Pain and Pleasure by Callie Vincent

18

Esmeralda

"Emmie?"Dante calls from the doorway.

It's the fourth time he's called my name since he's opened the door, but my eyes are glued to the security monitors. I turn slowly to look at him, my hands still clutching my phone after we hung up our call nearly twenty minutes ago.

Dante walks in the room and kneels before me when he reaches my desk. His hair is tousled, and I notice the stubble of his beard is growing even longer. I like him like this. Wild and unhinged looking. What I don't like is the situation that's made him this way. The ever-impending threat of my father.

I reach out and run my fingers along his jaw. His eyes narrow, but he's leaned into my touch.

"What're you thinking, mi ciela?" he murmurs.

His hand reaches up to catch my fingers that run idly along his jaw.

"That I like you with a beard," I say, absent minded and lost in his presence.

No matter the threat that's at bay, he brings a calmness to me when he's near. He smiles at me, and it makes me less worrisome about the man he has captured downstairs. The man that's clearly been sent by my father to stalk me.

"I'll keep that in mind." He pulls my fingers to his mouth and gives them each a quick kiss.

"I have to go downstairs and question him, Emmie. I need you to stay here while I send Benjamin back up, okay?" he says, waiting for my nod.

I move my head slowly and he squeezes my fingers before he releases them so that he can walk back to the door. I take another look at the security monitors and already feel uncomfortable by his absence.

"Wait. I want to go with you," I say, and he pauses so that he can turn and look at me.

"No," is all he says, and it makes me frown.

"Why? I have as much security right now as the president. Are you going to kill him or something?" I ask and he stands there in silence for a few moments, eyeing me up and down.

"There will be no blood on any of our hands tonight, at least not here, but that doesn't mean that it will be an easy meeting, mi ciela." He sighs and looks at me for a while, almost as if he's debating his own words.

I stand and walk to him, my hands going to his chest as he pets my hair.

"You can't just use me as bait and then keep me out of the loop when something bites," I say.

"Who said I'd keep you out of the loop?" he questions me, eyes narrowing. I almost laugh at him.

"Your history of communication with me says, Dante. You forget that this is my father. I deserve to know what trap he tried to lure me into. And I deserve to hear it from the man he sent to lure me." I pull my hands away from his chest and wait for his response.

He stares at me for a long while, the silence stretching across my empty office. I hold his gaze until he sighs an exhausted sounding sigh. It is then that I know I've won this small battle and it makes me go up on my toes to kiss his cheek. He lets out a small rumble and grabs my face as I pull back.

"But as soon as I say it's time for you to go, then you leave. Do you hear me?" he says, his eyebrows furrowed and eyes narrowed at me.

I nod slowly and he curses under his breath before grabbing my hands to take me out of the room and to the elevator, Benjamin trailing behind us. The ride down to the main floor is quiet, but as soon as the doors slide open, we're assaulted with loud music and flashing lights. Dante leads me through the crowd and towards the boardroom that I met the staff in earlier today.

He opens the door and ushers me inside leaving Benjamin to guard the outside of the door when he closes it. I look over to the conference table and see Sergio and a guard standing behind the man, who is strapped to the chair, a gag covering his mouth. There are four guards lining the wall by the door and another two by the windows. It makes me wonder just how many men Dante has on his security team.

Dante leads me further into the room but keeps me at least a ten-foot distance from the man at the table. As we get closer, I notice Sergio is holding a gun to the back of the man's head. He eyes me angrily, his face red behind the gag. I sit casually next to Dante and try to appear as impassive and not intimidated, definitely not scared. If this man is sent by my father, then I will show him no such emotion. Dante sits next to me and crosses his legs, leaning back in his chair casually. I noticed that he does this with many people, but especially people that he has authority over or tries to have authority over. It's his way of showing that no threat is actually a threat to him.

"Tonight, you've trespassed on my property. Back at home we'd have your fingers cut off within seconds. I'm doing you a service right now, a service that you are not worthy of. But I think we both know you're not here for bloodshed," he says to the man, fixing his watch as he leans forward, forearms pressed to the wooden conference table.

"I will allow my men to ungag you, but there will be no screams or any noise other than a fucking answer as to why you're in my club tonight. Got it?"he demands, and the man nods.

Sergio keeps the gun pressed to his head as one of the guards pulls the gag away from the man's face. He starts to take heaving gasps of air, drool spilling from his mouth and onto the table. They must have had it on pretty tight. I sit up straight and knot my hands on my lap, trying to calm my bouncing leg.

"Who sent you?" Dante asks.

The man looks up at him and wipes the drool off on his shoulder. His eyes are bloodshot, and he looks about my mother's age. He looks over at me and Dante lets out a low growl, tapping the table to bring the man's attention away from me and back to him. He smiles slowly at Dante and raises his shoulders as if to say he doesn't know. Dante flicks a finger at Sergio and the cock of his gun sounds across the rooms, making the man's eyes widen to saucers.

"Juan Carlos!" the man shouts, obviously not ready to have his brains splattered across the table. I can't say I'm ready for that either.

Dante leans forward even more and eyes the man down, power radiating off his body in big intimidating waves. It feels like a lifetime ago that he used this approach on me, but even when he did, I found it arousing. Because even then I knew he wouldn't blow my brains out like he would for this man here.

