“Sip slow.” He winked. “It’s Russian.”
“It’s not vodka. Are you even allowed to have other alcohols?” I teased.
“Great fist question, yes, actually we are.”
“Not fair.”
“I never play fair.” He licked his full bottom lip, drawing my attention to it before I could look away. “Keep looking at me like that, and I’m throwing this mask off, apologizing for the shock, and taking you against this couch.”
“Why would I be shocked?”
“We don’t have enough time to even begin that conversation, princess. Just know, things aren’t always what they seem. We see, a lot of times, what we’re told to see.”
“Vague.” I sipped the whiskey and made a face. “Wow, now I know why you said sip.”
“Next question.” He leaned back against the couch, crossing one of his legs over his knee.
Why did I want to sit in his lap again?
What was wrong with me?
I gave my head a shake. “The fire, what happened?”
He sighed and leaned forward again, clasping his hands in front of him. “Another long story, I was young, really young. My mom and I were living together, my dad was… killed when I was even younger. I barely remember him, and his dad, my grandpa, was also killed. He was bad, though, so…” He shrugged. “I was hidden here. Only one person knew I existed, and he wanted me dead.”
I covered my mouth with my hands.
“People often do, when they see a throne they want to sit on,” he continued. “The fire was too hot. My mom got me out, but I was upset.” His voice started to shake. “I slept with this stupid blanket ever since I was a kid. It had a white horse on it, and I pretended—” His voice cracked. “I pretended that one day, my dad would come through that door and save me, claim me, that my life wouldn’t always be about death and secrets. You know what’s really stupid? I just wanted to go to a theme park with him, spend the day with him, hear him say he was proud of me. Every little boy needs to hear those words from his father, and I imagined if I had that blanket, one day, it would just… happen, like the magic my mom convinced me existed once I realized that I wasn’t a bastard but actually loved.”
A tear slid down my cheek, followed by another. They were hot; they burned my eyes as he spoke.
“My mom never came back out.” Slowly he got up and walked over to the desk and pulled out a black blanket with a white horse sewn onto it.
And next to the horse were the initials VP.
He was so young. So brave despite being afraid. My heart broke for him. The blanket was tarnished, half-burnt.
“I was broken that day, like glass shards that refuse to fit after being dropped over and over against the concrete.” He sighed and tucked the blanket back inside the desk and made his way back over to me. “And now, here we are.”
“Did you have any family left?
“Only the man who tried to kill me,” he whispered.
“Who’s that?”
“Andrei Sinacore-Petrov.”
I covered my mouth with my hands. “God, you must hate him.”
“I tolerate him,” he said through clenched teeth. “Mainly because now that I’m older, I know he’d been given misinformation by someone.”
“Who?”
“You want to know all my secrets then?”
“You’re my husband.”
“Yes.” He smiled sadly. “I am.”
“Who was it?”
“It was old information, from an old source, one he had at one point trusted. All of the Russian mafia did. You know her as Mil De Lange. Your father, however—”
“—won’t even mention her name in front of me,” I finished.
“Yes.”
“Did Andrei take you in then?”
He snorted out a laugh. “Hell, no. And since then, he has apologized, but it was my fault. I shouldn’t have made my mom cry, I shouldn’t have made her go back and get a stupid bl—”
My kiss silenced whatever else he was about to say.
His lips were plump, smooth, as they slid against mine. I moved to straddle him, and he let me, and everything about it felt familiar.
Maybe because we’d kissed last year.
Maybe because even then, he was mine.
His hands ran down my back, holding me prisoner as he deepened the kiss, tasting my tongue with his in a way that drew me closer to him, made me want more as I dug my fingers into his hair.
It was so soft.
My fingers found the edge of his mask, but he jerked back, chest heaving. “Let me be selfish for two more days before you do that.”
“Because everything changes when the masks are gone,” I said softly.
“Everything.” His throat moved. “Because it has to.”
“Okay, Valerian,” I whispered. “The mask stays on for two more days, and then no more hiding.”
“Is that what you think I’ve been doing?” he rasped, his eyes searching mine.
“You tell me.”
“I wish I could.” He looked away. “It’s getting late, I have a busy day tomorrow, and I know you’ll want to visit your family again.”
“Take it off,” I found myself saying before I knew what was happening.
He went still. “What do you mean take it off?”
“At least the evening, I want to do something. This is the part where I ask for your credit card and make sure that you really are rich enough to have one without a limit.”
He snorted out a laugh. “Are you buying a country?”
“Could I?”
“The Petrov accounts have been unfrozen for two weeks—last I checked we were at seven billion, so yeah, you probably could.”
“Two billion,” I repeated. “Wow, and I thought my dad was rich.”
“He is.” He chuckled. “Then again, when you deal drugs…”
“Dad doesn’t deal drugs.”
“Okay, not hard drugs, but he does own at least a dozen dispensaries.”
“That’s what I call smart investing.” She winked. “Credit card.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet that looked new, not worn, which was weird.
