by Nicole Fox
Kian spins me around so fast that he nearly knocks the air right out of me. Now we’re face to face, his chest pressed down against mine.
It’s too close. Too much. He’s overwhelming me, forcing me to confront the strange sensations zooming through my body like a warning call.
I can feel his cock pressed up against my thigh. And fuck… He’s big. Thick as my wrist and longer than anything I’ve ever seen before.
“This was a mistake, Renata,” he tells me—like I haven’t already realized that myself. And, God help me, the way he says my name makes me want to sin again and again if this is the punishment I’ll get.
His eyes linger on my face. Another taut moment, tense with heat and steam and a million other things surging back and forth between us.
I don’t know what he wants.
I don’t know what I want.
And I don’t know what would happen if either one of us ever admitted those things out loud.
He snaps off the moment without warning. I scream yet again as Kian grabs me and drags me back into the room he’d first imprisoned me in.
For a moment, I’m relieved, believing he’s just going to cuff me again. But he walks me right past the four-poster bed, ignoring the broken cuffs hanging from where I left them.
“Wait… what are you doing…?”
With his free hand, he throws open the door to the massive wooden wardrobe that dominates the back wall of the room.
Then he shoves me inside.
It’s a deep wardrobe. I’m surprised by how easily I fit inside it. Then it dawns on me what he’s doing.
“No!” I shriek.
I have exactly two seconds of uninterrupted view of Kian’s amazing physique. His broad shoulders, firm pecs, the defined eight pack that veers down into a narrow waist and the most impressive cock I’ve seen in my entire life.
Then he slams the doors closed. Darkness swallows me up. Shuts out the world.
I ram my palms against the closed wardrobe doors, but even I can tell that the wood is thick and unrelenting. The click of a lock confirms it—I’m not getting out of here.
But I scream anyway. “No! Let me out of here! You can’t do this!”
Except, clearly, he can.
11
Kian
I walk back to my room, the water already evaporating off my body. My fists are clenched and my jaw is tight with fury.
The girl is more trouble than I anticipated. I’m starting to think that keeping her alive is more of a liability than a bargaining chip. Especially since there’s nothing to bargain for.
I don’t want to make a deal with Drago Lombardi.
I want the fucker dead.
I pace around the perimeter of my bedroom. The carpet beneath my feet absorbs the last few drops of water dripping from me. It’s cold, but I welcome the frigidity. It’s helped calm me down—in more ways than one.
My erection was hard enough to be painful there for a second. That also pisses me off. It feels like a fucking betrayal. My own body turning on me.
And she’d definitely noticed it, too. I caught her staring at my cock. Not shocked. Not disgusted. Just… curious. Maybe even a little turned on herself.
My fists tighten further as I move into the walk-in closet and pull out pants and a fresh shirt. Even after I’ve gotten dressed, the adrenaline still pumps through my veins. I’m so fucking aware that she’s in the very next room, trapped inside a wooden box, alone and wet.
Fuck. It’s hard to keep the image of her soaked tits out of my head.
“Stop it,” I growl out loud.
This is just distracting me from the task at hand: killing Drago Lombardi and ridding myself of a nuisance that’s been plaguing me since I got to this fucking city.
I leave my room, walk across the living room and into my office. It’s turned out eerily similar to the office space that Da used to have way back when he was still running things in Dublin. I’ve tried over the years to change things around, to make it more my own. But everything I did just made the resemblance more and more uncanny.
According to Cillian, I’m the one who’s most like Da. When he said that to me, I called him a fucking twat and walked away.
But only because he was right.
Once I’m seated behind my desk overlooking the New York City skyline, I click number one on speed dial and wait for the twat himself to answer.
“Oi, little brother.”
I pop my legs up on the desk and lean into my wing backed leather chair. “Hey, Cil.”
“Damn. Rough night?”
“All I say was ‘hey.’”
“It’s all in the tone.”
“I thought it was all in the eyes?” I tease.
“I can’t see your fucking eyes now, can I?” he says impatiently. “And if I could, I’d tell you that they’re not as alluring as mine are.”
I roll my eyes. “I’ve been waiting for you to mature for the last fifteen years.”
“And I told you to give up waiting fourteen years ago.”
I smirk. It’s good to talk to Cillian. Sometimes, I think it’s a shame that we can’t do this together, in the same damn city. But he was right to send me here. It just took me a couple of years to realize that.
“How’s Saoirse?” I ask.
“That’s not why you called,” he retorts in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because the only time you call so early is if you have something in particular to discuss with me. Not to shoot the shit.”
I groan internally when I glance at the clock on the wall. He’s right—it’s early as hell in Dublin. “Sorry. Did I wake you, Sleeping Beauty?”
Cillian snorts. “You know I always sleep with one eye open.”
“Clan business keeping you up?”
“No, daughter business is keeping me up,” he retorts. “First, they tell you the toddler years are hardest. Then they tell you the teenage years are hardest. No one prepares you for a twenty-year-old girl with her mother’s temper.”
