THE NECKLACE

Don't let anyone tell you who you should be, honey.

***

CHAPTER XXX

*****

"WELL, FIRST OFF... what the fuck were you doing out in town?"

I snapped my gaze up at Pablo's harsh tone, my eyes widening in fear as he glared at me and only me.

"I don't... Why wouldn't I-" I stuttered helplessly, looking up at Pablo with tears brimming my eyes.

He sighed and closed his own as he rubbed his forehead with his hand. "I warned you. On Saturday, I warned you and told you to come home."

"I didn't know what was going on, Pablo! You didn't tell me anything!" I yelled, getting defensive. He couldn't possibly blame me for this when it wasn't my fault. He should've been clearer.

"You were supposed to use your brain and realise that something probably wasn't right."

"Hey, don't get angry at her!" Celeste suddenly butted in, making everyone turn to her. "I was the one who made her come to town with me. We were shopping for my wedding dresses."

The room stayed silent and I turned to Daniel to gauge his reaction, but there was none. He just stared at her blankly before a smirk made its way onto his face. "Completely overlooking the fact that you went shopping for no reason because I'm not marrying you, what does Araceli have to with your wedding?"

Celeste rolled her eyes, completely ignoring his first comment and only addressing his second one. "She's my bridesmaid."

Daniel snorted, but quickly covered it up by turning the other way in his seat and hid the rest of his laughter as she looked at him suspiciously. "What? What's funny? Why are you laughing?"

"That doesn't matter right now," Emma butted in, casting her brother a bitter glare before looking at me. I almost forgot that she was completely aware of what was going on between Daniel and I. "You guys need to tell us what happened out there and why so many people ended up dead."

Daniel cleared his throat and fell into his seat as Pablo rolled his eyes and looked to all of us. He pinned a hard glare on Celeste. "You put this girl's life in danger because you wanted to go dress shopping."

"Me?" She looked genuinely offended before the frown fell from her face and a confused look came over her features instead. "Wait. So you're telling me that those people out there weren't after me?"

"No," Daniel answered. His eyes met mine as they danced with humour, I guess still finding my bridesmaid situation funny. "They're after that one."

"Why?" we all seemed to ask at the same time.

Pablo scoffed. "You women always ask too much questions."

He sat down on the front of the desk and looked at all of us before finally beginning to explain everything.

"When we went on the business trip to meet Vincent, you all know that we brought Araceli along." Emma was the only one to nod, but neither Celeste nor Rachel made any noise to say otherwise. "As you know, the deal didn't fall through and Vincent shot at us, hitting Daniel in the shoulder." The only person that nodded yet again was Emma. I was too busy wondering about whether or not the scar was still on Daniel's shoulder. "Obviously, we had to get back at him. We did that with Araceli's help."

I met nobody's eyes as gasps filled the room and I felt the stares lingering on my skin.

"Araceli lured Vincent in. Araceli got kidnapped by Vincent. Araceli helped us capture Vincent and in the last moments, she tipped a bucket of acid over his head and Araceli killed Vincent."

The three girls scooted away from me on the sofa as I buried my head in my hands in shame, letting the tears stream down my face silently.

"I mentioned her quite a lot, didn't I? Because of that, since she was the last person to be seen with him before he died, ally mafias are after her head because they think she killed him." Pablo took a break before saying bluntly, "Because she did."

"Why didn't you tell me anything?" Emma asked, shooting me a concerned look as I looked up from my hands to her.

"Why didn't you ask?"

"You're starting to act a lot like Daniel," she bit back at me with a bitter glare. Daniel did nothing else but smirk at her words.

"So what now? What do we do now?" Rachel seemed to be the only sensible one as she asked the one thing that everyone had on their minds but didn't voice out.

"We keep a close eye on this one," Pablo said, jerking his head towards me. "Until we find out who exactly is behind all of this."

Daniel suddenly got up, getting all of our attention as he walked towards the door. Pablo followed as if knowing where exactly he was going which made Celeste follow after them as well.

"Where are you guys going?"

"To the moon."

Nobody even bothered acknowledging Daniel's sarcasm; we were so used to it already.