He slid a black AMEX card from the inside and handed it to me. “Try not to bleed the Family dry, all right?”
“Trust me.” I smiled.
“I do.” He pressed a kiss to my mouth. “I have no choice.”
“We always have a choice.” I shrugged.
“No.” His eyes were haunted. “We really don’t.”
I was about to ask another question, but he pressed a finger to my lips. “You should sleep.”
“Are you sleeping with me?”
“Do you want me to?”
“Yes.” I started fidgeting immediately.
He shook his head. “How about I lay with you until you fall asleep?”
“I would like that.”
“If you’re really good, I’ll even read you a story.”
“Which one?” I grinned as I hopped off his lap. He grabbed my fingertips and kissed them.
I swayed toward him.
“The Polar Bear King, it’s a Nordic fairy tale about a king who’s trapped as a bear during the day, but every night during a certain time of the year, he can visit his bride as a man, as the man he truly is.”
“Do you imagine yourself as the polar bear?”
“No.” He sighed like he was disappointed. “I’ve always been and always will be, the wolf.”
Chapter Thirteen
Reflection shows me lies—but truth is no better because those words will burn, will scar forever. Reflection shows me what must be done—but the strength to grab the knife hasn’t been won. Blood drips from the tip as I watch him die, and a cruel smile passes my lips because I’m the reason why. —Valerian Petrov
Breaker
I wasn’t the best at writing letters.
I was more of a one-word texter or meme sender.
So, this felt foreig
n.
The pen strange in my hand as I gripped it tight, my conversation with Phoenix washed over me in a fit of rage that somehow descended into peace.
I hated that he was right.
Not just about this, but about everything.
I had always looked to Junior as the one who would rise out of the ashes. After all, he was Phoenix’s son, but now I wondered if that wasn’t the idea for every one of the heirs.
The ashes of those killed cried out for justice, didn’t they? Their souls didn’t sleep, and it was our job to rise up and fight for the good as much as we fought against the bad.
There was an inequality in the way our dads had served, a blind need to protect us at all costs without thinking about how it would affect us in the future, and that was what made these crowns so fucking heavy.
The knowledge that they were the reason they felt that way.
That Tex Campisi, in all his greatness, thought he knew best.
That Phoenix Nicolasi, in all his wisdom and secrets, could not prevent even this from happening.
That Nixon Abandonato, in all his arrogance, didn’t even see it coming.
Dante Alfero, the one closest to us in age next to Dom, didn’t see it.
They were too consumed with their wives, their need to be with them, that they had missed us, hadn’t they? They’d missed the clues.
Even Chase, in all his suspicions, with all his secrets, thought he knew what was best when he threw me in the shower that day, not realizing that he was playing perfectly into a plan that had been ordained the day I came screaming into this world.
God, my chest hurt.
I rubbed the middle of it with my right hand.
It was early in the morning. They would be up soon, and they’d wonder where I was, and I wouldn’t be here to tell them.
“Do you think we have a chance to go to Heaven?” I asked Phoenix as we’d driven around while he told me what I needed to do.
His sigh was heavy as he pulled the car over to the side of the road and gripped the steering wheel until his hands turned white. “Nobody deserves Heaven, Breaker, not even the best of us and definitely not the worst, but I don’t think a truly loving God would keep you out just because you made an impossible choice. I used to think the opposite; I used to think a lot of shit until I had Junior and realized that it is, in fact, possible to have your heart walk outside your body and run into oncoming traffic, then wonder why you suddenly sprout a gray hair.” He didn’t laugh, he rarely did unless something was really funny, but he was smiling over at me, another rarity that almost shocked me speechless. “When you’re a parent, suddenly everything that used to matter doesn’t. And everything that used to be so simple becomes so fucking complicated. But one thing I can promise you, my son. No matter how many times he screams at me, fights, makes me bleed, tells me he hates me, says he wants nothing to do with me, there will never be a day in my fucking life where I won’t wait for him with open arms to come back to me. There isn’t one hair on his head I don’t pray for, there isn’t one second of the day that I don’t think of him, even if he hates me, even if he comes back to me a murderer, blood staining his hands, demons in his mind, soulless— He is mine. Do you understand? He is mine.” He pounded the steering wheel with his hand. “So, do I think God would kick out his children? Not anymore. No. I think he’s used to people walking into his arms with blood staining their souls, I think he’s used to darkness as much as he is the light.”
His words hit home, and then he reached over and put a hand on my arm. “You know, I loved you like my own the minute I found you, Breaker.”
“When I chose my name,” I whispered.
“When you looked up at me with tears in your eyes, screaming that you broke her, so that’s the only name you deserve. You screamed it again and again like you’d never stop. Until I pulled you into my arms.”
“And said it wasn’t my fault.” My voice shook. “You told me I was brave.”
“Because you are,” Phoenix rasped. “And I’m proud of the man you’ve become. If you hear nothing else, hear this. You, Breaker Campisi, make me proud to call you family, and even if you are under Tex’s protection, I’ll always think of you more as my son.”
