Blood Money by Lana Sky

Chapter Three

My hands are shaking when I finally finish smoothing my hair and step back from the counter. A sudden rational thought takes hold, but I gladly let it spur me into the hall, scanning wildly for Domino.

He’s here to take me home, of course. Enemies of my father attacked the restaurant and killed Tristan, but Papa handled it. Domino rescued me—just as he has before. All is well.

“This way.”

The voice comes from behind me, at the end of a darkened hallway. The light from the next room fills a round archway where Ines stands, her hands obediently clasped before her. She beckons me with a wave of her hand, and I find myself reentering that spacious foyer. At least four archways are leading off of it, though I can’t even begin to guess to where.

It’s cold in here, the kind of chill that seeps into your bones, turning every sensation into painful stimuli. The thin dress feels like weighted steel, with sharpened edges that bite at my thighs with every step I take. The neckline is far lower than I’m used to, displaying my body for whoever is near.

In this case, a pair of hungry dark eyes that take me in from across the room Ines leads me into next. It’s a dining room, I think. One far larger than the one at my father’s home, adorned with a rectangular glass table so long it nearly severs the room in two. The room itself is square in shape, with more round archways opening onto what looks like an open-air terrace enclosed by a wrought-iron balcony. The sky beyond it is dark, viewed from behind a row of potted palm trees that sway in a gentle breeze. Warm air blows in from outside, displacing some of that unsettling chill. I sniff, noting it’s tinged with the hint of smoke. Barbecue?

I can’t see any flames or a grill from here, at least.

Domino sits at the head of the table, his hands folded neatly over the glass surface. Or at least, this man sounds like my father’s trusted bodyguard.

It could be my altered mental state, but he looks different. His hair is glossier than I remember, hanging loose around his shoulders, but slicked back. His skin gleams, and as I take in his outfit, I realize that it alone might be the cause for why he seems so strange.

The black silk button-up hugs the contours of his chest—and the fact that the first two are undone exposes more of him than I’ve ever been privy to. He doesn’t ascribe to the same grueling waxing schedule as Tristan. Dark hair grows unbidden across his pecs, adding definition to the hard, rigid mounds of muscle that compose it.

For the past five years, I’ve only ever seen him in the same denim shirt with a collar that stretched to his neck, a straw cowboy hat, faded jeans, and the scarred leather sheath that housed his blade.

It was a memorable costume, so striking in contrast to my father’s expensive tailored suits and coifed hairstyles. Roy Pavalos would never be caught dead in anything more casual than slacks. The clothing, in addition to the perfect family, only added to his persona as a seemingly honorable politician. Even his eccentric bodyguard didn’t quite fit the narrative of the ruthless killers other men of power were known to keep on a leash.

I always wondered if my father was the one who insisted on the attire in the first place. It would have reinforced the illusion that this gruff, somewhat rugged foreigner must have been some cherished family friend or acquaintance that Roy Pavalos kept employed out of the goodness of his heart.

I don’t get that image now. A simple change of clothing strips Domino Valenciaga of what little disarming charm he had. In its absence, the man is all darkness. Rippling muscle and terrifying strength.

My vision blurs, and I have to blink rapidly just to keep his face in focus. I don’t know if I imagine the coldness in the way he looks at me, or if it’s merely what his careful mask has obscured all along. Blatant, disinterest.

“Thank you, Ines,” he says, waving one of his hands. “Please have Cook prepare to serve the meal we discussed. Then you can retire without any concern. Gracias.”

“Yes, sir.” The woman nods and scurries off. My last glimpse of her expression unsettles me for reasons I can’t name. She looks so…relieved.

“Where is Papa?” The question rips from me before I even fully turn back to him.

He gestures toward a chair on his left. “Have a seat, Ada.”

I bristle at the authority lacing his tone. “I asked you a question—”

“You’ve already strained my goodwill once,” he says over me. His smile is so disarming that it’s nearly a full second before the ominous nature of his tone sinks in.

Strained my goodwill…

“Have a seat.”

I’m too tired to argue. It’s an embarrassing dance of wooden limbs and wavering balance as I stagger to the nearest chair, at least four down from the one he specified.