"We're going to question one of the men at the scene."

"The man that stopped me?" I asked, getting up and following them as Pablo nodded at me. "I'm coming with you."

He whipped around and grabbed my shoulders, his lips pressed into a thin line. "You won't be able to handle what you'll see, Ara."

"But I-"

"I know you killed Vincent, but that's the thing. He died. Torture is so much worse than you think it is," he said, staring into my eyes. "Especially when it's Daniel behind it."

I couldn't help but cringe as Daniel continued walking down the hallway, not paying any attention to me as he whistled an unfamiliar tune. It almost seemed like he was happy to be torturing the guy.

I looked at Pablo one more time before sighing and nodding. "Okay."

He smiled back and placed a small kiss on my forehead before turning away, leaving me and the rest of the girls alone in the hallway.

"So... What now? Wedding dress shopping online?"

We all looked to Celeste before shaking our heads and walking away from her to our rooms. Or in Rachel's case, most likely the sitting room.

***

I quickly slipped on a nightgown and rushed to the door to open it for Anna who I thought was knocking for me.

The smile fell off my face once I realised that it wasn't.

"Boss?"

He rolled his eyes at the word I used to address him and made his way past me and into my room without saying a word.

Not bothering to protest because I saw no reason to, I closed the door behind him and turned around to look at him. His white shirt was almost completely drenched with red and his bare arms had dried blood over some places, but his black jeans looked untouched.

"H-How did you find my room?" I asked, almost fearing him in that moment as he rolled his eyes and began looking through my stuff.

He opened a notebook that I didn't really use, but I had lying on my desk for some reason and flipped through it before putting it down and closely inspecting a random pen that he had taken out of my jar of them.

"I typed your address into Maps and got directions," he answered sarcastically, almost gaining a laugh out of me.

I had no idea what to do. It was obvious he was in a bad mood, and Daniel wasn't one to be played with when he was in a good mood much less a bad one.

He opened my jewellery box and sieved through some of the cheap necklaces and bracelets I had in there before taking one out and holding it up in the light. It was a plain, golden bracelet without a pendant.

He turned to me with a raised eyebrow as I returned the look. "How often do you wear this?" he asked me as I shrugged and looked away.

"I don't really know. Not much."

He nodded and stuffed it in his pocket before taking a seat on my desk chair and turning to face me. It was so much worse looking at him like that. He obviously saw no problem with his appearance, but I was shitting my pants. How could I claim to be a good Christian when I was sleeping in Satan's bed?

"How... How did it go?" I asked, trying to clear the tense silence in the room with a stupid question. How did I think it went?

"Swimmingly," he smirked before turning to me. "He's dead if that's what your asking." His eyes lacked any hint of remorse as he kept steady eye contact with me.

I shivered at the energy he was letting off and finally decided to take a step away from the door and closer to him. "Oh."

The tense silence returned and while I was practically squirming under his intense gaze like a worm in the sun, he stayed as cool as a cucumber.

Suddenly, an idea popped into my head which made me give him a tentative smile to which he raised his brow.

"I wanted to thank you for letting me go out on Saturday," I began, making my way over to the small bag on the desk and picking it up. "I saw this in one of the shops and remembered your medallion so I thought I would buy you another one."

I felt the heat crawl up my chest, past my neck and onto my face as my brain began bringing up all the reasons why I shouldn't have bought him that specific necklace. Still, I handed it to him and watched anxiously as he slowly took the box out of the bag and opened it.

He already has one like that. You shouldn't have bought him another.

He's rich. He's going to think that that's too poor for him.

It's just ugly. Why do you even like that?

My heart seized as the blank expression on his face stayed even after opening the box. Slowly, his eyes met mine again and my heart melted in my chest as he smiled - actually smiled.

It wasn't a very big one - more just the corners of his lips raised an inch. I was still over the moon because I had done that. I had made Daniel smile for genuine reasons.

"Come here," he said, making me look at him before looking down at his shirt skeptically. He glanced down at it before letting out a huff and, to my absolute delight and horror, peeling it off. He tossed it onto the floor and then looked at me again. "Come here."

"That doesn't make it any better, Daniel."

