Page 28 of Into The Darkness

He ran most of the business in the States and would be considered part of their hierarchy, but he was pretty fucking high up there and answered to mainly just himself.

My mother died during childbirth because she had suffered a gunshot wound. They had to urgently remove me, and, in the process, she lost too much blood. She stayed stable enough until she got to the hospital where they said she begged the doctors to take me out immediately. If they hadn’t listened to her, we both would have been dead.

When it was finally time for me to go to college, there was no other option except Isles.

I’d been bred for this, so I didn’t know other options existed until Rain came into my life when we were kids. I didn’t know there could be anything other than taking over for my dad. So, I came here two years ago as a business major because as soon as I was done with my responsibilities here at Isles, I would head to the cartel to take over for my father.

Most of the guys in the Den would follow me because that was what Isles was created for. Hosting the elite of the underground world, it acted as the training grounds for kids destined to fucking kill each other after graduation. Additionally, it was the sole location deemed neutral territory. No one could fuck with anyone if you were in Isles.

I headed to the connecting bathroom to throw some cold water on my face.

I’d hoped that I could just skip class and stay in bed. Sometimes I got in these moods where it felt like the entire world was against me and it was hard to compete with my own emotions because they were so consuming. I’d felt like this since I was a kid, but my father only told me that the harder I worked, the easier it would be for me to snap out of it.

It wasn’t until I met Ember that I really felt . . . something—a warmth so fucking terrifying after living my life stuck in a bitter icy void. But fuck, I knew what Ember’s family had done and why my dad was targeting them, entangling me into a web of deceit.

My dad was still out for revenge for his wife, Rain’s dad, and his business, but I couldn’t help but wonder what a young child had to do with it and why Ember was the target.

I knew what my job was, but when I saw what they did to Ember at the party, that was where I drew the line. No one should be so innocent in something and then branded. She was so naïve, and when I realized she had no clue what the rivalry between us was about, I knew I fucked up. She wasn’t some bloodthirsty person waiting for her revenge.

“We got her, Ortiz,” Pico said as soon as she fell to the crowded dance floor. She had been swaying, an indication that she was intoxicated, but I quickly pulled out of the girl I was dicking-down, and threw on some boxers before I ran over to her.

Pico grabbed her before anyone could notice and took her to the basement. No one was allowed in the basement unless they were a member. It was blasted by some facial recognition software some computer engineering fucker installed a few years ago.

When I finally caught up to Pico and the three other guys, including Rain, they had laid her on top of the tattoo chair.

“Stop,” I commanded. The room silenced, and only the buzzing of the machine was heard. “Rain, don’t you fucking do that.” I glared at him as he held the machine in his hands.

“It’s above your head, Ortiz. Comes from your pops,” Pico reminded me. I had been clear I hated what we were doing with the Solis girl. She didn’t deserve it. She was a fucking child, and I hated that she was a pawn in all this.

I knew this was coming, though. I knew she was coming to Isles. I knew what everyone in this goddamned fraternity expected me to do.

“I am the fucking president, and while we are here, on campus, I rule over my dad,” I reiterated the rules to them. We were the sons of rich motherfuckers who wanted to kill, so we all were destined to the same future, but long ago, there were rules put in place. When in Isles, the fraternity ruled, not the cartel. This was our training ground.

“Yeah, but the mission always comes first,” Rain reminded me. He hated this shit even more than I did. He wanted to write fluffy books like me and listen to crime podcasts more than he wanted to be here. When he first came, he was literally kicking and screaming to leave. We had grown up together, always next-door neighbors, and Rain’s dad was my pop’s right-hand man before he passed away. He moved in with us when Rain’s mom started dating my dad. It was fucking messy, but then we were more than friends, we ended up brothers.

“Don’t put a D,” I demanded, then looked around at the other men in the room. Fucking hell, they weren’t men, they were just boys playing the role of men without knowing the real definition of being a man. Because a real man would never drug a woman, drag her to a basement, and mark her permanently for a fucking grudge.

“We need to mark her.”

“I fucking understand that.” I shoved my hands in my hair, pushing my curls off my face.

“Think, Ash,” I muttered to myself in a frantic bid to unearth a better solution. Branding her with a D would condemn her to a lifetime commitment to this fraternity’s reckless choice. She deserved better than that, her innocence and kindness contrasting starkly with an intriguing inner complexity. Beneath her gentle facade, simmered a restless spirit, a desire to tread the edges of the unknown. She had proven over the few times I had run into her that she wanted to play in the shadows; she just didn’t know they existed yet.

“An O,” I blurt out. An O for Ortiz would both condemn her to a mark to appease the Den and the members here, but it would also make her mine. And nobody knew she had been mine the moment I laid eyes on her.

Rain shot me a look. “Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent. Do it,” I demanded, then he got to work, marking her with a little O.

“Ella es mía,” I said before looking at everyone to make sure they understood what I meant. “Do we fucking understand?”

“Yes, Boss.” Pico and the other two next to him nodded.

“While we are at Isles, I am your fucking boss. You will all listen to me and only me. If my father calls, then that needs to be redirected to me. Because at Isles, I am the motherfucking boss.” I glared at each of them. “Not a single one of you will ever go behind my back, because if you don’t make it in here with me when we graduate, you certainly aren’t going to be a part of my team out there.”

They nodded, and a bubble of pride lurched in my chest. I was good at keeping my team tight and together. I was good at business. I was good at being a leader. It was what my dad had molded me to become, after all.

“You want us to dump her with the friends again?” Pico asked. I looked over at Rain who was putting some second skin on the tattoo.

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