Chapter Eleven

Chapter ElevenDamn, my girl had one hell of a voice.Humming along to Inaya’s most recent kick-ass song—it was really no wonder that it had shot straight to number one in the music charts—I pressed the button on the side of my tablet to up the volume. I doubted there was a person in the world who’d expected any other contestant of the televised singing competition to win that particular year. She’d blown away everyone right from her first audition six years ago, and it was something she continued to do even to this day. Like she’d been born for it.I placed my empty overnight bag on my bed and began flinging things into it. I’d be staying at Danton’s tonight. Again. There hadn’t been a single night when I’d slept elsewhere during the past few weeks.We’d been officially together for a solid month now. A time during which I’d kept to my word and worked from his apartment a few days per week. Each time he strolled into the little room I used as an office and found me there, a look of supreme male satisfaction settled over his face.Not only had he set up a separate workspace for me, he’d bought me a top-of-the-range laptop so I wouldn’t have to cart mine forward and backward from my apartment to his. It was so pretty and shiny, and I’d adored it on sight. Still, I’d told him that I couldn’t accept such an expensive gift.He’d twisted the whole thing, rightly pointing out that if the situation were reversed I’d be hurt if he refused to accept something from me merely because of its price tag. The little shit had talked me in circles for what felt like hours. And I came to learn that Danton was adept at emotional blackmail. Who would have thought it?I’d eventually graciously accepted the gift. I’d also thanked him in kind, which we’d both enjoyed.It had been a huge surprise that he’d gone through the trouble of setting up a workspace for me. Which had actually offended him. In his mind, I should have known that he’d ensure I had what I needed.He could be pretty sweet at times, though I was quite sure he didn’t realize it.It amazed me how making the transition from ‘arrangement’ to ‘relationship’ had been relatively effortless—albeit nerve-wracking for me, because I couldn’t help but occasionally worry that he’d one day wish to backtrack. Maybe that wasn’t fair to him, since he’d given me no indication that I needed to harbor such a worry. But until recently, he’d always had such firm boundaries that I sometimes found it difficult to be confident that he wouldn’t at some point find a relationship stifling.I supposed that it was part and parcel of caring for someone. It would hurt so much to lose them that the fear of it would dance around inside you and pop to the forefront of your mind every now and then.Finished packing my bag, I placed it near the bedroom door. I had no doubt he’d shoot it a sour look. He always did nowadays, unhappy that I wouldn’t yet move in with him; that I still wished for us to take things slowly.Well, it would be no small thing for me to give up my home, would it? I merely wanted to ease us both into the reality of what a committed relationship fully entailed. I was conscious of how easy it would be for us to screw things up. Neither of us had had a serious relationship before, or grown up with an example of a healthy one. As such, we were flying blind.That was likely why we didn’t do much couple-y stuff. Neither of us were all that romantic. I could read romance books all day long, but I didn’t need the gestures; didn’t need the flowers or chocolates or candle-lit dinners. Which was good, because I highly doubted I’d get them from Danton—it wasn’t his style.It meant far more to me that he did things such as provide me with my own workspace, buy me a laptop, stock foods I liked, and make an effort to get to know not only my friends but even Cole.Back when we’d stuck to a simple arrangement, Danton had usually done little more than say a brief few words to them at the Vault before hauling me away. Now he talked to them. Even bought them drinks.He didn’t seem to have many of his own friends, though he was particularly close to Duke and Vicente. I’d met a few more of his men recently. All were the epitome of respectful toward me, though not whatsoever chatty. I wasn’t sure if they were all the strong, silent type or just leery of seeming too friendly with their boss’s woman so avoided talking to me. Said boss was somewhat possessive after all.Hearing my cell ring, I frowned. The sound wasn’t coming from inside the room. I’d obviously left the phone somewhere in the apartment.I exited my bedroom and headed down the hallway as I began tracking the noise, quickly realizing that it had to be coming from the kitchen. I’d obviously left it on the counter by accident when I made myself a cup of coffee half an hour ago.I froze as I neared the room, my blood running cold as Marcos rounded the corner at the very end of the hallway. The bottom fell out of my stomach. His eyes were hard, and his face was uber serious—there was no smirking, no sleazy eye-fuck.My scalp tingled with unease. Marcos might merely be my father’s minion, but he was a dangerous minion. The kind no woman wanted to be alone with. The kind who could hurt others and think nothing of it.Jorge had obviously sent him. That was what worried me most. If he wanted to send another ‘message’ to Danton and felt that a little violence was necessary, my being his daughter wouldn’t stop him. And if he’d given Marcos free range to do whatever he wanted to get across said message, this could get really, really bad.My pulse kicking up, I thought of making a mad dash for the kitchen to grab my phone. I was close enough to the room to make it there before he reached me. But he’d pursue me, and he was fast. It was highly unlikely that I’d be successful at calling someone before Marcos got a grip on me.