He pulls away just enough for me to see the hunger in his eyes. “Then get on your knees and suck my cock.”
The suddenness of his command and the iron in his voice compels me to act as surely as a whip. I fall to my knees, ignoring the dead branches breaking beneath my knees. I grip the base of his cock, barely able to encircle it with my fingers, and take him into my mouth. I can taste my arousal on him, and the dirtiness of it all drives me to plunge my hand between my legs and start rubbing myself as I stroke his cock and suck him off.
I would never admit this to him, but my experience with blowjobs is very limited, but if the way his head is thrown back and his hands are fisted in my hair is any indication, I must be doing okay.
I take in as much of him as I can until I gag a little. I’m embarrassed by the sound it brings out of me at first, but he tenses up at it, breathing even heavier. Driven by my desire to do a good job and please him, I try again, forcing a little more of him into my mouth before my gag reflex kicks in.
“So fucking good,” he groans.
I keep trying, working my hand along his shaft in the same pace my fingers move between my legs, moaning around his length as I suck on him and lick all along his length. I eventually get almost half of him down my throat when I find a kind of mental trick to keep the gag reflex down to nothing but a little spasm in my throat without the undignified gulping sound or discomfort. I do it again and again, taking him as deep as I dare and letting my throat clench around him.
“I’m going to cum,” he says, starting to pull himself free of my mouth—probably assuming I won’t want to swallow, but I grip his ass, holding him tight and keeping his cock in my mouth as he roars loud enough to let the entire park know what’s happening. His cock swells slightly, then twitches with each burst of hot cum that fills my mouth.
I make sure I meet his eye when I swallow it down. I grin up at the shocked and aroused expression on his face before I wipe at the corner of my mouth with my thumb, sucking it dry.
17
Enzo
Have you told her the plan?” Chase asks.
I work my lips to the side, wincing a little. “Planned on it,” I say.
We’re downstairs in the club while Luke and Angelo are upstairs with the girls, keeping an eye out. It’s early afternoon, so the only people in the club are the staff, who are preparing for the action tonight.
“But?” asks Gino.
“But it wasn’t the right time,” I say, making sure my tone explains that I don’t want to go into details. The truth is, I’m afraid she’ll try to talk me out of it. I’m not going to admit that to them, though. Better that they still don’t know how desperately tight she actually has me wrapped around her fingers—and even better that she doesn’t know it, either.
Gino nods. “You talk to her dad’s witness yet?”
“That’s what I did yesterday,” I say. “Wasn’t easy tracking him down. They already have him in witness protection.”
“Did he cooperate?” Chase asks. There’s a note of worry in his eyes, like he thinks I might have tortured the guy if he didn’t talk to me willingly.
“He didn’t give me shit,” I admit.
“Damn,” Gino says. “So we have no idea how bad it could be for us if we let Crowley push his case through.”
“Right,” I say.
“You wouldn’t just be fucking over the old man,” Gino says. “You’d probably land half the family in jail.”
“No,” I say. “Not necessarily. I still have a backup plan.”
Neela’s father watches me warily from across the table. He agreed to meet me in a coffee shop near his work, but from the look on his face, I can tell he’s not at all happy to see me.
“I’m going to start off by being honest with you,” I say.
He says nothing, only watches me with a dark expression. I’m not sure how someone so delicate and sweet as Neela came from such a mountain of a man. He has thick, overgrown eyebrows and a heavy mustache. His hair is styled in a no-nonsense kind of short-cropped buzz.
“Neela and Jess aren’t on vacation with their friends. They’ve been with me.”
I hold up a hand when it looks like her dad is about to jump over the table and try to strangle me.
“Willingly,” I add. “And they are completely safe and healthy.”
He sits back slightly, but is still seething, big chest heaving. “Tell me why I shouldn’t drag you in right now. You promised—”
“Just hear me out. There were some… developments,” I say carefully, not knowing if Neela has told him about the pregnancy yet or not. “My father found out where Neela was, so the best way to keep her safe was to take her somewhere I could keep an eye on her.”
“I’m a fucking executive director of the FBI. You don’t think I could’ve kept her safe better than you?”
“You could’ve put her in witness protection. But I know my father better than you. I knew I could keep her safe.”
“You’re running low on time to convince me,” he says quietly, which is actually more threatening than when he was raising his voice.
“I have a plan to put an end to all of this, but I’ll need your help.”
"How about you give me my daughters back and I don't break you in half. Then I'll give you a one-minute head-start before I bring the weight of the entire fucking bureau down on you and your family. You fucking promised your family would stay away from them if I delayed the case, and I've delayed it."
“I know,” I say. “But I didn’t have time to contact you and get you involved. It was a matter of hours, maybe less, between me taking them in and my father’s men taking them in. And trust me, if my father got them, he wasn’t planning to negotiate this time.”
"What more do you want? I've already got the case on ice." He sounds more reasonable now, but there's still the glint of violence in his eyes, like he'd happily beat me to a pulp if given half the chance.
“I want you to push the case through, as fast as you can.”
Crowley raises one of his big eyebrows. “What?”
