Page 3 of Cruel Crown

“Cual puta?”Which whore?I played dumb.

There was Daphne, and then there was the captive girl. Not that she was a whore, but at this point, semantics didn’t matter. Robinson crouched and put one of his knees on my chest, making it hard to breathe. He leaned in, and I shivered the moment the tip of the blade touched my neck.

This was it. I was about to die, wasn’t I? I refused to let myself think about her betrayal, but fuck, knowing that my time to meet the ripper had come, it made it hard to avoid. It fucking hurt what she did to me. It was a strange feeling that I thought I was never going to experience.

The blade passed my neck slowly, close enough to pierce my skin.

“Fuck,” I screamed when he got the hook in. The curved blade sunk into the delicate flesh.

This was it.

I was going to fucking die.

“Please, baby, please don’t look.”My mother’s screams would follow me to the afterlife.

Through my darkest times, there’s been revenge, and then, there’s been you.

Then I opened my eyes, but I didn’t see Robinson, nor the man he was with. I saw wolf eyes staring back at me. Gray, bright—cold, and I was going to die with hate in my veins, regretting the time I spent with her, regretting that she ever made me feel like I was alive and breathing for the first time in years.

Daphne

Being fifty thousand feet above in the air really put things in perspective for me. The way the jungle seemed so small like I could comb it with my fingertips if I reached out. My hand touched the windowpane, my fingers tracing the outline of the trees. The jungle seemed to go on for miles. I closed my eyes, and I felt them drop something warm—tears.

My hand slowly came up to my cheeks, and I wiped one away, bringing the liquid up so I could see that I indeed had the capacity to cry. Then I brought my finger to my lips where I could still feel the cut, another little reminder that would cause me discomfort every time I spoke.

Monsters didn’t have hearts because they set you back. When you had a heart, it was hard to rip someone else’s heart out of their chest. I looked at my hands, and although I couldn’t see the blood that stained them, I could feel the weight on them. Years and years of blood on my hands, and not once had a life meant so much to me.

Not able to stand this silence, I got up and made my way to the back to the jet’s master bedroom. The Sekt had its own private jet for higher members to use at their pleasure. Usually, I preferred to charter my own jets so that Damian wouldn’t exactly know where I was going.

This time Damian wanted the same thing since he’d chartered his own ride and left the jet for Bas and me to use. I opened the back door and watched the broken girl sleep. She would wake up soon, and I knew she would beg me to kill her. The shame would be too much, and she would rather quit living than have to take another breath with the demons they put upon her.

It was the same all the time. I had seen it time and time again. Sometimes I wondered if I had been older when my father sold me, would I have turned out the same? Had I been older, would I have killed myself at the first opportunity?

Shaking my head, I walked to the bathroom. When I turned the light on, I looked at myself in the mirror. My hair was a knotted mess. Sex and running through the jungle would do that to a girl. There were streaks of blood and dirt on my cheek. I held on to the small sink for support before I bent my head and cleaned my face. Things had gone exactly to plan, yet I didn’t feel victorious.

I was in my mid-twenties, but sometimes it felt like I had already lived a thousand lives. I didn’t know why people craved immortality when one life was more than enough. The amount of effort it took to stay three steps ahead of everyone was starting to take its toll on me. It was exhausting, but what choice did I have?

Slowly I opened the door and checked on the girl. She was still sleeping, probably long enough for me to shower. More often than not, Bas used more than enough sedatives to put down a horse, and I was sure it was the case for her.

Closing the door again, I got rid of my clothes and took a shower. Under the warm spray, I thought back on everything that had happened in the last week.

Damian and I had agreed that for the Colombians to trust us, they had to be pushed into our corner, and therefore, be forced into taking our hand. That’s where Bas came in. Damian left him a car with night goggles, cash, and coordinates into the enemy’s camp. That’s why he had to go earlier and convince them to attack. Not that it would have been hard with the cash and the promise of keeping the cocaine.

That paramilitary group got to go against their enemies and steal from them. At the same time, the Sekt helped Sergio with retaliation, thus further earning their trust.

Unknown to Damian, while Bas did what we had agreed upon, I was going to double-cross everyone and get the princess home. Stealing her myself had not been the original plan, but once in the jungle, I knew they had no intention of negotiating her freedom. She would be sold or wind up dead as a sign of strength and power.

Damian didn’t give a shit about her nor the Estacados; he didn’t care if she lived or died. With all the chaos, no one would think I took her. I made sure that people saw me going into my tent early and had told them what day I was set to leave beforehand. No one saw me sneaking into Gideon’s tent. By the time I slipped out, everyone was too busy trying to save themselves; they didn’t pay enough attention to see me coming out.

The first one I clocked was Robinson, Sergio’s right-hand man. I ran to him, and luck was on my side because when I was almost by him, someone started shooting at us with an Uzi. I threw him to the side, my body hitting the ground next to his.

He gave me a tense nod; that was all the thanks I would get because I had a pussy and not a dick. Whatever, that was his mistake to make and not mine. When we got up, I stayed back and mostly took cover and not because I was a woman.

I was Sekten, and therefore my life was precious. As I ran, trying not to get hit by a stray bullet, I saw the Rivera boy and his sidekick getting in a jeep and taking off. His father would wage war with Colombia if something happened to him. He was the heir to a throne of lies.

Shortly after, two soldiers offered me a ride, which I was more than happy to accept. As soon as we were away from prying eyes, I shot them. Jumping out of a moving car was a bitch, but time was running out.

When the car crashed, I knew it would cause attention, so I ran toward it and shot at the gas tank, making sure it exploded—the less evidence they found, the better.