This Isn't Fair, Baby (War & Peace Book #6) Page 2

  Esteban brought you to this home to feed and care for you.

  “I love when you look at me that way, Roja,” he murmurs, lust thick in his voice. “I want to see those adoring eyes on me while you worship my cock.”

  A smile touches my lips as my fingers skate along the hard outline of his erection in his slacks to his belt. He usually feeds me after sex, but especially if I blow him. Eager to not only please him but also to eat, I yank at the leather and work frantically to free his dick. I’m overwhelmed with the need to please him. The past few days have been heaven with him trapping me beneath him while he fucks me wildly. After all those months in the metal box, this life with him is manageable. I’m safe and cared for under his watch. Today, though, he’s regarded me differently, and I hate it. I want the look of desire back in his eyes. The pure, unfiltered look of possession. And I want a damn sandwich.

  His cock is hot in my hand the second I grip my fingers around it. My mouth waters to lick his tip and show him how good I can be for him. He lets out a slight hiss of air when my thumb runs along the side of his shaft, which is all I need to dive in. I slide my parted lips over the head of his length and let my tongue taste the underside of him. A grunt rumbles from him as he takes handfuls of my hair on each side of my head. His grip isn’t harsh, like it sometimes can be. It’s just firm enough to guide me the way he likes.

  I work him up and down with my fist while dancing circles with my tongue. His girth is wide enough to make my jaw ache, but not bad enough that I can’t push him deep into my throat. The moment I relax my muscles and swallow him, he lets out a string of curse words in Spanish. I smile against his cock but don’t slow my movements. I’m about to pop off of him for a moment to catch my breath, but his grip on my hair stops me. His hips thrust up as he shoves my face against him. His sudden deep intrusion causes me to gag. Drool runs out of my mouth and along his cock while I wriggle to get away.

  “That’s it,” he hisses. “Take every inch.”

  Tears from not being able to breathe stream down my cheeks. I dig my fingernails into his thighs to let him know I can’t take any more. This only seems to turn him on more because with a long grunt and an extra brutal thrust of his hips, he comes down the back of my throat.

  I gag and gag but thankfully don’t throw up—not that there’s anything in my belly to expel, anyway. Finally, when I feel as though I might black out, he releases me. I jerk off his cock and gasp for air. Snot runs from my nose and down over my lips.

  His face is impassive as he sets to putting his cock back inside his boxers and slacks. I stare at his features while they’re distracted.

  He will always be like this. Remember what he did to your best friend?

  I silence my inner screamer with a flash of inner rage. My best friend abandoned me. Married into the family I was supposed to marry into, dragging grown men on their knees behind her in her wake. Oscar had been drawn to her. Duvan had fallen for her. And Esteban had fucked her.

  Thoughts go to my father…

  Daddy was obsessed with her and now he’s gone.

  While Brie was off living the good life, I’d been stolen by the man who hurt her. I was starved and beaten and fucked right out of my sanity. I was forced to listen to my mother die in a metal cage. All because Brie made smart men stupid. All because Brie was too selfish to come for me.

  If the situation were reversed, I would have gone for her.

  Tears don’t fall, though. Instead, anger bubbles in my chest. This is my world now. Esteban may not be perfect, but at least he wants me. Unlike Oscar. Unlike Brie. Unlike anyone else.

  “You’re to do exactly as I say,” Esteban growls as he tugs me into his lap.

  My eyes find his and I straddle his muscular thighs. I can’t help but touch him with greedy fingers. I’m sure I look a mess with my drool and snot and watery eyes, but he looks at me as though I’m perfect.

  “Of course,” I tell him with a smile. “Can you feed me now?”

  He smirks before pulling me against him. “Oh, Roja,” he says with a chuckle. “I just fed you.” His fingertips stroke me until I’m dozing off. I inhale his scent and it reminds me of the first time I smelled him up close. It helps the pain in my belly disappear.

  “Ozzy?” I question as I peek inside another door. My parents and I just arrived at the Rojas’s for the summer. I’m dying to find him and hope he notices I’m wearing makeup. Daddy made me wait until I turned fourteen to start wearing it. Well, I’m fourteen now, so Oscar will have to notice me.

