Natalia Alvarez looked out the window onto the grounds of Juan Montez’s compound, feeling defeated. The luscious green of the lawn lined with colorful flowers looked beautiful on the surface, but only hid the darkness inside. The large mansion with vegetation all around had become her new home. A long stone pathway leading up to an impressive front door was always flanked by several guards holding machine guns, prepared for an attack. Tall walls surrounded them, with armed men stationed in towers interspaced along its length. She had willingly placed herself in this palace, this fortress, this prison—all to fight a war unaided. Natalia was all alone but she had a plan. She would win. She would conquer. She would be victorious or die trying.

Though on days like today, she wondered if she would indeed die.

Would she fail?

This place had become her prison, her hell, and her sad existence for the past six months—a half year of torture. She wasn’t getting any closer to her goal than when she had first arrived.

Sighing deeply, she struggled to hold her head high. She had to keep telling herself over and over that this had been all her idea. She had masterminded each and every step of the way to be where she was today. This was her mission. She had to keep her focus even though her spirit was slowly losing faith. Going in, she’d known it would be hard. But day in and day out with Juan Montez—her family’s enemy—had been a far greater challenge than she had been prepared to face.

But she had to remember this was revenge.

This was her payback for what he had done to her family. Retribution for forever searing the memory of her loved ones’ massacre into her mind to live with for the rest of her life—her now ruined life.

Her life had once been good. She had once been a spoiled, pampered, loved little girl of a king. The king of a very powerful drug cartel.

Yet the lullaby of a cartel princess is one of gunshots. A rapid, metallic song of pop after pop. Cries of pain and death accompany this melody, forming the dark and morbid soundtrack of what was once Natalia’s life.

She could almost smell the gunpowder from that day. As a child, she had known it was coming as the hairs rose on the back of her neck. Her fingers, intertwined with the rosary she held as she sat in the pew of the Cathedral of La Plata grieving her younger brother’s death, shook in anticipation.

She could hear the staccato of death in the distance. One pop, then two. The Montez cartel was coming for them.

“Don’t worry, sister,” Enzo had whispered as he patted Natalia’s smaller hand. “We have our best men on guard outside. The Montezes won’t be able to even get close.”

“I can hear them. They’re near,” Natalia remembered saying. Even at the age of twelve, she was smart enough to fear for her life, and nowhere near gullible enough to accept simple assurances.

Natalia’s grandmother, who sat on the other side of her trembling body, hushed her and touched the intricately designed cross Natalia held with white knuckles. “Pray for your brother. Let the men outside worry about such matters.”

Nodding her head in compliance, Natalia had closed her eyes and prayed for her poor little brother as her grandmother had instructed.

Though now, looking back on her memory, Natalia should have known better.

The entire Alvarez family should have all known better. They should have known that even a funeral for a six-year-old boy would hold no sacred ground. No. In the turf war between the Montez and the Alvarez families, there was no mercy. There was no time-out. There was only opportunity for more bloodshed and carnage. Even in the house of the Lord, there would be no peace between the two Argentinian drug lords, Bautisto Alvarez and Juan Montez.

Cocaine was their true God.

“Get down,” Natalia remembered saying barely louder than a whisper to her grandmother who sat beside her, dabbing her eyes with her lace handkerchief. “Get down!” Natalia had screamed, the blast of gunshots announcing Montez’s men’s presence as they charged through the double doors.

Turning to see men with AK-47s enter the church, shooting with vengeance and zero mercy, Natalia had reached for her grandmother, pulling her down while Natalia’s brother, Enzo, pulled out his pistol to join their family in defending the entirety of the Alvarez Empire. They were paying the price for all of them foolishly sitting in the same room at a funeral for poor Lautaro Alvarez, an innocent boy shot in crossfire similar to what was once again threatening to destroy even more of her family.

The Alvarezes, of course, had security at the doors, snipers positioned on surrounding rooftops, and every single male had been armed to the teeth. But that had only added to the rain of bullets falling upon that poor Catholic church which became the location where so many died.

