Chapter 22

Catalina's POV

The moment Kelvin released me, gesturing for the guards to take me away, a wave of fury crashed through me.

Like hell I was going anywhere.

My fingers clenched into fists at my sides as the guards reached for me, and without hesitation, I yanked my arm free. My heart pounded, but not from fear. No, this was something else. Something deeper. Something wild.

"Don't touch me." My voice came out sharp, slicing through the thick tension in the room. "I'm staying here."

I ignored the way Rodrigo’s gaze flickered to me with mild amusement. I didn't care what he thought. Or what Kelvin thought. All I knew was that I had had enough of being dismissed, shoved aside whenever it was convenient.

Kelvin had brought me into this world. And now he wanted to push me out when it no longer suited him?

No.

Not this time.

I walked back, my steps deliberate, and sank into the seat beside him, crossing my legs as if I belonged here. Because I did.

Kelvin turned his gaze to me, something dark flickering behind his eyes. A warning. A challenge.

But I had already decided.

If he thought I was just another pretty face, someone to warm his lap when it suited him and disappear when it didn't, he was wrong. Dead wrong.

I wasn’t afraid of the danger.

I had already indulged in it.

I was drowning in it, addicted to the sharp edge of adrenaline that came with being next to him. The thrill of walking a tightrope between pleasure and destruction.

And I was ready to pull through with it.

Rodrigo chuckled lowly, his cigar still balanced between his fingers as he leaned back lazily. "Quite the firecracker you've got here," he mused.

Kelvin's jaw tightened, his grip on my thigh just a little firmer. Possessive. Warning.

But I didn’t need his protection.

I had made my choice.

And whether he liked it or not, I wasn’t going anywhere.

Kelvin’s fingers tightened on my thigh. His grip was firm but not painful. A silent reminder of his control. But control was something I had never truly accepted in my life. I had been fighting against it since the moment I understood what it meant to be powerless.

Rodrigo’s chuckle grated against my nerves, his amusement like a thorn pressing into my skin. He thought I was playing a game. That I was another fleeting distraction in Kelvin’s world of blood and power.

But I wasn’t.

I had fought too hard, survived too much to be just another pretty thing at his side.

I knew what it meant to be discarded.

I had been discarded before.

My mother used to tell me that my father was a powerful man. That he was someone who had walked into her life like a storm, sweeping her off her feet with empty promises and whispered lies. She had believed him, believed in the love he claimed to have for her.

And then he was gone.

My mother refused to speak of him beyond that. But I knew he had abandoned her before I was even born, leaving her to fend for herself in a world that was built to crush women like her.

We lived in the shadows of the city, in the kind of places where dreams went to die and desperation grew like weeds in cracked pavement. My mother did what she had to do to keep us alive, taking whatever work she could find, even when it broke her down piece by piece.

She never let me see her cry.

But I heard her.

Late at night, when she thought I was asleep, I would listen to the muffled sobs she tried to bury in her pillow. The weight of survival pressing down on her, heavier than any burden I could have imagined as a child.

I learned quickly that the world didn’t care about girls like me.

That men with power looked at women like my mother and saw nothing but something to use, to take from, to leave behind when they were done.

I vowed never to be like her.

Never to be weak.

Never to be at the mercy of a man’s whims.

That was what had led me here. To Kelvin. To this world of danger, where power was the only thing that mattered.

And I wasn’t going to be pushed aside.

I wasn’t blind. This was nothing but a contract. A contract such a dangerous man wouldn't have signed if he didn't know what he was getting signed up for. I knew what I was to Kelvin.

A pawn. A piece on his chessboard, moved and positioned wherever he saw fit.

But I refused to be a useless one.

If I was going to be part of this game, then I was going to make damn sure I played it well.

Kelvin could act like he held all the cards, like he was the one in control, but I had been around men like him long enough to know one thing—they weren’t invincible. Power wasn’t just about brute strength or money. It was about leverage. Influence.

And if I was going to survive in this world, I needed allies of my own.

I needed people who would look at me as more than just Kelvin’s plaything.

Rodrigo, for one, had already taken an interest in me. I could see it in the way his dark eyes lingered, in the way his lips curled in amusement as if he was waiting to see how far I would go.

Kelvin might trust him, but I didn’t.

And trust was dangerous in a place like this.

I shifted slightly in my seat, feeling the weight of Kelvin’s grip tighten again in silent warning. He was possessive, territorial. I knew that much already.

But he had brought me here, into this den of wolves, and now he wanted to keep me on a leash?

Not happening.

If he thought I would just sit pretty and wait for him to decide my fate, he was sorely mistaken.

I turned my gaze to Rodrigo, meeting his eyes head-on, unafraid. "I assume meetings like these have… bigger players involved?"

His brows lifted slightly, and then he let out another low chuckle, tapping the ash from his cigar. "Clever girl," he murmured, before flicking a glance at Kelvin. "She wants to know who really holds the power, eh?"

Kelvin’s fingers flexed against my thigh, but I ignored him.

Rodrigo wasn’t the only one I needed to keep my eyes on. There were others. Men who whispered in dark corners, men who smiled with sharp teeth and spoke in veiled threats. If I wanted to survive, I had to learn their names. Their weaknesses. Their ambitions.

I wasn’t just going to be Kelvin’s pawn.

I was going to be something more.

Something dangerous.

And by the time they realized it, it would already be too late.