A Gift To The Mafia king: Luis's Obsession

Elena's POV

The first punch broke my nose, and the second one made me forget where I was, but the third one did not come because the man with the thick hands decided I was done bleeding on his shoes.

He grabbed my hair and pulled my head back, and I saw his face for the first time. He had small eyes and a big scar on his cheek, and he was smiling like I was a joke he had heard before.

"The boss wants this one alive," he said to someone behind him. "Stop breaking her."

I did not see the other man, but I heard him laugh. "She is still breathing. That is alive enough."

"Barely," the first man said. "Boss said alive, not pretty. She will still fetch a price."

"She better," the other one muttered. "I did not drive six hours for damaged goods."

My hands were tied behind my back with plastic zip ties, and my face was wet with blood, and my head was pounding so hard that I could not tell if I was standing or kneeling or floating. I think I was on the ground, and I think I had been on the ground for a while.

Someone grabbed my arm and pulled me up. My legs did not want to work, but they dragged me anyway, and my feet scraped against the concrete floor of wherever they had taken me. I did not know where I was, or how long I had been here, and i did not know if anyone was looking for me.

Actually, no one was looking for me. I already knew that.

They threw me into the back of a truck, and the coldness of the metal floor slammed against my cheek.

I heard the doors jam shut, and then there was darkness. My nose was still bleeding, I could taste the blood in my mouth, and my head was spinning like I had been drinking, but I had not been drinking. They had given me something using a needle. Yes! I remembered there was a needle.

The truck started moving, but I did not know where we were going, and I was too tired to care. I closed my eyes, and I let the darkness take me.

I do not know how long I was asleep. It could have been hours, or maybe, days. The truck was still moving when I opened my eyes, and my head was still pounding, and my nose had stopped bleeding but my face was stiff with dried blood. My mouth was dry, and my stomach was empty, because I had not eaten in a long time.

The truck slowed down, and I heard voices outside of men shouting in Spanish, and I pressed myself against the metal wall because I did not know what was happening and I was too scared to find out.

But then I heard a word that made my heart stop. "Montero."

"Montero?" I whispered to myself. "The king of the Black Cartel. The man who makes people disappear."

Why were they saying his name? Why was I here?

"Is she awake?" a voice asked from outside the truck.

"Does it matter?" another one answered. "She is a gift. Gifts do not need to be awake."

"The king likes them conscious." The first man's voice echoed.

The second man burst into laughter. "Then the king can wake her himself."

The truck stopped, the doors opened, and cold air rushed in. It was so cold that it cut through my thin shirt and made my teeth chatter, and I knew we were not in Human Valley anymore. Human Valley was warm, even in winter, but this air was frozen, and it smelled like snow, metal and something else I could not name.

Hands grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the truck. I tried to stand, but my legs would not hold me, and I fell to my knees on something hard and cold that felt like Stone. But as I tried to balance myself, I became certain that I had landed on stone.

"The king will see you soon," a voice said. "Stay still."

"The king? I was being sent to the king.

The men in the truck had said something about a peace offering. I had heard them talking when they thought I was asleep. They said the Southern Cartel was sending me to The Black Cartel to end the war. I was not a volunteer, nor was I given the choice to be willing. I was just a girl who had been walking home from work when a van pulled up beside her.

But maybe this was not the end. Maybe I could survive this, and maybe I could escape.

I held onto that thought like it was a rope and I was drowning.

The bag was ripped off my head, and the light hit my eyes like a slap. I blinked and squinted, and I saw that I was in a courtyard made of black stone. Torches burned along the walls, and snow fell from the sky in thick white flakes that melted on my skin and ran down my face like tears.

And standing around me, dozens of them, maybe hundreds, were men and women in expensive clothes. They had cold eyes and sharp smiles, and they were looking at me like I was something they had found on the bottom of their shoes.

"The king's new wh*r*," a woman said, and her voice was bright and cruel, and laughter followed.

Someone threw a piece of bread at my face. It bounced off my cheek and landed in the snow. Someone else spat at my feet. A man called me a human whor, and more laughter followed.

"Look at her," a woman said. "She is shaking like a dog."

"She will not last the week," another voice said.

"She will not last the night," a third one added, and the laughter grew louder.

I kept my eyes on the ground, on the black stone with its red veins, on the snow that melted as soon as it touched the ground. I dug my nails into my palms, and I did not look up.

"Enough." A cold male voice ordered.

The voice cut through the laughter like a blade, and the courtyard went silent.

I did not look up, but I felt every pair of eyes shift away from me.

"She is mine now," the voice said. "You will not touch what is mine."

"My king," a man said, and he bowed low. "The Southern Cartel sends their regards."

"They send me a broken girl," the voice replied. "Tell me why I should not send her back in pieces."

"She is a peace offering, my king."

"A peace offering," the voice repeated, and there was something dark in it. "Then let her be a useful one."

The crowd parted, like a wave breaking against a rock, because someone was walking toward me. I could feel him before I saw him. His presence was heavy and dark and cold, like a storm rolling in from the sea.

I did not look up.

His boots stopped in front of me. They were made of black leather, and they were shining in the torchlight.

"Look at me," he said. His voice was low and rough and cold, like a man who had never been told no in his whole life.

I did not move.

"I said," he repeated, and his voice dropped lower, "look at me."

I raised my head, and I looked at him, and my heart stopped.

He was tall, with shoulders that barely fit through doorways and hands that had broken bones more times than he could count. His hair was dark and messy, like he had been running his fingers through it for hours. His eyes were black, not dark brown but black, empty and cold.

A thin scar ran from his left eyebrow to his temple. His knuckles were scarred. His jaw was sharp. He wore a black suit that cost more than I made in a year, but he moved like a soldier, not a businessman.

He was beautiful in the way a blade is: beautiful, sharp, dangerous, and ready to cut.

But that was not the worst part. The worst part was that I knew him.

I had seen his face before. Five years ago, when I was seventeen years old, I hid in a crate in an abandoned warehouse in Human Valley. I watched through a crack in the wood as a man in a dark suit shot another man in the head. I watched him stand over the body and wipe the blood off his hands with a handkerchief. I watched him walk away like nothing had happened.

That same man was standing in front of me.

"You," he said, and his voice was flat. "What is your name?"

I said nothing.

His eyes narrowed. "I asked you a question."

"Elena," I whispered.

He tilted his head, and he looked at me like he was trying to place a face he had seen before.

He did not know who I was, but I knew him.

Elena's POV

The crowd went silent, and I felt his eyes on me like a weight I could not shake.

Luis Montero was still standing over me, and his black eyes had not moved from my face. He was looking at me like he was trying to read a book written in a language he did not understand.

I stayed on my knees. I did not move, I did not speak, and I did not beg.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"Elena," I said. My voice was small, but it did not shake.

"Elena what?" his voice grew colder.

"Elena Flores." I replied.

"Flores," he repeated, and he said it like he was tasting something bitter. "There are no Flores in the north."

"I am not from the north," I said.

"No," he replied. "You are not." He paused for a moment. "Where are you from?" he asked.

"Nowhere that matters," I replied.

"Everything matters," he said. "Especially the things people try to hide."

He tilted his head, and his black eyes moved over my fac