Page 4 of Outcast

"This is bullshit.” She pushed me away from her. “When are you going to stop treating me like some gutter whore you're too ashamed to take home to Daddy?" She spewed her words like venom.

"It's not like that, and you know it." I tried to pull her against me, but she stepped out of my reach.

"You need to grow a pair, Matías. All you're doing is letting your father walk all over you. You're going to run the Institution one day. Act like it."

I laughed at her retreating back as she headed toward the front of the club. She'd take me back, because she wouldn't make me call one of my men here to get me. But she had no idea what she was talking about.

Tomorrow, she'd text me like tonight never ended the way it did.

The drive back was silent. She stewed in her hurt feelings, and there wasn't a thing I could think of to say to erase all the obstacles between us.

Pulling up to the edge of town, she idled the car.

"Are you going to tell him about us?" She laid her handson her thighs and glared out the windshield. This girl and her skewed perception of our world.

Javier was a good father, he loved her. Truly loved her, and he taught her about his businesses, but sometimes, he gave her a false sense of the world.

It broke me to shatter it.

I sighed. "I can't."

"I don't fucking understand you!" she yelled. Her head whipped my way, and the red light from her dash reflected in her eyes and highlighted the angles of her face. Rita was gorgeous, hard stop, but when fire reflected in her eyes, she was a force to be reckoned with…and worshiped.

Her mouth set into an angry line and she glowered with so much resentment, I almost shrunk back in my seat.

But I was taught better than that. So I didn't show any reaction at all.

That made her furious.

"I'm Javier's daughter. I'm as much gang royalty as you are. Why the hell do you think he'd care if we're fucking?"

The Institution wasn’t a gang, but I kept that to myself.

Her words stung. We were doing more than fucking. But I wouldn't admit that.

She wouldn't either. Not when I didn't make it safe for her to do so.

"Just get the fuck out of my car. You fucking asshole. Just leave." She pointed at my door, and as much as I hated to leave her this way, I got out.

I couldn't chance her idling here and someone seeing her. The disappointment leaking from her cut at my back. I’d never fucking felt so tired or defeated. What the hell was I doing with her anyway?

This was too dangerous for her, and if she got hurt, it would rip me to shreds.

The walkto Father’s mansion was quick, and I had a light sweat coating my skin as I passed through the front doors.

Whatever shit he was up to, he was doing it quietly. The sounds of the festival completely mute inside the sound-proofed walls.

Moving through the rooms, I cleared each one and my heart beat harder and harder.

Where the fuck was he? There were no dead bodies, no rape. Nothing to show he was going off the rails.

Then I made it to the Gallery.

He sat in his chair on the platform at the far end of the room, leaning back like a king as he sipped amber liquor from a crystal glass.

His favorite concubine, Pilar, and a new favorite, danced naked in front of him. They didn't speak and there was no music. They just writhed together in a sensual dance that was meant to entice.

Vicente Castillo liked the finer things in life, and as much debauchery as he craved, sometimes he only wanted to see the beauty. The art.

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