by Nicole Fox
From wondering if I’ve followed her.
If I’ll stop her.
If I’ll come down and finish what I started.
Then it picks up speed again. Through the gate, down the road. Going, going… gone.
A call flashes on the screen. Sighing impatiently, I pick up. “Yes, Phoenix?”
“This a bad time?”
“No,” I rumble quickly. “It’s fine. Got anything for me?”
“No news on Drago Lombardi or Rokiades.”
“You gotta be fucking kidding me.” I’d hoped that one of them would have crawled out of the woodwork by now. I’m getting impatient.
“Don’t worry,” Phoenix says. I can sense from his tone that he has something else to give me. Nothing else can account for the edge of excitement in his tone. “I managed to get my hands on this bookie who works for the Greeks.”
“And?”
“The play is marriage.”
“Excuse me?”
“Renata Lombardi,” Phoenix says quickly. “That tired old Greek fucker was trying to tap into the Lombardis’ dormant empire by marrying Renata. That way, he’d be able to unite the two mafias under his control. His main goal at the moment is to gain control of their old territories. That includes a container port facility in prime fucking real estate.”
I growl under my breath. “The son of a bitch is more desperate than I thought.”
“This is a good thing, though, right?” he asks.
“Desperate men do desperate things, Phoenix,” I tell him. “And they don’t give a fuck how many casualties there are along the way. Desperate men are dangerous men.”
“Fair point,” Phoenix says, refusing to lose his enthusiasm. “But you have Renata, don’t you? Without her, Rokiades can’t do shit.”
My blood runs cold. Seconds ago, I felt like this was the right thing to do. I didn’t need her. She was a pawn in a game I didn’t even need to exert myself to win.
But now I see the truth. The bigger play.
Renata isn’t the pawn. She’s the fucking queen. And I just let her stroll out my front door.
My hand clenches into a fist as I realize how badly this stupid, impulsive decision has backfired on me. Fate didn’t waste any time laughing in my face, it seems. “Things have changed,” I say ominously.
There’s a pause. “What does that mean?”
“Renata’s no longer on the premises.”
“What? She escaped?”
I close my eyes for a moment. “Not important. I’m heading out to get her back.”
“You’ve got a tracker on her?”
“Of course.”
“Okay. Let me know how things go.”
“And you keep me posted,” I fire back at him.
We hang up at the same time. I slam my fist down on the table before standing up. If only that call had come just a few minutes earlier.
I check my phone quickly. Renata’s trackers are both working fine. She’s wearing the jacket, or at the very least, she’s packed it. It shouldn’t take me long to catch up with her and bring her back.
I have no idea what I’m going to say to her once I do catch up to her. But I figure the truth is as good as anything. At this point, it may be our only way forward.
I make a quick call to my men. Donovan answers. “Boss?”
“Get together three men,” I tell him, “and meet me at the entrance. We’ve got an errand to run.”
“Will do, boss.”
I grab my jacket and head downstairs to the main entrance. The boys have already got the gate open and the rover’s parked out front with the engine on. Donovan is waiting by the passenger side door for me.
I give him a nod. “Are we all—”
The sudden and unmistakable sound of a gunshot swallows up the rest of my words.
The bullet whizzes so close that I practically feel it kiss my cheek as it zooms past. I hit the ground and grab my gun, ready to return fire.
But more shots are already raining down on us like fucking hail.
31
Renata
Fifteen Minutes Earlier
“Where are you headed?”
The man at the gate is ruggedly handsome. He’s got a dark brown beard dusted with silver and an impressive jawline. Probably around Kian’s age, if not a touch older.
“You don’t need to know that,” I tell him.
He raises his eyebrows in amusement and backs off. “I was just going to offer you a drive, ma’am.”
I look past the gate at the miles of road I’m going to have to traverse before I can get anywhere hitchhiking. Also, I’m pretty sure that Hamptons residents aren’t really big on hitchhiking in the first place. Still, I don’t want to accept any more help from Kian or his men than I need to. “No, I can find my own way.”
He shrugs his broad shoulders. “Your call.” Then he nods to the men behind him. When the gate cranks open, he gestures for me to go ahead. “You’re free to go.”
I pause for a moment. The road ahead seems so wide open. So free.
This has to be a trap, doesn’t it? Any second now, Kian is going to come charging out and sneer in my face about how stupid I must be if I really believed he was letting me go. Either that or a hole in the ground is going to open up like I’m in some evil supervillian’s lair and deliver me right back to The Room beneath the mansion.
But nothing happens. Nothing moves.
The man who opened the gate is looking at me oddly. I give him a curt nod and avoid all the other security guards and their curious stares as I stride away from the mansion’s walls with my head held high.
The duffel bag is slung across my shoulder for even weight distribution. I’d been conscientious about not taking too much from the wardrobe. But since I had nothing in the way of worldly possessions, I was forced to think practically. So I’d stuffed the duffel bag with clothes. I picked practical, everyday options. Jeans, t-shirts, and of course the Nikes I’d admired before. I’m glad I grabbed this jacket, too—there’s a strange chill in the air. I shrug it tighter around myself.
