by Ella Miles
I push all of that out.
Time to go to work.
I step out of my bedroom with confidence. I have a plan to complete Bishop’s task, and I know it will work, but it will destroy two unbreakable bonds in the process.
No bonds are unbreakable, Bishop says. Everyone can be broken.
I disagree, but I know in my heart he’s right. I’m about to prove his point.
I walk up the stairs to the top of the yacht. I had one of the guards bring up the small keyboard piano that I found in one of the twin’s playrooms. I sit down at the keys. I stop thinking, and I just play.
I play every tormented love song I can think of, every painful story.
Then I cast the final hook—I sing.
My voice carries throughout the entire ship—calling to the man I seek. I hope the servants are smart enough not to listen to my call, because I just need one man, and I need him alone.
I hear footsteps, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop. Once I’m in a trance like this, I’m just as much at the mercy of it as the people listening. I keep playing. I keep singing until the last note of the song is over.
“Beautiful,” my mark says. I don’t turn around. He could have chosen a different word to describe what he heard. He could have said amazing, incredible, wow. Instead, he chose the word I knew he would. He can’t help himself. He doesn’t realize the importance of words.
Only someone like me who has been careful with words all her life, careful not to tell a lie, would understand the importance of word choice.
I let my hands dance across the keys, but I don’t speak. I need him to move closer. I need to pull him in—a word isn’t enough.
He clears his throat. “You look beautiful. Waiting for Zeke?”
I turn my head, giving him a partial view of my face, knowing it will draw him in further. Not because he’s a man near an attractive woman, but because he’s polite and will want to look me in the eyes when he speaks to me.
“Yes. We’ve never had a date. I thought having one under the stars before we were separated sounded like a good idea. Is it foolish of me to think they will be back soon?” I ask.
Enzo chuckles and moves closer, until he’s sitting down on the piano bench next to me. “Yes, those two will be gone for a while still. There are a lot of ships they need to visit.”
“And they love each other,” I finish.
He sighs, and that’s when I notice he has two wine glasses filled with red wine.
“That for me?”
He shrugs. “I know some women still drink a glass of wine, even while pregnant. I thought it was wrong for me to drink and at least not offer you some.”
Such a gentleman. And I’m going to play to all his gentlemanly weaknesses.
I take the wine glass and take a sip. Drinking wine is the least risky thing I’m going to do when it comes to risking this baby’s life.
Enzo does the same, his heavy eyes looking at me.
“It doesn’t make you nervous that your stingray is with my anchor?” I ask, using both Kai and Zeke’s nicknames.
“No.” Enzo takes a drink of his wine, but his eyes tell me he’s lying. They wrinkle in the corners as the truth pulls at him.
“What are you afraid will happen?” I ask, trying again. Drinking my wine so Enzo will drink his. I don’t want him drunk; I don’t like using drugs to manipulate the men I target. It doesn’t seem fair. But I want him relaxed, willing to do things he might otherwise not do.
“The same thing you’re afraid will happen.”
I laugh like he’s ridiculous, even though we both know how easy it is to fall over the line from friends to lovers. From enemies to everything.
I take another sip of wine, then set it on the edge of the piano. My hands are lightly stroking the keys again as I play a soft melody.
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
Enzo chuckles deeply. “Now, who’s lying?”
“I’m not lying. They could sleep together, and it wouldn’t hurt me.”
“That’s not what I’m afraid they are going to do. You really think Kai and Zeke would sleep together?”
Yes, fall into my trap. Fall so this can be over.
“Don’t you?”
“No. I don’t.”
“Then what do you think?”
I continue to play, knowing this closeness is enough to draw Enzo in. I don’t need the sexy clothes. I don’t need the wine. I don’t need my sultry voice. I need him talking. I need him thinking about Kai. I need him longing for something he thinks he’s yet to find.
Humans are simple creatures. We aren’t complicated. We all yearn for the same thing—to feel the greatest love.
