Identity Pt. 02

Part 2: Instinct

"Wake up, Carina," a voice called to Gabriella pulling her from her sleep. Her eyes fluttered open and she found a pair of cool gray ones staring down at her.

"What? How did you..?" The man from the club lay in the bed next to her, one arm holding him over her so he could look into her eyes.

"Shh," he whispered slowly leaning down to meet her lips with his. He was gentle, so gentle. His lips were like satin across her own as she moved her hands to his back. He trailed his calloused fingers up to her thigh rubbing small circles into the smooth skin as his kiss became more fervent. His teeth nipped at her bottom lip and she moaned at his aggression. She could feel his member pressing into her side as his mouth traveled down to her neck. He paused there sucking at her flesh like it was his favorite desert. Gabriella could feel her panties sticking to her center. She felt like a fountain around this man.

"Take this off," she commanded gripping the white t-shirt that covered the hard muscle underneath. He obeyed without hesitation pushing up onto his knees and crossing his hands at the bottom hem of the t-shirt pulling it over his head. Gabriella watched in awe as his muscles flexed and twitched in all the right places as he removed that pesky shirt. He looked so sexy towering over her, those chiseled abdominals just begging to be dampened by the tip of her tongue. The enormous bulge in his shorts made her quiver in anticipation.

"Are you sure about this?" He asked staring deep into her eyes.

She sat up and wrapped her hands around his neck. "I'm positive."

Gabriella's phone woke her suddenly, sweating and gasping for air. "Fuck." She grabbed the annoying device and answered it angrily. "What?"

"That is no way to speak to your mother." The voice on the other end of the line immediately snapped Gabriella out of her discombobulated state.

"Mother. I hadn't expected to hear from you so soon."

"Well I heard you might have made some progress."

Gabriella pushed herself out of the bed heading to the restroom. "More than just progress, mother. I found him."

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Vicente was becoming more irritated by the second. He had been trying for two hours to focus, struggling to push the negative thoughts from his head. He didn't even know what they were about. The night before he'd fallen asleep on his desk working on the negotiations for the very deal that was going down in less than 30 minutes, but he hadn't been out for very long. He'd had the most intense dream of the dancer from Exotica, but it had ended abruptly leaving him with the understanding of an unsatisfied woman when the man came too early. He's then woken up in a cold sweat feeling that animal inside him tossing and turning as if he knew something Vicente's conscious mind did not. The night had been rough, but the morning leading to the present had been even worse. He felt like his skin was crawling and he had this terrible headache. What was even stranger were the pictures that he could have sworn he was seeing every time he closed his eyes, but they were so blurry that it made him wonder if they were real at all.

"You okay, hermano?" Rico walked in looking very clean cut and formally dressed for the negotiations. He wore a black button-down stripped with thin white lines and a smooth silk vest on top. His tie was white with black dots making out the letter "R" matching the ones on his cuff links and his short hair glistened, freshly washed. He topped the outfit with a simple pair of black slacks with a crease that galloped down his legs and shinning black and white dress shoes.

"I'm fine. Don't you think you're a bit overdressed for Vance and his boys?"

"Yeah right, Vance wishes this was for him." Rico beamed playfully at his older brother.

Vin gestured to his little brother's clothes, "so are you going to tell me who it is for then?"

Rico pulled at his lapel almost as if he were embarrassed. " I got a date after this."

"I thought dating was against your philosophy."

"Yeah, well I have to call it that to get her panties off."

"Ah." Vin shook his head at his brother laughing at his view of the world and women. He wished he could show him the beauty of love. Vicente's heart sped up at the thought of seeing the beautiful stripper from Exotica. Her body had been so flawless and tempting, and Vin was an animal, by nature. He was used to grabbing and taking what he desired, but this woman was more than worth the chase.

"Hey, since when do you make that face?" Rico eyed his brother carefully as if overnight he had become a stranger.

"What face?"

"That face that old married men give single players because they'll never know the 'joys of being married' and shit."

"You can get all of that from a face?"

Rico shrugged, "I'm perceptive."