“Hello, Cat,” he said, his voice dead, still no taunting grin or eye-fuck. That really worried me, because it showed he meant business.I took a deliberately steady breath, intent on keeping my breathing under control, refusing to succumb to dread or panic. “You shouldn’t be here.”My phone began to chime once more, and my gaze reflexively darted to the kitchen.He shot me a look of warning. “Nu-uh, we won’t be answering that.”I clamped my lips shut, hoping to heaven and hell that it was Danton calling. He’d worry that something was wrong when I didn’t answer. He’d surely send Duke to check on me. Having witnessed my guard beat the shit out of Cory, I had the distinct feeling that he could take down Marcos with minimal effort.I had no clue how Marcos had managed to escape Duke’s radar. My guard was highly vigilant. But then, Marcos wasn’t a stranger to bypassing any sort of security—human or technical.He tipped his chin in the direction of the front door. “We need to go.”Uh, no, we didn’t. But I supposed that this scenario was better than him being here merely to beat the piss out of me. Providing he didn’t beat the piss out of me for refusing to leave with him. Because I absolutely was not going anywhere. “I take it my father sent you.”“He’s waiting in the car outside. Now let’s get moving.”I remained perfectly still, keeping my expression neutral and my breathing even.He took a step toward me with a low growl. My fast-fluttering pulse leapt. It took everything I had not to draw back. That would be a show of weakness.“Do not dick around, Cat. I don’t have the patience for it. You’ve pissed me off enough as it is. You don’t want to make it worse.”Say what now? What could I have done to get him all riled up? I didn’t ask, because I had the strong feeling that offloading it on me would darken his mood even further.“How did you get into the complex?” I instead asked. This wasn’t a building where a resident would hold open the door for anyone lingering outside. You got in only if you had a key or a resident buzzed you in.He gave a weak shrug. “There are always guards who’ll grant someone admittance if given the right incentive.”So he’d somehow gotten to one of the guys in the security office downstairs, then. “Did you pay him or threaten him?”“A little of both. Now let’s. Fucking. Go.”My phone again began to ring. Please be Danton. Please be Danton.“You want to talk more, we’ll do it on our way to the car,” Marcos added. “Move.”Even as cold fingertips scuttled down my spine, I didn’t obey.He gave me a dark look, his gaze gleaming with malice. “Don’t make this hard.”My gut tightened as he took another step toward me. “I get that you’re only following orders, Marcos,” I began, proud that my voice didn’t shake, “but you really should just leave. You don’t want to make an enemy of Danton.”Marcos’ eyes blazed fire, and his upper lip quivered. “He had no right to claim you. You were promised to me years ago, when you were fifteen.”I froze. Wait, what?“Jorge said I could officially have you when you turned eighteen—he’d want no one else as a son-in-law, he said.”Son-in-law? Was he freaking serious?“But when you reached that age, he moved the marker; told me I’d have to wait until you were twenty. Then it was twenty-one. After that, all I kept hearing was ‘soon.’ He dangled that future in front of me like a fucking carrot, ensuring my obedience just as he uses Teresa to ensure yours. If I take you to Jorge now, I finally get that carrot.”I felt my fingers twitch. I wished I could say that Jorge had played him; that he’d never intended to give me to Marcos like I was a fucking bike or something. But I knew my father well. Knew that, yes, he’d have handed me over in such a way without a qualm.More, he’d have threatened to take out any objections I made on my mother in order to keep me compliant, never considering that I might have declared, “Enough was enough” and pointblank refused to cooperate. And Julian hadn’t even warnedme of Jorge’s plans to gift me to Marcos.Honest to Christ, the men I’d grown up around were the biggest assholes ever.“I never consented to walking down an aisle with you at any point.” I never would have. Not in a million years, no matter what Jorge threatened me with.Marcos raised a brow. “Since when has your consent mattered to your father?”“It clearly doesn’t matter to you either. I’m not an object to be taken irrespective of what I want, but I wouldn’t expect that to resonate with you. No, you’re too much like Jorge. Women are things to you. Second rate citizens. Which is why I don’t buy that you give much of a shit if you have me or not.“It isn’t really about me. It’s about marrying into the family to secure yourself a solid place in the hierarchy. Then if anything happened to Julian, you’d become heir.”