The Queens: Scarred Queen, Alejandro's Prey
Chapter 31

Casey watched in silence as Reyes raged in front of her like a lion in a cage. She felt every one of his thoughts as though he shouted them at her. She knew them because they were things she'd said to herself in moments of terrible self-pity. She couldn't blame him. He'd wanted more from her, but found out the worst. So, she waited patiently for him to sort through his feelings. If there was one thing she'd learned about her abductor over the past few weeks, it was that he wasn't used to the types of emotions she was engendering in him and he needed time to process.

Also, he preferred to have her close by while he dealt with those feelings. "Fucking hell, Casey!" he snarled.

She flinched when he slammed his fist into the wall, making the entire wooden structure shudder under the impact. Okay, time to bring the beast back under control. That was another thing she'd learned about him. While she seemed to be the cause of a wide variety of emotions in him, she also had the ability to leash his rampaging temper.

"Please Reyes," she begged. "Will you let me explain?"

He turned back to her, his wide shoulders heaving and his eyes smoldering with helpless rage at a situation he saw as something he couldn't control; the spiraling darkness of his chosen queen. She wanted to go to him, but this wasn't the right moment. Not until she'd told him her story. He nodded sharply, crossing his arms and holding himself tight until his muscles bulged against the fabric of his rolled-up shirtsleeves.

She swallowed the nervousness that threatened to erupt in her throat and sorted through her foggy thoughts and memories. "Well..." she started. "It happened three years ago..."

"Don't make it sounds like something that happened to you, woman," he snapped, interrupting her. "You tried to kill yourself, at least own that much."

She flinched at the derision in his voice. She'd grown used to hearing him speak to her with nothing but respect. She lifted her chin and emptied the emotion from her eyes. "If you want to hear this story, then you will listen and not interrupt again, Reyes," she said with chilling imperiousness.

He stared back at her, his own eyes challenging and then nodded sharply for her to continue.

"You may have noticed in all the time that we were married, that Ignacio and I never had children." She ignored the tightening of his body when she spoke her late husband's name again. "As a cartel guy, I'm sure you can sympathize... these mafia men, they like to spread their seed, you know? Like to produce as many sons as they can as quick as they can so they can carry on the family business and keep it in the family."

He ignored her lip. Partly because he wanted her to keep speaking and part because she wasn't wrong. In the mob, family was everything. "No kids," he grunted in an even voice. "Keep talking."

"Well, it wasn't for lack of trying..." Then she giggled. "Okay it was, he had some serious issues in that department, but let's not get into that now. Or ever... because yuck." When he growled she pressed her lips together and moved past her momentary amusement. "Anyway, despite Ignacio's growing impotency, I did manage to get pregnant about... ummm... three and a half years ago. With a baby boy."

"Fuck, nena," Reyes said, his eyes softening. Obviously, he could see where this was going since she had no children.

She nodded sadly.

"I went into labour a few weeks early, but nothing too far out of the ordinary. The pregnancy shouldn't have been at risk." Her eyes fogged over and she started to drift away from him, she could feel her skin growing colder despite the warmth of the room as memories washed over her. Her voice became distant as she spoke of one of the worst times in her life, when she'd thought that she might have a family once more only to have that tiny, selfish hope flicker out and die. "Ignacio wanted me to have a natural birth at home with only his personal doctor in attendance. I was nervous, but they assured me everything was on track and I would be fine. As soon as we realized there were complications it was too late... my son... he didn't make it. There was a lot of bleeding, I was... eventually taken to a hospital to stop the bleeding."

Reyes swore viciously, his fists tightening against his arms. She thought he might ask her any one of a hundred questions about the horrific situation, but instead he asked her the one thing that no one ever bothered to care about. The one thing that mattered most to her. "What was his name, Casey?"

Tears spilled over her lashes and trailed down her cheeks. And for the first time she was able to admit that she was no longer his captive. Even if he opened the bars to her cage, she wouldn't run. First of all, there was no way off this damn mountain without a helicopter license and second of all she was falling deeply in love with the only human being that seemed capable of understanding her cracked heart.

"I called him Jack," she whispered, then a slow, sad grin spread across her face. "After Jack Skellington from the Nightmare Before Christmas. My favourite movie of all time."

He looked lost for a moment and then he asked, more gentleness in his voice than there had been, "And the suicide attempt."

