Blood Money by Lana Sky

Chapter Eighteen

He blinks, his hand still raised as if he intends to strike me again. I recoil this time, holding my hands before my face in a pathetic attempt to protect it.

“You’re lying.”

It’s my turn to laugh, frothing at the mouth as I do. He hit me hard enough to split my lip, and the blood drips freely. “How do you think she got access to steal from us in the first place? My bedroom wasn’t where my father kept his accounts; it was in his office.”

The same office where I would catch her scent on the days she told me she was too busy to hang out after school. The same office where my father would work late. I wasn’t sure until she wore a ring she said her secret boyfriend had given her.

It was my mother’s. I didn’t realize that until later, of course, after things with Pia had already reached a boiling point.

“She was fucking him,” I add tonelessly, “and she tried blackmailing my family when he grew bored of her. She was never my friend. She never loved me. It was always him.”

For everyone, it’s always him. Don Roy. Roy Pavalos. Until the day someone did something as simple as dragging me from a highway in the middle of the night without asking for a damn thing in return.

“You were the only person who didn’t treat me like a way to get to him! I thought you were…”

And it guts me to realize how stupid a hope that was. How childish.

“All along, you were just like them. Like Pia. Like everyone!”

I shove him away and climb from the tub, tripping over my own feet. My eyes are on the balcony, and I lunge for it, leaning over the railing. I eye the darkened landscape below. I’m not afraid. I don’t feel anything, and in this moment…

I know for sure I could jump.

Fall.

“Are you fucking crazy?” A masculine arm comes around my waist, wrenching me back.

“No!” Blindly, I lash out, striking whatever part of him I can reach. None of my blows do a damn thing. He’s immovable. As impenetrable as a brick wall. “Let me go!”

He doesn’t, gripping my entire body within a bear hug so that I can’t fight. All I can do is scream, no matter how painful it is, until my voice breaks and I can’t even make a sound.

But as I fall silent, I realize that he’s still speaking to me. He always has been.

“…you walk around with your nose in the fucking air. How could I think you were any different?” The words are meant more for him than me, I realize. With my face pressed against his chest, I can hear how fiercely his heart is raging. A near-constant boom that rattles his ribcage.

“The dumb whore with a heart of gold—no one fits that fucking cliché. No one...”

He’s trying to justify it, I think. Why it was so easy for him to believe Pia about someone he hadn’t even met. All along, he’s thought the worst of me, lies planted by my old best friend.

“How could I ever think any bastard who would work for my father could be any different?” My voice is so hoarse I’m sure he doesn’t hear that.

Regardless, he looks down, his eyes sharp and mistrusting. He adjusts his grip, loosening his bear hug to grip me by both forearms, holding me captive inches from his chest. When he lunges, I go still, expecting another slap.

Not the feel of his mouth over mine.

He’s brutal, gnashing with his teeth until I part my aching lips and let him in. He grunts, gripping me tighter, pressing me against the planes of his chest. Using his weight as a battering ram, he jolts me back, forcing me to step down into the tub.

I can see the intention written across his face as he pulls back, tugging at the front of his boxers.

I don’t resist, letting him spin me around and manipulate my body until I’m standing in the tub, leaning over the edge with my hands braced before me.

One thrust, and he’s deep, sending the water sloshing between us. I close my eyes, surrendering to each thrust. It’s a brutal rhythm that’s somehow gentler than the roughness of the other night.

His hand cinches my hair, his mouth against my ear. “For so fucking long, I’ve wanted you,” he growls. “Always you…”

He’s lying, I know he is. But that knowledge doesn’t dull the effect those grated words have on my body. Nerves I didn’t even know existed ignite and smolder. My breath quickens, my bones turning liquid beneath his touch.

He makes me chase after him, grinding against his hardness to salvage my own pleasure as he selfishly takes. Right when my breaths feather and eyelids flutter, his hand snakes down my front, dipping beneath the water, grinding against the sensitive flesh between my thighs.

He’s ruthless, as if he studied how to touch me. Pleasure me.

Break me.

I never stood a damn chance.

* * *

We windup on the blanket, the platter kicked aside, scattering the food all over the black material. He’s on his back, his eyes on the overhang that shields this part of the terrace from a fresh bout of rain. I doubt it could protect us from lightning, but he doesn’t seem worried.

I am.