  I adjust my push-up bra and wander along the hallway until I get a whiff of weed. My nose scrunches at the smell, but I follow it in hopes it’ll lead to Ozzy. When I push through the door, I enter a darkened room. Dark curtains cover the window, and the only light comes from a black light on the wall.

  “Oscar?”

  A female giggles, and I jerk my head over to see a woman straddling Duvan’s lap. She’s blowing smoke into his mouth. My gaze lingers on them. Duvan is several years older than Ozzy and I. Where my best friend is lanky and boyish, Duvan is all man. He’s in college now and has muscles.

  I’m still staring at them when Duvan seems to notice me. “Vienna. Did you lose your way from your mommy?”

  The dark-haired woman in his lap jerks her head to glare at me and then laughs upon seeing me. Her boobs are giant and bounce with her giggles. I suddenly feel like a kid in comparison. I mean…I am only fourteen but most days I feel grown up. Not today, though. Today I’m staring at her chest, wishing for humongous breasts like hers.

  “I was looking for Oscar,” I tell him, dragging my gaze from the woman’s chest.

  Duvan smirks and accepts more smoke from the woman who’s no longer interested in me. His hands lazily roam her butt while I stare in wonder. Maybe one day, Oscar will touch me like that. I’ll have boobs, and he’ll want to squeeze them with his hands.

  “I should go,” I murmur and start to back out.

  “You should stay.” The deep voice behind me causes me to jump.

  Esteban.

  He’s the scary brother.

  When I turn around, he’s staring at me like I’m a little mouse with its leg caught in a trap. Like he’s a big cat with sharp teeth and he wants to shred my flesh straight from my body. I shiver but attempt to calm myself. Esteban won’t do anything to me—not with Daddy downstairs. My dad would kill him.

  “Sit, Roja,” Esteban commands, his eyes unnaturally white and evil looking in the black light. “Hang out with the adults for awhile.”

  When I don’t move, he grabs my elbow and ushers me into Duvan’s room and over to the sofa. I’m forced to sit. Esteban sits down beside me and stretches out his long legs. He’s a giant compared to Ozzy. When I look at Esteban, I see someone who’s no longer the young teen from my youth. He’s this grown man—a man who’s done terrible things, based on what Oscar has told me. I don’t like him one bit.

  “You smoke?” he questions as he leans across me to access the side table.

  His masculine scent envelops me, and I shiver.

  “I haven’t tried it, no.”

  Duvan is too busy playing with his girlfriend to notice that his brother is attempting to get me high. My daddy will be so angry if he finds out I’ve been up here with these men.

  “Nice bra,” Esteban says with a wolfish grin.

  I snap my gaze down and gape in horror. My tight light-orange T-shirt is practically transparent in the weird lighting. The white push up bra underneath glows!

  “Oh my God,” I shriek and cross my arms over my chest.

  He laughs at me as he lights a joint. I watch the way his stubbly cheeks suck in as he inhales. The way his full lips part and the smoke billows from his mouth. Then, he smirks and hands it to me.

  “Your turn.”

  When I don’t reach for it, he shrugs. “Didn’t take you for a pussy, niñita. Guess I was wrong.”

  Fire flashes inside me, and I snap the joint out of his hand. I bring it
to my lips and attempt to mimic his actions. As soon as the strange smoke fills my lungs, I start coughing. Esteban’s booming laughter upsets me as I choke. When I can finally breathe normally again, I glare at him.

  “Rude.”

  He shrugs and slings an arm over my shoulders, hugging me to him. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  I relax against his hold and attempt to remain calm. I’ve been following these boys around alongside Oscar for as long as I can remember. The fact that they’re finally letting me hang out with them makes me happy—even if they are having fun at my expense.

  “I used to think this house was a castle,” I tell him. My body is starting to feel loose. Free even. “Your dad is the beast of the castle.” I start to giggle, imaging Mr. Rojas big and furry like Beast from my favorite childhood movie.

  Esteban chuckles as he takes another hit of the joint. His fingers are dragging up and down along my arm, making me feel tingly. “What am I then, princess?”

