Page 58 of Falling for the Enemy

Already enraged, I grow even more irate each timeManzana’ssultry voice echoes through my splintering mind, the words she spoke repeating on an endless, taunting loop.

If she were here, I’d spank her ass.

Unfortunately for me, I don’t have the slightest damned clue where she and my stolen jet ski are. Feeling what remains of the cord binding my temper dissipate, I pick up one of the yacht’s many lounge chairs and sling it against the far wall with a furious bellow, the animalistic sound carrying on the Atlantic’s waves.

“¡Mierda!Howthe fuckdid this happen?”

Blood pressure climbing dangerously high, my heart is close to exploding as the furniture splinters, sending shards of wood flying. Stained shrapnel nicks my lieutenants, who wait close by, piercing their skin.

Christian doesn’t dare flinch.

Neither does a maimed Benito.

Aware of the madness that shrouds my control, suppressing it into submission, they know better than to move a single muscle unless commanded to do so.

Both are skating on razor-thin ice.

One because he dared to touch what belongs to me, an agony-riddled mistake he won’t make twice; the other because he letManzanaescape by not paying close enough attention. Only if they’re lucky will they live to glimpse the rise of the morning sun.

With each passing second, their chances lessen.

“Howestúpidocan you two—”

The vinyl that hangs from my wrists catches my gaze as my rage places my voice in a chokehold. Continuing to seethe, I run a hand through my hair in frustration.

A tattered strip is all that remains of the zip ties Arianna used to restrain me, leaving my hard cock and me in a precarious situation that she’ll be made to pay for.

A dozen times over.

“I made a mistake by letting her slip past me,Jefe, but I’ll get her back for you.” Knowing his fate teeters on the precipice of life and a painful death, Christian speaks up, his words a last-ditch attempt to save himself. “Once we return to shore, I’ll head out and find her myself—”

He falls silent when the nondescript burner phone I pull from my pocket beeps, the error message that flashes across its screen further stoking my fiery rage.

A 2-D map view of Charleston stares back at me, the blinking light I should be seeing nowhere to be found. Panic careens through me, sending my gut diving headfirst into the deepest recesses of the Mariana Trench.

“If something happened to her over the open water, I’ll slit the throat of everyhijo de putaon this boat after ripping their intestines from their stomach. The kiss of my knife will be the last touch they ever—”

Blink, blink, blink.

I inhale, the quick hit of oxygen doing little to calm the burn in my lungs as the chip I embedded between Ari’s shoulder blades finally connects with a satellite, providing me with her location.

With my cock buried deep inside her and my teeth gripping her delicate throat, visibly branding her as mine, she’d been too drunk with pleasure and mounting need to feel the needle slip just below her skin, tagging her.

Just as I intended.

Along with making it impossible for her to escape me long-term, the tracker is key in ensuring she remains safe, a task I don’t trust her men—or mine—with.

Only myself.

Once she finds out what I’ve done, she’ll undoubtedly come for my head, but I have precisely zero fucks to give. I’ll welcome her wrath with open arms.

Her continued well-being is all that matters.

“Ari made it to the mansion,” I mumble, speaking more to myself than either of my men, the noose-like hold my temper has on my capricious mood abating. I grin, the uptick of my lips nothing less than dark and twisted. “She may think she can hide from me behind her gate and the army of Kings she commands, but her little ass is wrong.” I lick my lower lip, excitement beginning to flow through my veins. “It’s time I show her just how badly she underestimated me.”

On cue, Luis arrives with the small speed boat we use as transport between the harbor and where we’re anchored, the smell of smoke and extinguished flames carrying on the salt-laden breeze.

The time for retribution has arrived.

---