Page 19 of Calavera Society

I want her too, but she’ll be my tool to the throne and her blood will be my crown.

I want to be the one who lights the match that burns Roberto’s world to the ground, and I’ll use his daughter and her pet to do it.

I walk around Valeria’s queen size bed to where her boyfriend sleeps, my brows furrowing beneath my mask as I notice he’s fully clothed and sleeping on top of the comforter. I don’t fucking get it. How can he have all that next to him andnotbe asleep with his dick inside her?

I lean over him, eyeing the guy’s handsome face. His images online hold no candle to him in person. His face is symmetrically perfect, full lips that make me want to run my tongue across to see if they’re as soft as they look. He’s got an indent in his chin and I have to physically force myself not to touch it. His jaw is straight, covered in day-old stubble.

He has a small tattoo on his left sideburn, a dagger that looks like it's pricking his skin, a small drip of blood tattooed at the bottom. He turns his head, his throat bobbing as he swallows, and I spot another tattoo around his neck. A centipede wrapped around him like a noose, the head and tail dipping into the fabric of his shirt.

I wonder where it ends, if he has more and how much of his body is covered in the intricate designs.

Would he show them to me?This internal question shocks me, so I quickly compartmentalize and move on, but it’s difficult. He and Valeria are extraordinarily attractive and seeing them side by side, vulnerable to me…ah fuck. Focus, Rey!

His fingers are laced together on top of his wide chest, and I can make out the wordfatelesstattooed across his knuckles in Old English font. Beneath the sleeves of his black and white flannel shirt, I can see that there is more ink on his skin, but I can’t make anything out in the dark. As I straighten and am about to turn for the door, the glint of something on the bed between them catches my eye. I reach over the Noah and close my fist around the object before turning toward the window, using the moonlight to see what it is.

I feel my lip curl as I swallow down the angry growl that wants to come out. I flip over the silver Calavera Society pendant, spotting Roberto’s name engraved on the back. I’ve heard the tales of the things he did to reach the position of President. Things that would make the angels cry, but I have no sympathy. I was forced to do similar acts, commit similar sins, and I’m not even close to done yet.

Roberto acts as though he’s better because of his power, as though he rides a tall unblemished white horse while the rest of us live in the shadow of his holiness. The truth is, he’s just as pathetic and wretched as the rest of us in Coventry, and I plan to prove to him just how fallible he really is.

Starting with his precious daughter.

I place the pendant right back where I found it before reaching further and dragging the back of my finger down Valeria’s cheek to ward her lips. Her breath shudders against my fingertips, making me swallow down a groan before pulling away.

Soon, I’ll have her beneath me, in power and in bed. Thankfully I’ve made sure she comes with the added bonus of her sinfully made best friend.

I think I’ll play with him too.

I look back at her friend who I now realize isn’t her boyfriend at all, I recognize the hungry look in his eyes, the desperate desire…it’s the same one my mother’s eyes held anytime Roberto called. Unrequited love, it’s a real bitch and it’s hard to hide.

Something tells me he’s going to be a problem for me; I’ll need to find out more about him, maybe even pull a page out of Roberto’s book.

I walk from the room, and slowly make my way down the hall, toward the stairs. I could so easily slip inside Valentina’s room and slice her throat with her daughter none the wiser, but she may be useful to me later, so I ignore the closed door at the end of the hall.

As I take the steps down to the ground level, I eye each of Valeria’s yearly school pictures, starting from elementary to graduation.

Her growing phases are easy to see, starting with the typical kindergartener; pigtails and pretty wide smile, to the slightly emo middle schooler and finally the gothic Chicana she is today.

I prefer that look to any other.

She’s unique and cultured…it’s beautiful to see in my generation. All too often, trends and what’s in style is more important to us than where we’ve come from—unless, of course, it’s trendy.

“What a shame.” I whisper as I take the last frame off the wall and make my way through the living room.

I bypass the largeofrenda, ignoring the hateful looks I get from the photographs of every one of Valeria’s ancestors who have passed on, and make my way to the French doors leading into what looks to be a makeshift library though it seems to have once been a screened porch. The walls look flimsy, not a single window in sight.

I mindlessly scan the books, noting a lot of them are on criminal law. Some range from autobiographies of past detectives to the criminals to got off on all charges. There's even a whole bookshelf dedicated to criminal psychology written by various criminologists, some who studied serial killers, to some who profiled them.

I wonder if it’s Valeria who reads these and if she does, what does she think of psychopaths? I honestly don’t know why I’m curious to know her thoughts, but something in me feels like the image I had in my head of who Roberto’s secret daughter was, is completely wrong.

Moving back to the large bookshelf, I scan over each of the spines, noting classics like Moby Dick and other nonfiction books such as the ones you see in every grandmother’s home, Encyclopedias,AthroughZ.

They still make these?

“Looking for something?” A deep male’s voice has my head snapping to the doorway where Noah stands holding a gun pointed straight at my head.

“I think you and I should have a talk,sí?”His grin is wicked, a slice of evil across his face…I’ve never seen such a smile look so heavenly.

ELEVEN