Yours (Beautiful Sinner Series Book 4)
Summary:
I’m a man with an immoral compass. A convicted killer in one country and the right-hand to the devil in another.
Javier Lucas offers death without mercy—something my enemies don’t live long enough to tell, but the carnage left behind paints a brutal story. I have no soul. No regrets. This is who I am, and I embrace the darkness that flows through my veins while blood stains my skin.
And I’ve never wanted more until...
Our eyes met and my world took a pause. One flirty exchange and I vowed to tame her wildness.
Fate is a word I now believed in.
Because it led me to her. To my beautiful little criminal.
YOURS
(Beautiful Sinner Series) Book 4
was written by Elena M. Reyes
Copyright 2020 ©Elena M. Reyes
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This work is copyrighted. All rights are reserved. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the author.
Cover Design: T.E. Black Designs
Editor: Marti Lynch
Publication Date: November 6th, 2020
Genre: FICTION/Romance/Erotica Suspense/Contemporary
Copyright © 2020 Elena M. Reyes
All rights reserved.
Acknowledgements:
Before we get into YOURS and its yumminess; I need to thank a few people that I adore:
K.I. Lynn, C.M. Steele, and Mary B. Moore: My girls. My chicas. My Boo’s. You are a huge part of my life/success and I’m beyond blessed to have you as my peeps. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being in my corner, for pushing me when I get stubborn, and for never letting me settle. You are such a huge part of my life and I’m thankful to have you in my corner. I love you.
Marti Lynch: I can never say THANK YOU enough! Seriously, you have the patience of a saint with me and always come through. You are the best editor and friend an author could ask for.
T.E. Black Designs: BEST. COVER. EVER. Seriously, I can’t stop staring at my pretty. Thank you!
Michelle Myers: Babe, I legit can’t thank you enough for the amount of work you did with me on this. You rode with me to the end, the long days, and made by baby so much better. Thank you for loving these characters and helping me become a better author. Love you!
Ana Rita Clement: Thank you so much for your insight and enthusiasm. I appreciate you so much, and I’m blessed to have you on my team. From the bottom of my heart, thank you!
Elena’s Marked Girls: You guys keep me going and always give me a reason to smile. Thank you for everything. For your unconditional support and encouragement. Please know that I love you—that you mean everything to me.
Tiffany Hernandez: Girl, you’re the best PA ever! Thank you so much for all the hard work, for keeping me on track, and taking care of whatever I throw your way last minute because I’ve become the unorganized queen. It’s because of you that I’m able to focus all my energy on writing and getting things done. You ROCK my world!
Hubs and Kiddo: You are my heart. My entire world. Everything I do, I do it for you.
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Epilogue 1
Epilogue 2
Outtake #1
Outtake #2
GLOSSARY Of Spanish/Colombian Slang:
Muñeca = Doll
Linda = Beautiful or Pretty
Hijueputa = Son of a bitch
Parce = Friend
Güevon = Lazy person
Brujeria = Voodoo/Witchcraft
Mamita = Term of endearment for a mother or used as a cat-call for hot girl. The same word could be used either way and has different meanings depending on how it’s used.
Listo = Done
We’re a brutal explosion of lust and hunger,
this raw uncontrollable yearning that I call home.
~Javier Lucas
1
Colombia three years ago...
THE STALE STENCH of old wounds greets my senses the moment I step inside the semi-darkened room. It’s overpowering and undeniably human. That beginning stage of decomposition where lesions fail to heal and infection sets in, rotting a person from the inside out.
It’s a scent I know. One I understand.
Because for every action, there is an often more damning consequence that even the most corrupt fear. All men have a weakness. One soft spot which renders them useless, and no one is immune to the karma of divine justice.
I’m here today as an example of that.
You pay in life for your wrongdoings.
My eyes sweep the room, and I nod at the man responsible for my role in today’s proceedings. Alejandro, my cousin, sits just a few feet from the center in an opulent golden chair that doesn’t fit within these walls while villagers gather around. Men and women line the back wall of an old abandoned building on the outskirts of Bogota while waiting on justice to be served.
Two men are on trial for their misdeeds and are tied together by greed. Stupidity.
For stealing from those who trusted—put faith in the empty words of a low-life opportunist.
Because you don’t bite the hand that feeds. You don’t take away the only source of sustenance these families have by emptying the poppy fields while using their labor under false direction—telling them it was a direct order—and attempting to sell the flowers to a European company whose loyalty lies with our family.
A novice mistake, and they’ll pay with their lives for two reasons. One, for being scum. And the other, for trying to go behind his boss’s back and making that idiotic purchase.
Everyone’s watching the two men bound and gagged—bruised and bloodied—with horror-stricken expressions on their faces as the men take me in. The assholes wait, they beg with their eyes for a mercy they’ll never receive.
