Gabe's POV
I wiped my bloodied knuckles, my expression stoic as I stared at the man tied up in the chair before me. Nonchalantly, I tossed the once pristine white towel, now spotted with deep crimson stains, to the floor. This was becoming tiresome. If only I could kill him and be done with it. However, on the off-chance he had some vital information, I had to keep this chingado alive. Hell. I really wanted to just kill him. “I’m going to ask you one last time,” I clipped the words out ominously, reaching for the silver pistol always tucked away on my person. The silver metal lightly singed the skin of my palms, but itt could have been worse had I not built up an intolerance to the metal lethal for wolves. As a babe, my mother, who’d been an alpha-female, had gone so far as to lace my milk with silver, refusing to stop even when I’d been hospitalised multiple times. The body is strong. A powerful alpha will adapt. That’s what she always said to my father, a weak wolf with beta blood in him. So weak he’d nearly sent us into poverty when he lost half our drug business to some stupid American alpha business tycoon. However, I was strong. I was not like my pathetic sire. Gabriel Rossi rose from the ashes and built everything back. We were thriving now, and better than before. Mamma died happy. She might have lived longer had she not rejected my old-man out of spite. Her wolf never recovered. The mate-bond was too strong to deny. Which is why I knew there was no fighting it. Unfortunately. I shook my head to rid myself of thoughts of the past and levelled my gaze on the man before me. “Who was the informant?” I queried, eyes glaring with calculation at the poor fool trembling as if he might piss his pants. If the smell was any indication, he probably already had. How bothersome. A dead body covered in piss was a hassle to dispose of. The capo in charge of the American division of my money laundering mafia looked at the gun, fear skittering through his features. I could count off on one hand how many people had survived this gun. He knew his days were numbered now. “Please...!” He begged for mercy, eyes wide and pleading. I cocked the pistol. This pendejo was already beaten into a bloody pulp, and still wouldn’t cave. It only meant one thing. He’d been a part of it. If I'd been debating about him letting him live before, well let's just say now my mind was made up. Nobody betrayed Gabriel Rossi. “Please...please...Gabe…” he pleaded, his thick Mexican accent spilling out. He grimaced in pain and spat out a tooth that I had knocked loose when roughing this bastard up. “Be reasonable. I had no idea—” The deafening roar of the pistol going off drowned out his pathetic pleadings. The sound seemed to echo endlessly, filling the surrounding space with a cacophony of explosive force, leaving nothing but a dead man hanging from the chair he’d been tied to. “Wrong answer,” I muttered, throwing my pistol aside and looking towards my beta and underboss, Vin, who was sitting at a desk on the far left. The beta was completely immersed in his task as he clicked away on the keyboard before him. “I guess we’re going to America,” I informed Vin with a resigned sigh. “I hate that place.” And not just because a certain mate of mine resided there. A human mate. Of all the sick twisted jokes fate had played on me, this was the worst. However, I knew eventually a mating with her was inevitable. I could only ever truly be the strong alpha I was meant to be if I had my mate by my side. But it didn’t mean I’d have to enjoy it. It would just be one of those undesirable tasks, like consuming silver. I had to do it if I wanted to stay strong, to be better than those who wished to bring me down. Being the Don of the Cosa Nostra in Spain brought with it too many enemies. Too many people who wanted me dead. Briefly, I recalled how my human mate wore a protective talisman around her arm that made it nearly impossible to track her. It had been most likely been given to her by her witch aunt for protection. I'd done my research. My mate's stepfather was an alpha wolf mated to her human mother. He was the same alpha wolf that had stolen half my family business. I'd held a gun to my mate's head, ready to shoot her brains out as revenge. But then...I felt it. The bond.There was no way I could kill my mate, so I left.