“Where is Papa? What… What is going on, Domino—”

“No longer will you have the right to use that name so flippantly.”

My ears ring. I shake my head and blink to make sure I didn’t imagine the startlingly deep baritone.

“What—”

“Your father is dead,” he says. “As is your mother, though that was not my choice. Your boyfriend Tristan, as well. Your life was not spared by accident. Do you want to know my plans for you now, or after our meal?”

I rub my temples. My head is throbbing more than ever. This is all some strange hallucination. In reality, I hit my head back at the restaurant, and I’m still unconscious. A better explanation is that I never left the house. I’m in my bathroom, crouched in the corner by the sink with powder on my nose, partaking in the one act everyone always assumed was beneath me now. A year of therapy should have been the magic cure for any of my naughty habits.

But even the finest grade of coke couldn’t produce a high this vivid. Gone is the manic euphoria I usually feel. Fear is a constant undercurrent, building and building at the back of my mind as if waiting for some grand moment to finally break loose.

Dead,he said. My parents. I try to process that in a dozen different ways, but none of them have the impact they should. I should be crying, I think. Gutted. Or horrified. Terrified.

It’s like my body is too exhausted to go through the motions. The only coherent thought I have is that if they’re truly gone…

Then no longer do I have to watch my mother waste away in silence. No longer do I have to submit myself to the will and tyranny of Roy Pavalos.

Not that the man currently in control of my life is any better.

Domino must say something else because he tilts his head expectantly. “Perhaps they gave you too strong a dose,” he murmurs, and I shiver at the way his tone barely shifts. “I had them calculate the measurements with your drug history in mind.”

Drug history. The way he says those two words sends my heart racing. My thoughts clear a little more as the fear grows into outright terror.

“Where am I? Where is Papa?”

“We can answer those questions all in good time,” Domino says. “I will admit that I wanted to draw out this moment. Extend it for as long as possible before I told you everything. For my own selfish amusement, I wanted that. Alas, you saw more than I intended, so part of the mystery has been spoiled.”

More than I intended…

“Tristan?” I croak. “What happened?”

Though I already know exactly what. He’s dead.

Domino snaps his fingers, and another figure enters the room, someone taller than Ines. A man who sets a tray onto the table. It contains a bottle of wine and two glass flutes.

“My favorite vintage,” Domino says once the man retreats. He grabs the bottle, reading the label. “The perfect drink to celebrate this occasion. Though, you may prefer water—” He snaps his fingers again, and the man returns with a glass pitcher of clear liquid. He pours some into one of the glasses and offers it to me. “Allow me to propose a toast. To the future, Ada-Maria. May we all receive that which we deserve.”

A quiver shoots through my belly. I feel more dazed than ever. Like thinking at all requires the same effort as trudging through quicksand. Still, I try, straining to focus.

“Take it.” He moved. Without my realizing it, he stood, glass in hand, and approached from my left, offering the water to me.

I reach for it and promptly spill half of the contents onto my lap. It’s enormously heavy, like a lead weight in my grasp.

Unconcerned, Domino has already reclaimed his chair and began to pour himself a serving of wine.

“To new beginnings,” he says, inclining his head toward me. He’s drained half of his glass in a single swig by the time he cuts his gaze toward me. A glimpse of real emotion disrupts that blank, callous mask—anger. “You should drink,” he warns, keeping the rim of his own glass near his mouth. “Otherwise, it’s bad luck.”

My hand jerks forward before I even process the motion, and more liquid spills down my front. It’s ice-cold, each drop hitting my skin with a sensation reminiscent of stabbing needles—but that isn’t what has me sitting straighter, every nerve on red alert.

His eyes find me, drinking in my body with an open curiosity he never displayed before.

I know I’m beautiful. Ten years after outgrowing an ugly duckling phase, it’s an admission that no longer makes me feel like a conceited bitch to proudly state. I have my mother’s oval face and slender body, paired with my father’s large gray eyes. My body is the one attribution that I bring to the table when it comes to the Pavalos family arsenal.

My mother had her sweet, religious devotion and prominence in the local church.

My father had his political pull and the shadowy endeavors that bring in the bulk of our fortune.

I had my sex appeal. The ability to lure men into bed with only a smile and a nicely cut blouse. It was my sole thing of value. My sole purpose.