Falling to the ground to shield her grandmother from bullets hissing by her ear, Natalia watched as her oldest brother, Ignacio, ran to protect their mother, as her father—Bautisto Alvarez—was shot in the leg. The wound certainly slowed him down, but it did not stop this powerful beast of a man. He would make these people regret their actions. As the leader of the Alvarez drug cartel, he would definitely make each and every one of them pay with their lives.

The sick melody of Natalia’s life continued on as volleys of bullets ricocheted off the walls, the pews, and even the statue of the Virgin Mary was marred by the attack. Stained glass shattered all around as people screamed while ducking for cover.

“Abuela, get further under the seat,” Natalia said, struggling to push her grandmother’s body beneath the pew for safety. Even at her young age she had wanted to fight these bastards too, but carrying a gun as the precious little mafia princess of the feared Bautisto Alvarez would never be allowed. No, never. Anyone who was caught giving little Natalia a gun would lose his hand, if not his life. Natalia Alvarez, the treasured daughter, would never be a bandito. Or so her father thought. Natalia on the other hand, had other ideas. The role of a submissive Latin woman, like her mother, was not for her. The day her little brother was shot and killed, she had finally had enough. She would have her revenge when the time was right, this much was a given.

Natalia shivered and fought back tears with the memory of that awful day. Of how she was met with resistance from her grandmother, who wasn’t listening to her command. “Abuela, you must get under there.” Bullets were blanketing the church, shards of glass were flying, and splinters of wood from destroyed pews made every inch of space in the church a battleground. “Ahora. Abuela, please!”

With another shove, she had pulled her hand away in horror to see it covered in her dear grandmother’s blood. “Abuela! No!” The sound of gunfire masked her screams. “No!” Natalia turned her grandmother’s limp body in her arms, looking into her face. “Please, Abuela!” She hadn’t even cared that she sat in the middle of a war zone while she rocked her grandmother’s bloody body on the floor of the church. Nor did she care if a bullet had claimed her life that day.

Very slowly, her grandmother’s eyes had opened to look up at Natalia, and her blood-soaked hand reached to stroke her face. Natalia could barely hear her frail voice as she croaked, “My Natalia. My beautiful, beautiful Natalia.”

Natalia covered her grandmother’s body as best as she could while she used the pew to cover what she couldn’t.

Her grandmother pushed Natalia off her enough so she could see her almond-shaped, green eyes. Everyone said Natalia had her eyes. “My loving granddaughter, promise me you will end this war. It has to end.” She coughed and blood formed in the corner of her mouth. Her white teeth turned red as she smiled softly. “No more death. No more war. Peace, my Natalia. Find our family peace.”

Natalia’s cries had blended with the last of the gunshots as she watched the life leave her grandmother’s beautiful eyes. Natalia’s shattered soul ripped from her body in a heart-wrenching scream as she held her dead grandmother in her arms. As the lullaby of Natalia’s life slowly came to an end when the last of the Montez attackers retreated back to their hole, she looked up to see that almost no one was left alive. This battle was over… for now. This song, this ballad of death, had turned into the eerie sound of silence as one of the few surviving Alvarez members stood to assess the damage.

Looking around the church, one thing was crystal clear to a girl who had yet to reach her teens. The Alvarez family had lost this drug war. The Montezes were stronger, more ruthless, and after the day’s deadly attack, now outnumbered them greatly. Life as Natalia knew it was over. Her father, her brothers, every man she could see was dead.

This memory, as awful as it was, needed to be remembered daily by Natalia. It gave her the strength to continue on. Juan Montez would pay. Yes, he would fucking pay.

“Natalia,” a deep voice called from the doorway, breaking her from her thoughts.

She turned to see Juan Montez holding a tiny red dress on a hanger. His fat belly hung over the belt of his pants, and his forehead beaded with sweat from the simple exertion of walking into the room. “Yes, sir?”

“I want you to wear this tonight.” It was not a request, and she knew as much. She was his sex slave, purchased six months ago in Moscow. She was his to do with as he pleased. And though she knew she could snap his neck in an instant—for she had spent years training to do so—she had to be patient. She had to wait until the timing was right. When that time was, she had no idea, but her gut always told her to wait.

