The Untouchables

4. Rafael Navarro

Carlos Quintero has a cold heart, I can tell it. And I can guess he's in his forties, even though he's faster and definitely stronger than any man of such a mature age. I slept in one of his guest rooms tonight, and then I started traveling to survive.

Rafael Navarro... I saw him only in photos, and I looked at him as a celebrity since I was five years old. He's twenty-six, tall and fit, passionate and full of bad habits. While the other girls in my class were falling in love with the bad boys from a new band trending in the world, I was looking up to the baddest of the drug lords. Unfortunately, I liked him also because he was the craziest one, always choosing fun over business. With fun, I mean going around showing off how powerful you are, stealing and killing for no valid reason.

I'm surprised Rafael is still alive. As I expected, he didn't change.

After making sure I have no weapons, two armed men ask me to take off my shoes and I have to put my feet on the hot sand of Navarro's private island. From the beach, I can already spot him sitting outside of his luxury mansion while sniffing coke.

He doesn't notice me even when I'm right beside him. He swings his feet in the water of his pool, leaning his back on his useless Ferrari. Some naked girls walk around, glaring at me. What do I do now?

I take a deep breath and try my best to ignore the abs under his unbuttoned flower shirt. "Excuse me, I'm Gabriela Lopez and I'm here to-"

Navarro grabs my ankles and pulls me into the pool. I swim to the surface and take air in my lungs, my eyes run around until I find his face a few inches from mine.

He grins at me. "¿Cómo estás, hija de puta?"

"I came in peace!" I say, almost mixing the words as I raise my hands up.

"If you wanted to come in peace, you shouldn't have crashed into my truck!" He pushes me down into the water, keeping me still in a corner of the pool, his hands on my shoulders and his knee on my chest.

I stop fighting back soon, hoping that he'll have some pity for me. Seconds pass, the chances to survive abandons me one by one with my strengths. I admire the sun from underwater, in peace. I don't want to die here, but this time I fucked up and I went too far with it. I know it, and it doesn't matter how painful it is to accept it, I will be killed. I'm lucky that I haven't been tortured.

It's now or never. I'm about to breathe water in my lungs when Navarro pulls me up. He's not smiling anymore.

"Why did you come here?" he asks.

"Quintero sent me here to make sure you'd keep working with him."

"I'm not going to repeat myself again: why did you come here?"

Panting, I think about an answer that could satisfy him, but nothing good enough comes to my mind. "I didn't want to die," I confess, truthfully.

"Showing up at my house isn't the best way to escape death, ¿no crees?"

"I had no choice. And I'm not the type of woman that runs away from her problems. I'm a fighter. I crashed by myself with my own car into a truck. Even if I didn't know it was an important delivery, I risked my life to get revenge on the person that was delivering the receipts. Isn't that enough to prove I'm not going to die as a coward?"

Navarro's eyes run over my body and he moves his hands on my hips.

A tingly sensation grows between my thighs. "Let's get down to business, shall we?"

He grabs my hair and pulls my head back, forcing me to look into his eyes. "Don't act like a boss with me. Your stupidity almost killed you once, learn to keep your head low."

I nod, noticing my fists grabbed his shirt only when he slaps my arms away from his body. His power scares me... and I fucking love it. After all, the thrill of fear is something else I couldn't live without.

Finally, he let go of my hair. "Listen, I don't give a shit about the receipts that you've destroyed. I know that nobody would dare to miss a payment to me. What I want is something in exchange of what I've lost, it doesn't matter if what's gone wasn't important. Even if you stole a single dollar from my empire, you'd have to pay," he says.

"If I pay you back with whatever you'll ask me, will you keep working with Quintero?"

He stretches his hand to me.

"What do you want from him?"

"From him? Nada. I want you in my bed tonight."

Is he talking about sex? "Is that all you desire? I can give it to you now."

"No. I want to do it my way. Spend your day however you want around the island and come back here in the evening. We'll play hide and seek. If I find you before you can find my bedroom, you'll lose and you won't have to fuck with me. If I win, I fuck you. Is it clear?"

For a moment, I wonder if he's serious. Then I remember that Navarro doesn't even know what being serious means. I shake his hand and his perfect grin comes back to bless my heart.