"Ignacio blamed me for the death of what he knew was likely to be his only chance at a son. He was angrier than I'd ever seen him and I was in delicate condition, both physically and emotionally. I was experiencing classic symptoms of post-partum depression, yet the moment I was released from the hospital, he locked me up in my room and refused to allow me any help, either in the form of doctors or anti- depressants." Casey paused for a moment, pain clouding her face once more as she remembered the loneliness and pain she'd had to endure. "Day after day I was forced to stare at my own walls, listening to his grief in the form of raging and ranting while attempting to bury my own grief. And you want to know the worst part?"

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"What, nena?" he asked, though she could tell the words hurt him.

"He wouldn't allow me to have a funeral for our son. Said because Jack wasn't born alive, he wasn't even a real person," her voice broke on the last word. She lifted her hand to cover her mouth for a second before gaining the courage once more to continue. "Can you imagine? I missed the funeral for yet another of the most important people in my life."

"Ah fuck, nena," he whispered. "You're breaking my heart."

"Broke my heart too, Reyes. So I decided it was time to take my broken heart, my broken head and finish off my broken body," she whispered, her eyes shimmering with tears. "I swallowed a package of sleeping pills with a bottle of rum... well a bottle of Malibu rum because I didn't have the real thing. I couldn't even manage to get suicide right," she said with a short, bitter laugh.

He stayed silent and she could feel the tension thrumming within him from the few feet that separated them. Knew he wanted to reach out and touch her. She also knew from the incredible, undeniable connection that had held them in thrall since the very beginning that if he touched her they would both break apart and he wouldn't hear the end of her story. So, he stood over her, watching her, protecting her as she spoke.

"Only I didn't wake up on the other side surrounded by my family, holding baby Jack in my arms," she said, a tiny sob escaping her lips. "I woke up in another hospital bed, this time strapped down and with a raw pain in my throat because they had to pump my stomach. I was surrounded by Ignacio, Alonzo and Diego. Two days later Ignacio was allowed to take me home. We barely walked into the mansion when he ordered the branding as punishment for daring to take the coward's way out of our marriage." Her eyes flared bright with remembered pain and rage. She squeezed her hand into a fist and finished. "He was pissed enough to enact this punishment himself, despite his weak stomach. He burned my flesh while Alonzo held me down and Diego watched." Reyes nodded, a look of utter anguish sweeping over his dark, scarred features.

"I can fix it, nena," he said, his voice raw. He went to his knees in front of her and took her hand in his, pressing his lips against the back, touching the mark. "Fuck, Casey, for the first time in my life I feel shame. Shame because when I first saw this mark, all I could think was that I wanted to twist it, to take it for my own. To burn this beautiful flesh with my own mark." She saw that shame deep in his soul as fury burned in his dark eyes. He looked at her from the floor, a position of significance for a man like him to take in front of a woman. "That I could ever harm my woman so brutally, strike her low, the way your late husband did, makes me sick to my soul. I swear to you, nena, I will take the mark away. You will never have to see it again."

"Don't do that," she whispered, taking his hand in hers and squeezing. "I earned this mark, Reyes. It belongs to me through the pain of giving birth, of having a stillborn child, of a botched suicide attempt, of having a mean bastard for a husband. I should thank you for putting him in the ground for me. No, I think I'll keep my scar." "But it will always remind you of that time in your life. What if you look at it one day and regret keeping it?" he asked, pressing the back of her hand against his cheek. "It won't happen. I don't believe in regrets," she smiled.

"What do you mean, nena?" he asked, burying his face in her lap. "Everyone has regrets."

"Well... if you were going to do something you shouldn't or something you might regret, then just don't do it in the first place. Then you'll have nothing to regret." She shrugged. "Or if you have impulse control issues like me, then just learn from the stupid thing you did and don't do it again, rather than looking back and spending your life wishing there were a bunch of things you'd done better. I have no regrets, Reyes, not now or ever."

He looked back up at her, his dark eyes shining. "You are so damn beautiful, Casey. Fucking amazing." He tugged on her hands and pulled her up until she was standing with him. "Now I need you to promise me something."

She knew what was coming, what he would ask of her. What he was going to demand. She shook her head and tried to step away from him. She couldn't give it.

He took her jaw in his hand, his hold gentle and bent his face to hers. She was wearing flats so he was a few inches taller than her. "No, nena, you need to listen and you need to make this promise. Because I know you and I know when you make a vow you don't fucking break it for anything. Just like you don't believe in regrets, you don't break your promises."

She pressed her lips together and squeezed her eyes shut to block him out, her only defense now that he refused to let her drift away from him.

"You promise me you'll never try to take your own life again. Not for any reason," he demanded his eyes glowing with a fervor that promised he would do anything to extract this vow from her and then spend a lifetime ensuring she never broke it. "Reyes," she whispered brokenly, tears falling again. "I can't give you that vow."