Blood for my Rose |• Crimson Rose series✔️

Genesis

***Four years ago ***

America
Arizona
Tucson

Complacently, Louis exhaled that he'd finally made it to the United States, despite that his pictures were everywhere back in Mexico for being a part of the cartel, and brother to the most wanted Drug Lord in the whole of North America, South America and Europe.

The powerful Miller was finally dead, disappointingly. And Louis just couldn't still wrap his mind around what happened yesterday. He knew his brother could not have survived what came for him, sure.

He couldn't even beat a hand on his chest and say he knew exactly what went down there in the hole after he escaped. Left his brother, his brother's girlfriend and their most loyal bodyguard for dead. He'd been in a warehouse in Costa Azul with his brother and then the damned Italian showed up. No Italian was worthy of his pity anymore. He was so furious yet bereaved that Tatiana even attempted to redeem that family tie with her good-for-death brother. He could never forgive her for what she did, even though he loved her like his own sister.

Tatiana was a good woman, but his brother didn't deserve to die like a meat in the hands of a butcher. But the thought of a good start landed him here; coming out of the Tucson International Airport.

With no home in the States, no friend nor any plan for both, Louis' pent up anger gradually began to rise. He'd gotten back home after the brag of power between his brother and his brother's father, Vicente. He ravaged the house for precious belongs like his rings, chains, and every other item he could sell and sustain himself here for a while. The big question was, who could help him start off? He definitely needed someone, maybe not a friend, that he could count on.

But a drink sounded better to him than a friend-search at ten in the night. "Two bottles of Coors Light, please," he said to the waiter as he dropped his backpack on the floor beside him and sat on the bar stool. "Ice would be nice."

Louis regraded the murky bar with scrutiny, hoping no one could recognize him. There was really no need for paranoia. Americans could care less about a damned drug lord's brother in the United States. Matter of fact, one woman did like the idea of him being in the bar at this hour. And she didn't hesitate to walk up to him with a flirtatious smile.

"I'm Brook," she introduced herself with an outstretched palm, but Louis didn't shake her. He didn't want to shake her, reasons being he had no interest in older women.

The woman looked his mother's age, if not a little older. She had Verónica's kind of determination and he wondered if it came with old age of women that loved the pub life.

"I can see you're new here," Brook carried on, in spite of the fact that Louis looked like he'd puke on her.

"What makes you think I am?" He opened his beer with his premolars and dropped the cork on the counter. He gulped his drink with Brook's eyes on his vibrating throat and she finally sat beside him. He didn't even care about the ice anymore.

"I know everyone that visits here."

"What is this place, a cathouse?" He looked around to see where he makes out strategic positioning of brothel rooms. Then he found a door that led nowhere, at least to him. It must have been the door to the brothel.

That resolute look began to blot Brook's expression as she saw where his eyes were focused on. "It's affordable. A hundred dollars per night. But with special treatment"—she flagged him the 'you know what I mean' look—"you'd have to double it."

Louis could have as well puked on this woman. First of, she was being really nerve-racking to be trying to get his attention. Entertaining some crazy ideas in her head about his likings was ticking him off completely. Two hundred dollars was how cheap it could be to get down with a woman in a state that had penalties for prostitution? That sounded disappointing. If he really wanted to screw somebody, he didn't want cash attached to it. He could afford to sleep with all the women here if he wanted, so it wasn't about the money. He just had his standards so high that paying for sex was disgusting to hear.