Dirty Promises

  Copyright © 2015 Karina Halle

  Cover photo © conrado/Shutterstock.

  Skull logo © vadim nardin/Shutterstock

  The right of Karina Halle to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in this Ebook edition in 2015

  by HEADLINE ETERNAL

  An imprint of HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN 978 1 4722 2887 1

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  EC4Y 0DZ

  www.headlineeternal.com

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  Praise for Karina Halle

  By Karina Halle

  About the Book

  A Note from the Author

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  Catch the whole Dirty Angels Trilogy

  Don’t miss The Artists Trilogy

  Find out more about Headline Eternal

  About the Author

  Karina Halle is a former travel writer and music journalist, and the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Pact, The Artists Trilogy, and other wild and romantic reads. She lives in a 1920s farmhouse on an island off the coast of British Columbia with her husband and her rescue pup, where she drinks a lot of wine, hikes a lot of trails and devours a lot of books.

  To find out more about Karina and her unmissable books, visit www.authorkarinahalle.com, find her on Facebook, and follow her on Twitter @MetalBlonde.

  Why you should lose yourself in a Karina Halle novel:

  ‘This is hands down my favorite dark and dangerous series’ Jay Crownover, New York Times bestselling author

  ‘Karina Halle has done it again with this violently beautiful tale of love, pain, revenge, and loss, that will rip you apart, piece by piece, and put you back together again’ S. L. Jennings

  ‘A dark, unpredictable love story that blows away conventional boundaries’ K.A. Tucker

  ‘A story that just about jumps from the pages directly onto the big screen. Fans of suspense and twisted romance will be overjoyed with Halle’s talent’ Romantic Times

  ‘I’m officially addicted to Karina Halle’s writing, but I don’t plan on seeking a cure for this obsession anytime soon’ Chelsea M. Cameron, New York Times bestselling author

  ‘Full of twists, surprises, action … This book was spectacular, unique and made me feel all sorts of raw and deep emotions’ Bookish Temptations

  ‘Karina’s writing is flawless. She writes with so much passion that you can’t help but fall in love with her characters’ Four Chicks Flipping Pages

  ‘Just the right mix of intense emotions: love, hate, anger and sadness’ Romance at Random

  ‘Fiercely unique. Bold. Riveting. Gritty. Stressfully intense. Evoking such an exceptionally wide range of emotions, this action-packed and thought-provoking story left me breathlessly tense’ Vilma’s Book Blog

  ‘She dares us to fall in love with the bad’ Smexy Books

  ‘Dirty Angels is a story about power vs. weakness, good vs. evil, strategy vs. threat. All in all, it’s like a game of chess with the addition of scorching-hot sex’ My Book Muse

  By Karina Halle

  The Artists Trilogy

  On Every Street (e-novella)

  Sins & Needles

  Shooting Scars

  Bold Tricks

  Dirty Angels Trilogy

  Dirty Angels

  Dirty Deeds

  Dirty Promises

  About the Book

  Blood. Sex. Revenge. Being king comes at a brutal price.

  Drug lord Javier Bernal has sliced and diced his way to the top of the Mexican drug trade, presiding over the country’s largest cartel. But his rise to power comes at a ruthless price: the death of his sister, Alana.

  Devastated and wracked with guilt, Javier shuns his new wife, Luisa, forcing their marriage into a steady decline. When she’s pushed into the waiting arms of Esteban Mendoza, his right-hand man, it seems Javier has lost everything. Only by piecing together the truth about Alana does he realise just what he has to gain.

  Blood will spill. Cities will burn. Heads will roll. Because Javier will stop at nothing until he gets what he wants. And he wants raw, ruthless revenge.

  Addicted to Karina’s wild Dirty Angels world? Don’t miss Books One and Two in the series, Dirty Angels and Dirty Deeds. And for more of her deliciously dark romance, check out The Artists Trilogy …

  A Note from the Author

  Check your morals at the door – this isn’t your typical romance. These are bad people. They do bad things. They are immoral. Depraved. Ruthless and brutal. They seem to lack scruples at times. Please keep this in mind when you read this book or you’re going to have a very rude awakening. But if you like rude … go right ahead.

  Dedicated to the ones with the black hearts and dirty souls.

  PROLOGUE

  Javier

  My wife was a liar.

  Then again, I was a liar too. Perhaps the greatest liar of them all.

  And because of this, I can’t blame her for anything that happened. I lied and pretended everything was normal, that there wasn’t a problem. Our lives ebbed and flowed in this state of organized chaos, but within that chaos, under the guise of mundane brutality and usual depravity, something was wrong. Yes, the violence kept my teeth sharp and my mind sharper. The two of us sat on our thrones, king and queen, with the kind of ease you’d find from an old married couple on a broken down porch, mosquitos buzzing hungrily at their ears.

