by Nicole Fox
“I said nothing about being happy.”
I let out a low breath and my shoulders slump down. I pull at the handcuffs again—and this time, I notice a weird little bit of slack. Room to maneuver them off the post, maybe? I want to examine it further, but I don’t want to tip Kian off to anything.
So I decide on a different tactic for now. “You want me to behave?”
He shrugs. “Things will go easier for you if you do.”
“Fine,” I say heavily, “I’ll behave then. In fact, I’ll prove it to you.”
He’s looking at me skeptically, clearly suspicious of my sudden change of heart. “How do you plan on doing that?”
I notice how his eyes flicker to my heaving chest. He’s trying hard not to let his gaze settle there, but he doesn’t always succeed. It’s a dead giveaway.
“Come here,” I coax. “And I’ll tell you.”
He doesn’t hesitate. Why would he? He’s the one with all the power here.
He stops about a foot away from me, but I shake my head. “Come closer.”
It’s a gamble. A dangerous game I’m playing. But to my surprise, he does. This time, he stops only about an inch or two away from me.
I rise to my knees—as far as the cuffs will let me go—and lean forward, closing the gap between our bodies. I press my breasts up against his chest and look up at him, softening my gaze just enough.
He’s definitely suspicious. But he’s also curious.
Since my right hand is chained to the bedpost, I use my left hand to snake up his torso.
It’s slightly irritating how fucking hard his body is. Even through his shirt, I can feel the hard wall of muscle. And it’s more than slightly irritating how that sends a strange ripple of heat surging through me.
“I can be a very good prisoner,” I murmur. “…If you let me.”
His gaze seems to stall on my lips. I lick them slowly.
Something flickers across his eyes. “You can’t buy your freedom with your body,” he tells me.
“Maybe you should let me try.”
He narrows his eyes. “What’s your game, Renata?”
The sound of my name on his lips feels like an electric bolt straight to the heart. I can’t decide if I enjoy it more than I hate it. But whichever one of those it is, the result is the same—it shatters every bit of willingness I have to play this game.
Kian O’Sullivan might kill me tonight.
But he will never strip my dignity from me.
My mask of seduction falls away. “This is my game,” I tell him.
Then I spit in his face.
He roars and recoils at once with a curse in some language I don’t understand, wiping the spit from his eyes.
I brace myself for his anger. After an insult like that, I know he’s going to make me pay. I’ve spent a lifetime with my brother, and I know that men like him hurt anything that defies them.
The question is, where will he hit me?
Drago liked to slap me across the face. That was the most humiliating. My ex-husband, on the other hand, preferred to slug me in the stomach. Left fewer visible marks that way.
I can’t decide which way Kian will lean. So I close my eyes and tense my stomach.
But then I hear an unexpected noise—footsteps whispering away. And Kian O’Sullivan walks out of the room without a word. Leaving me braced for a hit that never comes.
Somehow, that hurts worst of all.
Kian
Kian’s Office
“Sit still, boss,” Dr. Callum tells me. “I’m going to need to put a few stitches in.”
“Stitches, huh?” Phoenix remarks in a tone that suggests he’s trying not to laugh. “She got you good.”
“Sit the fuck down, you little shit,” I growl at him. “Or you’ll be the one who needs stitches.”
Phoenix chuckles lightly and takes the seat opposite mine. My eyebrow feels much better now that the doctor’s cleaned it up. The stinging pain comes in waves, but it’s easy to ignore. Especially in light of the new shitshow I’m left to deal with after my botched assassination on the Lombardi fucker. This was supposed to be an easy mark. How did I screw it up so goddamn badly?
“Almost done, sir,” Dr. Callum tells me. “Only two stiches. They’ll dissolve on their own in a few days.”
He puts the finishing touches on the stitches and then he’s done. He starts putting back his supplies into the medical briefcase sitting on my desk. “You need me to look at anything else?”
“No.”
“How are your knees?” he asks.
“Good as new.”
Phoenix looks at me with interest. “Old man knees acting up on you?”
“Old injury,” I explain. “I got it fighting wars, back when you were still walking around in diapers.”
His expression twists a little. He hates when I bring up old memories, and he especially hates when I remind him that I was deep in this business when he was nothing but a little rug rat.
Tough shit. It’s important to keep these mafia kids humble. God knows the men of the Kovalyov Bratva are not lacking in the ego department.
The doctor finishes packing his supplies away and turns to me with a respectful nod of his head. I dismiss him with a wave and he backs out of my office. The moment we’re alone, Phoenix’s expression turns businesslike. “Where is she?”
“Locked up in one of the guest bedrooms,” I growl. “She’s turned out to be a fuck-ton more trouble than I’d anticipated.”
“So why bring her back here?”
That’s a good fucking question. There are several answers to that. I go with the most plausible one. “Because I didn’t want to leave a body at that house. It’s on the cops’ radar now,” I tell him reasonably. “And anyway, she might come in handy.”
Phoenix frowns. “How?”
“She’s Lombardi’s sister,” I point out. “Could be a useful bargaining chip.”