Natalia didn’t have a death wish, and simply killing Montez would mean committing suicide. His men were everywhere, even outside his bedroom. Not that she shared his bed, mercifully. The man liked his privacy, or so he said. Natalia knew differently. She’d discovered on day one that the powerful, all mighty Juan Montez couldn’t get it up. His limp dick should have been revenge enough, and she did find pleasure in knowing his secret. If only her father were still alive, he’d find great pleasure in knowing that his adversary had nothing but a limp noodle between his legs. This saving grace had precluded her from actually having to have sex with the revolting creature, but he still required other vile acts from her. Acts so disgusting that she wasn’t sure she would ever recover from the memory of them.

“Yes, sir.” Those two little words had become the majority of her vocabulary. When she walked off this compound, covered in Juan Montez’s blood, she would never say those words to another person again. She knew that much to be true.

Montez tossed the dress on a chair by the doorway. “Get ready now.” He turned without saying another word and left the room.

Luckily, Montez hadn’t wanted anything more from her than to issue his simple command. For now, he left Natalia with nothing but her memories of how she had found herself as the purchased sex slave of Juan Montez.

In darkness, Natalia had traveled to his compound after being bought in Moscow. She had been sweaty and hot, even though the car’s air conditioning had been blasting on her face. As if waiting for a signal, once the clunk of the landing gear lowering was heard, one of Montez’s men had placed a black cloth around her eyes. The blindfold was too tight, but she wasn’t about to complain. She’d recognized that they were landing at the Ezeiza Ministro Pistarini International Airport. Once they were in the car, she concentrated, using her other senses to map out a route in her head. The smooth ride disappeared after about a half-hour. The bumpiness of the road and the sound of rocks breaking beneath the wheels told her that the way to the secret Montez compound was via a series of dirt roads. The length of time told her that they couldn’t be that far from the heart of Buenos Aires. She knew that less than 200 miles away was the town center of Rosario, where her journey had begun.

It seemed fitting, in a morbid way, that Natalia had returned to the center of the narco capital. A city serving as the hotspot for the majority of the turf war homicides between the Alvarez and Montez cartels during her childhood would now be the site where she would be living her days as a sex slave to her family’s long time enemy.

After decades of war, Juan Montez and his ruthless family had destroyed Natalia’s. On that one fateful day, Juan Montez had increased his stronghold and declared himself king of the cartels. By desecrating the sanctity of the church that day, killing a majority of Natalia’s family, Montez gained control of one of the most powerful drug routes in South America for himself. He was the one man who gave permission for other families to use Ruta 34 to move the only commodity he was interested in—cocaine.

Natalia’s father, her brothers, every cousin she had, all died in that church. Only a few were spared. The young, the old, and the weak. Whether her mother had been left alive because she was considered one of the weak, or out of Montez’s twisted sense of perversion, didn’t matter. She’d been attending the funeral of her youngest son only to watch her husband and two other sons shot down in God’s house. Her mother was all Natalia truly had left. Her mother cried, and then when she stopped, she cried some more each and every day of her life, until finally God had mercy and allowed her to join her husband and sons. Though heartbroken, Natalia wasn’t truly surprised at her mother’s weakness. She loved her mother very much, but Natalia’s strength came from her father. Callous. Calculating. Cutthroat. Natalia would soon prove she was more than a pampered princess; she’d prove her father’s blood, the Alvarez blood, ran deep in her veins, and Montez would regret the day he did not kill her in that church.

Years of training. Years of planning. Years of working every single connection she had until she landed a position in a covert group with the goal to infiltrate sex trafficking, yet another ungodly enterprise destroying her country. That was their goal, and though not Natalia’s main focus, it gave her the opening she needed. No one would believe she was a potential drug buyer on any scale large enough to interest Montez. She did not have the capital to even attempt to build that cover. But she did have something—she had her youth and her beauty. If it took an additional step to get to the man, she’d take it. All she had to do was get Montez to buy her.

And it had worked.

Did she cry? Did she resist? Did she scream out like the other sex slaves had done when bought?