Harsh, mindless sex I can stomach—not this. Whatever this is. Something more than physical, as foreign to me as it seems to be to him.

To break the silence, all I can think to say is, “Where is she?” Pia. He claimed she was dead, but obviously, she’s not if she’s able to feed him intel on me. Lies.

He tilts his head to shoot me a searching glance. Whatever he finds makes him frown and look away, turning his attention to the sky. “She’s dead, Ada.”

“Then how—”

“She never told me a damn thing herself.”

So, he lied or made it up. It’s cruel. But it doesn’t match, unless he had another reason for hating me other than using a dead girl as his proxy.

“Your father killed her,” he says tiredly. “I know he did.”

“How?” I demand, slamming my hand against the stone tiles.

He stands, heading for the doorway. “I don’t know how,” he admits. “Or when. Or where...”

He enters the room but, just as I stand to follow, he reappears, holding a small object in his hands.

“But you are going to help me find the answers to those questions.” He offers the object to me, and I sway.

It’s a pink book, decorated in a multitude of stickers that were in fashion a decade ago. A name is written in a pink gel pen across a white label stuck to the front of it.

This diary belongs to:Pia Alicia Inglecias.

The last time I held this very book, I gave it to my father. “H-How?”

“That’s not important. What matters is that Pia wrote about her ‘favorite place’ where she would hide her secrets. Where?”

I shrug. It’s been so long, and Pia was known for her elusive word games. A favorite place could mean anything from the beach, to the ice cream parlor, to her favorite park bench.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Domino says, but it’s not an accusation. He tosses the book onto the blanket before me. “You’ve read it, haven’t you?”

How could I not? My father tasked me to steal it, but I needed to know why. And I needed to see exactly what my old friend thought of me.

And she hated me. I bored and annoyed her from the very start. I was an amusing pet to play with when she needed someone. The way she spoke about me...

It was vicious. Cruel. But still generally polite in Terra Rodea standards. After all these years, I think I should despise her. I still don’t. She wasn’t like me, and that was another layer of her appeal. She was poor, forced to navigate the world without a powerful last name.

But there was one person she did care about—enough to justify her stealing and backstabbing. Enough to justify her scheming ways.

Slowly, I look up to find Domino still watching me, his shirt even more out of place now that his bottom half is completely bare.

“Take it off,” I rasp. “Take off your shirt.”

His eyes narrow, and I expect him to refuse. Instead, he snatches the hem, balling it. By the time he drags the material over his head, I’ve already seen the glaring proof I needed to cement my suspicion.

“You’re Navid.” Pia’s brother, stricken with a heart condition—only the harsh scar slicing in between his pecs reveals how he managed to circumvent that ailment. He must have had a transplant, years before he joined my father.

And so many things start to click.

Greed was never his motivation. Just revenge.

And that makes him far more dangerous.

“I imagined this,” he says with a harsh scoff as he flicks his wadded shirt aside. “You, gaping up at me on your knees, whimpering my name like it’s some fucking revelation.”

My performance must not satisfy him. He climbs into the tub and sits, tilting his head back against the rim to watch me.

“You hated us all this time,” I croak. “So what? By killing my parents and selling me, you get some sick, twisted enjoyment out of it?”

He raises an eyebrow. “This is about far more than a silly tit-for-tat, Ada-Maria,” he says. “Far more than just revenge. You only factor in as a very small part. This was never about just you.”

“How?” I demand, drawing my knees up to my chest, feeling the exposed wounds smart and sting. No matter the discomfort, it feels important to shroud myself from him. It doesn’t matter that he’s already experienced nearly every inch of my body.

He doesn’t own me.

“I’ll tell you—the price you’ll fetch is more than enough to square away some old debts of mine. Nothing more, nothing less.”

It’s a gut punch. He says it so casually. So callously. That’s all I ever was to him. A bargaining chip.

“Debts,” I whisper. “To Jaguar?”

“I wouldn’t go around parroting names and terms I didn’t understand, were I you. In the real world, Ada, a name is a man’s most important possession. He’ll do anything to protect it, even kill.”

“Which is why you spent five years living under a false identity, Domino,” I point out.

“I am Domino Valenciaga. Any prior name I may have had is no longer relevant. Disrespect it, and I’ll teach you firsthand how these disputes are settled by those without a rich father to hide behind.”

“My father taught me that respect is earned,” I counter.