Instead, the closer I get, the more they tremble. The smile on my face eviscerates whatever shred of hope they held on to.
I don’t feel bad for them. Not at all.
I wouldn’t be here if they were honorable men.
Hushed whispers meet my ears then, the murmurs of witnesses filling the space as I stop beside a small rolling cart. There’s a tray atop it with two bullets, a .45 caliber Glock, and a machete.
It’s all I’ll need.
“That family is nothing but an infestation of roaches in need of extermination.”
I catch that, and my attention snaps in the direction of the idiot who spoke. It’s not hard to pick him out amongst the group. Not when the two women beside him take steps to the side with wide eyes. They’re watching him, and then flick their eyes to me and then back again. Back and forth three times, and then they all but run toward the opposite side when I move in his direction.
There’s a gulp, and two palms go up in supplication.
“Say it again, Güevon,” I hiss out, my hand wrapped around his neck before his n
ext inhale. My fingers tighten and his breathing becomes choppy, chest rising and falling fast—fighting to regain the missing oxygen he needs to live. There’s a choking sound that slips from his parted lips while his body fights to break my hold, and still, I won’t budge. I don’t lose my stance even when his legs go weak. If anything, I take joy in the feel of his life slipping away beneath my fingertips.
I revel in the moment rationality sets in, and how easy it is to lose one’s mortality becomes a haunting truth; he has no choice but to confront.
“Por favor, I didn’t—” His fingernails try to break the skin at my wrist but fail. No strength whatsoever.
“I won’t ask you again.” Bringing my face closer to his, I arch a brow. “Repeat.”
“Can’t breathe,” he chokes out, voice low while the color of his face reminds me of a fallen tomato out on the fields: dirty and ripped open under a heavy boot. It’s a pathetic response that further fuels my dislike of him. Of his type.
A man without a backbone. Without conviction.
The kind that runs at the first sight of a fight but will feed the fire until someone snaps.
“If you can talk, you can breathe.” Multiple guns click and many avert their eyes as I tilt my head to the side, catching sight of Alejandro walking over from the corner of my eye. “What did you say?”
“Q’hubo, Andresito?” My cousin stops beside us and I look over, catching the smirk on his face. He’s calm and collected, methodically dissecting the idiot in my hold. “You have something to say?”
“No.”
“Louder.” Alejandro nods and I release the man, letting him fall to his knees. At once, his hand comes up and he rubs his neck, glaring at us from his position. “Didn’t your father ever teach you manners? How to respect those above you?”
“You’ll never be him.” The hand on the ground bracing his weight tightens into a fist, his teeth grinding as he spits out words through them. He’s amusing to watch, at least.
“An abusive adulterer? Is that who I should admire?”
“Fuck you,” Andresito hisses out a second before the bottom of my foot meets his face. A swift kick and he’s thrown back, landing on his back with an arm at an awkward angle. “Hijueputa!”
“Watch. Your. Mouth.” My fingers twitch, and I hold myself back from putting a bullet between his eyes. We’re not innocent—there’s enough blood on my family’s hands to cover a stadium, but his crimes are worse. Behind the disguise of a poppy farmer, Don Andres also dabbled in human trafficking and kept a horde of prostitutes at his disposal by forced addiction. Andresito knows this. His wife knew this. “I won’t repeat myself.”
“He ruined us!” The kid tries to wipe his face, but only succeeds in spreading the blood flowing from his nose across his lips and cheek. “My family is—”
“You’re a bunch of sick fucks.”
At my words, his eyes narrow and he tries to stand. “Maybe I’ll return the favor?” He’s unsteadied, almost drunk-like, and can barely manage to kneel with his face screwed up in anger. “He killed mine and I’ll kill—”
“You.” I finish for him, pulling my Ruger from the holster around my chest. His father died at Alejandro’s hands, and he’ll meet his end at mine as a second later I pull the trigger, killing the sole male heir to Don Andres’s small estate. A few garbled breaths, and those scared eyes are on mine as his body stills and his life’s essence seeps from the wounds. One to his neck and the other his chest; two bullets exit his body and ricochet off the concrete ground, his blood marking those closest to his corpse. “Anyone else have something to say?”
Not a word. Not so much as a sound.
“We apologize for this small inconvenience.” Alejandro’s voice reverberates throughout the space as he clasps my shoulder, giving it a small squeeze before releasing. His men lower their drawn weapons, and mine returns to its place. “Let’s proceed.”
“Agreed.” Nothing else is said while he retakes his seat, and my attention turns to the men on the floor, a puddle of urine now surrounding their scared forms. That, and the rivulets of blood winding down to the divot at the center that leads to drainage in the cement floor. “How are you two holding up? Need anything?” Their response is a muffled sound and I look over at the man closest to their forms. “Remove the gag.”