“I don’t know what your witness knows, but my father has his hands in so much shit that there’s no way he’d miss a long, long prison sentence. It’s the only way to get him out of the picture and keep Neela safe without a bloodbath.”
“And what about you?” he asks. “You think you, your brothers, and your friends are going to come through this clean?”
“That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about…”
18
Neela
Enzo went out on another mystery errand. I’ve come to dread them, because it leaves me wondering if he’s okay or if he’s going on some kind of final stand shootout with his dad. The only consolation I have is that he left me at the club with Chase and Luke. For some reason, I don’t think he’d leave the two of them behind if he was getting involved in any kind of violence.
Chase and Luke both seem tense tonight. It’s a little after dinner, and we haven’t even put our plates up yet. Enzo said he’d be back tonight, but with the way he tells time, that could be well past midnight.
Chase gets up to grab himself another beer. “Want one, Luke?”
I still haven’t been able to see how Chase fits in with these guys. For all the world, he just seems like some high school jock who probably got good grades and was a good friend. I remember Enzo saying he got involved because of his little brother, but I haven’t wanted to dig up his past and make things uncomfortable.
Despite spending a lot of time with these guys, I haven’t actually spoken much with them for fear of Enzo breaking their arms when I’m not looking. As kind-hearted as he is around me, I’ve seen glimpses of the man they all seem to respect and fear. When he’s gone though, they do loosen up and stop treating me like some fancy vase they’re afraid of breaking.
“I’ll take one,” says Luke.
“You want anything?” he asks me. “Oh, shit,” he says, slapping his forehead. “Sorry
, I forgot about the—” he pats his stomach.
“It’s okay. I’ve never been a big drinker, anyway.”
Chase hands Luke a beer and sits down beside me on the couch. “So what are you into, you know, when you’re not being kidnapped?”
I laugh at that. “I read books, I guess. I used to keep pretty busy with work, before all this. I’d take up extra shifts to try to make a bigger dent in my student loans, that kind of thing.”
“You still have student loans?” he asks, eyebrows climbing up his forehead.
I give him my best glare. “Exactly how old do you think I am?”
“Oh shit,” he says, covering his mouth and laughing, nearly spitting his beer on the couch. “I just thought veterinarians made so much that’d you be able to pay it all off right away.”
“If only.”
Luke makes a sound between a laugh and a snore, and I notice his head tilting back, eyes drifting shut.
Chase watches him with a strange look on his face before darting his eyes back to me and giving me a smile that feels slightly off. He moves his leg out from under him, but in doing so, adjusts himself so that he’s sitting a little bit closer to me on the couch now.
I try to shake off my growing discomfort. Chase has never been anything but nice. Even if I do find myself wishing Jess hadn’t let Angelo talk her into going down to the club for drinks. He insisted that he’d keep her safe if any of his father’s men happened to sneak their way into the club and try anything.
“Did Enzo ever tell you the story of why they call him The Beast?” Chase asks.
There’s a cruel look in his eye I’ve never seen before as he asks, and I don’t like where this is headed, but I don’t want to risk yelling for Luke to wake up and escalating whatever is happening. If I just keep my cool, I can feel out the situation and avoid making it awkward if I’m misreading things.
“Yep,” I say, trying to sell the lie by sounding relaxed. Enzo hasn’t told me, but for some reason I don’t want to hear the story from Chase. Not right now.
“Oh yeah? He never told me, what’s the story?”
I flash an uncomfortable smile. “He asked me not to tell anyone.”
“Come on. You can tell me, Neela.”
"Hey, I'm actually getting really tired," I say, putting my arms up over my head and doing my best to stretch and yawn convincingly. "Sorry to cut things off, but I should get some rest." I start to stand, but Chase catches me by the hand, pulling me back down. His grip is just soft enough that I could still be misinterpreting things, but my body is already fully into fight-or-flight mode, and I can barely think straight. I’ve never seen Chase drink more than a beer or two, maybe he just gets really awkward and creepy when he’s drunk… but he doesn’t seem drunk enough to justify the change in his behavior.
It feels more like it has to do with whatever he and Luke were arguing about a couple hours ago, and whatever drove them to drink so much more than usual.
“I should really go. Dom might be back soon,” I say, smiling even though I feel like screaming and slapping his hand away. I mean it as a threat. A not-so-subtle reminder that if Enzo comes back and sees Chase’s hand on me, he’ll probably rip Chase in two.
“Stay.” Chase tries to use my hand to pull me toward him. On top of him.
It’s the last straw, and there’s no denying his intentions anymore. “Luke!” I shout.
Chase’s eyes dart to Luke, who stirs but doesn’t wake. He turns his attention back to me, pressing a hand to my mouth and shoving me down roughly on the couch. “You know what Enzo is planning?” he asks, leaning over me with eyes that look equal parts scared and desperate. “He’s going to make your dad push the case through. The witness is going to implicate us all.”
I try to scream against his hand but he’s pressing too hard against me. The sound is just a weak hum. I can’t even bite down because his grip is too tight to pull my jaw open.
“He’s going to fuck everybody who was ever loyal to him over just because he thinks it’s the safest way to get you and your baby out of this.”