“That’s what it’s mostly about, yes,” said Marcos with an easy, remorseless shrug.Fucking power games. I lifted my chin. “I don’t care what promises Jorge made you, I’ll never marry you.”“Only because Quintero’s on the scene. Before him, you wouldn’t have objected. Not when you knew that I’d stop Jorge from using you.”Oh, how wrong the sack of shit was.“Well, Quintero took what doesn’t belong to him, and now I’m taking it back. I would have come for you sooner, but Jorge refused to make any move that would set Quintero off—even the Cory business didn’t make him act. Fucker wasn’t supposed to pull a gun on you.”I stilled as a thought floated into my mind. Feeling my eyes narrow in suspicion, I accused, “You sent Cory.”Marcos’s shoulders stiffened. “That was Julian.”I shook my head, a feeling of certainty building in the pit of my stomach. “No. No, you were behind it. Why?”Marcos only stared at me, his mouth twisting.The pieces fell together in my head. “You wanted to stir shit between Danton and Jorge. You knew they’d each suspect the other of setting the Cory incident up. You thought they’d come to blows. That would have paid my father back for the carrot dangling and been a strike at Danton for claiming me.”“I told you, it was Julian.”Again, I shook my head. Harder this time. “No, it was you. I guess you didn’t mind Cory being a little rough with me because, in your eyes, I deserved a good scare for rejecting you all these years.”His jaw went tight. “You did it time and time again, always looking down your nose at me. Yeah, I know you think you’re better than me.”Actually, I knew I was better than him.He gave me a cruel smirk. “You’ll learn your place, princess. You’ll do whatever the fuck I want you to do. Starting with leaving this apartment now. Your father’s waiting, and you know he doesn’t like to be made to wait.”Like I gave a measly fuck what the old bastard did or didn’t like. “In my opinion, you two—” I cut off as Duke swiftly rounded the corner behind Marcos and took him down in a freaking flash of movement that made my heart slam in my chest.The two males struggled on the floor, the sounds of grunts and thuds of flesh hitting flesh filling the air. I thought of stepping in to help somehow, but it took no time at all for Marcos to be overpowered. A breath gusted out of my lungs as relief felled me.Towering over Marcos’ bleeding, groaning form much as he had Cory’s, Duke looked at me. “Danton’s on his way. You all right?”I nodded, swallowing hard.Duke’s gaze returned to the male at his feet. “Little bastard must have got past me when I was checking out the delivery truck that pulled up.”“Jorge is in a car somewhere outside,” I told him.“I know,” said Duke, fishing his phone out of his back pocket. “When Danton got word to me that you weren’t answering his calls, I came up to check on you. Vicente called me when I was in the elevator; he’d spotted Jorge and saw that the driver’s seat of his car was empty.” Swiping his thumb over the screen of his cell, Duke added, “I figured that whoever brought him here might have gotten to you already, but I didn’t want to rush right in here in case he had a gun trained on you.”Wow. That was probably the most I’d ever heard Duke say in one go.Duke put his phone to his ear. “She’s fine … Marcos … Wanted to take her to Jorge … Asshole’s outside; some of the boys are watching him.”It occurred to me that he was likely speaking with Danton and that I should have called him myself. To be fair, Duke hadn’t given me the chance. He’d whipped out his phone mere moments after subduing dear little Marcos.“Yeah, will do,” Duke continued. “Oh, he ain’t going nowhere.” He rang off, his gaze sliding to me. “Danton’s almost here. Should only be a couple of minutes.”Rolling onto his side, Marcos snarled up at him. “Motherfucker, I will—” A pained breath whooshed out of him as Duke dealt his ribs one hell of a vicious kick.“Not interested in listening to your shit,” Duke told him before putting his phone to his ear once more.I stayed where I was as Duke made a call to someone who seemed to be keeping an eye on Jorge. I watched Marcos, not trusting that he wouldn’t leap up and attack my guard. Which he did at one point attempt to do. I didn’t even need to shout out a warning. Duke once more put him on his back fast.Breathing hard, Marcos slammed his eyes on me. He didn’t speak. Just glared at me like if he did it hard enough it might actually hurt me.I tilted my head. “Do Jorge and Julian know what you did? That you sent Cory?”A muscle in Marcos’ cheek flexed. “They worked it out quickly enough. I got a beating from your father for acting without orders, if it makes you feel any better.”“I can’t say that it does.”“It doesn’t placate me much either,” said a new voice as its owner rounded the corner of the hallway with Vicente at his back. Yet again, relief surged through me—this time with such speed I was surprised that I didn’t go dizzy with it.Danton looked calm and supremely composed, but there was no missing the menacing glitter in his dark gaze. Said gaze gave me an intense head-to-toe scan, no doubt checking for injuries, before locking on Marcos.Panting, the shithead remained on his ass but propped his back up against the wall. The glare he leveled at Danton was black as night, but I didn’t miss the flash of nervousness there. “Jorge is gonna be pissed when he hears what your man here did to me.”