Vicente hadn't even realized he was making a face, but that had in fact been exactly what he was thinking. It was as weird a transition for Vin as it was for his younger brother. In his youth, Vicente had sampled a variety of women treating them as a fine wine leading up to the bedroom and once he was done, they became spoiled grape juice. He was starting to wonder if the girl was truly his mate, or if he was simply more determined to sleep with her because she actually had the balls to slap him. She seemed so different from all the other slutty women that threw themselves at him. Even while she was dancing on him grinding her hips against him, he could tell she was attracted to him, but stopped him when things began to escalate. That would have been the perfect situation for the gold digging skanks that clung on to powerful types and families like his. He was so overtaken with lust; if she'd let him Vicente would have fucked her right there on that plush pink couch.

Thinking about his encounter earlier in the week, Vicente was becoming very aroused. He had to keep his hormones in check long enough to close the deal with Vance. This meeting was the most important one he'd been left to handle alone since his father officially handed down the reins. Mara Salvatrucha, was the most powerful gang in Central America and was known for their strong ties in the United States. One of their many leaders, Vance Martinez was well known for his international trafficking operations, running product all the way from Honduras and El Salvador down to Venezuela, Bolivia, and Colombia. Vicente was intent on taking control of his operation for the Cruz Empire and expanding their business to International Status. If he pulled this off, it would gain a powerful alliance for his business, as well as a 3.2 Billion dollar contract. But first, he'd have to get into bed with the devil.

"Are you sure about this deal? I mean, are we sure we can trust... them?" Rico asked his voice filled with skepticism.

"Trust wasn't really what I planned on extending to them." With everything that was about to go down, Vicente could not be distracted by some paranoia that he couldn't even begin to explain. Pushing back from the table, Vin took a breath and stood rolling his neck in an effort to calm down.

"You sure you're good?" Rico asked again.

"Fine. I think I just need some air." He started heading towards the door but Rico stopped his brother with a hand on his shoulder.

"Is this about the stripper?"

Vicente held back a snarl as the word 'stripper' left his brother's mouth. It just reminded him that his mate— the woman that he would marry, the future mother of his children— takes her clothes off for other men for a living. If jealousy truly turned people into green-eyed monsters then Vin would have looked like a pure jade statue.

"No," Vicente snapped grabbing his coat off the back of the chair and exiting the room in a huff.

"Where are you going?" Rico followed him as he rushed out of one of the side doors of the house.

"I just need some air. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Vin!" Rico called out to his brother's retreating form as he jogged off into the woods. "Fuck!"

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Gabriella pulled back the tattered old curtain that now hung where a door used to be. The house looked exactly as they had left it. The walls were charred from the flames that had consumed the only home Gabriella had ever known. Only a few short months after her brother had been kidnapped, a fire from an old space heater had destroyed what was left of her family, killing her father and leaving her and her mother homeless. Life had become much harder on her then.

"Mother I'm tired. Can't we take a break?" Gabriella pleaded with her mother gasping for air as she dodged another strike.

"Take a break? Do you think some burglar or rapist that finds us will give us a break? We live on the streets now, Gabriella. You must be prepared for anything." Reina snapped sweeping a leg under her daughter's feet causing her to fall on her back. She then climbed on top of her, pinning the ten-year-old down and holding a knife to her throat. "What do you do?"

Gabriella pushed off the ground with her right leg throwing Reina's balance off only slightly, but just enough to get a hand free. She used this opportunity to push off rolling her mother onto her back and knocking the knife out of her grasp. Gabriella quickly grabbed the knife from the grassy ground in the meadow that she and ....her mother now called home. "That."

"Brings back memories doesn't it?" Reina stepped out of what used to be the kitchen into her daughter's field of view. She was just as flawless as she had been the last time Gabriella had seen her. Her long dark hair was twisted neatly into a French braid that reached all the way down her back. The electric blue eyes that both Gabriella and her brother had inherited were concealed behind plain brown contacts— a trick she had passed on to her daughter. Gabriella was shocked at the jeans and worn old jacket her mother wore, for even when they had been homeless and living out on the streets, she had never seen her mother in anything other than a long dress.

"It's been a long time, mother."