Stupid little mate. Didn’t she know I had other means of keeping an eye on her? My people were still following here even as I stood in this very room murdering the mole who was behind the recent drug bust at the border in Texas. I had lost count on how many times my men kept my naive mate from being mugged in the city of New York. It didn't help that she was playing house in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods located within the Bronx. Evelina could have her fun for now. But eventually, I would come for her. She knew that much. Vin suddenly froze, stark fear etched across his face as he looked up at me. His reaction to my words made me give pause. Vin had seen many a man die in this very interrogation room, had killed and tortured a majority of them himself. It was as though an unseen force had gripped his very soul, sending a surge of panic coursing through him, all triggered by the ominous revelation that flickered to life on the laptop screen before him. “What is it?” I demanded sharply. Such a visceral reaction was uncalled for. Vin stumbled out of the chair, his eyes wide with fear, and looked at me as if I was going to kill him. My hands reached for the laptop, ignoring the splatters of blood staining the cuffs of my crisp white dress-shirt. If you’re going to kill, always kill dressed in your finest. That’s what Mamma always said. In one deft move, I flipped the laptop to face me. My eyes, sharp and penetrating, glinted with dangerous intensity as I took in exactly what had sent Vin skittering out of this room. Smart man. I would have killed him if he’d been in here. My wolf growled low, thirsting for blood. I thirsted for death. A chilling aura settled over me as I stared intently at the screen. With each passing second, my blood lust heightened, an aura of barely contained fury and malevolence radiating off my body in waves. The flickering screen went blank and now I stared at my reflection in the dark LCD. The expression staring back at me spoke volumes without uttering a single word—a silent warning of the storm that raged within me, ready to be unleashed at a moment’s notice. Fucking sonafabitch. Someone was going to die tonight. And every single day following until I finally got my revenge. In the next moment, the laptop was snapped shut. I wanted to hurl it across the room. “I think it’s time I pay Evelina a little visit,” I spoke ominously, my whispered words rupturing the silence with the force of thunder in a serene sky. It was time to remind Evelina who she belonged to.Evelina's POV“Hey!” I exclaimed, turning to yell at the man who’d just groped my a.s.s in the subway.Fucking New York. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.“You pervert!” I yelled, watching the strange man disappear into the crowd.“Temper Evie,” Robert intoned, grabbing my arm and pulling me along. “It’s late, we need to get home.”Muttering expletives in Spanish that Robert couldn’t understand, I trudged along begrudgingly, emerging from the New York underground and allowing the cool winter night’s air to help cool my flushed face.“This is why I always tell you to stick close to me,” Robert murmured impatiently once we got closer to home.“You aren’t honestly trying to say it’s my fault?” I challenged, casting him a withering look.“Of course not Evie,” Robert replied quickly. “It’s just that according to statistics, this usually happens to women who men think are alone on the subway. Sticking close to me is a deterrent.”I raised an eyebrow challengingly. “I think ripping his h
“I’ve got the egg—” I stopped short, paused at the threshold of our tiny apartment as the acrid scent of gunpowder overwhelmed me.I blinked once and then twice….and then a third time as I tried to process the carnage before me. There was …Blood. So much blood. Splattered on the walls, splattered on the floor, on my kitchen counter that I had wiped clean this morning. It almost felt as if I was in a movie, and someone would yell ‘cut’ any minute. Or maybe a sick prank. But the unmistakable metallic tang of blood proved otherwise. This was no movie.Finally, my eyes went to what I’d missed earlier. The carton of eggs in my hand crashed to the floor, breaking with a resounding ‘crunch’. Fucking eggs. I never liked eggs anyway.I screamed at the sight of Robert, laying facedown in a pool of crimson, his mangled lifeless form riddled with bullet wounds. My instinct was to move towards him, but I had to think quick. His killer might still be here. In two strides, I’d reached the knife draw
The moment I removed my bangle, Gabriel’s eyes turned a primal yellow and he lunged at me. Before I could even activate my magic, his body was on mine, pinning me against the wall with inhuman strength. Panic flooded through me as I struggled to break free, but his feral gaze held me in place like a predator cornering its prey.“Mate,” he growled low into my ear, tingles erupting across my entire body from his touch.Stunned, it took a moment for the realization to sink in that he moved faster than any other werewolf I’d ever seen. And I’d seen many. He bent his head, lips mere inches from mine and in that singular beat, I hated myself. I hated myself because for one small milli-second, I felt attracted to him. Stupid mate bond. This twisted sense of attraction was going to be the death of me.“I know that cheap bit of jewelry your witchy tia gave you is what blocks our bond Muneca.” His breath was hot against my lips as he spoke, those eyes, dark as death, boring into mine. “It’s what