He leans back as if relishing the feel of the jets. “You only say that because you think I won’t lunge from this tub and wrap my hands around that pretty throat. Respect is a term beyond any Pavalos.”

I flinch, stung. Again, I want nothing more than to flee. Run. Hide. Jump off the balcony and end my suffering now. I can’t take another moment with him. I can’t.

“Come.” As if reading my mind, he beckons me with a dripping finger. “Join me.”

It’s both a dare and a test.

His eyes gleam mischievously as I comply, sinking onto the submerged bench across from him. Our legs intertwine, and I cringe at the sensation. He’s both firm and unmoving, like living metal, his limbs serving as makeshift bars to this newer prison.

“Tell me something,” he demands. “You keep pouting every time I voice my assessment of you. You are what you are, Ada. But let’s hear from the little princess why she may have some depth.”

He can be so unbearably mean. His words, at times, cut deeper than even the leather of his whip.

“I loved you because I thought you were someone of integrity. Not perfect—” I add before he can interject.

No, Domino was never perfect.

“But someone who could think for himself. Who supported my father for his own reasons—” And in a way, I was right all along. “But a man who could determine on his own what was right and wrong. Someone with enough honor to ignore his attraction to any woman who might interfere with his duties. I especially loved that.”

I’m not ashamed to reminisce over this fictional Domino. In a sense, it’s freeing. Let him hear all the lofty standards he never lived up to. Though, I figure, no man could.

“I thought you were loyal and brave. I thought you were fair. Fair enough to save my life and ask for nothing in return. You could have extorted me a million times over, if all you wanted was money.”

“This is about more than money, Ada,” he finally says after letting me speak.

I fling open my eyes, exasperated. “Then why sell me?”

“Blood debts require a more nuanced currency to satisfy,” he says, once again resorting to word games. “Even the Bible provides its own rough description. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. A heart for a heart…”

And a woman for a girl.

This is about Pia—but on whose behalf does he seek to satisfy this invisible debt? His eyes are so emotionless, I can’t tell.

“This is more than merely personal, either. Try as you might, you will never understand it. What a pity to shatter the lofty image you’ve built up for me.”

He sounds mocking enough, his sly grin firmly fixed on his face.

But he’s angry. I can see it in his glinting eyes and how stiffly he holds himself. I’ve struck a nerve. If only I knew which one.

“I’m used to being disappointed,” I say softly. “Another reason you are just like my father—”

“I am nothing like him!” He’s on me before I can react, his hand around my throat, forcing my back to arch as he leans over me. One of his hands feels out along the rim of the tub, returning with an item that he presses against my lips.

“Open.”

His commanding tone is too fierce to resist.

I pry my lips apart, steeling my body for a horrific taste. Instead, a richness floods my tongue, conveying a flavor I haven’t tasted in years. Chocolate. Insanely good dark chocolate with some kind of fruit filling to balance the salty bitterness.

“I prefer your mouth stuffed full,” Domino warns, reaching for another sweet. Some kind of truffle that he dangles between two fingers. “I could keep you forever like this.”

My ears pick up at the word choice. Is that his way of hinting that he won’t sell me after all? A hateful mixture of hope and dread washes over me. As much as I try to tell myself that any fate is preferable to him, I know better…

I can’t focus on the what-ifs. So, I just fixate on the potentials. If I could manipulate him into keeping me, what else could I make him do? It could be a slow, painful process, but one I think I could decipher if I tried hard enough. A somewhat known entity is far better than the unknown.

With my eyes on the chocolate, I choke down any hesitation and stick out my tongue, allowing him to place the morsel onto it. I chew slowly, hating the feeling of the chocolate and sugar disintegrating.

He watches, his curiosity piqued. He doesn’t know what I’ll do next, and there’s power in those heavy few seconds before I finally lick my lips and say, “I could be yours alone. Why share me?”

Share.That word makes his nostrils flare, and I have my answer—he doesn’t really want to. Not out of concern but greed. Jealousy. He’s right. There’s more to this than I’m aware of, and the thought terrifies the hell out of me.

It makes me reckless. Reckless enough to eye him through my lashes and soften my voice.

“I could be good to you.”

“Little Ada,” he taunts, bringing his thumb to my mouth next. He rams the pad of it between my lips, chuckling when I wince. “So good at the sexy mind games. No wonder your father sent you to assist with all his dirty work.”