  Moans start coming from the other side of the room, and I drift my gaze over to where Duvan has his hand under the woman’s skirt. She rocks against him as if she’s enjoying it. It makes me wonder exactly what he’s doing under there.

  I look up at Esteban. His eyes have turned nearly black and he looks completely chill. Nice even. I start to giggle again, which makes him grin. “You’re the snake in the garden.”

  “Like from the Bible?” He smirks, and it reminds me of Oscar.

  Where is that boy, anyway?

  “Yep. And I’m not a princess, I’m the—”

  “Angel?”

  I snort and shake my head. “No, the queen.”

  His brows scrunch together. “Queen, huh?”

  “Queen of everything.”

  “Is that right, Roja?”

  “And I’m going to rule the world one day.”

  He inspects me with a narrowed gaze and passes me the joint. This time, I don’t choke. It sucks that Oscar isn’t around. It’d be even more fun with him here.

  “I’m sleepy.”

  “Sleep then.”

  I drag my eyelids open but they feel heavy. I’m not sure why I’m so out of it. My thoughts linger in the past. I can almost smell the weed. Curling against Esteban, I close my eyes again. That day when I’d smoked pot with him, I’d woken up on the couch alone. When I sat up to try and figure out where I was, I realized that although I was fully dressed, my bra was gone.

  “You took my bra off that day while I slept, didn’t you?” I question softly.

  He chuckles, and it reminds me so much of that day. “I wanted it. And I take what I want.”

  I STARE AT my brother from across the table at the safe house and truly inspect him. It’s been months since I last saw him. When he all but vanished after fucking up one of my best friends. My own brother fucked and drugged his brother’s wife. Duvan had wanted to kill him but never got the chance.

  An ache forms in my chest for the loss of my brother. And that ache only grows when I think about my father on his knees in the shipping container, desperately trying to hold the wounds in his stomach closed. I watched my father die that day. Watched him bleed out and collapse to the floor. It was as though Brie held his fate in her hands because she asked Diego to kill him. To my surprise, the motherfucker obeyed her. That’s something I’ll never be able to forgive her for. Colluding with a Rojas enemy is unforgivable.

  I close my eyes for a brief moment but that only makes the memory more vivid. Quickly, I stare back at the man who is the only family I have left. My brother’s dark eyes are narrowed and his jaw is clenched. The silvery scar that runs down the side of his face glistens under the light of the dining room table. I’d been eleven years old the day he got it. I watched my badass brother get his ass kicked by someone somehow scarier than him. All over a girl.

  He reaches up and scratches at the dark hair that speckles his jaw as he scrutinizes me with a guarded expression. His hair once used to be closely shaved to his head, but it’s long since grown out. Esteban looks more like Duvan and I when he has the unruliness about him. More passionate than calculating.

  “Where is she?” My tone is calm even though my hands clench into fists.

  “I’ve been taking care of her. She’s sleeping right now.”

  The anxiety that’s been swarming in my stomach like a storm of pissed-off bees lessens. “You didn’t hurt her? Where’s she been since her dad was killed? Where’s her mother?”

  He crosses his arms over his chest and leans back. Esteban is always dressed nicely. Duvan took a page from his book and dressed the same. Our father instilled that in us. Dress like kings because you are all my little princes. Now that Papá is gone, I dress how I want. Compared to my older brother, I’m nothing but a boy dressed sloppily in jeans and a T-shirt.

  “Vee is not hurt,” he tells me, his voice carrying a slight edge to it. “Her mother is off somewhere being the whore she always was. I’ve helped Vee manage the properties by paying the bills for her.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. “Can you wake her? I miss her.”

  Vee has been one of my closest friends since the day she showed up in our kitchen, covered in blood at the age of five. I remember thinking she was sort of scary, but when she smiled all fear evaporated. We’d been connected at the hip ever since. For the longest time, we’d even thought our fathers would arrange for us to marry. It seemed logical, but we both knew our hearts weren’t in it. A marriage between the Berkleys and the Rojas’ would have been on paper only. At least for our parents, anyway. But she was my best friend, and I’d always imagined I’d fall deeply in love with her the way she seemed to love me. One day.

  “Let her sleep,” Esteban says and pushes a bottle of tequila my way. “Tonight, we drink. I’ve missed you, hermanito.”

