Two weeks later, Estrella was rehearsing her lines in her dressing room. With a perfect tilt of her head, her mane of bleached blonde hair cascaded over her shoulder and down her back. She swept her hands through the air to better express the emotions she needed to convey for the first scene on tomorrow’s call sheet.

She had to be at her best. She couldn’t afford to be complacent so she had stayed to rehearse long after the rest of the cast and crew had left for the night.

With that new bitch Valentina around, Estrella knew she needed to be at the top of her game. She was the star of this show, damn it. If Victor Ramirez’s whore thought she was going to come in and take over as the star of Cuentos de Amorado, the U.S.-based spinoff of Cuentos de Amor, she had another think coming.

At the thought of Victor, she pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, giving her features a harsh, pinched quality that made her almost unrecognizable. He had always rebuffed her perpetual efforts to seduce him – and now she understood why. That ship had sailed, but she wasn’t going to accept defeat when it came to her career. She was a fucking star.

Everyone adored Valentina. The doorman brought Victor’s floral deliveries straight to her instead of having her go to the front desk to get them. Even the perpetually cranky director became a big pile of goo whenever she was around.

What did Valentina have that Estrella didn’t – other than Victor Vargas’s big dick and spectacularly perky, natural tits? Valentina was popular in Guatemala because of her work on the original show, so the cast and crew had celebrated her unexpected arrival in America.

But something wasn’t quite right about the whole situation and Estrella was going to find out what it was. No one else seemed to care about the rumors that Valentina Vargas walked off the set of that mainstream skin flick, Take Me Now --all because the director wanted her to show her tits. What a spoiled child. Estrella, on the other hand, had no qualms about that sort of thing. Estrella had no qualms about a lot of things.

But everyone liked Valentina. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Victor Ramirez was head over heels for the woman. Now that had been the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. Really, what a waste.

It was an established fact that all the Ramirez men were hung like stallions, and she had heard firsthand accounts that Victor was continuing that impressive family tradition -- but she’d never gotten the chance to experience his sexual prowess for herself. She was determined to find out what it was like to feel that gorgeous hunk of man candy shooting off inside her while he pounded her into the next room. It was going to happen, she’d make sure of it. And she was damned if she was going to share.

Estrella couldn’t stop at merely hating Valentina; she had plans to ruin not only her career but her life. All Victor needed was a little nudge to help him see that bitch for what she really was: a gold-digging, opportunistic whore. A few flubbed lines from an outdated script, a few missed cues, a few late arrivals on set because of car trouble and Ricardo would have a hard time convincing the producers to keep her. And then it would be bye-bye, Valentina.

The sound of shuffling footsteps in the hall had her looking toward the door in surprise.

“Oh, hey!” A fake smile accompanied her equally fake greeting as she drew out the ‘hey’ about three seconds too long. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” She cocked her head to the side and ran her tongue over her bottom lip. “What’s with the gloves? Is it cold out? What are you doing here this late, anyway? I thought you would have been long gone by now. Or did you just miss me?” she said with a giggle as she perched prettily on the pink, tufted chair she had insisted the studio provide for her.

She blinked up at her visitor coyly, causing her false eyelashes to flutter up and down like little butterfly wings. Crossing her shapely legs, she glanced down and gave her skirt hem a subtle upward tug. Might as well practice her feminine wiles on a willing participant. Beggars can’t be choosers and all that…

She never saw it coming.

The piano wire bit painfully into his fingers even through the leather gloves as he wrapped the wire around her neck and pulled as hard as he could. Caught off guard, she couldn’t gather her instincts to fight beyond clawing at his hands to little effect. As his grip on the wire tightened brutally, his face took on a dreamy quality as the first trickle of blood seeped out from beneath the wire.

His face became flushed and he frowned at the unexpected stirrings of guilt that tightened his chest, not because of what he was doing but because of how it was making him feel. His cock tightened behind his zipper as the wire sliced into Estrella’s delicate skin. Blood oozed hot and slick over his leather-clad hands until it stained her pretty pink chair and puddled on the floor.

He reminded himself that he was doing this for her. He was devoted to his Valentina but he couldn’t resist the sexual pleasure that consumed him in this moment. He wanted nothing more than to shove his cock into this bitch’s mouth, just to see how hard she’d suck on him as she fought for her last breath. Fuuuck... He pulled harder on the wire as he struggled for control, his balls drawing up tight to his body at the slight gurgling sounds escaping her brutalized throat.

Why hadn’t he thought of that earlier? He would have planned for it. But as countless tiny blood vessels burst and obscured the whites of her bulging eyes, Estrella abruptly sagged in her chair. Well, now it was too late. Damn her. She had ruined the whole thing. He grimaced, grunting harshly as the orgasm roared through him. With a final, mindlessly vicious yank of his hands, her flesh gave way as the wire sliced through her airway.

He released the wire and shoved her lifeless body back in her pretty pink chair as he stepped back to survey the damage. Her nearly decapitated head tottered precariously on what was left of her slender neck.

He would be Valentina’s hero, not that fucking mobster. She would see the truth when he annihilated every obstacle holding her back. She would see Ramirez for what he was and kick that no good gangster to the curb. On the other hand, he loved her, he’d always loved her, and he always would. Now they had a new bond, one forged by death and blood. When Valentina saw what he had done for her she would finally understand that her place was with him.

He longed to kill Victor Ramirez, but getting to a man who lived in the equivalent of a fortress was impossible. For now, killing off Valentina’s competition would have to do. A simple gesture, yes, but one that said more than words ever could.

He gave the body a final, contemptuous shove and what was left of Estrella Estrada slid to the floor like a worthless pile of garbage. He busied himself at her vanity table briefly, then stepped over her with no regrets and left as silently as he’d come.