Chapter 5

LUCA

“Alpha, I’ve screwed up big time,” I said to Leo after he finally picked up his phone.

I was in the process of dragging the man that had been pointing his gun at me to my car by the scruff of his collar. The more he resisted, the more time he was wasting, and the farther away that white van was getting.

This could be Ella’s life in danger, and I wasn’t messing around.

“Get in my fucking car.” I growled at him, pausing to hold the gun to his head.

After that, he went easily.

“Who are you talking to? Are you with Ella?” Leo asked.

“That’s the thing,” I said, opening the door to the passenger seat of my car and bundling the man in. “I was, but now I’m not. Someone’s taken her.”

“Someone?” he asked. “Where are you?”

“It’s where we were,” I told him as I got into the driver’s seat and immediately started the engine and began driving in the same direction as the white van did.

“For god’s sake, Luca. Just spit it out. Who has taken my mate!?”

“Andrea Martinez,” I said, uttering the name of the man otherwise known as ~the boss~.

There was a pause on Leo’s end of the line for over five seconds.

“How the fuck did Andrea Martinez get a hold on my mate?” he said slowly and deeply.

“I had to collect this month’s shipment, and things went tits up from then on,” I said. “You don’t want the details. What’s important is that Ella is in danger.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Luca, but didn’t I tell you not to even mention a word of what you do in Mexico to her? And then you take her with you?!”

“Yes, I know. I am sorry, and you can kill me later, but for now, can we just focus on getting her back?”

He didn’t say anything, which was usually the alpha’s way of agreeing with someone when he was incredibly angry with them.

“I’ve captured one of the men that ambushed us, but apart from that, nothing. All he has told me is that they are taking her to Martinez, but I have no idea where he is based or where to even begin looking.”

“Then get the information out of him.” Leo growled.

“He doesn’t speak English, and my Spanish is limited to say the very least,” I replied.

“Put me on speaker,” he ordered.

Leo proceeded to speak to the man in Spanish. Not only did he sound perfectly fluent, but as he spoke, the man became more and more sweaty and anxious.

It wasn’t long until he was replying to everything Leo asked immediately without any sort of reluctance.

“Drive to Mexico and find a man named Pedro Hernandez. He’s Martinez’s driver and the only one other than himself that knows where he is located.

“I’ll meet you there, and that man with you can tell you nothing more. He’s just a pawn,” Leo told me, before hanging up.

I brought the car to a halt and leaned over the poor guy to open the door. I then ushered him out and drove away, leaving him on the side of the road in a hot, quivering mess with nothing more than an adiós.

I could have taken my anger out on him, but as Leo said, he was just a pawn and seemed to have gotten what he deserved from just having to speak to Alpha Loren himself.

ELLA

“Mommy!” I heard a voice cry. “Mama! Higher!”

I was in a green, misty field with a singular swing and on it sat Lili. I’d always thought Lili was the most similar to me.

Although only four years old, she was already fiercely opinionated and was never afraid for her voice to be heard.

Physically too. Leo and I were fairly similar in appearance, male and female aside, but she seemed to have still managed to adopt my traits more. A lighter tan, unlike Leo’s honey brown, and light, close to white with blonde hair.

“Any higher and you’ll fly!” I replied.

“I want to fly, Mama!” she said, and for some reason, I began pushing her harder. I couldn’t stop myself. She was going to fall and hurt herself, but I couldn’t stop. It was an impulse I couldn’t resist.

A few moments later, she appeared to jump off the wooden seat and was launched across the plain of green.

I called out to her, but my voice had little effect.

Her tiny body soon disappeared into the distance, leaving me alone and lonely by the swing and nothing else.

I gazed out to where my daughter had disappeared to, unable to move my feet. She was gone, and I had pushed her.

Something then began to emerge out of the wisps of low-lying clouds. It was big, and it was holding something in its arms. Like a man and a small child.

A weight lifted from my heart when they got close enough to be recognized.

My mate and in his arms Lili, perfectly happy and unharmed.

I watched as he got closer to me and handed our daughter over to me.

“He’ll always catch us, Mommy,” she said. “No matter what.”

I smiled at Leo and reached out to him, but he didn’t seem to be really there. Just a construction of the mind. Soon enough, Lili was too. And the swing and the plain of green and the mist.

My eyes soon began to focus on something else. A warehouse-like room filled with boxes with a thick, musky smell and so much dust it itched my eyes.

The effects of whatever drug I had been given to get me here from the diner, a journey of which all was a blur, were beginning to wear off, but I was still unable to kick against the ropes holding me to a small wooden chair.

“I thought you’d never wake up,” a voice said from only a few meters in front of me.

“I was having a nice dream,” I grumbled.

My eyes set on a youthful man in a smart black suit and tie. He stood tall and broad with dark hair and even darker eyes that held a disconcerting stare.

“And who are you?”

He stifled a laugh.

“I am the boss. I hear you’ve been meddling with some of my guys?” he asked in perfect English yet still with a strong accent.

“You’re younger than I thought,” I said drowsily.

“And so are you. How old are you, Blanca?”

Blanca? As in white?

“Older than you,” I replied. “Can you loosen these ropes? They hurt.”

He nodded to his men, and they hesitated for a moment.

“Ella no es una amenaza para nosotros. Haz lo que digo,” he growled.

The men instantly rushed forward and hastily loosened the ropes.

“My men are worried that you are a threat to us,” he replied, after noticing my confused expression.

I hardly spoke a word of Spanish.

“However, I don’t believe that is so,” he added.

I gave him a sarcastic smile.

“Now are you going to tell me how old you are or what?”

“Guess,” I said.

“My mother taught me better than to guess a woman’s age.”

“Did she teach you to tie one up in a dirty warehouse too?” I asked.