I smile. “I don’t even want to know.”
“Smart man.”
“You’re right, though. I do have something particular to discuss. And I’ll get to it in a second. I just need a distraction first. Talk to me about something. Anything.”
There’s a couple of seconds of silence. “Saoirse’s good,” Cillian tells me. “She’s working on a new exhibition. But it won’t be up for another couple of months.”
“I take it the gallery’s doing well?”
“It’s doing well,” Cillian replies humbly. But I can practically hear the glowing pride in his voice.
“I’m glad she got back into it,” I say. “Talent like hers should be seen.”
I think of the landscape she sketched that’s framed and hanging in my foyer. The lake behind the O’Sullivan Manor in Dublin, stretching out far to the horizon. My childhood. My home.
Or rather, it was my home. It hasn’t been for a long time.
“She wanted to focus on the kids,” says Cillian. “And let’s face it: when things with the Teagan Clan were at their height, she couldn’t focus on anything else.”
I nod, remembering how rough that particular battle was a few years ago. Of course, I’d been removed from it all. I was busy fighting demons of my own. I would’ve preferred fighting the Teagans, though. At least those bastards fought with fists and guns.
The demons I was battling all lived inside my head.
“Yeah, well, we sent those motherfuckers back to hell where they belonged, didn’t we?”
“In the end, we did,” he agrees.
“Speaking of the devil, how is yours?”
“Still a devil,” Cillian says, with a tired sigh. “My own daughter says she prefers spending time over at the Manor. God only knows why.”
“I have a feeling you know exactly why.”
“Too true. I suspect she has a boyfriend.”
“Jesus,” I breathe, remembe
ring when I used to bounce my niece Aoife on my knee to make her giggle. “Isn’t she, like, twelve?”
“Twenty.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah,” Cillian replies, as though his daughter’s decision to age is a personal insult to him. “I’m pretty sure she’s confided in Saoirse, but apparently, they both think I’m too hotheaded to handle it.”
“You’re planning on killing the boyfriend, aren’t you?”
“Of course. First chance I get. I don’t understand how that makes me hotheaded, though.”
I laugh. But when a silence fills in the gap afterward, Cillian doesn’t offer me any additional information and I realize I have no more reasons left to stall.
“Lombardi got away from me tonight,” I admit.
“Lombardi,” Cillian repeats with complete disdain. “Draco Lombardi?”
“Drago.”
“Same thing,” he says dismissively. “Giorgio Lombardi’s little shit spawn?”
“That’s the one.”
“Isn’t he an idiot?”
That forces a laugh out of me. “Exactly. Which is why this one fucking hurts,” I grimace. “I let him slip right through my fingers.”
“I told you, you should have dealt with him years ago.”
“I know,” I say grudgingly.
“Small threats can grow into big ones.”
I grit my teeth. “I know.”
“You should have killed him the same day you killed his fucking father.”
“I fucking know, Cillian,” I growl. “Don’t go all Da on me.”
“Low fucking blow.”
“Had to be said.”
We still joke about our father. But only because the precedent has been set. We both know that to be a great don means mimicking Ronan O’Sullivan as closely as we can.
“So what happened?”
“Little shit tried to hit one of my warehouses,” I explain. “He showed up with a tiny fucking crew and rigged a bomb to the main entrance. Phoenix was with me.”
“Ah, young Phoenix. Artem told me you were mentoring the kid for a few weeks.”
It used to bother me that Cillian spoke to Artem more than he spoke to me. But I get it now. Sometimes, family isn’t just about sharing blood. Sometimes, it’s about choosing each other even when there’s nothing compelling you to.
When Cillian had been forced into exile from Ireland, Artem was there for him. That loyalty went both ways. It has never wavered. Another reason why the Bratva and the O’Sullivan Clan are so fucking powerful today. Both mafia families have been strengthened by an alliance that goes far deeper than shared financial gain.
It’s built on brotherhood.
“He’s a good kid,” I say. “Quiet and broody, just like his father.”
“He’s more like Esme than Artem,” Cillian says.
“No,” I disagree. “He’s still figuring out who he’s like. I’m not even sure he knows.”
“He’s not the reason things didn’t go according to plan, is he?” Cillian asks cautiously, as though the thought’s just occurring to him.
“No,” I sigh. “This one’s all on me. I waited until he left, dismantled the bomb, and then took off after him.”
“With Phoenix?”
I suppress a frustrated groan. “Alone.”
“Jesus, Kian.”
“Like you said before, Lombardi’s a fucking idiot. I didn’t think I needed backup. And I wouldn’t have, if it hadn’t been for…”
I trail off, realizing how ridiculous I’m going to sound when I say it.
“If it hadn’t been for…?” Cillian asks impatiently.
“I had a tracker on his van. I found his house easily. I thought it’d be an easy kill. Force my way into the house, kill the bastard, leave. The end.”
“Sounds like there’s a ‘but’ coming.”
“Lombardi wasn’t the one that opened the door. A girl did.”
