Keely
I t had been one hell of a month. We were not even to the end of it yet, and it sort of went something like this: My entire world was turned upside, but at the same time, it was trying to right itself like it never had before.
With Mari’s help, I started packing up my ratty old apartment, but Cash didn’t tell me where I was going, so that was still a mystery.
In all honesty, I couldn’t wait to step out of my old apartment and into something new. Sierra somehow lingered, and I felt like, for once in her life, she was owed the entire space. She came to me in dreams sometimes, and I’d wake up covered in sweat, my heart about to jump out of my chest. But it was only because she seemed to want this place for herself, and everything in it.
I even admitted to Mari that after Sierra had passed, I felt lighter. Like all of the good things waiting not only for me, but for Mari, were going to start happening. It was the shittiest thing I’d ever felt, but there it was.
Those good things I felt were coming? They felt real for the first time in my life. And that was saying something, since I had to marry a marauder in my near future.
There was also something I couldn’t ignore, though, that was right for Mari but wrong for Harrison.
The night Sierra had been murdered, when Mari had told me she was going out for a bit, she had met a guy named Mac, who owned one of the most prestigious clubs in the city, and she’d fallen for him. Hard. He asked her to marry him not long after. She said yes. “You know when you know,” he’d told her. They were getting married in Italy in the summer.
Sierra had mentioned Mac more than once since she worked at his club. She wanted to marry him. Have his babies. She had said he was the finest man she’d ever seen, and one of New York’s most eligible bachelors.
I’d told her I’d have to see this man for myself, and when I tried to search for him on the computer, NOTHING came up. He catered to some of the richest and dirtiest men in the world. By dirty, I meant gangsters. And I couldn’t find a fucking picture of him online?
What bothered me the most, though, was knowing that I was going to have to tell my brother soon.
The same day I’d told Mari about my feelings toward Sierra, she told me that she had never felt anything but a sisterly love for Harrison. And after Mari told me she’d like to bring the man she called Capo (everyone else called him Mac) to the party at Harrison’s place for my break, I knew he’d lost his chance. I’d never seen Mari so smitten with anything or anyone in her life.
Even though I was happy for her, everything that Harrison had done for her felt like such a waste of his love.
In so many ways Mam was right. Mari’s decision to marry Mac was causing a ripple effect. But I couldn’t fault Mari for following her heart.
I couldn’t fault Harrison for doing what his heart told him to, either. He had built a life for Mari, hoping once he got his life straight, things would happen naturally. Something told me he was going to come clean at the party, but I was going to have to tell him before then.
The only thing keeping me sane in such a chaotic time was the show, but even then, I found myself not fully into it. I was having trouble focusing, even though I had studied my lines over and over and knew them as well as I knew my name.
Keely Ry—
Keely Kelly.
Keely Kelly.
Keely Kelly.
Yeah, try saying that three times fast.
I groaned and Mari looked at me.
She was hurrying to get ready for the party Harrison was throwing at his place. The one Cash insisted we have. I still hadn’t told her about the house on Staten Island, and because she’d just dumped the marriage news on me, I only had a little time to tell Harrison about it. I couldn’t let Mari and Mac show up together and my brother be caught off guard.
“Kee?”
“Yeah?”
Mari looked around. “All packed up. Only the things you need have been left out.” She waved a hairbrush at me.
I nodded. “I’m glad that it’s done. Not that I had much.”
Mari studied me for a moment. “What’s going on, Kee? Is it the show?”
I took a deep breath and released it. “No. The show is great. It’s just so much change at once.”
She nodded, but I could tell she didn’t buy it.
A knock came at the door and she rushed to answer it.
“Mac,” I said when he walked in behind Mari.
Everything Sierra had said about him was true. But. She had downplayed him. He was almost too good looking to be true. Black hair. Tan skin. Ocean-blue eyes that were cold and very intelligent. Model sharp features. Muscles in all of the right places. And if power could create a force field around someone, it had around Mac.
