Devil Mine: A Dark Cartel Romance (London Underworld Book 1)

“Can I be the one to kill him, Diablo? It’s been almost a week since I had to load a new clip,” Marco says, knee bouncing frantically as he caresses the handle of the nine-millimeter pistol resting on his hip. “I’m getting a little twitchy.”

I shift my gaze from where I was staring out the window at the passing river Thames over to my trigger-happy lieutenant sitting across from me in the back of the Rolls. I unwrap one of the cinnamon candies I always have on me and pop it in my mouth, moving it to one cheek.

A humorless smile pulls at my lips.

Marco has the youthful exuberance of an unbroken mare and the bloodlust of a cage fighting pitbull. He’s barely restrained at the best of times, when potential violence isn’t being dangled in front of him like a red handkerchief in front of a bull.

That handkerchief is flying front and center right now.

“You can kill him when he’s paid me back in full.”

Marco’s leg bounces even more agitatedly as his grip tightens on his gun. His jaw flexes and his lips purse into what might be labeled a pout if he was a teenage girl and not a ruthless hitman.

When my father assigned him to me as my personal guard a little over a year ago, he didn’t warn me that I’d have to spend quite this much time managing Marco’s anger at being ordered not to kill someone.

All things considered, he’s been exactly the type of lieutenant I needed when establishing the cartel in new territory – violent, depraved, and psychotic.

His bloodlust rivals my own but he lets himself be blinded by it, his hotheadedness routinely getting him in trouble. Together, we’ve razed London to the ground, both in a bid to expand our territory and in search for much needed answers.

Next to me, Arturo clicks his tongue against his teeth and glares at Marco in reproach. He dislikes Marco’s unbridled style and the lack of deferential respect he shows me as his jefe.

If anyone else spoke to me with such obvious defiance, I’d put a bullet between their eyes.

Transparently, I thought about doing just that in the early days of him working for me, but the value he brought to my life in sheer entertainment alone made that decision a hard one to make.

Plus, the psycho turned out to be tirelessly loyal, as well as having a penchant for getting the job done with a flair for the dramatics much to the horror of our enemies, so he got to keep his brain intact.

Arturo likes to complain about him but even he has a soft spot for the younger lieutenant, although he’d rather sheer off one of his own fingers than admit it.

A little over a year ago, they were both part of an elite group of lieutenants sent by my father to scout new territories across the globe for potential expansion, so they’ve worked closely together for a while now.

Perpetually with a scowl on his face and a reproving word on his tongue, my second in command is outwardly in complete opposition to Marco. He’s more restrained, not so overt in his brutality and much more cerebral.

He’s been instrumental in helping establish an offshoot of the da Silva cartel from where my father started it in Medellín, Colombia to where we finally decided to expand; in London, England, where I’ve been based for the past year.

At first glance, Arturo is easy to underestimate. With his glasses perched on the tip of his nose and his paunchier belly, he’s often mistaken as the cartel accountant.Content protected by Nôv/el(D)rama.Org.

That misjudgment gives him a massive yet unnecessary advantage – by the time our enemies realize their mistake, he’s already relieved them of their heads. His violence might lurk beneath the surface, but he’s as vicious as Marco and I.

He was my father’s man before he was mine and I’ve known him since I was nothing more than a prepubescent boy. He’s one of a select few people I trust implicitly.

“Always wanting to kill first and solve problems later, cabrón,” he chides. “How about you focus on the objective?”

“Now why would I do that when I know you get your rocks off worrying enough for the rest of us?” Marco quips with a playful grin. He points at his forehead. “You should be careful, you know. Those lines in that dome of yours get any more pronounced and you’ll have to get Botox. Maybe while you’re there you can ask them to do a little mouth lift to curl those lips of yours into a smile one of these days? Just a thought,” he adds helpfully, putting his hands up in a picture of innocence.

“Hijo de p–” Arturo starts, lunging across the space to grab Marco.

“Stop,” I order, grabbing him by the collar and throwing him back in his seat. “Enough.” My voice drips with ire, making them both freeze.

Marco’s leg instantly stops bouncing, halting the almost physical urge I had to plunge the blade I’m toying with into his thigh so as to bring an end to the annoying habit.

“Arturo is right. He doesn’t get to die until he’s repaid every penny he borrowed from us,” I grind out between clenched teeth. “Doesn’t mean I won’t let you send him a message,” I add.

Marco’s eyes snap up to meet mine, a barbaric shine twinkling in his eyes at my concession.

It’s an easy one to make.

People don’t get to default on payment to the da Silva cartel and get away with it. And the man we’re on our way to pay a visit to is about to understand that.

I twirl the knife in my hands between restless fingers.The sharpened tip digs into my index until a trickle of blood erupts from beneath my skin and flows down my wrist.

I notice it but don’t feel it.

Pain doesn’t register in my brain. I’ve been numb for years, my tolerance unusually high, blunted by uninterrupted bloodshed. My body is a canvas of healed bullet holes and cauterized stab wounds to illustrate the wars I’ve won. I display them as proudly as I do the tattoos that cover over half of my body.

As the Rolls ambles slowly through the busy streets of London, my mind wanders back to my arrival here.

London was such a perfect location for us that the scouts had come back from their mission with a common message – the choice was obvious. It was a massive international city, close enough to a coast with plenty of legitimate shipments coming in through which to divert attention away from us, and, importantly, an entry point to the rest of Europe.

But it was also highly contested territory with almost every gang, mafia, cartel and criminal enterprise fighting for the same fucking land, the same money, the same power, regardless of global legitimacy or not.

The da Silva cartel had the weight of being the largest criminal network in the Americas behind it. Once we’d run out the competition in the North and South, we’d looked to the East for expansion.

We announced our presence in London subtly, by blowing up over five hundred kilos of imported blow from various sources. Italian, Armenian, Russian, English, it didn’t matter.

Thiago da Silva was here and they needed to know it.

Since then, we’ve had to fight for every square inch of the new territory we’ve acquired in Europe. It’s been a hard-fought year of blood and mud and sweat and death.

And I’ve loved every fucking minute of it.

The adrenaline, the rush of a plan going tits up.

The surge of excitement when eliminating an enemy, whether a single man or an entire fucking army.

Of their screams as they beg for mercy and I give them none, of laughing in their faces as I rip their throats out and bathe my hands in their blood, of them dying by my hand.

They’ve all come to fear me now, the one they call “El Diablo”, and they should.

The European arm of the da Silva cartel is mine and mine alone. My father remains in Colombia overseeing that part of the business while I continue to grow my empire here.

I’m a king who doesn’t sit on a throne. The minute I get comfortable in this leadership position is the minute I’ll get my throat slit.

Comfort is the enemy of ambition and the manic feeling violence gives me fuels me to newer heights. I won’t stop until Europe is completely ours.

Completely mine.

The reputation we’ve cultivated since being here of being completely ruthless and merciless is one I fully embrace, born both out of necessity when establishing ourselves against more legacy players and out of a purely visceral need for vengeance.

Because the real reason I’m in London, beyond the opportunity, the money, and the power, the reason I campaigned for this to be the base of our expansion and not another city, is very simple.

I’m going to find Adriana’s body, and I don’t care if I have to burn the entire fucking country down to do it.