Page 2 of Scarred Queen

“A little slower,help,” she muttered as she stumbled to keep up with him, her heels sliding on the marble tiles. His hand tightened on her arm until she flinched. He was going to leave bruises. The man must have a death wish. One word to Ignacio and he’d be toast. She sighed and tried to shrug him off. Too bad she was a better person thanthat.

He practically flung her down a flight of stairs toward her regular bodyguard, Alonzo, who took a quick step back before he accidentally touched her. He took one look at the hold her temporary bodyguard had on her and stepped threateningly toward the pair. Casey dropped her eyes and turned her head away, not wanting to watch the display of masculine posturing in her ownfoyer.

Alonzo sent the man a sinister glare and snarled, “Hands off the woman!” He poked a finger in the guy’s chest, then swiftly grabbed a finger from the hand that held Casey’s arm in a brutal hold. Alonzo snapped it so hard that she went stumbling into the wall as soon as she was released. She heard a sharp crack and a pained gasp. She suppressed the sound that threatened to escape her throat and sent her mind to a better place. This wasn’t the first time she’d seen or heard something awful happen in front of her and it wouldn’t be the last. “Never fucking touch the woman.Understand?”

“Yeah, man!” the guy panted, doing everything he could not to drop to his knees in front of the bigger, angrierbodyguard.

“Alonzo,” shemumbled.

“What?” he grunted not bothering to look ather.

“I… I fell on the stairs and he helped me. That’s the only reason he touched me. Please d-don’t tell Ignacio,” she whispered, keeping her eyes averted from the brutal tableau. She edged along the wall toward Ignacio’s study. Though he was the master of these horrible men, he usually kept some semblance of calm around her. Kept the savages at bay. Sometimes, like now, they got out of hand when they were allowed off their leashes. Though if he found out one of them touched her… the consequences would be so much worse. She shuddered in memory of the last time one of them touchedher.

“This true?” Alonzo demanded of the man whose hand he was ruthlesslycrushing.

She could feel the guy’s gaze on her, but she refused to look at him. She’d done what she could. She didn’t like him, didn’t really want to help him. But she also didn’t think a few bruises was worth the brutality Alonzo was delivering now, or the punishment she knew he might deliver later if she didn’t diffuse the situation. Her bodyguard was extremely efficient at following through on the boss’orders.

“Yeah man,” the guy wheezed. “I was just helping ‘er. Never touch ‘er again. Promise,man.”

She straightened against the wall, shook her hair back and forced herself to meet the scene head on. She met Alonzo’s gaze with an icy look meant to convey her boredom and disdain. She knew her regular bodyguard understood her better than anyone in the mansion, including her own husband, but acting was all she had to fall back on. She knew it. He knew it. And there were cameraseverywhere.

“Can we deal with this later, Alonzo?” she demanded, sending an annoyed glare toward Ignacio’s office. “I have things to dotoday.”

Alonzo stared back at her for a moment, their eyes clashing in a shared moment of understanding. Alonzo let the man that had dared touch the mistress of the household sweat for a further thirty seconds before releasing him with a shove that sent him sprawling across the marble foyer. Casey held her ground, continuing to watch the scene with cool indifference, though she wanted to turn away indisgust.

“If Mrs. Hernandez says you were only helping her,” Alonzo drawled, “then you were only helping her.” He tilted his head to the side, his dark eyes taking on the dead look she’d unfortunately seen so many times before. Casey dropped her eyes, hoping she wouldn’t have to witness an execution. Fuck, she already had enough trouble sleeping at night. Alonzo pointed a thick finger at the guy, his gold ring, a gift from Ignacio for his years of service, glinting in the light. “Touch her again though, and youdie.”

Casey shuddered and turned away, satisfied that they were finished. She strode toward the study door and waited for Alonzo to open it for her. He joined her and reached past her, his hand brushing the bruises of her arms ever-so-slightly. She stepped quickly to the side and glanced swiftly under her lashes at the man that had stood next to her side for the better part of a decade. She didn’t understand him. Sometimes she thought he hated her guts and sometimes… she didn’t think he hated her atall.

Alonzo knocked and waited for Ignacio’s summons before ushering her inside. Casey entered the large, opulent room and took a seat across from the husband she hadn’t seen in a week, not even in passing. Partially because she avoided him like he had herpes, rabies and bird flu all rolled into one. Plus, their schedules differed significantly and Casey lived reclusively, choosing to take most of her meals in her room. Unfortunately, Ignacio would insist on these meetings where she would have no choice but to see him. He was currently on the phone so she waited patiently for him to finish, crossing her legs and folding her hands over herknees.

