Page 6 of Thorns of Blood

“Take her to Brazil.” I heard the words and recognized the voice. “To him. He’s expecting her.”

Him.

Perez Cortes. A living, breathing nightmare. The man who’d been eyeing me as a potential trophy for years.

A small part of me was truly terrified because, for maybe the first time, I knew what it meant.

“You… can’t.” Why was it so hard to speak? My eyes fell to the glass that rolled around the smooth hardwood floors and the realization pierced through my sluggish brain.

I’d been drugged. To ensure compliance.

The self-loathing for my weak, abused body flared, my heart and soul filling with numbness. But the strongest feeling inside me was the need to survive.

“You reap what you sow,” Santiago said, laughing menacingly, and I knew exactly what my husband meant. “You can kickstart the new and improved auction.”

The Marabella Agreements. My great shame.

The auctions existed for the past two hundred years, a business selling off illegitimate mafia princesses. But the business suffered over the last decade so I revamped the entire thing. I expanded it, including the illegitimate daughters of notable, prominent figures who fucked over Perez Cortes and the Tijuana Cartel, among others, and made it accessible through the dark web.

The idea had struck like lightning when, five years ago, an infant turned up as a debt repayment from Gio DiLustro, a New York scumbag mobster.

Amara.

Even her name was a sign. I intended to keep her safe at all costs, even if it meant putting others in danger.

By modernizing the idea and making it more accessible, I made Marabella more profitable than ever before.

Oh, the irony.

The executer would become the executed.

I had been used and abused over the years, but I persevered. I’d made myself valuable to ensure survival—for me and my daughter. I should have known that I’d be stabbed in the back. After all, it wasn’t the first time. But confidence was a bitch sometimes, because I was so fucking sure that I’d proven myself to Santiago.

Once again, I discounted how far a jealous woman would go.

The joke was on me though, wasn’t it?

I betrayed the sliver of decency I had inside me and twisted it into something ugly when I helped with Marabella. It didn’t really matter that all I wanted to do was to ensure my daughter’s safety, and that so many other daughters were harmed because of it.

And look at me now.

How did I fucking sleep at night, knowing what I’ve done? I’d become what I vowed I would put an end to, but it was so much more than that. I’d become a sinner of the worst kind, but who would have heard my pleas and prayers?

Nobody.

My mother had taught me to be strong. Heartless. Cruel even.

But I was no match for Perez and Santiago. Yes, I played along, but with each day, I lost more and more of myself until I no longer recognized the woman in the mirror.

“Take that freak kid too,” The Mistress chimed in, signaling our time was up.

She laughed like she’d heard the joke of her life. I wanted to throw her out the window.

I didn’t know her name, but I did know she used to be his brother’s mistress and upon his death, moved on to Santiago. But my husband wasn’t the only thing she’d taken from me. The Mistress had taken something much more valuable.

That familiar ache expanded in my chest, spreading throughout my body while hatred and revulsion settled in the pit of my stomach. My hatred of my body—and for this woman—intensified as the black hole got closer and I hurtled toward it.

“You heard her, Courier,” Santiago said, his tone bored, like he was discussing a bad soccer game, not the life of an innocent child and his wife.