No. I’m a man, and my only weakness is the love of a woman far better than me.
The touch glides lower, but my cock is utterly unimpressed, my mind and body disturbed. Somehow, in the back of my head, I already know the game.
The skin is too soft. The fingers are too small. The scent is too sweet.
It’s a woman.
The realization strikes me like a physical blow.
“Get the fuck away from me!” I roar, my hands jerking against the cuffs so hard I can feel blood dripping down my arms.
Augustus chuckles somewhere in the cell, and my restraint starts to shatter like my plan to stay silent.
The woman pauses, her fingers retracting ever so slightly. She sucks in the tiniest of breaths and whimpers. Is she scared? What the fuck is going on?
My father, never one to tolerate interruptions, sighs impatiently. “Luces.”
As if under his command, the lights above us flicker on abruptly. The harsh, unforgiving brightness blinds me momentarily, my eyes stinging as they struggle to adjust. Black spots dance in my vision, their intensity burning like hot coals. I blink rapidly, determined not to be left vulnerable without sight when he’s near.
Fuck that.
The sudden illumination reveals the surroundings I’d only sensed in the inky darkness. The cold, damp concrete walls, the rusted shackles that bind me, and the woman hovering just before me.
Her face remains hidden beneath a curtain of long, dark hair, but from the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of golden tan skin. I quickly look away, taking in my surroundings.
The cell materializes before me in all its grim, disturbing glory.
It's a desolate chamber, a nightmarish abyss carved from cold, unforgiving concrete, just like I remember. The walls are gray and crumbling, fitting of the old prison. The floor beneath me is covered in dried stains, blood, and other bodily fluids, some of them mine. Rust climbs the bars of a narrow window and the only exit.
My eyes flicker to the window again, just for a second, and my brows narrow a fraction before I look away.
I haven’t seen light the entire time I’ve been here.
It makes no sense.
No, don’t get distracted. Focus.
I swallow slowly, controlling my nerves, and turn back to the cell. There, in the far corner, stands my father, Augustus Luna,like a specter from my worst nightmares. He leans casually against the unyielding concrete, his arms crossed over his narrow chest, one leg kicked up as if he doesn’t have a care in the fucking world.
If I didn’t know him the way I do, I’d believe it.
But Gus does care. He cares about what people think of him, about his status, clout, money. He cares about honor in the Diablos, when he has none of his own. He cares about making something of himself, even if it’s becoming the scum of the earth. He cares, just not about anything that fucking matters.
My eyes slide down his body, taking in the subtle changes. It’s been over a month since I’ve seen him. He looks different.
More so than he should.
My father isn't a physically imposing man. He's smaller than me, shorter, more slender in build. In his late fifties, he bears the weight of his years, but now, he looks far older than I remember.
The toll of the past month has etched itself onto his features, carving lines of weariness and marking his face like scars. His salt and peppered black hair is now mostly gray. His deeply tanned skin now appears pale, which makes no sense since he was supposed to be on a Mexican vacation visiting his buddy, Raul Diaz.
But it's not his physical transformation that sends a shiver down my spine. It's the sinister smile that dances on his thinning lips. It's a smile that reeks of malice, a knowing, smug curve that conveys a dark secret he's holding onto until the right moment.
He looks like a man who holds all the cards, who revels in the power he wields over my fate.
And in that chilling moment, I realize that this encounter is far different than all the past ones—it's a calculated, twisted game, and he's the puppet master, orchestrating horrors that I can only begin to fathom.
I just don’t know why.