"Good. I think we all know why he's sent you, or rather who he's sent you for. My next question is what does he want with her?" The man's eyes travel to me once more.

I stare him down, but jump when I suddenly hear a loud bang on the table and see Dante standing up abruptly, banging his fist down once more.

"Don't you fucking look at her! Eyes on me," he snaps and the man brings his widened eyes back to Dante.

"What does he want with her?" he snarls.

I feel chills racing down my spine as silence stretches through the room. The man is quiet and sweating profusely. He must not have been working for my father very long, because he's easily intimidated and willing to rat him out as soon as a gun is pressed to him.

"You have five seconds. I have no issue seeing your skull splintered open in my boardroom, the walls are soundproof anyway," Dante says casually.

I see Sergio press the gun deeper against his head and it has him crying out.

"He wants her dead!" he cries, and even though I knew this was the answer my stomach still drops.

I swallow audibly and Dante looks over at me briefly before turning his attention back to the man sweating all over his conference table. I try to remain calm, but the tension is spreading across my body like a wildfire. I feel sweat pooling in my hairline, and I know I probably look pale.

I wanted to be in here. I wanted to be in here.

I have to be able to handle these situations, there's no other option. The threat of death will always be breathing down my neck and I need to be able to face it head on.

"How many men?" Dante asks and the man is silent.

I can feel the frustration leaking from Dante's pores because I too am growing frustrated by the pace of all of this.

"We know his location. And I'm ready for bed. So spare us all the waste of time and just give him the answer, for fuck sake," I say, surprising myself.

Dante is surprised too because he glares at me from the corner of his eye. I already know I'll be hearing about this later, but I could care less. It's my life being held in the air right now, it's my every move that's being watched by a bunch of random hawks and I'm so exhausted from not having a say in anything.

"More than who's in this room," the man says. "He's been recruiting more as well. Some from across the border, some from sister cities. Enough to carry out a plan that he's been fine tuning for over a decade now." He wipes the drool on his shoulder once more, staring directly at Dante and then me when he speaks again.

"Enough to kill you and that little bitch you've been fucking." He laughs a sinister laugh and I hear a gunshot ring out immediately after he says it.

I cover my ears and look down at my legs, taking deep breaths and doing everything in my power to not look up and see a dead man's head blown out and all over the table. I hear the man shout and scream and look up in confusion. He's still alive, but blood is pouring from his hand, and I see that Dante has shot one of his fingers off.

I clamp my jaw shut so that my mouth doesn't hang open in shock. Dante puts his gun back into his belt and pulls a linen out from his pocket, walking slowly over to the man before wrapping it around his hand. The man hisses and curses at Dante, but he just clicks his tongue in response.

"Thank you for your frustrating cooperation. Sergio will drop you off near your boss’s compound. Be sure to tell him that I'll be seeing him real soon. I'll take this as a parting gift." He holds up the man's finger and places it inside a bag, handing it to one of the guards before grabbing my hand and pulling me up.

We walk out of the room and back out onto the dance floor. Dante's grip on my hand is tight as he leads me through the main floor of the club and out the doors, into a car that Benjamin has waiting for us. We climb in and Dante buckles my seatbelt for me. I stay silent as he clips me in and orders for Benjamin to drive.

His hand is on my thigh the entire ride home. I stare out of the window and look at all the lights of downtown LA disappear behind us as we descend into darkness. The ride is quiet, but my mind is racing. My thoughts bounce from death, to Dante's fist on the table, to the sight of blood pouring from the man's hand as he stays bound to a chair. Just a month or so ago I was waiting tables and thought that cleaning up broken beer bottles was bad.

I feel helpless in this moment, even with Dante's protection and security team. I feel like a walking target who's going to catch a bullet any minute and the thought unravels me. My whole life I've had numerous threats on my tail with no guided defense for myself. I've been walking through it all blindly and I'm done with that.

"I want a gun and for someone to show me how to use it," I say into the quiet car.

I feel Dante shift beside me and I turn over to steal a glance at him. He looks at me weirdly, but his eyebrows are furrowed, dark hair is sitting over his nearly black eyes. He shakes his head slowly at me and I immediately get angry, pulling his hand away from my thigh as I scoot out of his reach.

"A man just said that I have several people out to see me dead, all under the direct orders of my father," I say, and Dante leans back to look at me.

"I can't just rely on you or your security team to keep me safe, I need something to protect myself. Because like it or not Dante, the threat will not go away until he's gone," I say once more, looking at my crossed legs.

It is so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. The air feels somber, and I look up at Dante to see recognition in his eyes. Recognition of the fact that this is my reality, no matter how much he tries to change it. As long as my father is alive, people will try to kill me.

"I pick what you get and you only use it under direct orders. I can't have sloppy hands in my business," he says darkly and it burns me. He really can think so little of me?

"I think we both know I'm not going to just start shooting people for the fuck of it. There's a reason why I don't know how to handle a gun in the first place." I hiss at him, crossing my arms and staring back out of the window once more.

Minutes go by and I feel his hand on my thigh, gripping me. I turn to look at him and notice a bit of sadness in his eyes, and it softens me a little.

"I never wanted this for you, Emmie. I never wanted you to learn how to use a gun or carry one. I never wanted you to be a part of any of this," he says earnestly, his eyes wide with truth.

I touch his knee and look at him deeper, seeing the sadness dissipate as something else comes forward.

Something that looks a whole lot like love.