He studied me with what felt like indifference, but at the same time, he seemed to be making sure I was good enough to be around Mari.
Maybe that was why I couldn’t hate him.
There was something right about the two of them together. And in all of my years of knowing her, I’d never heard anyone call her by her full name. Mariposa. Because she never allowed them to. She seemed to brighten when he did.
Finally, he nodded at me and stood in the doorway. He wasn’t much of a talker.
Mari breezed past. “I’m going to take a quick shower. I won’t be long.”
I stood, wiping my hands on my jeans, and started toward my bedroom. “I’m going to get there a little early. Help with the setup.”
“Wait!” Mari stopped me. “Where do we go? You never said. Is it by your uncl—”
“No.” I shook my head, debating on whether to tell her that the party was on Staten Island. Given the fact that I had to deal with my brother first, I decided not to say anything. If she knew what Harrison had done, she might not even go at all. Maybe if Harrison caught Mari off guard, she’d consider his feelings without Mac around. It was a long shot, because I could feel how much Mac and Mari cared for each other, even if their feelings had developed fast, but a shot was a shot. “I’ll give Mac the directions. You go jump in the shower so you won’t be late.”
“I won’t be long!” she said again as she moved toward the bathroom.
Mac and I stared at each other for another moment before I cleared my throat. When I gave him the address, his eyebrows drew down.
“Old man Gianelli’s place,” he said.
“That’s right.” I nodded. “You know of it?”
“Yeah,” he said, and his voice reflected his eyes. Cold. “Where Mariposa grew up.”
“We were next-door neighbors. That’s how we became best friends, sisters.”
He nodded but said nothing else. Maybe Mari had already told him all of that.
After I collected my purse, I stopped next to him. “Listen. You and I haven’t had much time to talk. But I just want to tell you one thing. If you hurt her, I will hurt you. Understand?”
“Your brother is in love with my wife.”
He threw me for a second, but I hoped that I played it off well. That force field around him could knock a nun off course. “Fiancé. She hasn’t made any promises to you yet.”
Right before I opened the door to leave, he cleared his throat. Sometimes his voice sounded jagged. “Have you made any promises to Kelly yet?”
I squeezed the door handle so hard that it bit into my palm. “I know you,” I said, my voice quiet. “I know men like you. Sierra and I talked. It doesn’t surprise me that you know everything. That you control everything. And since you know the intentions of Cash Kelly, then it would be in Mari’s best interest not to involve her in my life right now.”
Mac’s stare felt like ice melting on my back. “Kelly knows better than to come near me or mine. But I have no problem with him, as long as he stays in his lane.” He cleared his throat once more. “Mari considers you a good friend. A sister, as you say. That’s why I’ll leave you and her to it. Your secrets are your own, as long as they don’t hurt her.”
A shiver tore o
ver me before I shut the door, putting some distance between us. Not even a door felt like enough, though. These men, the kind I suddenly found myself around, were not ordinary. They were fucking vicious animals in custom-made suits, disguised to look like gentlemen.
I had to get to my brother before he did something that would probably cost him his life. Like tell Mari that he loved her.
I sat in my car, staring at my brother’s place on Staten Island. He had already started making it his, but I could tell that he was holding out, hoping to get Mari’s opinion once he told her how he felt and then asked her to marry him. I knew how my brother’s mind worked. Even though he hadn’t said as much, he was making plans here—for a wife, for a family, for a future.
A wave of nausea came over me, dreading the talk we were about to have.
My phone rang, and my head popped up from the steering wheel. Scott’s name flashed across the screen. We’d been talking lately, but thanks to his schedule and mine, we hadn’t seen each other much. The longest we were together was five minutes, and without making a deal of it, I tried to distance myself from him. I wanted to make this as easy as possible, but Cash had told me not to say anything. It was a specific order.
“I’ll tell you when the time’s right.”
