A Little Power
**RUBY**
“You want to talk?” I snap, trying to keep my eyes locked on Antonio’s and failing miserably as my gaze wanders over the front of his skin tight white tank top and all the little dips and canyons that accentuate his form. “So talk,” I tell him.
His forehead wrinkles as he casts a swift look around. “Alone, mi reina. Please.”
Pursing my lips, my eyes shift to the pair of fools behind him. Romany and Ruiz who are speaking in conspiratorial tones at the bar, each of them sipping from the very same glass of booze like old lovers.
“Fine,” I snap, ignoring the slight tremor of satisfaction I see fall across his body as I head straight for the fluffy navy blue couch and search the cushions.
I smile inwardly when my fingers touch cold hard steel and Ruiz’s eyes narrow dramatically. Pulling out the slim bodied beretta, I flash it around a little before turning back to Antonio.
“Damn it Ruiz!” Antonio barks at him and he shrugs carelessly.
“I know you cannot possibly be surprised, primo. What were you thinking? That I slept here as well as I have in your house *unarmed?”*
“Fucking tonto,” Antonio says.
I fix my gaze on my cousin, ignoring the way her eyes twinkle at Antonio. “You have a choice,” I say. “You can either wait for me out here, or…”
“She is not leaving yet,” Ruiz growls suddenly, his posture suddenly straightening as he steps toward her back.
That quickly I have my gun trained back on him, but this time pointed at his head. “The fuck if she’s not.” He scowls and I grant him a sickly sweet smile. “Maybe you recognize this piece.” He glares and I grin. “It belonged to one of your very own men up on that hill.”
To my surprise all Ruiz does is smile in response to my cryptic comment and somewhere in my head a warning bell sounds, but I don’t let it deter me, because I know that Ruiz is a master manipulator and with him, one should always tend toward what he *isn’t* showing you as opposed to what *he is.* Besides, it’s not as if I don’t have two big dumbbells outside with nothing better to do than play lookout.
“Go,” Romany says firmly. “Talk. I’ll be fine. I know I’m not alone here.”
I meet her eyes, strangely disturbed by the calculation that shines back in the teal blue orbs that once appeared so innocent. *Goddamn it. Maybe it’s our bloodline. Maybe all Ro needed to become one of the snakes in the grass was the proper nest.*
“You’ve got that right,” I say, sending Ruiz a warning glare as I step past him and into the long hall.
“Don’t do anything that will get you killed, tontos,” Antonio says to both his cousin and Jaime seated on the couch.
Then I follow my great big Spanish sausage into the dark of the corridor and into his private suite.
**ROMANY**
As I watch the pair of them disappear down the hall, I can feel Ruiz’s eyes steady on the side of my face. His stare is disconcerting to say the least, but I find it less and less repulsive with each little promise that slips from his lips.
Why? I couldn’t say. Could it be that I’m just learning things about myself that I never even fathomed possible? I never played around with the farfetched fantasy of my being involved with people like Santos and Alex, or Mickey or Damien back when I was in school. Tiny… maybe if I’d come across someone like him in the halls, but I never did, so… Now as I stand here and take stock of all the very real madness that I’ve created with nothing more than a little cleavage and a smile, I begin to wonder… What if I *did* want this kind of life? Could I stomach it? All the time?
I mean, I’m not a *killer* so that part would naturally be out of the question.
But then I remember that tiny little moment back in Alex’s hallway after Dana shot Damien and I thought he was dead… That moment when I reached for the gun, when I went to pull the trigger… I would have been a murderer if I’d been a second or two faster off my knees. I would have shot that bitch without a second thought and God knows when I saw Alex slit her throat… I was pleased. It literally filled me with utter relief and dare I say *joy.* I wanted her dead and the very moment she was the thing that frightened me most was that I was happy.
Maybe Matthew screwed me up much worse than I ever thought he did. Maybe all of the vulgar, demeaning, depraved things he put me through - things I *never* got justice for - destroyed the light inside of me. A star that burst until all that was left was the black hole of my existence. A vortex that pulls and pulls on the pleasure and the pain that *I,* myself, seem to have the ability to milk out of others.
*Am I that seriously fucked up?*
The night that Mickey witnessed Matthew kissing me on his porch was the very night he invited the new Dean of the University, and a few of Board Members to his place to enjoy my body while I was unconscious. I only knew about it because Matthew recorded it and played it for me while he fucked me the next day. That bastard took great pleasure in my tears. He *loved* making me cry during sex. Now that I’m a little more worldly, a little bit wiser, I can see it for what it was. His way of reliving the first night he stole my innocence. It was his way of violating me over and over again.
I’m sure, that tape was also a way for him to keep the depraved members of the board as well as the Dean in his pocket. And now, with Mattew missing, I’m only mildly curious how long it will be before the authorities find that tape and come looking for me.
They’ll have questions no doubt. They might even start to think I had something to do with his disappearance.
But what might they do with the men in that tape? Will they be arrested? Somehow I doubt it. After all the bullshit rumors that have been spun about me on and off campus, they’re probably gonna think I was into it. Or that it was staged.
It seems to me, the only real way for a girl like me to obtain the kind of justice that I *need* for myself… that I *want* for myself… is to have a little power of her very own.
Ruiz steps close to me and speaks directly in my ear, “What is going on in that cunning little head of yours, Bonita? What are you thinking about, eh?”
I turn my face toward his, startling him with my forwardness and I reply, “Power.”
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