“Of course, sir.” Alejandro’s guard tears the covering, then moves back into formation, gun in hand and finger on the trigger.
“Gracias.” He nods, and I tilt my head in Francis’s direction. “I’m not going to repeat myself.”
“I can explain, Javier. Just hear me out.”
My eyes narrow and I pick up the machete, admiring the smooth wooden handle and slick blade. Not too heavy. Unbreakable if used with force. “That’s not what I asked, Francis.”
“Please.”
“How have you been?”
“C-could be better.”
“And whose fault is that?” Placing the machete back upon the tray, I prepare my single-use gun by loading the two bullets and cocking it with the barrel pointing at Francis.
I’ve known him for years.
I’ve welcomed him to share a meal or two with my family.
I offered him a job when his father fell ill, and later when he passed, my family took care of the bill. Ungrateful son of a bitch.
“I’m sorry.” It’s a whisper; two pathetic words that earn him a bullet to his right shoulder. His cry of pain reverberates throughout every inch of this room as his life’s essence begins to flow.
At first, the .45 bullet’s entry and exit create a small splash, but soon it begins to flow downward, staining his exposed skin.
He’s a human map of bruises and cuts, of swollen flesh and pain. From where I stand, it’s easy to make out the broken ribs and the fragment poking through the skin.
My cousin doesn’t take kindly to thieves.
And while it’s his product the men stole, these two are mine. I’m not the head of this operation, never want to be, but I do command respect.
Taking lives is my profession. My passion as a private Sicario.
But more than that, I am a Lucas first, and it was my mother they ran over with a pickup while rushing out of the field.
They left her for dead.
They left a woman whose life revolved around taking care of loved ones broken and now bound to a wheelchair.
“Fuck your apology.” One bullet down. “Now, let’s play a round of truth or death.”
“We can find a solution, Javier. She didn’t die—”
“You’d already be dead otherwise.” The man beside him weeps, and I look over. “Something you want to say, Mr. Gil?” His head shakes back and forth fast, a bit of bloody spittle flying out with the frantic move. “Then be a good boy until I address you. Understood?”
“Yes.” Low and meek.
“Speak up. You still have your tongue.”
“Yes, sir.”
At my nod, he lowers his head and sits stone still. “Tell me, Francis. Tell me why you did it?”
“He offered me money and a lot of American pussy.”
“The world is full of opportunities, culicagado. Some good. Some bad.” I take the remaining steps between us and poke the still-hot barrel of the Glock into his wound. He squirms, trying to move away while I dig deeper, forcing the tip inside the hole by force. Tears run down his grimy face, his nose running as the skin stretches and eventually gives way. One hard push, and the muscles there buckle. The barrel is deep enough to stay upright without my hand and I let go, crouching down to his level. Eye to eye. “The outcomes vary by scenarios. Investing in real estate is profitable, but stealing from those you owe your life to becomes a death sentence.”
“Please don’t kill me. I-I’ll work off the debt.”
“Open that mouth again out of turn, Gil, and I’ll slit your throat,” I say without looking over, and when he doesn’t utter another sound, I smile at Francis and tap the handle. “Get up.”
&nbs
p; “I’m bound, Javi—” He doesn’t finish as the back of my hand connects with his face, forcing his head to the side.
“There’s enough slack for you to stand.” Gil looks up at me and begins to rise before Francis, but I shake my head. One kneels while the other struggles to find footing, taking longer than my patience has time for, and I pull the gun out and hold it to his temple as positive reinforcement.
Once again, his scream rends the air and his body recoils, but Francis is smart enough to rise to his feet. “That’s better.”
“What can I do to make this right?” His low words meet my ears and I smile, rubbing the stained red barrel down his cheek and then tapping the skin there. “I don’t want to die, Javier. Please.”
“So, you want to make a deal? Is that right?” At my words, he nods. “Okay.”
“Okay?” There’s a hint of relief mixed with trepidation in his tone, and there should be. Nothing is ever as simple. Not in our life. “I’ll do whatever it is you ask.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes.” No hesitation, and I catch the nervous flinch from Gil. The way he folds into himself.
That man isn’t a complete idiot; he just made the mistake that so many do. Greed isn’t an awful trait; the problem lies in taking from the wrong hands because those at the top have been where you are.
The most notorious criminals start somewhere. An attack on our business isn’t a foreign occurrence—it’s something our family has prepared for—but not choosing their victim wisely will be a costly error.
“There’s a bullet in the magazine, Francis. Just one.” He nods and I hand the Glock over, taking a step back. “Kill him.”