Scott had accepted my offer to come to this party. He seemed eager when he realized that my family was going to be there. Mari had mentioned it in front of him. He had to make another trip to my place when her pervert of a landlord had been killed.
Just as I said, “Hey,” an expensive car pulled into Harrison’s driveway. A second later, Cash Kelly stepped out, wearing a black t-shirt that hugged his muscular frame, dark jeans, and boots. Expensive sunglasses covered his eyes, but his gaze locked onto mine right away and refused to move.
“Kee? You there?”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “I’m here.”
“Listen.” Scott sounded out of breath. “I thought I could make it, but that politician’s still missing.” He’d told me the day before that he didn’t think he’d be able to make it to the party, because all manpower had been brought in, but then told me he thought that maybe he could. That was his life. Making plans to break them for his job.
“Sounds like madness,” I said, and the dullness in my voice couldn’t be hidden.
Scott was quiet for a moment. “This is my life, Kee. I know it’s hard to deal with in the beginning, but here’s a deal I’m willing to make: I might not be around all of the time, but when I’m home, I’m yours. I won’t even think about a dead body.”
“Cute,” I said.
Cash leaned against his car, like he didn’t have a care in the world. There was that la de da attitude. And there I was, my entire world crashing in around me. Bastard.
Scott sighed. “I’ll make this up to you, I swear. We’ll take your mom and dad out to dinner. Maybe it’s best if I meet the boys one at a time. They might kick my ass if I just show up.” I heard someone call him and then he told me he had to go. “Kee,” he stopped me before I hung up. “I’ll see if I can make it later. I love you, sweetheart.”
Forcing my eyes away from the marauder’s, I looked down at my phone, shaking in my hand. My hands had been shaking ever since the day he told me I had to marry him. It caught me off guard because sometimes I didn’t even realize they were.
Scott had hung up, but my heart was in my throat.
I should tell him. I should tell him. I should tell him.
One look at Cash Kelly and I knew I couldn’t.
He knocked on my window, and I used the hand crank to roll it down. “Can I help you?”
“Who was that?”
“None of your business.”
“Nah, that’s where you’re wrong, darlin’. You are my business now.”
“Scott Stone. He can’t make it.”
His eyes narrowed, and even though his face didn’t reflect a particular change, something about him was different, something I could feel rather than see.
“Since you seem a little disappointed that not everyone can make it—” That was when it hit me like a blow to the gut. Scott. What did this have to do with him? Did they know each other? Was Scott crooked and had double-crossed Kelly? I didn’t want Cash to catch my reaction, though, so I relaxed my features, or tried to.
Cash leaned in a little closer. His cologne smelled like something expensive, but woodsy. If it were anyone else, I would’ve licked my lips and even rolled my hips if I were on the dance floor. “Cat got your tongue, darlin’?” Then he opened my car door. “This party is not for Scott Stone. It’s for you.”
“You mean us.” I stepped out, and even with wedges on, I had to look up at him. Scott never liked when I wore them because we were the same height. Sometimes I was taller depending on the shoe, and I totally avoided those altogether. There was no way I was going to reach the marauder’s height unless I wore platform heels.
I ran a hand down my green silk blouse, ironing out any wrinkles. “Aren’t we announcing our engagement tonight?”
“We’ll see.”
“Always so cryptic.”
He followed behind me to the front door, and I could feel his eyes on my ass. I’d felt them the day of the fair, too, and I made sure to swing my hips a bit to give him an eye full.
“What did he do?” I casually threw over my shoulder as I made the steps.
Before I could knock and then let myself in, Cash took me by the arm and swung me around like some dame in an old black and white movie. One of my hands was pressed against his chest to push him away, but I couldn’t move. His heart beat steadily under my palm. His entire body was hard and it held me in place.
My eyes were level with his mouth, and I silently sucked in a breath. Damn me. He had the perfect shaped lips. I wanted to bite the bottom one hard enough to make him bleed and suck in a breath at the pain.