Enzo and Kai have a relationship that I could only dream of sharing with Zeke. They have a trust in each other that I don’t know if Zeke and I can truly have considering our past and how we started.
Yet somehow, Enzo still thinks there is more to be had. He sees the way Zeke calls Kai ‘Stingray,’ and he thinks he’s missing out on some part of his wife. He thinks Kai shares something with Zeke she will never share with him.
She does.
But it’s different. It’s not Enzo’s; it’s Zeke’s. Enzo and Kai are soulmates, but so are Zeke and Kai. They were all destined to be in each other’s lives. All destined to love each other, in the exact way they’ve come together. There is no Enzo and Kai without Kai and Zeke. No Kai and Zeke without Enzo and Kai.
But the heart can be easily made jealous. Enzo is weak right now. He’s worried about his wife, his kids. Scared to death that because he chose this life, a life that involves many enemies, that that means he doesn’t deserve his family.
I know because I feel the same way.
For a while, I just play as the dark sky spreads over us. I don’t know when Zeke and Kai will be back; I just know my plan will work. It has to for my own kid’s future.
“Did Kai tell you where the box is?” I ask, raising my eyebrow at him.
He freezes, his wine glass hovering in front of his mouth.
“I’m not asking because I want to know where they’re hidden. I don’t.” Please, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Please let Kai have been smart enough not to tell him. I’ll find out if she did, and I can’t know. “I’m just curious if she told her husband.”
Enzo lowers his wine glass. “She didn’t tell me.”
He puts the glass down on the other end of the piano. Then, to my surprise, his fingers start playing.
“You play?” I ask, even though it’s obvious he does.
“No, but I’m a fast learner.”
His hands mimic mine, just an octave lower.
“That’s incredible. I was always a slow learner.”
“Really?” he asks, surprised.
“Yep, until my twenties. Then all of a sudden, everything I’d studied for years clicked. I learned how to become a fast learner.”
He moves his hands differently on the keys, and I copy.
He smiles.
We continue to move our hands over the keys until I can’t help but sing the melody in my soul. One of longing to be with the one you love. One I know will speak to Enzo’s soul.
Eventually, he stops moving his hands over the keys. He just watches me. With how passionately I’m playing, my dress has hiked up high on my thigh, my straps have fallen off my shoulders, and my cleavage is spilling out of the too-tight dress.
I study Enzo out of the corner of my eye. His sleeves are rolled up, and the top few buttons of his shirt are undone. He’s almost as dressed up as I am. It’s clear he had the same thought that I’m pretending to have, to dress up for one last romantic moment with the one we love. Instead, we are sharing it together.
“Do you think we share the same kind of connection Kai and Zeke share?” Enzo asks.
No.
Hell no.
But this is the moment I’ve been waiting for. Enzo isn’t drunk, but he’s lost. He doesn’t hear the voices downstairs. He do
esn’t know the trap I sprung.
“Maybe. But what is that connection they share exactly?”
I turn sideways on the bench, putting one leg on either side, so I’m straddling it, pushing my dress so high up on my thighs he can see my underwear.
“A deep friendship?”
My eyes seer. You can do better, Enzo.
“Really? They are just really good friends? Oh, Enzo, are you really that naive?”
“They aren’t lovers!”
“I never said they were.”
“You implied it.” His face is red. He’s angry. He goes to stand up, but I grab his shirt, yanking him down and also to me.
I can do this. We are so close. So fucking close.
“No, but you did. You think they could be. They might, in a moment of weakness, give in to their temptation. Maybe not tonight, but in the past.”
He frowns.
“Maybe it’s not the past you are worried about but the future. What happens if you and I die? Will they comfort each other through their mourning?”
I curl my hand around his neck.
His brow jumps in shock.
Then he realizes what I’m doing—showing him it could never be true because when I touch the nape of his neck, he feels nothing. How wrong he is…
“Will they accidentally kiss each other in a drunken night, much like this?”