He narrowed his eyes and stood up, stepping closer to me.

“You don’t know how good you’ve got it, Blanca,” he said, running his finger down my cheek before bringing his lips to my ear. “Twenty.”

“You lose,” I replied with my most flagellant smile.

“Can you give me a clue?” he asked, tucking my hair behind my ear.

“Hmmm,” I hummed. “It’s a factor of four hundred and eight.”

“Math, huh?” he said.

“Is that a problem?”

“Not at all,” he said, stepping away from me. “Twenty-four.”

I smiled.

“You’re smarter than you look, amigo.”

“Watch it,” he warned.

“Yes. Now let me guess yours,” I said as he stood with an amused smile and his arms folded across his chest.

“Nineteen.”

I saw his men standing on either side of him exchange worried glances.

“How did you know?” he asked, his face straightening.

“Lucky guess,” I said innocently.

“How?” he repeated in a deeper tone.

“Smooth, deep freshly broken voice of a teenager, light stubble that couldn’t be described as a beard, and perfectly straight teeth fresh out of braces,” I replied as anger swept over his face.

“I am not a boy,” he stated deeply.

“However, you have clearly been in your post-puberty body long enough to build a large amount of muscle.

“You know how to dress like a man, and your phenomenal mathematical and English skills are that of someone who has inhabited this earth for longer than someone only just nearing their twenties.”

“Nicely recovered, Blanca,” he replied. “Now I have a few more questions for you before we get to the real reason you are here. The mark on your neck, who does it belong to?”

“My mate.”

“An alpha?” he asked.

“No. We are rogues.”

“A rogue doesn’t have a bite that big, sweetheart. I may be young, but we have already established that I’m not stupid,” he replied. “And I don’t like to be lied to. Which pack?”

“I already told you, he is not an alpha,” I said.

“Fine, how did you end up rogues?” he asked, getting impatient.

“I was born into it, and I don’t know about my mate. He doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“So, he could have been an alpha?”

“Unlikely.”

“Hmmm,” the man said, narrowing his eyes. “I don’t believe you, Blanca. Any pups?”

“No.”

“How long have you known him?”

“A few years,” I replied vaguely.

“Why no children?”

“I’m not with him anymore.”

“Why not?”

“He killed someone I love, so I left him,” I said.

Not even a lie.

“Who?”

“My brother.”

“What was his name?”

“Julius.”

“Why did he kill him?”

“Julius was planning to kill him.”

“And what is your mate’s name?”

I took a deep breath, struggling to deal with the pace of his questions and answering with what would have to become flawless lies.

“Alfonso.”

“And you just walked away?” he asked. “From your mate?”

“Yes. I haven’t seen him in months, and I don’t plan to ever again.”

“If we brought your cousin Romano in, would he give us the same answers?”

Thank God Luca and I had discussed this and decided on the details.

“Yes, of course.”

“If I find that I am being lied to, Blanca, there will be consequences,” he said, stepping closer to me again. “You don’t fear me at the moment, but you will by the end of this. I can assure you of that.”

I looked up at him as he approached me, trying to refrain myself from saying anything.

Spoiler: I failed.

“And what exactly is this?” I asked.

“Whatever I want it to be,” he said with a wide smile. “After all, soy el jefe.”

He then placed a hand on my waist and leaned toward me. I backed away, but the captivity of the chair prevented me from getting far.

He placed his lips on mine and kissed me for a few seconds before drawing away and dabbing his mouth.

“Bring Guillermo in,” he ordered his men.

I felt a wrenching sensation in my stomach. That was the first kiss to my lips that wasn’t from Leo since Logan years and years ago, and it hurt deep down inside.

There was nothing I could have done to have stopped it, but I still felt an overwhelming sense of guilt.

But like Luca had said, to get out of this alive, I had to play along.

A moment later, the two men came back, this time accompanied by Guillermo.

“I presume we have the right girl…or woman I suppose,” the boss said, looking down at me.

“That’s her,” Guillermo replied. “Little puta caused me more problems than a woman ever should.”

“She’ll pay for it, I can assure you,” the boss stated.

“Give her to me. I know how to punish a girl that has stepped out of her place,” he said.

“No,” the boss answered.

Guillermo opened his mouth to protest, but his boss raised his eyebrow, and he closed it again.

“If you can find him, which I’m sure you can, you can have Romano. But keep him alive, he’s a good exporter, and I might need him,” the boss replied, and Guillermo nodded.

“Yes, sir.”

“Now leave me. All of you. I will ensure that she gets what she deserves,” the boss said, before Guillermo and the two guards left.

“I don’t really understand what I did wrong,” I said.

“Romano has been exporting for Guillermo for years. You come along, and it is ruined in a matter of minutes,” he replied.

“He wanted to take me, and we said no... Things just escalated from there,” I argued. “He shouldn’t have held a gun to my cousin’s head, and there wouldn’t have been one held at his. He asked for it, really.”

The boss stifled a laugh.

“You are clearly new to this business, Blanca,” he said. “And you are the bottom of the pecking order. If someone above you says jump, you say ‘How high?’ You don’t say ‘Why?’

“And you don’t say ‘No.’ I have known you but ten minutes, but I can already see you are not used to following orders, am I right?”

“Why should I be?”

“I suppose you have a point. You are a rogue, you left your mate, you live by your own rules. But not anymore, Blanca. For now, you are here with me. You will do as you are told, and you will not ask questions. Understood?”

“Can I at least know your name?”

“Andrea.”

“Andrea…,” I repeated.

Aun-drey-ah.

“I like the way you say that, Blanca. And fortunately for your safety, I like you too,” he said, holding my chin between two of his long fingers.

“I’ll see you around,” he added, before leaving the warehouse a few moments before two guards came in and stood silently and motionlessly behind me.