I’ve spent years training myself not to flinch when men of all shapes and sizes undress my body with disgusting, searching glances. After all, it was their privilege to stare.

All on Papa’s say-so, how fucked up is that? The thought is one of the many dangerous ones that only creep in when I’m too high to keep them at bay. My therapist tried to insinuate that might have been one reason I found it so hard to stay clean.

Your entire life feels beyond your control. At least this way, some of that control is yours to harness.

I can’t even control who I fuck and why—but I know, deep down in the part of me still tethered to some semblance of logic, that Domino never looked at me with anything remotely close to lust.

It was one of the reasons he unsettled me. One of the reasons why I’d obsess over him. When a man looked at my tits, I could gain his attention and use it to my advantage.

Domino only ever looked into my eyes with a deliberate focus. As if, to him, I was never worthy of anything more than a passing acquaintance. I always assumed it was a result of his loyalty to my father, that he didn’t sexualize me out of respect.

Now, I realize just how damn naïve I’d been.

Without Papa here, those dark eyes dissect my body mercilessly, honing in on my tits and the hardened nipples protruding because of the cold. He inspects every inch of me he can without being hindered by the table. By the time I remember how to move, he’s already taking another sip of his wine.

“We have much to discuss, Ada-Maria,” he says. “I think our meal might be ready.”

This time, he claps his hands together, summoning a train of four people who stream into the room from the direction of the terrace, each holding a different platter of food. The smells are dizzying, triggering another wave of nausea. The fact that my stomach is empty might be the only reason why I don’t vomit again.

One by one, the different dishes adorn the table, each more complex than the last. Fresh rolls. A salad. An array of fruit. A plate of roasted meat appears to be the crowning dish.

My mother couldn’t have done better.

The smells churn my stomach.

“This meal is in your honor, Ada-Maria. I hope everything is to your liking.” Domino waves his hand, cueing one of the servers to cut the roast, while another sets about compiling two plates with equal helpings of the various dishes.

They place one in front of me.

“Eat,” Domino says.

I’ve spent enough time around men in power to know an order when I hear one. Unfortunately for him, this is one realm in which I’ve always had control over. Not even my father could take that tiny shred of power from me. Aware of him watching, I clamp my lips together.

“I said eat.”

His voice… It sounds like the man I’ve always known to cling to my father’s coattails, but with subtle changes. Like a familiar song played backward, and the once unthreatening melody takes on an unsettling tempo.

“Did you hear me, Ada-Maria?”

I push the plate aside. Or I try to. I’m too weak to make it move more than a few inches, but the impression is the same regardless.

“Where is Papa?”

He cocks his head and swipes his thumb across his lower lip. “You should eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” I lie. My words slur, my pitch wavering. “What the hell is going on—”

“Eat.”

“Who the hell do you think you are to speak to me like this?”

The latter half of that statement is still on my tongue—I am a Pavalos! The magic phrase that has been able to cow anyone from childhood bullies to government officials. The only worth my life seems to hold these days.

But his voice overpowers me before I can even utter it. “I’ve humored your disobedience once,” he says. “You already owe repentance for being twenty-two minutes late—despite poor Ines’ best efforts to remind you of our engagement. Don’t make me add rudeness onto your impending punishment, Ada-Maria.”

The air escapes my lungs, squeezed out by how violently my chest contracts.

Roy Pavalos had a beautiful, playful cadence that could turn any compliment into a song of the highest praise. At least when he wanted to.

Otherwise, he could stop the devil himself in his tracks with one word alone. My father, the power player. The admirable politician. The brutal crime lord.

I’ve never known anyone capable of rivaling the power he could command through his voice.

Until now.

I don’t recognize this man. That familiar face takes on a newer entity—that of a dangerous figure I’m ill-equipped to face alone.

Where is Papa?

“For the last time, I’m telling you to eat.”

I snatch a fork and stab it into the nearest item on my plate—a few leaves of a garden salad. I shove them into my mouth and chew, tasting nothing but salt. Blood.

A gag contorts my throat before I can help it, and green-colored liquid spills onto the table’s polished surface.

“Try the au gratin potatoes,” Domino says. I notice that he doesn’t touch his own food.

