Blood Ties (Dinero de Sangre #2) - Lana Sky Page 0,78

taunting him with that very reality all this time? I’d gladly fuck any man who isn’t him and beg for the pleasure.

“Now, now,” Jaguar scolds. “There is a first time for everything. After all, it’s rude to discuss business so openly in front of the merchandise. Let’s let Ada-Maria choose for herself.” He turns his gaze on me, softening his expression in a way that reminds me of a parent asking a naughty child which choice of punishment she’d prefer. A beating or a whipping?

It was a choice I was presented with often in my early life—and one I quickly learned to master. A beating left bruises and marks that could ache all over my body. A whipping, at least, would be regulated to my back, and the results of which would be far easier to hide.

“Would you like to come with me tonight, and meet your new friends at the Guarida three days early, or stay here with dear old Dom?”

Once I hear it stated out loud and so bluntly, I don’t hesitate. “Domino.”

The silence that falls is beyond unsettling. Like a bomb has gone off, ending one battle in a long-fought war decidedly. The losing side conceals his anger behind a cold grin, but even the victor looks shaken. Far from triumphant, Domino is left frowning, his confusion so blatant that I start to fear it can’t be for show.

I chose wrong.

“Fine.” Jaguar rises to his feet and snatches a cracker covered in some kind of sauce from the tray. “She’s made her choice, and I am a man of my word after all. Let’s shake on it.” He pops the cracker into his mouth and extends his hand, but when Domino starts to reach for it, he shakes his head and nods to me. “This bargain was between Ada-Maria and me,” he says. “I can swallow my pride and let bygones be bygones.”

Warily, I place my palm in his, and his fingers latch onto my wrist as his eyes stare dead into mine.

“It’s nice to see which sides we’re all on.”

He moves his hand as if he means to initiate a handshake, but the movement is too sharp. Lateral, not up and down.

I hear an unnatural crack first, and I start to incline my head for the source.

Then I feel it—pain! White-hot, it lances up my arm, and I’m screaming, doubling over with the force of it. My vision goes white. Everything sparkles, like some horrible, twisted high where my brain forgot to interpret the pleasure I should be feeling.

God, it hurts. Everything hurts.

And then, all at once, sensation returns to my fingertips. They’re on fire, burning so intently I can’t move them. They just flop onto the table as Jaguar releases me.

“Three days,” he shouts, but the blood rushing through my ears distorts his voice, muting the ringing baritone as if I’m hearing him from underwater.

And someone else, who sounds louder, more insistent.

“Hold it to your chest,” he commands. “Breathe in through your mouth. Breathe, Ada. I know it fucking hurts! Listen to me—”

“My wrist… My wrist…” It’s all I can say over and over on a broken loop. I’m on the floor, sitting amid a pile of broken glass, clutching my right hand to my chest.

Jaguar broke my wrist.

Somehow I wind up in a different room, with a familiar marble floor pressed against my cheek and my right arm extended in the air, doused beneath a rush of cool liquid.

My brain can only process what happens beyond the agony in bits and pieces. One, someone is standing over me, holding my arm aloft, and at a slight angle so that it’s extended over the tub, with my wrist beneath the faucet. My fingers hang limply, like a limb on a broken doll.

“That sick motherfucker.” The voice is Domino’s, and he repeats that assessment over and over, uttered with a different inflection each time.

That sick motherfucker, hissed with disgust.

That sick motherfucker… This time with an unsteady note in his voice I’m not used to hearing. Fear?

“When I get my hands on that sick motherfucker, I’ll kill him.” He means every word, voicing them with a clarity I haven’t heard from him since I woke up on the floor of this damn mansion.

Gone is the mocking hate, and the twisted innuendo.

He wants to kill Jaguar with every fiber of his being. Very, very badly.

“Why?” I croak, though I’m not sure what exactly I’m referring to.

Why is he crouched beside me, holding my broken wrist beneath running cold