Page 48 of Born Sinner
I laugh to myself.Who knew that phrase could be used twice in one lifetime?
She nods, her pale cheeks stained red from the biting wind. “A few of us are going out tonight. You should come. We can celebrate your birthday.”
“I’m not allowed to go to bars.”
“This is college, not high school!” She laughs. “You’re free to have fun, Daniela. Our parents have no control over us here.”
Maybe for her.Her white-picket-fenced suburban life doesn’t know a damn thing about control. About the dangers of bearing a name the world condemns as evil.
I grit my teeth as a looming shadow darts behind a lecture hall building.
Freeis a four-letter word where I come from, nothing more. Especially now that I have twice the security. Luckily, RJ is family, otherwise Santi would’ve wasted no time in slitting his throat for failing to protect me from what he perceived as Dante Santiago’s wrath.
NowMiguel the Destroyerhas become my three-hundred-pound shadow, stepping where I step, breathing where I breathe. At any given time, he and at least three other men hover about, boxing me inside an invisible shield. One wrong move or misguided touch and the snow blanketing this campus will run red.
I shrug. “Maybe some other time.”
There won’t be a next time, and she knows it. Thankfully, she doesn’t voice the questions pooling in her bright green eyes. “You’re a mysterious girl, Daniela Torres,” she mutters, walking away.
Daniela Torres.
It’s the name my father assigned me before allowing me to return to the States with my entourage in tow. It took twenty-four long weeks of solitude and repentance to earn my way back into his favor. Mercifully, after six months of atoning for my sins in Mexico,mamábecame my champion—the calm voice of reason in a chaotic war.
“Give her a second chance,”she crooned intopapá’sear.“She’s a free spirit, Val. A hummingbird thrives on perpetual motion. Clip its wings, and it dies.”
Mamáalways had a way of bendingpapá’siron-will.
Begrudgingly, he conceded, enrolling Daniela Torres at a Newport, Rhode Island school where the biggest danger came from crossing the street.
I allow a secret smile to tug at my lips. I care nothing about this school. However, its location calls to my soul.
Because it’s ours.
Making my way back to my heavily guarded apartment, I slip my key in the door as four shadows close in behind me. “Buenas noches,” I say in a sing-songy voice, bidding Miguel and his men goodnight with a private smirk.
Once I close the door, the air inside the darkened room changes. Turning the lock, I let my backpack slide off my arm while slowly drowning in the charged electricity of his presence.
“Did you miss me?” I whisper.
My answer is a firm grip around the back of my neck as I’m slammed against the wall, my pulse thumping a furious beat under his rough fingers. Sam doesn’t greet me with a kiss or a soft caress. His greedy hands tear at my leggings until they’re nothing but ribbons of confetti littering the floor.
“Catch me, and I’m yours forever,”he growls, reciting the words from my note through clenched teeth. “Well, I’ve caught you,dulzura. There’s no escape from me now.”
The heat of his warning skates down my neck.
“What if I run?” I ask, biting my lip.
“I’ll catch you again.”
“What if I scream?”
His hand slides up my throat, gripping my chin and twisting it until it brushes his unshaven cheek. “I’ll steal it from your lips.”
“And if I fight?”
“I’ll come twice as hard.”
He seals his promise with a graze of his teeth against my jaw while thrusting a finger deep inside me. I moan at his rough possession.This is the game we play.Intruder and victim. The same act that started our torrid affair now feeds our addiction.