No. Never.

Had she wanted to kill Montez the moment he grabbed her breasts and pulled her down to grind against his pathetically limp cock?

Yes. She’d wanted nothing more.

But she had to remember that this was just step one in her master plan.

The Alvarez family had lost. Juan Montez and his cartel had won that round so many years ago. But Natalia had made it her life mission to make the man pay. And she would. She would do just that. And oh yes, she would make the memory of her family very proud when she delivered the head of Juan Montez on a platter, surrounded in cocaine for that extra special touch.

Although, Montez and his men were smart. Natalia could not just walk into his home with guns blazing and walk out alive. The only way she could beat him was to earn his trust and make him believe she was nothing more than a sweet, naïve, scared little slave. She would play the weak victim. She would be the submissive woman who allowed Montez whatever he wanted. Oh, she would play. She would play until just the right moment.

“Why are you not crying,” Natalia remembered one of the sex slaves asking her moments before they were to be auctioned off.

Natalia had only shrugged, not being able to tell the poor woman that she actually wanted to be purchased, and prayed to God that Montez would want her since she was the only woman of Latin descent being sold.

She also remembered one of Poplov’s nasty guards asking her, “Why are you not begging? Shaking? Demanding to know what’s going on and where you’re going? I expected a delicate flower like you to show some fear. So why?”

“Sacrifice.” Natalia swallowed against the knot that formed in the back of her throat. “Sacrifice for my family.” He didn’t need to know that Poplov’s threat to destroy their families if they didn’t cooperate held no power over her. Her family was already dead. Montez had seen to that.

Natalia snapped herself out of her thoughts and memories of death and the day she had sold herself to the devil. She had to focus. Stay focused. One day at a time. One awful night full of nightmares at a time. She had no choice. She’d chosen this path, and as much as she wanted to at times, there was no way to get off it. She was alone. Alone with her internal demons, as well as with the hell she had put herself into.

Walking over to the chair, she reached for the dress—if you could even call it one. It barely had any fabric, and what material there was, was practically see through. Though she wasn’t surprised. This had become a very typical wardrobe of hers. Montez liked to show her off to everyone. His prized possession. A very expensive possession at that. She still couldn’t believe that he had paid Poplov three million dollars for her. Three million dollars! And other women that night had been sold for more. They were all sick bastards. Every single man who had been in that room that night had been a filthy, vile piece of shit. And when she was done ending Montez, she would sure as fuck find Poplov and make that monster pay as well.

Stripping off her clothes, she jumped when someone knocked on the door.

“Give me a minute,” she said as she tried to get dressed as quickly as she could.

“Mr. Montez is waiting for you,” a guard’s voice informed.

“I will be out in just a second.”

“Mr. Montez doesn’t like to wait,” he said behind the closed door. “He is demanding your presence immediately.

Pulling the dress over her head, slipping her feet back into her black heels, she opened the door with a smile. She hadn’t taken the time to fix her hair or makeup, but she really didn’t care. Montez seemed to appreciate her natural beauty anyway. “Ready.” The guard didn’t say anything but led her to the dining room where Natalia knew she would stand or sit by Montez’s side as nothing more than a piece of arm candy. Maybe tonight would be the night she would kill him. Maybe…

Montez was already seated when she walked in. He glared at her, no doubt for making him wait. Others were just getting seated, so it wasn’t as if Natalia were the last to arrive, but there was a high chance Montez would make her pay for this later. A slap to the face, a hand around the throat, a shove against a wall were definitely in his repertoire. She took the empty seat next to him, trying not to make eye contact in hopes that he wouldn’t demonstrate a show of power in front of all by teaching her one of his many lessons right then and there.

Leaning over, in a very low voice, he said, “Do not make me wait ever again. You are my fucking slave, the lady of the house. Remember that, or I will give you a reminder you won’t soon forget.” Spittle from his mouth hit the side of her neck and the lobe of her ear. It took all she had not to grimace at the disgust of it all.

“Yes, sir,” Natalia said, biting back the flood of swear words that threatened to escape her lips. She would fucking kill this man. She would…

She would.