeans, he looked as if he’d gotten dressed in the dark. “You have as much in that warehouse as we do.”

“More,” Cristiano said.

“Yet you bring my daughter back to me yourself? The warehouse could explode. You should be there putting out the fire.”

Cristiano pushed back some of his jet-black hair that had fallen over his forehead. “She was stuck on the roof,” he said. “Everything else can be replaced. Protecting your family has always been my priority.”

My father’s ashen face stilled. He charged forward and shook Cristiano’s hand with vigor. “Your courage will be rewarded. What the devil was she doing there?”

Cristiano glanced over. “Ask her.”

Papá turned on me. Shadows marked his face like bruises. “What happened? Why were you there?”

As my immediate fears of losing Diego and being kidnapped by Cristiano subsided, I was left with my father’s fury. “Lo siento, Papá.”

“You’re sorry?” His voice rose as he stepped toward me. “Answer me when I question you. ¿Qué la chingada were you doing there?”

I tried to stand tall in nothing more than a skimpy dress as my father, all his men, and Cristiano stared at me. “I—I . . .”

“She spent the night there,” Cristiano supplied. “With Diego.”

Father took one look at my outfit, hair, and makeup, and he grabbed me by the arm. “He better pray he burns alive. I will kill him for this.”

“No,” I cried. I’d managed to keep my emotions in check since I’d been torn from my dream earlier, but now, they overcame me. “It’s not what you think,” I said as my voice broke. “We were talking and we fell asleep—”

“Get inside.” He shoved me up the stairs to the house. “Indecent brat.”

“Papi—”

“Do you think this is a game?” he bellowed, throwing me into the foyer so I landed on my behind. Standing over me, he seethed, “It wasn’t enough I lost my wife and the love of my life? I should lose you too? You want me to spend the rest of my days mourning my entire family?”

While anger reddened his face, pain was clear in his eyes. My chest stuttered as I tried to hold in my breaking sobs. “No. I’m s-sorry.”