“I don’t give a fuck about Jorge.” Danton’s voice was soft, low, and dripping with fury. “If I were you, I wouldn’t concern myself with him either. It’s you that you should be thinking about. Because I promise you, Marcos, you are going to suffer in ways you can’t imagine.”“I was following orders!”“Coming here for Cat was an order, yeah. But sending Cory after her? You did that off your own back.” Danton shook his head. “I always knew you were a dumb fuck, Marcos. It’s written all over you in bold fucking letters. But even I didn’t think you’d be thatstupid.”Marcos ground his teeth. “It was Julian who sent him.”“You just admitted to Cat that it was you, I heard you.”“I was bullshitting to piss her off. It wasn’t me.”Danton sighed. “You don’t have the balls to own what you did, do you? No balls. No brain. And after I’m done with you, no fucking teeth.”Even as his eyes flickered with fear, Marcos sneered. “You won’t touch me.”“My woman had a gun jammed against her temple because of you, so I wouldn’t be too sure of that.”“Like I said, it was Julian. And she ain’t yours, Quintero.”Danton’s brow hiked up. “Oh?”I cut in, “My father apparently promised me to Marcos. Jorge intended to follow through on his promise if that prick over there managed to take me to him.”His mouth setting into a cruel slash, Danton glared down at Marcos once more. “You thought to make her yours? You thought to claim what belongs to me? You’d have had to force her. I’m guessing that wouldn’t have bothered you much.”Marcos’ nostrils flared. “Jorge will never let you have her.”“He has no say in this. He doesn’t control what I do. He doesn’t control what Cat does—not anymore. I warned him of that once. Clearly it’s a warning I’ll need to repeat. As for you … You’ll pay for siccing that trigger-happy prick on her.”“I only meant for him to scare her! He wasn’t supposed to pull out his gun!”“He wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near her,” Danton countered, still seeming remarkably cool, which only made him more unnerving. “But he was, because of you. So you’ll answer for it, just as you’ll answer for coming here and trying to force her to leave with you.”“If you even tryto lay a hand on me, Jorge will—”“Do nothing,” Danton finished. “Because there’ll be nothing he can do. Not unless he wants to go to war with me. You really think he’ll do that over you?”Marcos snapped his mouth shut. Yeah, he knew as well as the rest of us did that my father would never go to such lengths for him. Hell, he probably wouldn’t even do it for Julian.“Take him,” said Danton.Both Duke and Vicente advanced on Marcos, who tried fighting them off but his efforts were as weak as they were fruitless.“We okay to soften him up for you?” asked Duke.Danton gave an uncaring shrug. “Knock yourselves out.”Once Marcos had been dragged out of the apartment, Danton turned to me, his face softening. “Come here, baby.”I walked straight into his arms and melted into him, a shaky breath stuttering out of me.He held me tight, nuzzling my hair. “You’re all right.” He stroked a hand over my hair. “I haven’t felt anything close to panic in a long time. But it hit me hard when you didn’t answer your phone.”“I couldn’t answer. Marcos was already here.” Tipping my head back, I bit my lip. “Jorge won’t war with you over Marcos, but he won’t want to let it rest that you retaliated.”“There’ll be jack shit Jorge can do to stop it from happening—other than take a beating on Marcos’ behalf. Blood is owed. Someone needs to pay it. That’s how it works. Not even Jorge can argue with that.”True. And there wasn’t a chance in hell that he’d bleed for Marcos. He cared for only one person—himself. And, sadly, my brother wasn’t much better. “They knew. My father and Julian. They knew that Marcos hired Cory.”Danton’s eyes flared. “Yeah, I got that from what Marcos said.”“The only part of it that bothered them was that he acted without permission. That’s seriously all they cared about.” If I hadn’t already decided that I was quite simply done with them, that would have triggered me to make that decision. “They’re not family to me. Never really were. I don’t want to see either of them again.”“Then you won’t,” Danton said simply. “I’ll make sure of it.”“You can’t completely guarantee it. Well, you can for as long as we’re together, because they’re unlikely to press your buttons. But they’ll resume being a pain in my ass if you and me ever break up.”“We won’t, so you don’t have to worry about them.”I slanted my head. “We won’t?”“No.”It was only a one-word response, but he said it with such confidence and finality that it gave me more reassurance than any pledge of love or loyalty might have done. “Careful, Danton, or I’ll start to wonder if you like me.”A smile warming his eyes, he shrugged. “What’s not to like?”I outright grinned at that. “Good point. Just so you know, I like you too.”“I got that impression.”Letting out a contented sigh, I hugged him tight. “Thank you for being here when I needed you.”He caught my face in his hands. “There’ll never be a time when I won’t, Cat. I promise you that.”