She allowed her gaze to trail over the expensive, masculine furnishings that outfitted his office, declaring him mafia royalty among those men lucky enough to enter into his exalted presence. She knew better than to let him see the hatred in her eyes as her gaze flowed over the items in loathing. She’d had no hand in the furnishings as a wife might. She cared little for the things he chose to surround himself with. He cared even less for the things she mightenjoy.

Ignacio ended his call and Casey felt the physical shift of his focus on her body like an actual touch, though she was the untouchable princess in his elite tower. Her gaze was locked on a statue that he kept on a pedestal a few feet from his desk. It was the horrific depiction of a cherub with a bow and arrow. Casey knew it must have been insanely expensive, but she didn’t understand what else it could possibly have going forit.

Ignacio brought his open palm down heavily on the desk, startling her attention back to him. It had taken years of practice, but her heart no longer sped up in trepidation at his cold, twisted visage. That face. The one that drifted along the edge of her nightmares without ever stopping to feature too closely. Mostly because she didn’t have enough respect left to be truly scared of him. Unlike that clown from IT. Nowhewas worthy of featuring in a nightmare ortwo.

Ignacio was twenty-three years older than Casey and she thought he looked every one of those years right now. Not from stress or worry, but from self-satisfied overindulgence. His dark, silver-threaded hair was filled in with surgical plugs and slicked back from his scalp in a sharp widow’s peak. His light grey suit was not well complimented by the awful wide-collared flower-patterned shirt he wore underneath. The entire ensemble would have cost as much as the gaudy desk she was forced to sit across from. She rather thought he should’ve at least looked in a mirror before leaving his bedroom. He tried so hard to look old-school mafia. She didn’t know how all of his associates didn’t just laugh in his face before turning a gun on him. God, how she hated the man with every fibre of herbeing.

His lips curved in a cool smile of welcome. As though he were happy to see her. Of course, the smile didn’t reach his eyes. It had never reached his eyes, not even in the early days of their marriage. “Casey, my dear. Thank you for coming on such shortnotice.”

She nodded her head, not returning the smile. “Of course,” she said quietly, her hand twitching involuntarily. She clasped her hands together, to stop the tremor before his eyes fell to her lap. As if she had a choice. If Ignacio demanded his wife meet with him then she made time for him, no matter what she was currentlydoing.

“What are your plans for the week?” hedemanded.

His cold eyes roved over her. His look was possessive, but not in a passionate, caring sense. No, he was picking her apart piece by piece. Checking her for faults or flaws. Making sure the merchandise wouldn’t embarrass him. She resisted the urge to shift in her seat, like a child under inspection. She knew exactly what he would see anyway; her appearance was flawless. She wouldn’t have it any other way. If he had no complaints then he wouldn’t have a reason to interviewher.

She also knew he didn’t actually care what her plans were for the week. He received a schedule of her calendar every Sunday and it never deviated. Lunch on Tuesdays, shopping on Fridays. She clung to the mansion with stubborn tenacity the rest of the time, like it was some kind of replacement family. She wouldn’t even bother with lunch or shopping except that it wasexpected.

She forced herself to meet his dark, empty gaze once more and said in a level voice, “I have lunch with Maya Steel, Elvira Montana and the rest on Tuesday and then shopping plans onFriday.”

“Huh,” he grunted, his eyesnarrowing.

What exactly did he want from her? Those were her exact plans. She never deviated from them. The only time her schedule changed was when Ignacio changed it up himself. Yet he looked at her as though he thought she might be lying to him. She tried to force her frozen brain to move, to think about what his motivations might be for this meeting. It wasn’t an easy task. She’d learned from her years with him that it was easiest… or best… to just turn her thoughts off and flow in and around his life with robotic ease. He paid less attention to her thatway.

Plus, the medications his doctor prescribed for her headaches helped her maintain this sense of fuzziness. They didn’t seem to help much with the pain though, and she’d tried to stop taking them when she was younger and feistier, which hadn’t gone over well with Ignacio. Now the meds were like an ally in her quest forinvisibility.

He placed his elbows on his black marble -topped desk and drew his chair in. Folding his fingers in a way that made the light glint off his rings and throw reminders of his position of privilege and power in all directions. Ignacio stared at her with a mixture of undisguised longing and hatred that could easily have equalled her own. That look almost rocked her back in her chair. He usually took pains to mask his every expression, which was probably how he’d managed to avoid a grisly death from his many enemies despite his rampant greed. Ignacio wasn’t completely stupid, much as she wished to imagineotherwise.

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