“True. But what if Lombardi isn’t willing to come to the table, even with his sister’s life hanging in the balance?”
“Then I kill her.” The words leave a strange aftertaste.
“Will you?” Phoenix asks with an odd expression.
I squint at him. “What are you implying?”
Phoenix chuckles, unfazed. “That she’s hot,” he says bluntly.
“You forget I’m not a twenty-year-old kid who’s ruled by his hormones.”
“Yeah? Could have fooled me, the way you were looking at her.”
I cock my head to the side. “I miss the days when you were crawling around shitting your pants.”
Phoenix glares, but I can tell he’s enjoying getting a rise out of me. Little shit’s exactly like his father. “Am I wrong?” he presses.
“She’s nothing more than an inconvenience.”
“I didn’t say she wasn’t,” he replies. “But she is a stunner of an inconvenience.”
“She’s too fucking young,” I hear myself say.
Phoenix frowns. “Never stopped you before.”
“Your father talks too much.”
“Yeah, so does my mother.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m gonna have to talk to those two.”
Phoenix smirks for a moment, then his expression falls back into seriousness. Sometimes I worry about the kid. Although I have to stop thinking of him as a kid anymore. He’s a man now. As tall, broad, and imposing as his father. And every bit as serious. Maybe a little too serious.
I worry that the life weighs on him the same way that it weighed on my brother Sean. And we all know how that turned out.
Sean left. Walked out on the Clan and the family. Left it all behind.
I’m not sure Phoenix would do the same. For one, he has parents that would kill for him. His mother, Esme, is as sweet as they come. But even she’s grown sharp teeth in the twenty years since I moved to New York. Running the most powerful Bratva in the United States will do that to a person, no matter how gentle they are at heart.
&
nbsp; But there’s also something else about Phoenix. He’s built for this. He’s cut out for the life. When his time to rule comes… his enemies had better run.
“What are you gonna do about Drago?” Phoenix inquires.
I grit my teeth, still furious that the Italian fucker had managed to weasel out of my clutches. It was supposed to be so fucking simple. A one-man job. Go in, slaughter the bastard, get out. It’s all spiraled way out of control. What a goddamn headache.
“I’m going to have to track the gléas down,” I say. “He knows I was in his house. He’s going to want to lie low for as long as possible. I need to find a way to draw him back out.”
“And you think Renata will help do that?”
“That’s what I’m hoping,” I acknowledge. “But I’m not sure.”
“Why?”
Smart kid. Always asks the right questions.
“Because she was already distressed when she opened the door and found me standing there,” I explain. “There was some sort of altercation before I arrived.”
“Between her and Drago?”
“That’s my best guess.”
“You think he ran when he realized you were there?”
“Probably,” I reply. “He’s a fucking coward. But that also means he left his sister with me. He didn’t even try to protect her.”
“So why hold onto the girl?”
“Because she might still be useful,” I say, hoping I’m right. “This has become a bigger problem than either one of us predicted. Sooner or later, it’s going to get around that I have his sister.”
I pause, waiting for Phoenix to fill in the blanks.
“And you think he’ll have no choice but to try and get her back,” he guesses.
I nod. “Regardless of sentiment, he has to at least try. Or else risk losing the respect of his allies, few as they may be. It’s a pathetic fucking don that can’t even protect his own blood.”
“You’re assuming he’s going to act like you would, though,” Phoenix points out.
I nod again. “I’m aware he might not. He’s not exactly don material. We’ll just have to play it by ear. But I need to get a team out there to start the search for him—before he starts the search for her.”
“You sure it’s worth the trouble?”
I pound the table with a closed fist. “I’m not willing to let him slink off into the night anymore. I’ve put up with him for twenty fucking years. That’s long enough. It’s time to get rid of this irritation.”
Phoenix stands up abruptly. “So be it. Let me lead the team. I’ll go out tonight and start the search.”
I consider that for a moment. “I don’t want you starting a job you can’t finish,” I say. “You’re due back in Los Angeles soon. You’re needed there.”
Phoenix’s jaw tightens. “I’d rather be here.”
I frown. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he says—a little too fast.
“Phoenix…”
He sighs. “It’s easier here,” he admits. “In New York, I’m not the son of the great and powerful Artem Kovalyov. Here, I’m just… part of the team.”
I smile tenderly. It’s a rare moment of vulnerability from him. With the way he wears armor around his emotions all the time, it’s good to see that there’s still heart somewhere beneath. A don needs both to be successful.
I laugh. “Kid, even here, you’re Kian O’Sullivan’s nephew.”
“I’m not really your nephew,” he scoffs.
“Maybe not my blood nephew,” I concede. “But in every other way, you are. Our families have been allies for decades. And before that, my brother and your father were friends. Best friends. Still are.”
“You don’t have to lecture me on family history,” he says gruffly. Anyway, all I’m saying is that the pressure of my name doesn’t weigh me down here like it does at home.”
I stop short of the speech I’m about to give him. This is something he needs to work out on his own. Forcing certain truths on him will not make him anymore inclined to face them.