Gabe's POV “Amaya,” I reprimanded sharply.I glared at her from my seat in my private jet. She was sitting across from me, looking through Evelina’s phone. That was an invasion of privacy.“Sorry, Gabe.” She didn’t sound sorry at all. Bi.t.ch.“When I asked you to help cover my tracks, it wasn’t so you could go through Evelina’s phone.” I clenched my jaw and ground my teeth together to stop myself from cursing at her.Amaya let out a laugh, throwing the phone to me, which I caught deftly in my hand while glaring at her the entire time.“You’d kill a man in cold blood but think going through someone’s phone is wrong. I don’t get you.” She tsked.I merely stared back at her stonily, pocketing the damn phone that had a screensaver of her and the damn pendejo I’d killed. My eyes darkened as I thought of him. I sorely wished he could come back to life just so I could kill him all over again. He deserved a thousand deaths for what he’d done. Evelina did not need to know the cold hard truth
Evelina's POV The rhythmic hum of the road beneath me nudged me out of slumber, and my eyes fluttered open to darkness. Confusion fogged my mind momentarily as I tried to make sense of my surroundings. The realization hit me like a freight train—I was in the backseat of a car. Gabriel was at the wheel, his silhouette illuminated by the soft glow of the dashboard lights. A woman with dark hair, Gabriel kept referring to her as Amaya, sat shotgun, her presence a palpable force in this confined space. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she was the witch he kept referring to.I steadied my breathing, trying not to alert the two of my wakefulness. Instead, I focused on the subtle details around me—the faint scent of leather, the gentle sway of the car as it cruised along the road. We were somewhere in Texas, judging by the signs whizzing by that I could just barely make out from my reclined position in the back seat. The landscape rolled by in shadowy patches beyond the windows.As
Gabriel's POV “Fuck...fuck FUCK!” I roared out, punching a dent into the side of my car once I realized that Evelina no longer slept soundly inside. “She escaped!”Amaya was still dealing with those stupid witches. I gave them the money. Now it was time for negotiations. I hated witches. Except for Amaya, they were all weird brujeria practicing nut jobs. The talisman Evelina wore didn’t even allow me to track her scent. Fuck her witchy tia for giving her that stupid bangle.However, even I had to admit that it was better she kept it on. When it was off, her scent was so intoxicating. Sandalwood and citrus mixed with hints of violet and an underlying trace of the spent gunpowder. If power had a smell, I had a feeling it would be Evelina’s scent. My eyes tracked the footprints below, trying to make out what direction she had taken. LA VIRGEN (JESUS CHRIST)! This was no place for a defenseless human such as her to be roaming around. These dark witches were dangerous. They were known for
Evelina's POV“I found it inside the cave,” I muttered, shifting in the backseat as I answered Amaya’s question.I didn’t know how to explain it. But something had called to me. This box…was mine. And something told me to keep it safe until I could get it to my tia Melanie. My hand ran over the circular symbol on it, feeling the sudden twinge of an electric current jolt from the box and straight to the palm of my hand. I jumped a little in surprise. There was something dark and sinister about this seemingly harmless wooden case. Is that why I wanted it?“Can I see it?” Amaya queried. “Do you think it’s something to make a witch more powerful?”I could hear the excitement in her voice. Wordlessly, I handed it over.“I already tried to open it,” I explained with a shrug. “It’s locked.”“There’s no key,” Amaya muttered, holding it up to examine it. “Hmmm.” She tried to pry it open and yelped. “It burned me!” she exclaimed, nursing her hand against her chest and letting the box fall into h
Gabriel's POVMy business with the new capo took longer than I’d anticipated. I couldn’t help how wound up I was. Fuck what was Evelina doing to me? Usually, I wouldn’t have batted an eye and let Vin have his fun. But the very real possibility of Evelina getting a look at another man’s dick made me see red. She was a nuisance. A pesky fly that kept trying to run away. I could see it in the way her eyes flitted about the club, trying to assess possible escape routes.The very real possibility that this woman might yet escape set me on edge. By the goddess, I would show her her place.My hands itched to punish her. To take a hand to her throat and watch how she’d react to being held so possessively. I wanted her to know I could harm her, but I wouldn’t. I would never hurt my mate.I was many things. A murderer, a criminal, a dangerous don, a money launderer,a drug lord….a blood thirsty alpha. But I was not a woman beater. Nor would I ever violate her. The fact that she looked at me as if