I FEEL AS restless as a caged animal while I pace in my office. Back and forth. Back and forth. I swear I’m going to wear a path into the hardwood flooring soon. I light my fifth cigarette of the morning, puffing away on it like it’s going to somehow solve all of my problems.
Today is Aria’s punishment. It will be harsh; there’s no doubt about that. Does she deserve it? Of course. She tried to kill me. And when you hurt or attempt to kill the head of a cartel, well, let’s just say you earn everything that’s coming to you.
But for some reason, I’m feeling conflicted for maybe the first time ever. I know deep down Aria deserves this, but the thought of her being disciplined for it has me torn in two. On one hand, I want to let her go unscathed. But on the other hand, I know I can’t. If I let her get away with this, my men will see me as cowardly. She will ultimately become my weakness, and I can’t let that happen.
My phone rings just then, and I’m quick to answer it. There’s a problem at one of our warehouses, and it takes me a good thirty minutes to fix it. It requires every ounce of my attention, making me temporarily forget all about what’s going to happen today with Aria, and I don’t mind the distraction. In fact, I welcome it.
But when Ignacio barges into my office a short time later without knocking, I know something’s wrong. His eyes are shifting from side to side, as if he’s afraid to look at me. I’ve seen him act this way many times before. I know he needs to tell me something, but he doesn’t necessarily want to because of what my reaction might be.
“I’ll call you back,” I tell the warehouse manager on the phone before ending the call. “What the fuck happened?” I ask, knowing before he even speaks that it’s probably going to piss me off.
“They started without you.”
It takes a few moments for his words to register. “What the fuck do you mean they started without me?” I hiss in anger.
“The men. They got restless. Demanded justice.”
I stub out my cigarette in the ashtray and say, “Let’s go.”
I follow him to the basement. My feet can’t seem to move fast enough, and I can hear the commotion before we even arrive. Fifty or so of my men are chanting and cheering; the noise almost deafening. And I know they don’t just want justice. They want fucking blood.
Ignacio goes downstairs, but I stay on the second floor where there’s a viewing area surrounded by a metal railing. When I step closer to the edge, I can see that Aria is already chained to a giant pole in the middle of the open room below. I watch her intently as she clings to whipping post for dear life, trembling violently. Her pretty face is pressed against the wood as tears stream down her flushed cheeks.
The back of her shirt has been cut open, exposing her perfect, beautiful, naturally tan skin. I can see three whip marks already on her flesh. They don’t look very deep, but I know how Alvaro is. He’s just warming up. He always goes easy at first, making the person on the post think he’s not going to hurt them too badly. And then that’s when the real torture begins.
The rule is five lashes for anyone who steps out of line and ten for minor infractions within my organization. But for stabbing me? Fuck, Alvaro will probably want to give her fifteen…or maybe twenty. She is the enemy in their eyes, and they won’t rest until justice is served against her.
I take another step forward and notice that the sides of Aria’s breasts are visible. Glancing around the room, I see that several of my men are salivating over the sight. My hands clench into fists at my sides, and I almost stop the whole thing right then and there. But I can’t stop it. Even if I wanted to. My men want retribution for what was done to me. I should want that too; but for some reason, I don’t.
When I first saw Aria in that dirty cell with desperation dripping from her, I wanted to somehow turn back the hands of time and change everything. I shouldn’t have even called my men into my room that night after she stabbed me. I should have tied her to the bed and left her there while I tended to my wounds on my own.
But then there would have been too many questions. Rumors. Gossip. My men would have wanted answers; and eventually, they would have found out the truth. Either way, no matter what I did, we would have found our way back here. She can’t escape this punishment, because she can’t become my weakness, and I also don’t want a fucking mutiny on my hands.
I watch breathlessly as Alvaro looms behind Aria. He’s a huge guy, tall and wide, and Aria’s petite form dwarfs in his presence. There’s a roguish smile on his face as he circles around her. He loves being in charge of the whippings. I swear the bastard gets off on it.
He rears back and the whip flicks out, hitting hard, the force splitting her flesh wide open. The sound of Aria’s terrified screams echoes in the room, and the sick fuck in me savors every sound. I just wish she was screaming for me and not because of the terrible pain she’s in.
Alvaro whips her in succession, a few of the strikes fileting her skin with precision. I flinch during one particularly hard hit, and my side begins to ache against the pull of my stitches. Aria cut me deep, deeper than the whip is cutting through her now. The painful throbbing keeps me grounded and reminds me of why she’s here, and the clearly irrational part of me wanting to put a stop to all of this is temporarily restrained, for the moment at least.
Aria’s screams turn into cries of anguish as the punishment goes on, and I close my eyes against them as my hands grasp the railing in front of me in a white-knuckle grip. I try to assure myself that she’ll be okay. I survived this once when I was a young boy, but I didn’t have the luxury of it ever ending. I was whipped until they thought I was dead, my body lying amongst the rest of my massacred family members. I was left there in a pool of my own blood with only my internal screams to keep me company.