I let the barb pass unchallenged, keeping my focus on what matters.

“When is Jaguar coming for me, then?” I make my voice as weak and feeble as possible, even as I’m forced to speak around his probing thumb. “I could show him how good I can be with my mouth. Maybe he’ll keep me—”

“He will never fucking touch you.” Anger explodes from him, and I recoil. Seconds pass before I realize he just withdrew his hand. He never struck me. “Not if I have any say in that. I’ll rip you to pieces if you even let him look at your body. Don’t think I won’t.”

He’s shaking, his hands in fists, eyes blazing. Slowly, he deflates. That display wasn’t for my benefit. For once, I slipped beneath those barriers to the man beneath. Seething and jealous of this Jaguar and what he may or may not have.

Me.

I dull myself to the little voice at the back of my mind warning me not to and place my hand on his forearm, sensing the coiling, lethal muscle.

“If you don’t want to sell me,” I whisper, utilizing the same purr I’d employ to charm any other man in my orbit. “Keep me then.”

And I can spend every waking moment afterward plotting my escape. Even if I have to drive that knife into his throat myself, I’ll defeat him. I will.

He strokes my cheek and for a second, I think his guard is lowered enough for my ruse to work. “So eager to please. I like you better this way…” He leans forward, brushing his lips along my earlobe. “You think you have power. It’s sexy.”

I wince, concealing the act behind a smirk of my own. It feels hollow and lopsided, but I hold it for all I’m worth.

“I can have whatever you want me to,” I parrot. “I can be whoever you want me to be. As long as you have me...”

His eyes flash at the subtle taunt.

He himself stated that fact won’t be for long.

Unless, of course, he changes his mind.

Or rips me to pieces.

“You know what I want from you?” he asks in a tone that warns he’d very much like to enact the latter of my mental options. His finger flexes against my jawline as if best deciding where to start if he is planning on ripping me to pieces. Near my lip? My ear? Down along my throat? “I’ll tell you one day. Preferably when you’re less inclined to stab me with a hypodermic needle.”

I grow cold at the reminder. Did he really plant that vial, knowing I’d take the risk to inject him with its contents? Looking at him, I can’t tell and that unnerves me more than if he’d gloat over his plan outright.

“Why leave that stuff for me? Those pictures?” I demand.

He curls his fingers against my cheek, tilting it so that his mouth has better access to my ear. “To test you.”

I feel my lips curl into a frown and I pull away from his touch. “And what’s the verdict?” I ask nastily.

His laugh catches me by surprise, low and amused. Abruptly, he stands from the water and walks, dripping wet, into the bedroom.

I wait for my cue to follow, but it never comes. Apparently, though, our rare ceasefire is over. I don’t know how I feel about that as I climb out of the water on my own and creep into the darkness of the room. I head for the hallway blindly—I’d rather leave naked than run the risk of him turning a request for a towel into another mind game.

With every step, my head is abuzz with too many questions to keep track of. His identity. Pia. My fate…

When I finally reach the door, I only hesitate at the thought of leaving the diary behind. In his hands, that tome from the past is a goldmine of information he can use against me.

“Did I say you could leave?” The gruff question comes from the direction of the bed. I didn’t even realize Domino is already lying there, unabashedly naked over the neatly made sheets. Only the glow of the lights from the direction of the balcony gives him any definition against the shadows. “Come here.”

I choke down a refusal and inch a step toward him, against my better judgment. One way to spin my obedience is that I can use this rare moment when he isn’t coming at me with a whip or a collar to my advantage. Lure him into a false sense of security.

Though, as he snatches my wrist the second I’m within his reach, I realize that if anyone has let down their guard, it’s me. I gasp as he drags me down until I’m practically on top of him. One of his hands claims my thigh and the heat basting my shoulder tells me that we’re lying face to face, my breasts against his chest.

“I like you plotting and scheming,” he murmurs in a tone that makes me shiver. “It bodes well for how you’ll react when you see what it is a I really have in store for you.”

A probing response is on my tongue, ready to be voiced. At the last second, I grit my teeth and remain silent.

He wants me angry and helpless—and I’ll give him that and more.

Just on my own terms and on my timeline.

Even as I relax against him, I can tell he doesn’t expect the way I sink into his touch, resting my head against his shoulder. The second he falls asleep, I’ll sneak onto that balcony and grab the diary.

And I’ll be the one capable of turning the tables then.