Chapter 2 BECOMING THE DEVIL'S MISTRESS

He had her name; he had her scent in his sheets.

But when Lucien Torres woke the next morning, the girl was gone.

Not a note. Not a whisper.

Just steam still clinging to the walls, a red silk strap floating in the bath, and a phantom ache he didn't know how to name.

Lucien wasn't used to ghosts. He was used to obedience, to women who lingered in his bed until he dismissed them, to bodies that bent when he gripped their throats, to worship disguised as desire.

But this-this girl-Catalina-she'd left like she was the one who owned the room. Like she had gotten what she came for. It made his jaw tick. And it made him want her again.

"Find her," he said simply.

Mateo raised a brow across the breakfast table, pausing with his coffee halfway to his mouth.

"You know her name?"

"I know her mouth," Lucien muttered, then looked up.

"I want her brought to me before lunch."

No questions. No explanations.

Mateo made the call.

---

Catalina wasn't hiding. She had already returned to her staff quarters, soaked the slip in scented bleach to kill the traces, wrapped her hair in a towel, and applied the lightest gloss of makeup-barely enough to count as armor, but just enough to frame the eyes that could lie without blinking.

When they came for her, she didn't flinch.

She rose, adjusted her neckline, and walked with the kind of calm only a woman in control could carry.

The other girls stared, whispers curling in their wake. She didn't care. By the time she was brought to the upper suite, Lucien was already on the balcony, shirtless, smoking something expensive and bitter, city glittering behind him like gold knives.

"You left," he said without turning.

"You didn't ask me to stay," Catalina replied.

He glanced over his shoulder, the cigarette still burning between his fingers.

"You think this is a game?" She walked across the room like she belonged there.

"No. I think you want me here. You just don't want to admit it."

Lucien let out a low chuckle.

"Arrogant."

"Accurate."

He turned then, full-bodied, and she was reminded again how tall he was, how his presence filled the room like a storm swelling in the walls.

"You'll stay in my suite from now on," he said.

"No more staff quarters. No more disappearing. You belong to me."

Catalina didn't blink. "Fine."

He cocked his head. "Just like that?"

She stepped into his space, took the cigarette from his mouth, and crushed it between her fingers without breaking eye contact.

"I'm not here to play hard to get, Lucien. I'm here to win."

Something dark sparked in his eyes, but his voice remained silk.

"What exactly are you trying to win, mi reina?"

She smiled softly, turned her back, and walked to the liquor shelf.

"Everything."

---

By nightfall, she had the codes.

Lucien was careless when he drank. Not reckless, but loose in his routines. And he drank often-too often for a man who claimed to value control.

Two nights in, sprawled across velvet cushions in nothing but black boxer briefs and a gold chain, he spoke into his phone and keyed in access codes to his office vault without checking to see if she was listening.

She was always listening. She memorized them.

Passed them off to Isa with a simple voice message: "Vault three, behind the painting, rotating door. Seven-digit code. Same one he uses to order Cuban whiskey. Go."

Isa responded within an hour.

She'd cracked the interior network and slipped into the Torres cartel's encrypted files. Catalina watched the loading bar pulse on Isa's laptop, their video call lighting up her private dressing room, her silk robe loose around her waist as she pretended to be adjusting her makeup.

"You're inside already?" Catalina asked, voice low.

Isa smirked. "Girl, he might be the devil, but he's not the tech-savvy kind. Everything's old-world encrypted. Child's play."

Catalina chewed her lip. "Start with anything tied to my father's trial. Find what they buried."

"I'm looking. But there's something else," Isa said, face darkening.

"Something you need to see."

---

That night, Catalina lay tangled beside Lucien, her leg hooked over his thigh, one hand resting on the ink of his chest. He was half-asleep, lashes casting shadows down his cheek, breath even, vulnerable in a way he never allowed while awake.

She studied him like a stranger. Because he didn't feel like the man she was supposed to hate. Isa had sent the file only hours before: a scanned dossier, deep black ink on weathered parchment, stamped with military insignias and internal transfer logs.

It wasn't about Miguel Cruz. Not directly.

It was about Lucien.

Project designations.

Psychological observation notes. Sedation logs.

Not a prince in training. Not a cold-blooded heir. A child experiment.

Tortured into obedience.

Molded into the man who now ruled Santa Costilla from the inside out.

The boy who broke before he ever had a choice.

Catalina stared at him now, her fingers resting on the scar just under his ribcage, and whispered without meaning to, "What did they do to you?" He didn't wake.

But his hand, even in sleep, tightened over hers.

---

By the end of the week, she had full access to the suite.

His office.

His liquor.

His time.

Lucien didn't make a show of their arrangement, but people noticed.

The way guards deferred to her.

The way Lucien's eyes followed her like he was calculating how to destroy anyone who touched her.

The way she walked through the halls barefoot, unbothered, wearing his shirts, sipping his wine.

Power didn't need to be announced. It moved in silence.

And Catalina moved like a woman who already had everything. But the cartel's wives noticed.

They weren't fools.

These were women married into the empire.

Trained to survive.

Taught to spot threats.

Catalina's face was too calm. Her clothes too elegant. Her eyes too clear.

She didn't belong to the world of broken women and desperate ambition-they could smell it.

One evening, as she passed through the private courtyard, one of them-Lucien's former favorite, Inés Arámbula-smiled sweetly and said, "Funny, you don't look like his type." Catalina smiled back, tilting her head.

"No? What is his type?" Inés sipped her drink, eyes glittering like poisoned champagne. "Disposable."

Catalina didn't blink.

"I'm not a type. I'm an investment."

---

But something began to shift. She noticed it first in the mirrors.

Small cameras embedded behind frames. Sensors under drawers. The phone she used had been swapped. Once. Then again. She wasn't the only one watching.

One morning, Isa texted her: "Catalina... I think you were expected."

"What do you mean?" she replied, fingers trembling slightly as she hid the phone under her silk pillow.

Isa's response: "The spa where you 'met' him. The wine. That wasn't an accident.

There's a flagged alert in the system. A protocol. You were the variable.

They ran facial recognition before he ever touched you."

Catalina felt her breath freeze. Had she chosen him? Or had someone chosen her?

She stood at the mirror, later that night, brushing out her hair as Lucien read reports in the next room, shirtless again, barefoot, drinking bourbon like water.

She stared at herself-not the curves or the smile or the confidence-but the mask.

She had entered this game to play the hunter.

But what if this had been a trap all along?

What if she was just another pawn?

The girl who poured the wine, the girl who seduced the devil.

The girl who was led into the lion's den not by force, but by the illusion that she'd opened the door herself.

Her smile didn't falter. But her eyes turned sharp.