Forcing my eyes open, I watch as Aria’s frantic gaze searches the room, looking for something or someone. My breath hitches in my throat when our gazes lock. We share an indescribable connection in that moment. Her honey-colored orbs are full of emotion and of pure, undiluted fear. I’ve seen that same look before. And it instantly reminds me of them.
Suddenly, it feels like all the air in the room has been sucked out by a giant vacuum, and I’m having trouble catching my breath. My lungs burn as painful memories bombard me. I’m taken back to that time when I was younger, and I was forced to watch the most vile and horrific crimes against my family take place.
Staggering, I sway and fall against the wall behind me. It takes all of my strength to suck fresh oxygen into my lungs and regain my wits.
When I manage to get back to the railing, I look down just as Aria’s eyes flutter closed. Her body slumps against the post and her extremities go limp because she’s fallen unconscious.
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath.
I watch in horror as Alvaro rears back, ready to continue to whip her lifeless body and continue out the punishment. My anger suddenly rises to the surface, my blood boiling inside of my veins until I see nothing but red.
“That’s enough!” I roar. My deep voice bounces off the walls, drawing the attention of every single person in the room.
I jog down the steps, telling a few of the men to let her loose. They heed my instructions, having the ropes untied by the time I reach the bottom. I scoop Aria into my arms, her blood soaking through my shirt as I carry her up the stairs and through the compound.
My hurried footfalls echo through the halls as I carry her to a room that we use for all of our medical care. This morning, I had called a local surgeon, the best one I know. I wanted him here, prepared to care for Aria in case he was needed. No one before her has ever gotten this type of treatment. If you make it onto the whipping post in the first place, it’s because you earned the punishment you’ll receive. And if you deserve the punishment, then you deserve to wear the scars for life.
I thought I could remain indifferent to Aria and the process, but I was wrong. I was so fucking wrong. As I glance down at her pale face covered in a sheen of sweat, the way my heart beats erratically in my chest scares the hell out of me. I’ve never given a shit about anyone but myself for the past fifteen years. So why now? Why her?
Because she’s innocent. Just like your mother and your sisters.
I let out a growl of frustration as I push through the door to the room. The surgeon is waiting, dressed in scrubs and putting on a pair of latex gloves as I lay her unconscious body facedown onto the sterilized metal table.
The doctor stares at the open wounds on her back, but he doesn’t say a word. He simply turns and begins grabbing what he needs. He squirts some kind of saline solution to clear away the blood and dirt, and the sight of the whip marks turns my stomach. It takes everything in me to not lose my fucking breakfast. I’m used to seeing blood and gore. Hell, I think my hands are permanently stained in the blood of my foes. But this. This is different. This makes me feel. And I haven’t felt much of anything for most of my life.
My hands begin to shake, but I quickly curl them into fists. “She deserved this,” I say out loud, trying to convince myself more than the doctor, but he simply stares at me before giving me a small, reassuring nod. But what I said feels like a blatant lie. The worst goddamn lie I’ve ever told.
You did this to her. It’s your fault. You could have stopped it, but you didn’t.
I haven’t heard from my conscience in such a long time, and it shocks me to my very bone marrow that I actually feel an overwhelming sense of guilt over all of this. This girl has my head going in several different directions at once. I can barely keep up. One minute I want to kill her, and the next I want to keep her and never let her go.
I run my hands through my hair, pulling at the ends in utter frustration. This is exactly the reason why I need to keep my distance. She’s already worming her way under my skin, and I can’t let that happen. Not now. Not ever.
“She will be all right. Not too much blood loss,” the doctor assures me. “Will have lots of scars, though.”
And his words suddenly send me tipping over the edge. “No scars,” I demand, my tone low and deep like an angry growl. My own voice sounds foreign, like some kind of feral animal.
“Qué?” he asks with a confused look on his face.
“I don’t want a single scar on her. Do what you can to make the incisions as small and neat as possible. Take care of her wounds so that they don’t turn into scars.”
“Some of these are so deep. I don’t know if that’s possible, Mr. Navarro,” he says, and I can hear the unease in his voice.
“Steady hands, Doc. Not. A. Single. Scar,” I say, enunciating every word. “If you fuck up, you won’t have your hands much longer,” I warn him. “Lo entiendes?”
He nods in agreement.
I watch every movement, every incision he makes, and I’m glad that Aria is unconscious for all of this. But when she wakes up, what will happen? Will she hate me for what was done to her?
Yes, I suppose she will hate me. She may never stop hating me for the rest of her life.
Shaking my head, I decide that I don’t care. I’ll take her hatred and any other emotion she wants to feel towards me. I’ll take all of them and absorb them, shaping and molding myself into a new creature like I’ve done for almost my whole life. I’ve been a chameleon for as long as I can remember, always adapting, always changing. In this world, you can never sit still for too long. Someone is always looking to take off the head of the snake. Someone always wants what you have, what you treasure the most.
Sighing deeply, I take one last long look at Aria before I force myself out of the room. I can’t become attached to her. It’s too dangerous. For the both of us.