“Fine,” I say. “But you can be the one to let your father know that you’re staying longer.”
“He’ll accept it easier if it comes from you.”
I give him a pointed look. “Yes, but you’re the one who wants to stay. So you’ll be the one to tell him. No arguments.”
Phoenix sighs. “Fine.”
“Good man,” I say, standing up. “We can leave now.”
“We? I thought you said I was leading the team.”
I chuckle. “I did. You are. But I’m coming with you, of course.”
He does a good job of hiding his emotions, but I’ve known him his whole life. I can tell when he’s disappointed. “I’ve got it covered, you know,” he says calmly. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
The kid’s been walking with giants since the day he was born. I can understand what that’s like—to constantly live in someone else’s shadow. It’s the whole reason Cillian commanded me to oversee our business interests in New York. He saw the conflict coming before I did.
And not just the conflict with the Lombardis—but the conflict between us as brothers. We are both alphas. I was raised to lead. So was he. There could never be two dons for the same clan.
But split that clan across an ocean, and two dons become necessary. For two decades, this arrangement has worked out nicely for everyone.
Phoenix will find his own place in the world just like I did. But until then, the least I can do is give him space to be his own man.
I nod. “Alright then. I’ll let you get a head start. Keep me posted.”
“I will,” Phoenix replies, relief burning in his eyes as he turns towards the door.
When he’s gone, I walk to the bar in the corner of the room and pour myself a drink. I know I’ll find Drago Lombardi eventually. And when I do, I know exactly how that’s going to go.
But as for the other Lombardi, the one chained to the bed in my guestroom…?
I haven’t yet decided what to do with her.
Renata
Kian’s Guest Bedroom
I’ve been veering between panic, fear, and anger for the past hour. An hour of desperately trying to break the chain on the handcuffs. An hour of tugging and twisting until the skin on my wrist is raw and bloody. An hour of wondering if the man who took me will come in, see that I’m trying to escape, and punish me for it.
Kian O’Sullivan is everything my nightmares predicted. Just as cruel. Just as sneering. But in other ways, he’s different. More… fully formed. Not just a cartoon villain, a caricature drawn from the mind of a five-year-old.
He’s a man with a penthouse apartment high above the city.
He’s a man with carpeted floors and beautiful paintings.
He’s a man with deep blue eyes and a jawline that makes me want to forgive every sin he’s ever committed against me.
Of course, guess which set of thoughts is invading me at my weakest moments?
At my strongest, I remember to think of what I will do to make him pay for what he’s done to my family. He robbed me of my father, of the comfortable world that I would have inhabited. If it weren’t for him, I’d have spent my life living in an apartment just like this one.
My fast-moving thoughts pause for a second. Is that what I want? Is that what I miss?
I don’t know if I even want the answers to those questions. His poisonous accusations have already penetrated too deep into my subconsciousness. With every breath I take, I hear Kian’s words again.
“Your father was a rapist. He was a human trafficker. He was the lowest of the low. A man without a fucking soul.”
When Drago spoke of our father, he spoke only of the powerful don he was. I don’t know which version of the truth is real. At this point, I’m not sure if I want to find out.
There’s a nagging voice in the back of my head that wonders about the man who had a hand in raising my brother. Drago’s not exactly the poster boy
for the product of good parenting. I, on the other hand, was too young and too female to be of much concern to the men in my life.
But Drago was being groomed to follow in Papa’s footsteps. What does it mean that Drago is the way he is, then?
I close my eyes, trying to stop the onslaught of doubts from derailing my anger. After all, anger is all I have now. The driving force behind my determination to get free. And getting free is the only thing left that matters. I’m not safe around men like this.
My father, my brother, my ex-husband, Kian O’Sullivan… They’re all the same.
The only way I can live is if I’m free from all of them. And the only way to be free is to leave behind this life once and for all.
I yank hard against my cuffs and I feel another layer of skin come off. I wince against the biting pain, but I don’t stop.
That is, until I hear footsteps approaching the door. It opens. Kian walks in.
He’s changed outfits. Now, in place of the sweaty, bloodstained clothes he was wearing before, he’s in fitted beige pants and a tight, dark t-shirt that brings out the blue in his eyes and the chocolate of his hair.
I notice a few threads of grey at his temples and in his beard. Between that and the hardened wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, he must be in his early forties at least. But the muscle in his torso and the gleam in his eyes make him look twenty years younger.
“Here you go,” he says, holding out a bottle of water to me.
I idly consider throwing it right back in his smug face. But it’s a plastic bottle, which means at worst it’ll just spill on his floor a little. Won’t even be heavy enough to cause a bruise. Besides, I’m parched.
I grab it and drain half the bottle in seconds. When I lower it back down, Kian’s still staring at me, his thoughts hidden behind veiled eyes that are both weary and watchful. “Do you need anything?” he asks.
“You mean apart from my freedom?”
He smirks. “That’s not on the menu, I’m afraid.”
“What are you planning?”