I wish I would’ve snagged a hat. Anything to keep eyes off my face. The last thing I need is unwanted attention. I’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime.
As I walk down the road, the mansion growing smaller and smaller in the background, the fire I’d felt at fleeing Kian morphs into something else entirely. Dread, maybe.
I have no idea where I’m headed. I don’t have a home. I’ve never had friends. The only family member I have is in hiding, and despite what Kian and Aisling think, I really don’t know where to find him. Even if I did, I’m not sure I’d want to find him.
It feels like my best move is to just slip back into the streets of New York City and try to figure out where I can go from there. I need an escape plan first, and then a means to survive.
It strikes me, as I turn the corner and Kian’s mansion disappears from view entirely, that I’ve never actually been on my own in my entire life. There’s always been a man at my shoulder, breathing down my neck.
I wait for the sweeping relief to engulf me the way I always dreamed it would. But nothing comes. I’m too nervous about my uncertain future to feel anything but fear.
“Breathe, Renata,” I tell myself softly. “This is what you wanted.”
It’s not the victory I’ve imagined. Even less expected is the strange and looming sense of disappointment overwhelming me.
He let me go. I hadn’t expected that.
Which means that everything I’ve been feeling around Kian was one-sided. I was only ever an inconvenience. A twist in the plot that Kian never expected. He never felt anything.
That, in turn, begs another question: what exactly am I feeling for him?
My head is spinning from all the different emotions, all the conflicting opinions warring with one another in my confused head. Sometimes, my doubts are my own.
But there are moments when they take the form of my brother’s voice. If I’m being honest with myself, he�
�s the personification of my guilt. The reason that my desire for Kian feels dirty, tainted… ugly.
I remember so vividly the first time I ever laid eyes on the Irish don. It’s not a moment I’m likely to forget any time soon. I may have been five, but some memories are so powerful they stick to the walls of your mind, and you return to them so often that they take on a life and a depth of their own.
I watched the blue-eyed bastard murder my father. But I’d been calm. Even when he’d walked over and bent down in front of me, hands dripping with Papa’s blood, I wasn’t scared. He had looked at me with those cool blue eyes that still managed to retain their warmth. He’d something to me along the lines of, “One day you’ll understand.”
I’m not sure I do. Even after all these years.
But I want to.
Why on earth couldn’t I be attracted to a normal guy? Someone closer to my own age. Someone boring and safe and comforting. What might that even look like? I try to imagine it, but I can’t. I haven’t the faintest idea of what a normal life might look like for me. I’ve always lived in the eye of the storm. In the midst of chaos.
In some ways, that explains my attraction to Kian. He is the storm. Powerful and devastating. And I realized something about myself when I was bent over that cold table in The Room: there’s a sick part of me that wants to be the thing he devastates.
I shudder and shake that thought away. When I look up again to focus on where I am, I realize that I have no fucking clue. It seems like I’ve walked myself into another neighborhood, no less opulent than the one where Kian’s mansion was situated.
I keep my eyes peeled for passing vehicles. I hear one in the distance and turn to look. It’s a white soft-top BMW, and it’s going so fast that it whizzes past me before I can even raise my hand to flag it down.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
I look down at my appearance. I’m reasonably presentable. Respectable even, with my jeans, white t-shirt, and forest green jacket. Why wouldn’t someone stop for me? But instinct is telling me that, around these parts, it’s unlikely.
Another sound catches my attention, but when I whip around I can’t see anyone behind me. Shaking it off as simple paranoia, I keep walking, hoping someone will stop for me.
Then I hear it again.
This time, it’s so distinct that I know I’m not imagining things and I’m not being paranoid. I don’t turn immediately. I keep walking, but I keep my eyes and ears peeled. It takes only a few more minutes for me to confirm it.
Someone is following me.
I have a creepy feeling that, whoever it is, they have nothing to do with Kian. I have a feeling that if he or his men were following me, I’d have no clue unless they wanted me to know of their presence.
I should have packed a freaking weapon. I realize at the last moment. A hammer, a kitchen knife… even just a sharp pen would be better than nothing.
My freedom has always been fleeting. A luxury that was snatched away at a moment’s notice. Kian had given it back to me, but all it would take is to walk in front of the path of the wrong man.
God knows I’ve done that enough times already in my life.
I pick up the pace, and I can feel my stalker pick up speed as well. He’s not exactly being subtle. Either he’s doing it purposefully, willfully trying to freak me out, or he’s just that clumsy.
Maybe he realizes that, too, because he jumps out at me suddenly. He doesn’t make a sound, but I’m so aware of him that I react immediately.
“Leave me the fuck alone!” I haul off and hit him hard across the face, causing his dark hoodie to fall back, revealing his face.
He bares his teeth, staring at me through furious, glinting eyes.
And my mouth drops open. “Jesus! Drago?”
“You fucking bitch,” he snarls at me, holding his cheek where I hit him for a moment.
I haven’t done any real damage. The most he has to contend with is a red cheek and a light stinging that’ll probably disappear in a few minutes.
“You scared me,” I say defensively.
“That was the whole goddamn point,” he growls. “You’ve forgotten what it’s like to be scared.”