Scott had soft lips. Not firm at all.
Why am I even comparing? Fuck if I knew.
My eyes made a slow journey to his, and that was when he locked me in again. “You’re a little psycho in the bedroom, aren’t you, Ms. Ryan?”
“Me? Little?” A boisterous roll of laughter thundered from my mouth.
He made it a point to look down at me, proving his point that I was smaller than him. No man had ever made me feel that way before. It wasn’t totally physical, either, and that made me uncomfortable. I had finally met my match. If I ever told him to go to hell, he’d probably invite me along, because he’d been there before.
Instead of hell, maybe it was time that I invited him to heaven. I leaned in closer, putting my lips close to his neck, right over his pulse point. I made sure my voice was breathy, so warm air blew over his skin. “Wouldn’t you like to know how I am in bed, Marauder.”
He grinned and then let out a breath of a laugh. I breathed in and then automatically breathed out. I refused to take him inside my lungs. He wasn’t my air; he was my suffocation.
“I already know everythin’ about you, darlin’. I know how Scott Stone fucks you up against the wall in the moonlight. That perfect ass of mine sliding up and down the windowpane. I already know that he tries to claim mine, but he doesn’t know how to keep a woman that belongs to a man like me satisfied. And I already know that my eyes, my heaven, roll back in your head, and not from pleasure, but from boredom when he does.”
His free hand slipped along my side, and damn me!, I shivered at the warmth. It was going to be a fierce game of tug of war with my heart, but my body had already surrendered to the enemy’s cause. It ached for him to claim me.
“When I fuck you, you’re going to go psycho, archer. Your mind is going to go mad for me. Your skin is going to burn for me. Those nails are going to claw me until I have stripes. That mouth is going to bite me until I bleed. You’re going to demand to mark me. It’ll be my heaven to own that entire body of yours.”
“You mean my heart?” I said. “You’re going to try to steal my heart to make Scott suffer. Your he
aven will be his hell. What did he do? I deserve to know that much since I’m nothing but a pawn in this game of yours.”
“He stole from me first, and no one steals from me.”
“You’re getting even.”
“You’re the only person he’s ever truly loved, apart from his family.”
“He stole your heart,” I said.
“I don’t have one of those,” he said. “All the same, he stole something vital.”
So if Scott hadn’t been in love with me, it would’ve been a hard pass on Keely Ryan for Cash Kelly. He wouldn’t have given me a second glance, but since Scott was in love with me, truly in love, I was as good as Kelly’s.
Even if this was about revenge, and nothing more, he still couldn’t deny the attraction. His dick was pressing hard into my belly, and we’d hardly touched.
I couldn’t deny the lust, either, and I hated him even more for it. When he looked at me, heat crept up my neck. I’d only ever felt that when I was angry or upset, but never when a man looked at me. And when he touched me? Fire against paper.
There was something between us that felt wild, instinctual, almost...right.
“After you get your revenge?” My voice came out soft. “After you steal his heart, me, what then, Marauder? Where does that leave me?”
His eyes were hard on mine. “With me for always. As long as I live, he’ll never touch what’s mine again. What he’s sure is his. Love doesn’t just disappear, darlin’. We might move on and breathe, but that love forever marks us. What I’m stealing from him will forever mark him, as what he’s done to me scars my lungs. There are days the hurt is so great I can’t breathe. There’s no return for men like us.”
“For men like you,” I said.
“There’s a thin line between good and evil. Scott Stone walks the line every day, just like I do. We just choose different paths on a regular basis.”
“So poetic,” I whispered. My eyes were turned up to his, and I wanted to glare at him, but instead I kept blinking, ready to close my eyes, waiting for his lips to meet mine.
Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me. Steal that kiss, Marauder. Because I knew once he did, he would realize how strong the pull was between us, and that he wasn’t going to get out of this without a few more stripes, or maybe even scars.
Marauder (Gangsters of New York Book 2) Page 10