I swing my leg over his lap, my time running out as the footsteps grow louder. His eyes darken in a warning.
“Will they fuck and realize they should have been doing it this entire time? Realize we were never the people they were in love with, it was always each other?”
He shudders, disturbed. I lean toward him. Our lips almost brush.
“If we died, I would want them to find each other. I would want them to be happy. They deserve to be happy if we are gone,” he says.
“What if they would be happier with each other now?”
“They wouldn’t.”
“What if we would be happier?”
“We wouldn’t.”
“Prove it. You know you need to.”
“I don’t need to prove anything,” Enzo says.
Such a gentleman. I hate doing this, but I don’t have a choice. It’s now or never.
I grab his hands and place one on my ass, the other on my breast.
“Feel anything?”
“No.”
“What about now?” I ask as I kiss his neck.
He stiffens.
“Siren,” his voice warns, hating my fire on his neck as much as I hate my tongue licking over his neck.
He tries to push me off him, but he won’t dare hurt me since I’m pregnant. So I take what I need from him. I become all the people I hate—Palmer, Julian, Bishop. I take from Enzo, knowing he’s defenseless.
I undo his pants and slip inside, avoiding his cock, but accidentally brushing against him all the same. It’s not about me violating him; it’s about what it looks like to Zeke and Kai.
“You’re a liar, Enzo. You want me,” I whisper.
“No. Siren, stop.”
Forgive me. Please, fucking forgive me.
I see Zeke’s eyes. I see them burn into me.
“Want me to stop?” I whisper into Enzo’s ear so that Zeke and Kai can’t hear the words I speak, but they will hear Enzo’s reaction.
“Yes!” he screams. His voice screams everything he wants. He wants me to stop, but to them, it looks like he’s begging me to touch him.
My eyes go to Zeke—I always tell the truth, even when I lie. Find the lie, Zeke. Find the truth. You know this isn’t what I want.
I take the last thing I require of Enzo Black, the great man who can so easily be taken down against his will by a woman. I won’t rape him. That was never the goal, but I take everything from him all the same.
He will be able to get it back, eventually. He will be able to remind Kai that he loves her, that I was the monster tonight, not him. But for now, his life will be broken—as was required of me.
I take the final thing, destroying myself more than I destroy him. I didn’t rape Enzo like Julian did me. I won’t milk Enzo dry like Palmer did to Zeke. But I fucked with Enzo’s head like Bishop did me. And I touched him where I had no right to.
I’m a monster.
A devil.
There is no forgiveness to be had. I won’t ask for it either. I keep the tears in. I don’t get to be in pain as I do this, as I take everything from the three people on this deck.
I tilt my head, flash Zeke a lustful look so not even he can tell the truth from the lies, and then I kiss Enzo open-mouthed. I kiss him with every emotion I have. I do what Bishop commanded—I kiss Enzo. I destroy two marriages, and I pray like hell we will all survive this.
I didn’t understand why Bishop wanted me to do this before, but hearing the collective gasp of the room, feeling the shift in the air, his motive is clear. Bishop wanted us all weak when he fought us. He knew together we could never be beaten, but apart, we are easy targets.
I did this. I destroyed our chance at killing our enemies so I could get Bishop out of my head. I just hope it’s worth it.
24
Zeke
Siren kissed Enzo.
Yes, my brain is going to be processing what I saw for a long time.
No, it wasn’t a dream.
Yes, it was real.
Why? I have no fucking clue what this could have to do with a task Bishop gave her.
My body floods with rage, with anger, with undeniable and uncontrollable pain. I realize this might be my most desperate moment.
Not learning that Siren scammed me.
Not finding out that she was married to another man.
Not having her ripped from me and raped by a man she works for.