I shake my head, my stomach heaving. “I’m not hungry—”

“I see you’ve made your choice.” He smiles in a startling display of white teeth. Against his skin, they seem to glow. “Let’s take a walk on the terrace, shall we?”

He stands. Three strides bring him to my side before I even finish processing his suggestion. His hand lands on my shoulder, and my entire body goes numb. I’ve had to endure so many different kinds of touch in my life. Wanted. Unwanted. Reviled.

He inspires so many reactions at once my body overloads on them.

“Join me, Ada-Maria.” His voice sounds deeper than before, sinking into my muscle and bone like a wrench that physically yanks me to my feet. My head swims as I find myself staggering in his wake. Around the massive table. Through one of the archways into the warm night air that completely displaces any remaining chill, slicking my skin with a sheen of sweat.

The scent of barbecue grows stronger. Potent. Pork, I think…

Though it’s been so damn long since I’ve imbibed anything more than lettuce and boiled eggs. And crusty restaurant bread.

“You didn’t try the meat,” Domino admonishes. His voice seems to carry further out here—a wide, circular balcony overlooking a bubbling fountain set within a square pool illuminated with delicate orange lanterns. A private garden, but not the one on my father’s estate—or any that I know of for that matter.

“Where are we?”

“My cook will be insulted, Ada-Maria,” he says as if I never spoke. Why? I struggle to follow the conversation. Something about the meat. “He prepared it just for you. It took him days to research the recipe best able to make such an exotic protein palatable. I’m disappointed.”

We round the curve, and more of the terrace comes into view—an even wider section with white couches arranged around a fire pit. The stench of burning and smoke is suddenly stronger, irritating my eyes.

As they water, I spot the source of the smell—the meat is cooking here on a spit set above the flames. It’s large. A cow? Or maybe a pig, set far enough back from the flames themselves that the meat blisters and crackles from the heat, but isn’t burned. But wait…

“He hasn’t come up with a name for this new dish yet,” Domino continues. He releases me and approaches the spit, inspecting the cooking meat.

Something about it keeps drawing my notice. The shape isn’t right… The proportions are far too slender to belong to any pig I’ve ever seen. Science was never my forte, and my education doesn’t extend beyond high school. I’m no expert on biology—but I do know the human body. Men, to be exact.

The way they carry muscle. How their limbs can contort and how foreign they can appear when limp and flaccid.

Blood rushes to my head, deafening me to anything else he might say. Not only is the shape of this “animal” unusual, but the skin…

It’s darker in places and nearly stark white in others. Like clothing?

Slowly, my gaze roves to Domino, and I find him watching me. The orange glow of the blaze reflects off his eyes. My suspicion wasn’t wrong. He is the devil, gloating mercilessly as realization dawns over me with a horrifying certainty.

That is not a pig.

Domino’s lips part, and I hear his voice again. Only him, as if this low, callous baritone is meant just for me. “I’ve suggested Pollo de Roy. It has a rather literal meaning, but I think it gets the point across.”

Spanish was one of the few bits of study my father instilled in me, though I’m nowhere near fluent. I have to parse through the words as my eyes return to the spit. Pollo, chicken. Except this creature is far too large to be that of one small bird. De, means of. The last word I can’t make sense of.

Roy…

A flicker of material catches my interest as the spit slowly turns. Fabric? It’s slender, dancing in the breeze. At one point, it might have been a light blue despite parts of it blackening by the proximity to the flames.

My father’s signature color. He always claimed it complemented his gray eyes, identical to mine. They were one of the few things we actually shared. Our eyes. Our tempers. Our penchant for sinning mercilessly to get what we wanted.

“I wish you could have sampled a taste, Ada-Maria,” Domino says, his tone richer than ever, as if he’s on the verge of laughter. “I’ve heard the flavor compared to chicken, but I’m inclined to describe this particular protein as tasting more like the finest fat, suckling pig.”

Blackness. When my vision returns, I’m on my knees, tasting salt and earth. The once peaceful terrace is now ablaze with grating, loud noise. A keening cry-like sound that pierces my eardrums. I want it to stop.

It’s only as my throat aches with my next intake of air that I realize the sound is coming from me.

Screaming.

Endless screaming.