What?
Chase laughs at my expression. It’s a cruel, but sad laugh. “Yeah. We’ll all be in jail if he gets his way. Then you and your sister won’t have to worry about anything. But maybe he won’t be willing to sacrifice so much for you if he knows you’re damaged goods. Once he finds out I fucked his girl.
I kick my feet against the couch, trying anything I can to make some noise and stir Luke. It seems to work, because his eyes blink open and he lifts his head suddenly, seeing Chase on top of me.
He tries to jump to his feet but stumbles drunkenly, bumping the coffee table and causing Chase to turn his head sharply. “Just lay back down, Luke,” Chase says. There’s an edge of nervousness in his voice. It doesn’t surprise me. Even when he’s planning something like this, Chase never liked conflict. He just thinks he’s backed into a corner with no other way out. He’s desperate.
“The fuck are you doing?” Luke slurs. “Enzo is going to murder you, man.”
“I’ll be gone before he finds out,” Chase says. His jaw set as he stares at Luke.
Luke reaches to pull Chase off me, but Chase grips him by the shirt and punches him viciously across the jaw. Luke’s eyes go heavy and he sways, falling hard and catching the coffee table on his way down.
During the distraction, I manage to yank Chase’s arm free from my mouth. “Stop!” I shout, scrambling to think of something, anything, that will buy me time. Enzo has to be coming back soon. All I need to do is buy some time. “He’s going to be back soon,” I say quickly, before he can cover my mouth again.
"You think I don't know that?" Chase sneers, irritation plain in his tone.
“You could leave now. I’ll lie and tell him you did whatever you’re planning. I don’t want him to go to prison, either.”
Chase actually considers this, but then he starts to shake his head slowly. “No. He’ll know you’re lying.”
“Chase, you’re drunk,” I plead. “You don’t really want to do this.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I wanted to do it since I saw you walk up to our car that night four months ago.”
Something inside me starts to break. It doesn’t completely snap, but I feel it bending, grinding and straining until it could snap in two at any moment. My sanity? My innocence? My self-respect? I can’t say which. Everything is too muddled, too confused.
“Please,” I whisper.
He pushes his hand back down on my mouth and reaches for his belt.
And then the door opens.
Before I even have time to comprehend what’s happening, the weight of Chase’s body is suddenly off of me. Enzo lifts him by the back of his shirt and his belt, then throws him several feet to the side where Chase rolls painfully into a wall, head thumping back as he lands.
“Enzo, wait,” he says. “She came on to me, man. I kept telling her that—”
Crack.
Enzo’s right fist slams into Chase’s face, snapping his head down and to the side. He looks back up at Enzo, raising his hands to plead for mercy. Enzo is already kneeling with a fistful of Chase’s shirt in one hand and a gun pressed to Chase’s forehead.
His face is pure rage, and for a moment, I want him to do it. I think of whatever it was inside me that Chase was only moments away from breaking forever and I can’t see why he deserves to live. But sanity creeps back in just in time.
“Enzo!” I shout. “Wait!”
Enzo shifts his eyes toward me, but doesn’t move. Chase is crying now, eyes closed and body trembling as sweat beads across his forehead.
I can sense that this moment is a sort of crossroads. It’s a chance for Enzo to either continue down the path that will lead to more violence and more danger—to a world that isn’t fit for me or our baby to be part of. Or it can be the point when he turns his back on that life and starts leading the way into something new. Maybe it won’t be perfect, and maybe there will still be dan
ger that follows him, but it will be enough. I believe that. I have to believe it. If he chooses to spare Chase. If he doesn’t pull the trigger...
“Come on, Enzo,” whispers Chase. “Please, man. I did it, okay? I forced myself on her, but it was the only thing I could think of to stop you. You’re going to get us all locked up. I can’t go back there. You know what it did to me. Please.”
There’s real pain in Chase’s voice, and I can’t help wondering what happened to him in jail to make him so scared of going back.
Enzo pushes the gun harder into Chases head, forcing it back until it thumps against the wall behind him. “Give me one reason,” he growls through gritted teeth.
“Our baby,” I say.
He looks to me as if surprised to hear me speak. Chase’s eyes are squeezed shut, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Come on, Enzo. Listen to her,” he urges.
Enzo waits for a long, agonizing few seconds, teeth clenched and hand tense around the gun. He finally takes the gun away from Chase’s forehead, flicking the safety and tucking it back in his jacket. He lets go of his grip on Chase, who closes his eyes and starts muttering his gratitude.
Enzo straightens, looks at me and the tears smearing my mascara, and then turns back to Chase. He kneels down and punches Chase three vicious times in the face until Chase slumps over, unconscious. “You deserve so much worse,” he growls to him.
I go to Enzo then and hug him tightly. “Oh, Enzo,” I whisper into his chest, fingers digging into his back.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” he says, chin resting on top of my head. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” I say. “You stopped him. Nothing happened. He just pushed me down. Luke tried to stop him,” I say, words spilling out of me in a jumble.
He hugs me tighter, shushing me. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Is it? Chase said you were going to turn everyone in to protect me.” I pull back from him to see his eyes. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”
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