Reina smiled at her daughter, genuinely happy to see her. "What, no hug for your own mother?"

Gabriella smiled, knowing everything with her mother was a test. Every question was calculated and planned to determine one thing or another about the "progress" she'd made in the past two years. "Affection is weakness. Didn't you teach me that?"

"I often wondered if you were actually listening." Just then Reina reached into her jacket pulling a knife from it and fired it directly at Gabriella's head. Eyes wide, the young girl quickly jumped backwards and swung her right arm around to pluck the blade from the air, just barely avoiding the attack. "Hmm, two years ago that might have killed you."

"Must everything be an evaluation with you, mother?"

"What have you found out?"

"I told you, I found him."

"You've made contact with Vincenzo?"

"Well, no. But I found Rico, mother!"

Reina's eyes grew wide. "You found him? Are you sure? What does he look like?"

Gabriella nodded her head profusely confident in her ability to recognize her baby brother. "He's handsome, mother, a real lady-killer. He looks so much like the old photos of papa when he was young."

Reina's face seemed to grow a bit darker at the mention of her late husband. "Well, hopefully he only inherited your father's looks."

Gabriella ignored the jibe at her father. She tried to remember him the way he was before her brother was taken. The months after that had been short, but the man he'd become was not one a child brags about having for a parent. "Mother he was with someone. He looked so familiar. And Rico calls him... brother."

"That must have been Vincenzo's son!" Reina eyes sparkled only slightly with a glimmer of hope that Gabriella couldn't recall seeing before. "Did you speak to him?"

"The boy, the boy from that night, that was him."

Reina crossed the room in a few quick steps and wrenched her daughter out of her own thoughts. She grasped her chin snapping her head forward so they could make eye contact. "Gabriella! You can mutter to yourself later! Did you speak with him?"

"Yes. I spoke to him." Gabriella grumbled, stepping back and away before she lost her temper.

Reina cut her eyes at her daughter. "What does that mean?"

"He was very forward about his desires to bend me over a table."

"He hit on you? What did you do?"

"Well, before I realized who he was... I slapped him." Gabriella thought it was best to leave out the fact that she also threw a drink in his face. Especially since by that time, she had figured out exactly who he was.

"You did WHAT?! ¿Qué es lo que te pasa? ¿Ha perdido completamente la cabeza? ¡Dios mío! ¡Esto podría haber sido la oportunidad que hemos estado esperando!"

"What opportunity? He was a creep!"

Reina's eyes narrowed at her daughter. "And just what exactly have you been doing for the past two years? You're a fucking hooker, Gabriella."

Gabriella stepped towards her mother pointing an angry finger in her direction. "I am not a hooker!"

"Right. A stripper, much better."

"The only reason I even started any of this was to find my brother!" Gabriella came face to face with the woman that had haunted her nightmares for years. "Now that I have, I'm done with this shit." She walked past Reina, bumping her shoulder in the process.

"So that's it?" Reina asked with a devious smile. "You've found him, so now what? You tell him you're his long lost sister and that you're the one that's been murdering all of his brother's employees. He does call Vincenzo's son hermano, doesn't he? You really think he's just going to believe you?"

Gabriella was only a few short steps from the exit, but her mother's words stopped her in her tracks. "What are you talking about?"

"Think about it. He's grown up with the Cruz family. He knew you for, what a few years of his childhood he can barely remember?" Reina approached slowly, that grin only growing when the gears began to churn in Gabriella's mind. "You need me. Without me, you wouldn't have that job at Exotica or be in a position to find Rico, let alone bring him home."

"So what do you suggest, mother? That I start fucking the Cruz boy too?"

Reina shrugged, "I don't see how it's any different from all of the others."

"I am not fucking that... dog."

"Oh sweetheart, you have no choice. You want to get to Rico? Earn the trust of the brother first. In the process, you put Vincenzo in the ground."

"I don't think I can do that."

Reina narrowed those blue a eyes at her daughter as if she were trying to squeeze the life out of her with her eyelids. "That man took my baby boy from me! He put us out on the streets and destroyed any chance of happiness we had. He turned my husband into a useless drunk and my daughter into a whore! I will not let him get away now! You can and you will finish what we started. We have the chance to avenge the destruction of our family, and you will do this!"

