Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“You were close to Nico back then?”
“He was the only friend I had, and other than Jhon, he was the only person who knew I was a Restrepo. We bonded instantly in our mutual hatred for Jhon. Nico covertly fed me information, secrets about the cartel and what Jhon was doing, all in an effort to take him out. In return, I saved Nico’s life.”
“Jhon tried to kill him?”
“Repeatedly. I watched Nico’s back, stopped multiple hits on him. Instead of killing me, Jhon turned his outrage on you.”
She lifted her head, eyes welling with tears. “You killed him, didn’t you?”
“Six weeks after you disappeared.”
A bird chirped somewhere in the foliage overhead, the grass soft and supportive beneath their entwined bodies. The warm air stirred with their breaths as he lay in silence, pondering the hell that had brought them to this point.
“With Jhon dead, why didn’t you come home?” Pain and confusion choked her voice.
“You were already gone.” He kissed her softly.
She nodded, and a tear fell down her cheek. “When I called you after I escaped, you could’ve told me all of this. We could’ve been together.”
“In that year you went missing, I did horrible things in my search for you. Slaughtered countless people. Used every brutal weapon in the cartel at my disposal. Somewhere along the way, I gave up. Gave up on you and myself and surrendered to this life. I became worse than the man who captured you.”
She went rigid against him, and he knew she was thinking about the slave trade, a conversation he didn’t want to have right now.
“My hunt resulted in more enemies than the cartel had ever faced.” He coiled a lock of her hair around his finger. “I couldn’t rationalize bringing you into it.”
“So you kept me in the dark, made me fear and distrust you, which kept me away.”
“Yeah.” His chest panged with regret, but hindsight changed nothing. It’d been the right thing to do.
“If you have so many enemies, why in the hell would Nico agree to be your decoy?”
“He owes me his life.” He huffed a laugh. “The past decade hasn’t been a total hardship for him. I shoulder all the stress and decisions while he struts around with more power and wealth than he would’ve ever had as a lieutenant. He’s been more than compensated for the risk.”
She rolled to her back and gazed up at sweeping arms of the trees. “Thank you for telling me. For protecting me from it all these years. I get it. I don’t like it, but I understand why you couldn’t tell me until now, when you could trust me with the information and protect me from those who want your secrets.”
He gripped her hand and held tight as a light breeze rippled over them, rustling the leaves and brushing his skin. Somewhere in the distance, a macaw squawked.
He was so close to winning her heart and yet so far. She seemed to be trying to look past the monster she thought he was, but she still hadn’t accepted the real reason she’d come here. Submission and bondage were such dirty, shameful concepts to her. She fought against the healthy, consensual aspects of it by focusing on only the ugly illegal kind of slavery.
She pulled her hand away and touched the collar at her throat. Her nostrils flared, her muscles tensed, and he knew she was preparing an argument.
She sat up and pivoted toward him with a stubborn set in her jaw. “You make the rules around here, which means you have the power to end the suffering of all those slaves. I know”—she hardened her husky voice—“I know that with the snap of that one command you would make me happy. So fucking happy, Matias, that I would give you my heart and soul and whatever else you desired.”
His stomach twisted and soured. “I don’t want your fucking negotiated affections, Camila.”
He lurched up and gripped her hips. She yelped as he dumped her on her back and fell on top of her.
With her chest rising and falling against his, she gave him her best glare. “Then what do you want? What can I do?”
He had been inside her pussy every day she’d been here, and other than his massive fuck up when he took her against the post, he’d only bound her with lightweight string. Most of the time, he hadn’t restrained her at all. He hadn’t spanked her, whipped her, or done anything to cause her physical pain since that first day.
He wanted her willing and begging for bondage. While she hadn’t once fought him during sex, her participation had been dubious, as if her body was submitting while her mind screamed hell no.
All of this was expected. He knew it would take a lot of time and patience, but it didn’t make it any easier.