No—this guts me worse than all of those. Not because a kiss is somehow worse. Not because the compromising position they were in is too horrible for my eyes to bear. But because of the vows we made, the promises, they mean nothing if we don’t keep them. We aren’t legally married. The only way we stay married is if we both want to be married. We both dream this dream and want each other more than we want to be apart.
And in one moment of weakness? Of lust? Enzo and Siren threw away everything. Because what? We were fucking gone too long?
Siren told me to take Kai away, so I did. I took her away all damn day. I gave Siren as much time as she could possibly want to complete her mission. I assumed her mission was finding out the location of the box to turn over to Bishop.
I assume that’s still what she was doing when she was kissing and dry humping my best friend. She’s used to seducing men to get the information she needs, but I’m angry she couldn’t come up with any other way to get him to spill.
I can think of a hundred different ways, none of them involve almost fucking my best friend.
The cool air has turned hot, suffocatingly hot, even though we are standing on top of the yacht with plenty of air to be shared between the four of us.
We’ve paired off in a staring contest of two versus two. I’m staring at Siren. Kai is staring at Enzo. We don’t acknowledge the other people up here with us.
My heart doesn’t break watching Siren still sitting on Enzo’s lap, caressing his head, hiding behind him, using him like a shield to protect herself from me.
I growl, my face turning into a dark shadow. Siren doesn’t get to hide. She doesn’t get to pretend she was telling the truth while all the time, showing the world a lie. This time, I’m going to make her face the music. She’s going to have to own the consequences of her actions.
I put my hands into my leather jacket pockets, though. I can be patient when I want to be. I can wait to get her alone before we talk. So I stand silently.
I’m not going to help her out of this uncomfortable situation. Siren didn’t want to talk to me ahead of time and tell me her plan. She doesn’t trust me to help her, so I don’t trust her with my truth, with my current feelings. She could ha
ve told me her plan, and I could have told her she’s a damn fool. Then we wouldn’t be in this situation.
Kai, on the other hand, doesn’t have any patience when it comes to making her vengeance known. All of it is directed at her husband.
“How dare you! After everything we’ve been through, you do this!” Kai screams, marching over to her husband.
Enzo jumps, so does Siren. Siren is off Enzo’s lap as Kai marches over, but her hand gets stuck in his zipper. Siren shoots me a ‘help me’ glare.
No. Fucking. Way.
You got yourself into this mess, pretty girl, you can get yourself out.
Finally, Enzo yanks her hand free, and Siren stumbles away from Kai just before she slaps Enzo hard across the cheek. He takes it, as he should.
“How could you?” Kai’s voice is eerily calm after just being wild.
Enzo stiffens but doesn’t speak. There are no apologies or excuses he could give that would make this moment better.
“Are you drunk?” Kai asks, sniffing his breath.
“No,” Enzo says. It’s clear he isn’t drunk. And if he was, he would definitely be sober now. His clothes don’t look good, though. His shirt is unbuttoned halfway down. His pants are undone with the top of his pubic hair protruding.
I don’t dare look at Siren. I focus on the disaster in front of me. I don’t want to see her dress out of place. I don’t want to see it ripped or undone. I don’t want to see her nipples hard or her panties wet. I don’t want to see her flushed cheeks or swollen lips. I don’t want to see any evidence that another man touched my woman.
“Did the whore drug you?” Kai hisses, staring from Enzo to Siren.
I growl, “Too far.” Apparently, I’ll still protect Siren even when I shouldn’t.
Kai flips me off, returning her glare to her husband, begging him to give her a reason for this situation. One where he isn’t at fault, but he’s as much at fault as Siren is. He could have stopped her at any time. He didn’t.
“No,” Enzo says, sealing his fate.
I don’t understand what happened. I know that Siren can seduce. I know her voice is heavenly—it’s what healed me. But I don’t understand how two married people could end up kissing, with hands in places they shouldn’t be. If we hadn’t walked in, then what would have happened? How far would they have gone?