I didn’t want to cry.
I didn’t want to tell him I didn’t deserve his words even though I needed them so badly my body physically hurt with it.
“I can do this,” I whispered.
“Son, this is what you were born to do. There’s only one person standing in the way.”
“Yeah,” I croaked. “Stupid bastard.”
He sighed. “We’re all stupid bastards.”
“That’s true.”
He gave me a bit of a shove. “Tell anyone this conversation happened, and I’ll shove you over a cliff.”
“Good pep talk.”
“I’m shockingly better at them than everyone else.”
I shuddered. “Tell me about it. When I asked Dad for encouragement during a test, he literally patted me on the head and called me slugger.”
Phoenix burst out laughing. “Oh, I’m using that next time I see him.”
“He hates the reminder.”
“Even better. He used to want to kill me. This brings me more joy than I’ve had in a week.” He winked. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Be safe, Breaker.”
“Be safe, Phoenix.”
I leaned back in my chair. The paper in front of me was still empty. I needed to finish this before I lost the nerve, didn’t I?
Plus, it wasn’t forever.
Right?
I quickly jotted down the name Junior and kept writing.
But I couldn’t bring myself to write her name down.
I wanted to.
But I couldn’t.
So, I didn’t.
God forgive me, but I couldn’t do it, couldn’t say goodbye. Hell, I’d had a hard time saying hello to her the first time I met her.
“Dipshit.” King snickered as he ran down the stairs like they were on fire.
I quickly shoved the notes into the black briefcase and then watched in amusement as Maksim chased him, holding his cell phone high. “Dude, you slept with her best friend?”
I winced. “King…”
“What?” He frowned. “She was hot!”
“Wow.” Maksim tossed him back his phone. “Never mind, you deserve everything that’s happening,” He looked over at me. “The friend found out. They told their dads.”
I burst out laughing and then slow clapped. “This is turning out to be a glorious day. Please tell me their dads are terrifying.”
“You do realize who we live with, right?” King snorted. “Though one did send me a threatening text. Numerous body parts were involved, lots of blood, burying, skinning.”
“Hey,” I pointed out. “That’s a new one, skinning, I like it.”
“Very well done,” Maksim agreed, leaning against the leather chair. “I think I saw that in a movie once. They use that skin graft thing and just glide it over like a razor— Hey, here’s a thought, we can make them a skin hat to remember you by!”
King narrowed his eyes. “Yes, because that’s what says, take me back, I’m an idiot, skin from my own body made into a hat.”
“Just a thought.” Maksim shrugged.
Junior and Serena slowly came down the stairs then, followed by Izzy, who seemed to skip around like she had endless amounts of energy. Naturally, she made a beeline for Maksim, who seemed only too happy to entertain her as they ducked their heads together and started talking.
Most likely about science, because it was them.
“Why’s King so upset?” Junior jerked out a chair next to me.
“Oh, that.” I leaned back and crossed my arms. “His dick got him in trouble—again, and now we’re talking about skinning him and selling hats.”
King just groaned into his hands and plopped down onto the chair.
“Hey.” I nodded to Junior
. “You and Ash got a minute?”
“Who’s skinning King?” Ash took the stairs two at a time and made it to the bottom, his eyes darting between all of us.
Serena patted him on the back. “I’m not sure, but I imagine it’s either an angry ex or a father.”
“Ding, ding, ding, you win today’s prize.” I winked at her.
Serena stuck her tongue out and then made her way toward the kitchen, “Speaking of skinning and prizes, I’m going to make some eggs, you guys want?”
“Damn, man, you got her trained to make you breakfast?” I chuckled under my breath, earning a don’t say one more word glare from Junior.
Serena stomped over to me, smacked me in the head, and then Junior for good measure. Ash ducked away, smart man.
“I hate it when ma does that.” Junior rubbed the back of his head. “And Serena’s very sensitive this early without her coffee.”
I snorted. “When is she not sensitive? She yelled at me one time for standing too close to her breathing bubble, and I was literally trying to help her get an eyelash out of her eye.”
“Women.” Junior shuddered.
“Heard that!” Serena yelled.
“Sometimes…” Junior whispered. “She terrifies me.”
“That too!”
He pounded his fists onto the table, causing it to shake. “GO MAKE EGGS WOMAN!”
Serena came flying around the corner, knife in hand, stomping toward Junior in a way that meant blood.
“Fifty says she gets him first.” Ash pulled out a seat.
“Eh, he’s feisty this morning, I say he draws first blood. A hundred?”
“Deal.” He yawned.
With a face-splitting grin, Junior hopped to his feet. “What, woman? Where’s your apron? Shouldn’t you be vacuuming—”
With a roar, she charged him, knife pointed directly at his chest.
He kicked it out of her hands, and then they were on the floor grappling.
Ash and I peered over the table as she elbowed Junior in the face. He bested her with a sucker punch to the gut, sending her sailing backward.
She was on her feet again.
Bleeding from her lip.
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