“A girl?”
“His sister. Renata…”
It’s still bothering me that she gave her name up to Phoenix, but she refused it to me.
“He has a sister?” Cillian asks, sounding confused.
“I told you about her after it was done. She was there when I killed her father.”
“Jesus,” Cillian whistles low. “How old was she? Six, seven?”
“Five.”
“Fuck. Bet she remembered you.”
I want to throw something. Instead, I grit my teeth. The look in her eyes when she answered the door… like her worst nightmare had just come calling.
“Yeah, she fucking remembered me. She almost took my eye out. Thankfully, I walked away with a gash over my eyebrow instead of a slit eyeball.”
“Little kitten grew claws, eh?”
I laugh bitterly. He doesn’t even know the half of it. Little kitten tried to kill me just a few minutes ago.
“Okay,” Cillian says after a moment, “so you were taken by surprise. The girl was there. Who else?”
“Nobody. Just her. Well, I think Drago was actually in the house, too. But he managed to get away while I was busy trying to cow the wildcat.”
“So that’s what happened,” Cillian says. “He sacrificed his sister as a diversion and ran.”
I hesitate. “Actually, something had happened between the two of them before I showed up. I’m pretty sure she’d injured him. He was wounded when he ran. There was blood.”
“Did you find out what happened before you killed her?” Cillian asks, making the obvious assumption. When I don’t answer, he grumbles, “Kian? You did kill her, right?”
I breathe. Rub my temples. He’s not going to like this.
“Kian…”
I grit my teeth and spit it out. “There’s still time to find out. I didn’t kill her.”
A predictably confused pause. Then: “Why the fuck not?”
I groan. “I don’t know,” I grimace in defeat. “I don’t fucking know.”
I rest my head on the cool surface of the desk and breathe. My fingers are still tingling with adrenaline from the fight in the shower. And the memory of her body pressed up against mine, soaking wet and writhing…
“She still has the same scar, you know,” I say softly, almost to myself. “The crescent moon scar on her cheek.”
I don’t even know why that’s relevant. I don’t know why I mention it. It just slips out of my mouth as though my subconsciousness can’t keep it in any longer.
“Jesus,” Cillian says again. This time, he sounds amused.
“What?” I demand defensively.
“You’re going soft, little brother.”
I growl, but all that does is make Cillian laugh.
“She’s a fucking Lombardi. And clearly, a more dangerous one than her idiot brother,” he points out. “You realize that the Lombardis still have allies in the city. They may be keeping a low profile, but that’s only because they know they can’t win if they hit us now.”
“I’m aware,” I drawl.
“Give them a reason to coalesce and they will,” he continues.
It’s moments like this that make me glad Cillian sent me to New York two decades ago. I don’t need my big brother breathing down my neck with every mistake I make.
Even if I deserve it.
“I’m going to kill her,” I snarl with new determination.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“No.”
He ignores me and asks it anyway. “What does she look like now?”
Of course the fucker had to ask a question like that. He knows. The motherfucker knows.
“Does it matter?” I ask coldly. “She’s a walking corpse.”
Cillian chuckles. “So she is attractive.”
“She’s definitely better looking than her brother,” I say evasively. “Drago fell off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.”
“Kian.”
“What?”
“Answer the damn question.”
“She�
�s a fucking stunner,” I concede, knowing he won’t stop until I give him a straight answer. “A knockout if ever there was one. But I’m not going to let that distract me.”
I can practically see him smiling. “Good. Don’t let her bewitch you, Kian,” Cillian says, a kernel of concern burrowing its way into his tone. “Clans have been brought to their knees by far less.”
“Sage advice,” I reply. “Didn’t you once risk it all for the woman you’re now married to?”
“I… Well… That’s different.”
“Because it’s you?”
“No,” he says adamantly. “Because that was true fucking love.”
I smile, thrilled that I’ve managed to get the words “true love” from my brother’s lips. The fact that he’s not happy about it only makes me smile harder.
“Is this girl the future mother of your children?” Cillian demands, if only to paper over the embarrassment.
“Of course not.”
“Then why are we arguing?”
“We’re not,” I retort. “This is just… a robust conversation.”
“Mhmm. Kian, if the girl’s a problem, remove her from the equation.”
“I will,” I say with a half-hearted nod. “I will.”
“Good,” Cillian says. Then he chuckles.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just amused by the irony of this,” he says. “For two decades, I’ve been waiting for you to express interest in a woman. And when you finally do, she’s forbidden fruit.”
“Fuck you. I don’t want her.”
“Have you looked at her tits?”
“I look at every woman’s tits.”
“When they’re trying to kill you?”
I growl, but it comes out more like a groan.
Cillian laughs. “Don’t worry. The right woman is out there for you.”
I fiddle with a letter opener on my desk, carving up a spare piece of paper. “Are you deliberately trying to annoy me now?”
“I’ve been trying to annoy you from the moment we started this conversation.”
“I have no intention of settling down, Cil. Ever.”
“So you’ve said.”