“We’re ready to go when you are jefe.”

I nod in Tomas’ direction but my eyes are fixed elsewhere. I’m striding up the aisle to where Rodrigo is sprawled out across his seat, tapping out a message on his cell. Two seconds later I’m hauling him to his feet by his neck and slamming him against the side of the aircraft. He’s a big man but I’m a fucking mountain. The plane goes deathly quiet around me. No one makes a move. No one intervenes.

No one dares.

“You ever say shit like that to me again and I’ll cut out your tongue,” I say calmly but my words are spiked with intent. My grip on his throat tightens. “Well?”

Rodrigo’s remaining eye is bulging out of its socket with fear. “Sorry, Señor Santiago,” he gasps, his voice nothing but a harsh wheeze through a crushed windpipe. “It won’t happen again.”

Damn right it won’t. There is no place in this universe where this man is my equal. What he said to me in the car crossed a fucking line.

I release him with a hard push and he slides to his knees gasping for air. I take a seat at the back of the aircraft as far away from him as possible.

Breathe, Dante, breathe.

My rage is blinding and bloody, a beast of unspeakable evil. Some days I can barely control this insidious darkness inside of me, and it’s not just Rodrigo and his careless comments that are fanning the flames tonight. This operation was meant to be a cut and dry. Twelve hours in Miami. That’s all the time I needed to take out a rival who has been encroaching on our territory and fucking up the natural order of things. But someone talked. Someone leaked the plan. Now I have ten dead recruits on my hands – skilled men I trained myself – and my target is still strutting about making a fool of me.

The aircraft begins to taxi. All the seats adjacent to me are empty. These men know better than to try and make small talk when I’m in this kind of mood, when I’ve got nothing but harsh retribution on my mind. Tonight was a shit show and I’ve no compensation for any of it apart from a lingering kiss from the purest of angels.

I didn’t turn back once after I released her from my arms. I didn’t stop to see her fall to her knees in tearful relief but I imagined it all in my head. It played out like some perfect movie scene – the good girl granted a stay of execution at the last minute by the bad man. Because that’s exactly what I am, a very bad man.

I shocked myself by walking into that store and holding a gun to her head. I’m not a man who makes his decisions lightly but I wasn’t thinking straight. All hell had broken loose on us ten blocks away, twenty vehicles were burning and a local nightclub had been decimated by firepower. The authorities were all over it and my men were on the ropes. It wasn’t supposed to play out like that. My ops are swift, precise and deadly. There’s no margin for error. I’ve built our entire name on my particular brand of effectiveness.

And now this…

I’d only just managed to escape when I messaged Rodrigo to meet me at the rendezvous point, a quiet street about half a mile from the target. She’d walked past me and caught my attention right away. Something about the generous curve of her breasts and the fact that she’d tried so hard to hide them underneath her black sweater; how the evening breeze kept mussing up her hair and slicing at those cheekbones with strands of black silk… Best of all was that sexy, determined look on her face. This woman had someplace to be. Somewhere that didn’t include yours truly. That thought had eaten away at me until I found myself stepping inside that liquor store with my gun in my hand.

It was a perfect storm of attraction. She never stood a chance. Skin like porcelain, tall and slender with fire in all the right places, soft pink lips that called out to my dick like a siren. I didn’t lie when she asked me outright why I took her, I did so because I wanted her. I’m not in the habit of making women bend to my will. I have the money, the power and the looks to get what I want with minimal effort but I had a hunch she’d need a little more persuasion… and damn I wanted to be the one doing the persuading. It caught me by surprise. I’ve learnt to curb these sorts of feelings. I consider them dead to me like a couple of other things called decency and compassion.

Once I made my move there was no turning back. Something inside snapped the closer I got. Then there she was, two feet away and smelling like heaven. Not that a man like me will ever know.

Everything about her was intoxicating. The feel of her soft ass pressed tightly against my throbbing dick, the way she’d felt in my arms – so slender and fragile, the smell of her fear mixed with her perfume… Did she sense my lust for her? She must have done. It took every ounce of restraint not to take her in my arms and taste her then and there; forcing her to submit to me before we’d even left the liquor store.

We’re airborne now. From my vantage point I can see the top of Rodrigo’s blonde buzz cut from five rows away. In the car he’d requested a share of her once I was done, like she was some prostitute I’d picked up on the street to lose myself in for an hour or two, a cheap and easy consolation for tonight. His words were disrespectful to me, to her… It stoked the beast inside of me. The thought of that prick laying a finger on her had made the ramifications of our aborted mission pale into insignificance.

I’m feeling the urge to unfasten my seatbelt and go beat the living shit out of him, to finish what I started, to watch his ugly, scarred face dissolve into blood and bone beneath my relentless, pounding fists. He’ll be dead in under a minute and I can almost taste the satisfaction I’d feel from it. He’s not one of my usual men. He works for my elder brother, Emilio, which puts an even bigger target on his back as far as I’m concerned. I have no loyalty to this man. If he survives this plane journey he’ll never do another job for me again.

Miami’s a couple of hundred miles behind us now and I’m replaying that kiss in my head. She tasted like the sweetest damn honey. The way she’d kissed me back had promised such a contradiction to her straitlaced clothes and prissy manner, and I’d envisaged long nights of hot sin wrapped around her body. I was halfway drunk on her light and innocence until some long, forgotten sentiment clawed at me from the darkness.

Mercy.

That bullshit didn’t belong in that aircraft hanger but when I felt her fingers delving into my hair I knew I didn’t want her by force anymore, I couldn’t risk breaking her. I’m not known for tender touches and soft kisses. Hell, there are damaged women all over the world who can testify to that. So I let her go.

I let her go…?

Bad move.

Now I can’t stop thinking about her. She’s planted a seed that I’m aching to fuck into fruition. My good girl, my angel, has another side to her and it’s one that I intend to discover. One night, that’s all I need. Just one. When things blow over I’ll return to Miami and take what I’m owed. I need to see her again, I don’t have a choice. This kind of lust will never be satiated until she’s in my bed and I’m buried deep inside of her, with her nails tattooing her need for me across my skin and that long dark hair spilling all around her face.

Mine.

That woman is mine.

She has no choice in the matter… I always take what I want.