  But the mosquitos drew more blood each time. One drop here, one suck there. Eventually you’d be hollowed out. It didn’t matter how content you were, how little they took. Bloodsuckers never rest until they’re full.

  I made two mistakes. I pretended everything was fine, that I, Javier Bernal, was fine.

  I also let the mosquitos get too close.

  I let them rob me of everything that mattered most. Two mistakes cost me all that I’d worked for, all that I’d ever loved.

  But I was not done yet. There was enough blood in me to keep me alive. And that blood boiled hot, red, rank with revenge.

  Rage.

  It fue
led me.

  It whipped me.

  It begged me.

  I would not stop until everything was mine again.

  Until the heads rolled on the dusty floor.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Luisa

  The heat made the blood smell worse, like you could sense it thickening in the air. It brought out the sharp tang of copper, mixed with heavy dust.

  Blood these days reminded me of my mother. Not that she wasn’t alive and relatively well, living with my father in an assisted living center in the quiet suburbs of San Diego. She was fine. She was safe. But I guess it made me aware of how disappointed she would be in me. In the person I had become. The smell of blood did nothing to me anymore. It didn’t make me sick. It didn’t make me feel anything. I was used to something I never thought I’d get used to.

  And more than that, sometimes I liked the smell. Sometimes it meant an enemy was finished and we had lived to survive another day at the top. It was this constant climb and a never-ending struggle to keep our footing, and blood, blood meant victory. Security.

  Power.

  But I never wanted her to see me now, like this.

  The wife of a drug king. The queen of corruption.

  She knew all of this, of course. Knew what I did to survive and provide a good life for her, my father, myself. She knew that I fell in love.

  But I’m not sure if she knows that I am falling out of love. That I didn’t realize the cost of trying to keep it. She didn’t know that I had become a monster, that the ways of this life — my new life — were slowly sinking into my soul and turning it putrid and black.

  Everything costs something now. In the past, when I was just a lowly waitress in Cabo San Lucas, working for a slimeball boss, I had to pay for the right to make money by putting up with his advances. When I married Salvador Reyes, the most powerful madman in the country, I paid for that choice with my virginity, my dignity, and nearly my life. Now, in order to sit on the throne of the country, on top of money and drugs and guns and blood that paved my way, the cost was my soul.

  Sometimes I thought it was the only thing I had left.

  The screams in the distance died off. Funny, I actually hadn’t noticed them until they stopped. The smell of blood still hung in the air, like invisible smoke that would eventually seep its way into your skin.

  I grasped my bottle of wine tightly, as if it were filled with precious gems, and got off the bench at the koi pond. This used to be where Javier and I would sometimes talk, when he was feeling particularly romantic or even philosophical. He hadn’t been in any of those moods lately. It was like I barely existed.

  Well, there were some things. But I didn’t want to think about those, even though I knew where he was going after the torture was over and the last drop of blood was spilled.

  I carefully made my way past the lotuses, pausing to admire the elegance they granted such a brutal place, and headed toward the back of the pond where the reeds and palms grew thick. Behind them I was pretty much unnoticeable to the entire compound, a place that was nothing short of a palace, a place that had become my home for the last year and a half. But sometimes I still thought of it as less than a castle and more like a prison. After all, I was brought here as a captive and some memories were hard to forget, no matter how badly I tried to find my footing and rise above it.

  A few weeks ago I took a bucket from the gardener’s shed and brought it over, flipping it upside down to make a seat. I knew it was silly — I could have had custom made chairs or an outdoor sofa if I wanted. I could have had anything. But I wanted something that was mine and mine alone. A secret. I liked sitting here in the evenings, feeling totally protected from the watchful eyes of my husband, of his right-hand man Esteban, of the lackey Juanito, of anyone who worked for our cartel. By the time I finished a bottle of California pinot noir, I felt like another person in another land. These were the little things in my life that I clung to now.

  I sat down on the bucket and took a long swig of wine. Javier got cases of it imported just for me, after I once remarked that I liked it. That was a few months ago, before his sister died and everything changed. Back then, I was Javier’s queen. Now I didn’t even know who I was. But I knew I didn’t like her.

  I was scared of myself.

  I stayed hidden in my spot until the wine was almost gone and the sun was sinking below the hills to the west. The air was still hot, muggy, like breathing in through a wet cloth. Though I’d gotten used to the smell of blood, I hadn’t gotten used to the humidity around Sinaloa. Especially where our compound was, nestled deep in a valley along the Devil’s Backbone. Javier liked the cover our location provided – the landscaping blended the house seamlessly into the jungle, but it also trapped the heat and added to the feeling of being closed in. Sometimes I woke up thinking I couldn’t breathe, nightmares of suffocation bleeding into reality.

