I move my eyes to his right, not putting any attention to the loaded gun. “El Ruso? I’m surprised you let anyone into your hidden fortress of evilness.” My father and now Joaquin value the secrecy of thishacienda. Seeing new blood here makes me more nervous than usual.
I spit at their feet, not bothering to offer the Russian my gaze. I do, and he’ll see the cracks in my armor. I’m calm on the outside, but the inside looks like a panic monster went to town on my guts. It’s all chaos, top to bottom.
Breathe, chica. Breathe and don’t pass out.
“Why should I care who your bedfellows are?”
Defiance draws my chin high and steel slips into my spine. I can’t let either of the men know my knees quiver under the force of their gazes.
The amber of his eyes darkens into charred coal. His lips peel back in a sinister smile, and my heart joins my stomach on the red Spanish tiles.
“You care,mija, because you belong to him now and you will be the one in his bed. Not me.”
My mouth hinges open. What? I’ve never met the guy face to face before now. My throat grows dry and for several valuable seconds, I can’t move. I can’t speak.
“No, Joaquin. We never discussed this,” my mother starts in a strangled plea. Knuckles meet flesh and she falls to the floor sobbing.
“Quiet, I didn’t speak to you.”
I pretend I don’t want to murder him with a dull knife as I watch tears slide down her cheeks. Both of us being dead won’t help my sister and that is the only thing keeping me from grabbing for the letter opener on the corner of his desk.
I watch as my mother silently pleads with me to fall in line and behave like a dutiful daughter. Guilt shimmers behind thick lashes, and I want to do her bidding. I do, but I am not this man’s daughter and I never fall in line with violent, immoral men.
ElRusoprowls across the room, all the while holding a smile on his lips that says he’s part animal. He smells of sex, tequila and stinky cigar smoke. Cold metal meets my skin when he traces the steel of his gun’s muzzle down the side of my cheek. “Your father says the Castel women are good breeders. What do you think, my soon-to-be wife? Will you be a good bitch and give me an heir?” Ws become Vs and the rest of the words are just as colored by his Russian accent.
Heir? Be the bearer of this deranged man’s bloodline. These two have to be out of their minds.
My heart pounds so fast I have a hard time keeping my voice steady. “Step-father,” I correct. Using two fingers on the cool steel, I push the barrel of the gun away from my temple. “And you better kill me now because the second you force me into a lifetime with you, I won’t stop trying to do the same to you.”
His throaty laugh is bitter and jagged. Like he’s been rejected before and I’m going to pay for every woman who has shattered his pride. Not heart, because the darkness emanating from his energy says he isn’t capable of love.
“I like you. I can’t wait to see how much pain you can take. Breaking you will be such a pleasure.”
Adrenaline zings through my blood and it’s pure instinct that drives my palm out when the cold-hearted bastard licks a slick trail up the side of my face.
I hit him on the chin, driving his head back. “Get your fucking mouth off me,Ruso!” I rear back, strike again. This time I step away only to find myself boxed in by my step-father.
“What the fuck?” How the hell did he move so fast?
“Mija, stop already,” my mother begs with an impassioned plea.
I swing at both of them only to find Cortes can move fast for a man who lets hired guns do all his dirty work. He catches my fists and twists them behind me. I twirl around in time to see my sister dragged into the room by our step-brother. If ever there was a carbon copy of a human being, it’s Stefano, minus the good looks. He got all his father’s depraved tendencies but none of the handsome features.
I look between my step-father and my new enemy.ElRusohunkers in close. His cold, soulless blue eyes hook mine. Careless black hair hangs around his shoulders. To any other person out of earshot, they may see a protective man with sexy eyes and a head of hair begging to be touched. But this close, I smell the deceit of what my eyes want me to believe. Beauty is a farce with this one as much as it is with Joaquin. Both men are made of poison from the inside out.
Broad lips peel back with toxic intentions. My mind swims with ways to get away from him. If it were just me, fine, but my mother and sister’s well-being hangs on everything I do and say.
So I stand there and swallowEl Ruso’svenom and let his poison sicken me to the core.
“Let’s make you scream. Show everyone just how easy it is to go from princess to pauper. Do you want to scream for me,malyshka?” His voice is black velvet—rich, decadent and filled with crushed dreams. His gaze travels lovingly over the way my step-father restrains me.
It doesn’t take him long to pop the button on my jeans. Actually, he moves pretty fucking fast, and it’s in one heartbeat to the next that he has his hands in my pants and his finger digging into the flesh of my groin.
I clench my thighs and twist my hips, but my step-father’s hold on me is unforgiving and I can’t get enough control over my body to dislodgeelRuso.
This is it. This is how I die because I will take souls with me before I let these two rape me.
I snap my teeth at anything within reach. Silas pulls back just in time to keep his ear.