“In general?” I counter. “Or just of you?”
He takes a few steps forward. I back away from him immediately. He grabs my arm though, preventing me from putting the distance between us that my body craves. “Did you just think I’d forget about you?” he demands.
“A girl can dream.”
His eyes flash with anger. He slaps me hard across the face.
It’s been weeks since I’ve last been hit. I react from a raw, guttural, still-wounded part of myself that I’d subdued for a long time with Drago—and I ball my hand into a fist and hit him hard.
There’s one, maybe two seconds between the moment he slaps me and the moment I punch him.
My reaction—actually fighting back—is so unexpected that he stumbles back. It’s only when he looks back up at me in shock that I realize I’ve actually succeeded in giving him a bloody nose. Pride surges through my bones and I find myself standing a little straighter.
I should’ve done that twenty years ago.
“You wanna talk, Drago?” I ask. “Then let’s talk. But if you’re going to hit me like that, fair warning—I’m going to hit back.”
He takes an aggressive step forward. I very pointedly refuse to budge.
“A couple of weeks with the enemy and you think you’re fucking tough?” he snarls in condescension.
I’m a hell of a lot tougher than you are, I think. I don’t allow myself to say the words out loud, though.
I’m willing to defend myself against Drago if I have to. But antagonizing an unstable man is just plain stupid. Especially since I don’t have a weapon and I’m betting he does.
“How did you find me?” I ask, choosing not to escalate the situation.
“I know more than you think I do,” he tells me. I can hear the desperate need to assert his dominance over me. “I know more than he thinks I do.”
“Believe me, we’re all very impressed,” I drawl.
“I’ve been tracking the Clan’s movements for twenty fucking years,” he hisses. “Ever since I was fifteen fucking years old. I know about his penthouse in New York. I know about his ranch in Montana. I know about this fucking ridiculous mansion. I knew he had you and there were only so many places he could have taken you.”
“Bravo,” I snap, giving him a sarcastic clap. “You’ve been watching the mansion? All by yourself?”
“I had men on every single known Clan property,” he tells me. “And then I saw him arrive over a week ago.”
“How did you know I was with him?” I ask.
“Who else? Rokiades.”
My body tenses at the mention of that bastard. “You’re still in contact with him?”
“Of course. We’re allies.”
I stare at my brother, shocked at how blind he can be when it’s convenient. “He’s not your ally, Drago,” I tell him bluntly. “The man is just greedy for your men, for the support you have because of your last name.”
It’s a poor choice of words on my part. And of course, Drago’s ego rears its ugly head. “My men don’t support me because of my fucking last name,” he hisses, moving forward and getting right in my face. “They support me because of my first fucking name. Do you hear me?”
“Drago—”
“Don’t you presume to tell me about my own men, you little fucking whore.”
His hand twitches towards me, but he doesn’t make an attempt to grab my arm like he would usually do. Maybe the punch I’d given him earlier actually made an impression. Or maybe it’s that, the last time we got into an altercation, he ended up with a butcher’s knife in his stomach.
“I’m just saying—”
“I don’t give a fuck what you’re saying,” he says, cutting me off. “Your opinion doesn’t mean a goddamn thing to me or to anyone. The only reason you’re useful is because
of the slit between your legs.”
I cringe away from him. Has he always been this terrible? Did years of physical and verbal abuse desensitize me to his brutality? His cruelty?
Has he changed… or have I?
“I’m not just your brother,” Drago hisses. “I am your don, too. And you will do what I expect of you.”
“Oh? And what’s that?”
“The alliance with the Greeks can still be cemented.”
I stare at him in horror. “You still want me to marry Rokiades?”
“Is that a problem?” he asks, threateningly.
“Just one: he’s a fucking monster and a rapist.”
“You’ve had experience with both,” Drago dismisses without hesitation. “You can hold your own.”
I shake my head. “Drago, you sold me once. I won’t let you do it a second time.”
He grits his teeth so hard I can almost hear the grate of his grinding. “Where the fuck is your loyalty? Where the fuck is your sense of family honor?”
When I don’t answer right away, his expression flattens for a moment and then his eyes go wide.
“What?” I ask, suddenly nervous about the look on his face.
“Did he fuck you?” Drago demands.
“What… Who are you talking about?”
“O’Sullivan,” Drago growls. “Did he fuck you?”
“Fuck you. You don’t get to ask me questions like that.”
He moves faster than I’ve ever seen him move in his life. One hand, still streaked with blood from his busted nose, flies out and pincers around my throat. His breath is hot and sour in my face. “Did. He. Fuck. You?”
“No,” I spit in a hoarse rasp.
He stares at me for a long time, weighing my words. He must believe me, because he lets me go. “Did you let him get in your head?” he asks, his tone softening so much that I don’t trust it at all. “What lies did he tell you?”
I rub at my throat. I should run. But where would I go? Drago would catch me. I have no friends, no allies, no safe havens. No, I’m stuck here for now. Until I see an opening, at least.
“We didn’t talk much.”
“What the hell does that mean?” he asks, his eyes flashing, though his tone stays even. “You were too busy sucking his cock to talk?”