  During those times, I’d sit up in bed, breathing hard and covered in sweat. Javier would reach for me, seemingly half asleep, and just hold my hand for a moment. Then he would pull me toward him and I’d be lulled to sleep in his arms. Sometimes he would brush the hair off my face and those burning eyes of his would light me on fire. We’d make love and make promises.

  It had been like that for a while – his comfort, his presence … he never denied me anything. I knew I wouldn’t be accepted into his life so quickly, not by the members of his cartel. I’d gone from captor to lover in a short amount of time, and then from lover to wife soon after that. But he stood by me, ever so proud. He wouldn’t change his mind about me and my place in his life, and he’d slaughter anyone who dared to throw an unkind word my way.

  For all his cunning ambition and ruthless ways, Javier Bernal really did love me. He was devoted and as much mine as I was his.

  All those promises.

  “Luisa.” A voice drifted over the brush, causing me to freeze.

  Esteban came around the corner and gave me a lopsided smile.

  “Here you are,” he said lazily.

  I took my hand away from my chest, my heart beating like a drum, and looked down at the empty bottle in my hands. I felt utterly stupid, which was probably silly in itself considering this was my property and I could do whatever the damn well I wanted.

  I also felt acutely disappointed that there really was no safe place left.

  I cleared my throat and sat up straighter, even though looking regal was impossible when you were sitting on top of a damn bucket.

  “You found me,” I said.

  He folded his arms and peered down at me. “Dipping into the pinot again?”

  I glared at him. “What’s your point?”

  He shrugged. “No point. I was looking for you though.”

  “Why?”

  “Do I need a reason?”

  Esteban and I didn’t always see eye to eye, though it pained me to say that lately it felt like he was the only friend I had. There was always Juanito, who was in his early twenties and an eager narco, but I think the boy was scared of me, which I found funny considering we both had to be around the same age. And Javier’s chief of security, a big brute of a man named Diego, was as quiet as they came. This was a shame because he was a smart man with a colorful past, and I was certain he had a million stories to tell.

  Esteban, however, wasn’t quiet and wasn’t scared, and was there for me more often than not. Usually I found it annoying, how closely he tried to emulate Javier, how badly he wanted to be him. He’d tell you otherwise, of course, but Esteban was power hungry, bloodthirsty, and jealous beyond comprehension. He wasn’t very smart, though. His lackadaisical surfer approach to life wasn’t just an act, and no matter how badly he wanted to be in Javier’s shoes, he could never, ever become him.

  Naturally, I also knew I shouldn’t underestimate people, and so with him I practiced more of a keep your friends close, enemies closer sort of relationship. While he could never become the patron, the ruler, the king, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t at some po
int try.

  “I worry about you,” he said, crouching down to my level.

  I rolled my eyes. “Please.”

  He looked at the wine bottle. “I know things aren’t … well, I know how things are.”

  I tucked the bottle on the other side of the bucket and gave him a pointed look. His green eyes were observing me a little too carefully, something I found off-putting.

  “And what could you know?”

  He rubbed his hand across his chin, seeming to think. “Well, I know Javier is uh … well, occupied most nights. I know where he goes and what he does.”

  A knife sliced right into my heart. I tried to keep a blank face, a mask. Don’t let the mask slip, I told myself, and took in a quiet breath.

  “Oh, is that right?” I asked, and winced once I heard the tremor in my voice.

  His gaze softened and I hated the fucking sympathy I could see. Of all people, I didn’t want it from him. I didn’t want him to feel that he was any better than Javier or any better than me. Yes, I knew, damn it I fucking knew what Javier was doing with those girls, and I knew what happened to the girls after, too. I knew everything, but I wasn’t about to let him feel that made him better than us. Javier, for everything that had happened, for the person he’d become, was still my husband.

  God, even the word husband pinched deep inside.

  “Javier isn’t well,” I told him before he could say anything else.

  He actually laughed. “Not well? That’s the understatement of the year.”

  “It isn’t funny,” I said quietly.

  “No?” He placed one hand on my thigh, peering at me closely. I sucked in my breath. “Then let’s not skirt around it. Javier has been compromised. He’s damaged in a way that is only going to hurt the business. It’s only going to hurt you.”

  I tried to shrug away from him but his grip on my leg tightened.

  “Don’t pretend anymore, Luisa,” he said in a hush. “You know the truth. Alana’s death … he couldn’t handle it. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He’s lost nearly all his sisters. His whole family. A man can look strong, but that doesn’t make him strong. Perhaps some might find it sentimental that he cares so much about his family after all, but powerful people can’t afford to be sentimental. He can’t afford to lose himself like this.” He shook his head. “No, it’s been long enough.”