  I take a swig from the bottle and enjoy the way it burns my throat. It seems to sharpen my senses, something I am thankful for. Ever since Papá was brutally murdered by Diego Gomez, my mind has been muddled with confusion, heartache, and an all-consuming thirst for vengeance. The only thing that takes the edge off are the pills I take from time to time—something has to calm me the fuck down. Now that I’m here with Esteban, though, we can begin to formulate a plan and deal with this shit, so I don’t have to obsess over it all the damn time.

  “I want to kill him,” I tell him in a blunt tone and swallow down more of the fiery tequila.

  Esteban snags the bottle from me and takes a swallow. “Who are we killing?”

  I growl and slam my fist on the table. “Diego!”

  He narrows his gaze at me. “Diego is the most powerful man in Colombia right now. You think you’re going to stomp right in there and kill him without any sort of resistance?”

  My chest deflates as his words sink in. Anger consumes me but I have no outlet for it. “So we make a plan.”

  “We have no men,” Esteban reminds me. “It will take some time to talk to Papá’s and Duvan’s men so that we can begin to gather our army. These things don’t happen overnight, Oz.”

  I run my fingers through my wild hair. It now hangs in my eyes, but I can’t be bothered to cut it. I’m sure to my put-together brother, I look like a bratty kid. That’s how he’s always seen me. But inside…inside I am raging like a beast. Duvan always favored our mother. And I thought perhaps I was like her too. At one time, maybe I was. Now, though, I am different. Anger throbs within me, like some uncaged beast waiting to be set free. Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I don’t see myself. I see the cold eyes of my father.

  “He took our home.”

  Esteban is mid swallow when his eyes meet mine. “W-What?”

  “After Diego killed Papá, he went back to Colombia and he took our childhood home,” I hiss. “The same home Mami died in. He just moved the fuck in there like he’s the goddamned king of our castle.”

  Esteban’s eyes blaze with rage. He’s normally calm and collected, but I know I struck a nerve. When our mother died, I think all th
e humanity in Esteban died with her. He’d taken it the hardest. It was at that point, I didn’t know my brother anymore. All memories of us playing in the woods by our house and Esteban saving me from drowning in a nearby river when I was a toddler were wiped clean.

  “We have to get it back,” he growls and chugs more of the tequila before passing it back to me.

  “We will.”

  His black eyebrows pinch together, and I can see the wheels turning in his head. My brother is smart. Together we’ll devise a plan.

  Over the next two hours, we become more and more drunk. Our plans to take over the world are interrupted when a flash of red darts into the kitchen. Esteban is leaned back in his chair with his feet on the table, looking relaxed as fuck.

  But as soon as she comes into view, we both sober up fairly quickly.

  “Ozzy?”

  Vee’s bright green eyes are wide and innocent looking. Her pink lips are parted in surprise at seeing me. Her trademark wild red mane is in messy tangles all over her head as if she hasn’t brushed it in quite some time. Of course she’s cute as ever—always has been—but what has my attention are her tits.

  “Why are you naked?” I choke out, my dick hardening in my jeans. Once, at her apartment, she’d begged through her tears for me to take her virginity. Back then, I was a different man. I had morals and valued our friendship. Sure, I couldn’t help but kiss her but I did refrain from popping her cherry. But now? Fuck…I’d hit that for damn sure.

  Esteban growls and reaches for her. Her eyes tear away from mine to find his. The small moment of clarity seems to dissipate as she gets a glassy-eyed look. A small smile forms on her pouty lips. She all but runs to him. I gape in confusion as she sits in his lap and curls against him.

  What the fuck is happening?

  “Vee?” I snap, and ask again, through gritted teeth, “Why are you naked?”

  Esteban strokes her messy hair and levels me with a hard gaze. “We’re together, and she wasn’t expecting company.”

  My gaze is fixated on her perfectly rounded tits. I have no words. I have no idea what the hell is going on. This is far from what I expected to find here. If she’s “together” with Esteban, there’s no doubt in my mind they’re fucking. The thought that she isn’t a virgin anymore saddens me. I guess I always thought she’d be there when I was ready.