"Do you want to come here or should I come to you?"

With a small, defeated sigh, I dragged my feet across the small room until I was directly in front of him. He placed his hands on my waist and looked up at me, his brown eyes doing something to my heart as it beat louder in my chest.

"Turn around. And sit down."

I followed his instructions, turning around so I faced the door and my back was to him and lowering myself onto my bottom. I bent my knee up to my chest and stretched out my other leg as I waited for him to do something.

A couple seconds later, I felt something warmish being placed on my neck and around my collarbone. I glanced down to look at Daniel's chain on me just as he had clasped it shut.

He had given me his chain.

I took it in my hand, slowly rubbing my thumb over the cross but feeling confused as my fingers ran over some grooves in the hard metal. It took a moment of deciphering the words with my fingers before I realised what it said.

Daniel Mateo Reyes.

His full name.

"Y-You shouldn't be g-giving this to me," I stuttered out, suddenly remembering Emma's threats. "You should give it to Celeste. She's your fiancée."

I reached up to unclasp it, but Daniel had taken a hold of both my hands and held them captive behind me as he pulled me up off the floor and onto his lap.

He still held my hands behind my back, but grabbed my chin so I would turn around and look at him. "Is Celeste the woman here with me now?"

"No," I answered meekly, wanting to look away but finding myself unable to do so.

"Is Celeste the woman I fuck on an almost daily basis?"

My pussy throbbed at his words, but I kept it in my pants and instead answered the same as last time.

"No."

"Is Celeste the woman that put her life at risk so I got to kill the man I wanted?"

"No." I couldn't necessarily be sure of my answer, but for the sake of the flow we had developed, I kept it the same.

"You've given me reason to put my trust in you. And that's why you're mine; because you're the only woman I trust."

I played with the medallion shyly as he spoke. "Not even your sister?"

"Not even my sister."

I couldn't help but stare at him wide-eyed. It was extreme for anyone to say that, but Daniel wasn't the type to over-exaggerate so what he was saying was nothing but the truth.

"Anyone who respects me and sees you wearing this," he said, holding the cross before dropping it back against my chest, "will respect you too. And those who fear me will fear what I'll do to them if they hurt you."

I was unable to calm the rapid beating of my heart in my chest no matter how hard I tried. "D-Don't you need protection?" I asked, finally turning around to face him fully as I placed one leg on either side of his thigh and sat down on his lap.

Daniel chuckled and leaned back as his hand lazily rubbed my waist. "I thought by now you would know that I don't die."

He was oddly right. He had been in three near-death experiences, two of them being with bullets and one being with a car and he pulled through all of them, alive and well to that day.

"I do God's dirty work," he said, bringing a smile onto my face. "He makes sure I don't die and in return, I take out the trash."

"I just pray the Lord keeps you," I said quietly, making the sign of the cross on him before I could even think it through.

His eyes followed me for a moment, as if trying to figure something out before taking my hand and placing a small kiss on my palm.

"He will."

And yet the way he looked at me made me feel like he didn't mean that.

*****

Alright so if you follow me and actually read my announcements... you'll know that last night, I completed this book. So, nobody has to worry about me suddenly just stopping the story.

The only thing I can tell you though, because there is a 'but', is this book doesn't have a happy ending. HEYHEYHEYHEYHEY before you start cussing me out hear me out first.

This BOOK doesn't have a happy ending, but Araceli and Daniel's story does. I'm saying this because you can just read the first instalment and you can actually feel somewhat satisfied with the ending if you're heartless and like sad endings. Or, you can read the second book after the first book ends and... BOIII the drama in that book huehuehue. Like after reading what happens yall are gonna be so confused and you're going to hate me but I don't care because it ends happy.

Anyway, I'm essentially just telling you this because I'm going to keep dropping little hints in these author's notes lmao.

Before I go, brief reminder that there's going to be an update this Saturday as well and on Monday's update, there's going to be an important Author's Note in regards to how updates will go from now on because some things are going to change.

NOW to end this extremely long Author's Note, I've created Anna's moodboard and I'll be posting it along with the next update.

LOVE YALL AND THANK YOU AGAIN FOR 1K READS!!!!