Gabriella rolled her eyes. "Or what, mother? You'll put me over your knee?"

"No. But I'm sure the fact that you're the one killing all the Cruz's men would put to rest any chance you have of rekindling a relationship with your brother."

"You wouldn't. Are you threatening me?" She turned to face her; finally, giving a look that would have ended her mother's life if that were possible. "Oh no, my daughter. I'm making a promise." Assured in her victory by Gabriella's stunned facial expression, Reina took her leave bumping her daughter as she did.

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Vin took a breath as he took in the view of the mountains. He extended his claws and closed his eyes as the thick beard that surrounded his face caught the wind. The dark coat of soft hair, short and well kept like his haircut covered his arms and legs as he let the beast roam free. Thoughts of his brother flipping out at his house drifted in and out of his mind as he balanced on the edge of the high cliff just east of the Cruz mansion. He could hear Rico screaming at Manuel to come find him. Of course, there was a reason why Manuel was Vicente's Beta. Manuel was fully aware of where his boss was and kept his cool even while Rico shouted obscenities in the muscular black man's face.

Darle su chupete. Vicente told Manuel through the mental connection between an Alpha wolf and a Beta. Manuel just laughed infuriating Rico even further. Vicente shook his head and took another look over the edge down into the city— his city. He knew that Vance was going to give him what he wanted, one way or another.

"I was hoping I'd find you here." The familiar voice interrupted Vin's thoughts and gained his full attention. He turned to face the olive skinned woman with wild blonde hair. She looked as if she had been living in her animal form in the woods. Her hair was wild and in need of a cut, her skin had a few fresh lacerations and many more scars then when he'd seen her last. Even the look in her green eyes was distant, like she was fighting the animal within as they stood there face to face.

"Carmen." He gasped as his former Beta studied him, trying to predict his next move. When she denounced her pack and became an Omega, she'd lost the entitled safety that came with being in her Alpha's pack. If he decided to rip her head off, Vicente was well within his right to do so— many Alphas did when faced with the lone wolf.

"Requesting hospitality, Alpha Cruz." She held out her hand and bowed to him respectfully awaiting his answer.

"Denied."

She shot straight up and started a snarl before taking a breath. "Please, Alpha. What I have to say is important." She spoke through her teeth and dug her nails into her palms.

"You show up on my land after two years, and expect me to grant hospitality? You lost that the day you denounced your position." Vin stepped down onto the grassy flat area near the forest Carmen had appeared from. "Now, I suggest you leave."

Carmen groaned and shook her head. "I'm trying to help you, dammnit! The deal is a set up!"

Vin shot across the small space to her and gripped her by the neck lifting her off her feet. "Who do you think you are speaking to?"

"I apologize, my Alpha, but your enemy is on the move," Carmen managed to choke the words out while gasping for the limited air his hold was supplying.

"I am not your Alpha." Vin spat before dropping her to her knees on the ground in front of him. "Hospitality granted. Speak."

With a raspy voice, Carmen quickly revealed the information she'd intercepted about Vicente's upcoming plans.

Vin stepped in the room fixing his tie while Manuel, Rico and two of Manuel's security details filed in behind him. Vance eyed Vicente up and down sizing up him and his bodyguards. Vicente caught the slight crack in Vance's cool, collected expression. He must have caught the scent and realized with whom he was surrounded.

"I wasn't aware I was walking into a pound today." Vance smiled flashing shining white fangs that glinted in the light along with the silver of his hair. His red eyes transfixed on the 3 wolves picking them out without hesitation, even in their human forms. He was surprised to see werewolves in such control, clearly caught off guard by the raw power that radiated off their leader. An even more curious attendant was the human he brought along with him. The young man at Cruz's immediate right reeked of cologne, but his blood smelled sweet, taunting his thirst.

"Yes, well I wasn't informed about your little moonlight condition either." Vin continued the journey to his large meeting table and sat in the large oak chair at the table's head. "Luckily, I know to do my research."