by W Winters
“Aria,” I tell them, “will cut the wellington and serve us, I think.” A half grin ticks up the corners of my lips as Romano smiles.
“I didn’t expect this from you,” he tells me, and I cock a brow at him. “I didn’t think you enjoyed this as much as you seem to.”
My grin widens. “You have no idea how much I enjoy this.” Tonight, my songbird will be changed forever. And I’m the one who will give it to her. She will never fear anyone but me ever again.
“You have her sit at the table?” Stephan questions me with a glint of humor in his eyes. His thin lips twitch into a smile and I manage a smile back, remembering that this is for her. She’s the one to do it. My grip on her waist tightens, to keep me from ruining everything.
“You do as you’d like in your home, but do not question me in mine.” My words are sharp and not to be taken lightly. They force the smile off his pale face while Romano coughs at the head of the table.
“I think he only means that we were expecting to see her on the floor… where slaves belong.”
Picking up the large butcher knife on the table, I put the knife firmly in Aria’s hand and command her to carve the beef wellington. She can barely reach, and I do my best to balance her as she reaches over the table, the sharp blade piercing the puff pastry shell with a slight crack that’s audible in the silent room.
My breathing comes in harder and harder, knowing what’s next. I can taste the sweetness of it already as the meat falls onto the platter.
“Carter has a soft spot for her, I think,” Jase offers, and he and Daniel share a look. One of my brothers on each side of me. Both of them ready for when I cue the kitchen.
“I want a nice meal, for fuck’s sake,” I say with a touch of humor to break the tension and put both Stephan and Romano at ease. “We start a war tomorrow. And technically, shots have already been fired,” I say, and shrug then place a small bit of meat onto the platter as Aria’s movements become strained.
“Yes. Here’s to victory,” Romano says, raising the glass of champagne in front of him. The bubbly liquid rises in the air, and with it, both of his hands. It’s like I’m watching in slow motion as I turn my attention to Stephan and see him do the same. An empty hand palm up on the table and his other raised in the air, holding a glass.
“Cheers, bring out the dinner,” I call out as I raise my glass, not bothering to reach for my gun.
My voice rings out and our men from the kitchen bring out the serving dishes. My closest men, disguised as servers, quickly make their way around the room with their trays.
They unveil each of the covered platters at once to reveal their guns, aimed at both Romano and Stephan. All while Aria’s carving the meat with shaky hands.
Stephan and Romano both suck in a breath but keep their hands raised even as curses fill the air, as do the sound of pistols being cocked.
Aria drops the knife on the table, her shoulders hunched and a squeal of both terror and surprise forcing her backward and into my arms. I wish I could have warned her, but Romano is going to live to tell the tale.
Her shoulders are cold in my embrace as I pull her close and whisper, “You’re all right.”
All three of my brothers raise their loaded guns, but I keep my hands on Aria, still trembling. Declan, seated at the opposite head, keeps his gun pointed at Romano and my other two brothers keep theirs pointed at Stephan as they face him.
“What the fuck is this?” Romano is quick to speak with indignation and attempts to lower his arm. My eyes pierce into Stephan’s, who’s staring straight at me with a bitter hate that I’m used to seeing from men I’ve fucked over. It’s always followed by the milky gaze of dead eyes. He doesn’t dare lower his arm. Because he knows the truth better than Romano does.
I hear the distinctive sound of a gun with a silencer going off, but I don’t bother to look and verify that the bullet landed just behind Romano as a warning shot. My eyes stay fixed on Stephan’s. Just as his are on me.
“This is a show for you, Romano,” I finally speak when he stands abruptly. “Help him sit, Jase.”
Without a word, my brother rises and I can just barely see Aria in my periphery. My sweet, haunted girl. She grips the table and watches intently as Jase pulls out the chair for Romano, waiting for him to sit a few feet away from the table where his hands can easily be seen.
Jase stays behind him, his gun still trained on Romano although now he could easily shoot Stephan as well. But his death is for Aria, and Aria alone.
“The knife, Aria.” I address only her. She’s so small on my lap as she looks at me and then slowly around the room. She’s hesitant to pick the knife back up and the cursing yell from Stephan nearly startles her into dropping it again.
The rage in my blood turns from a simmer to a boil. “Even now he holds a fear over you, my Aria,” I tell her in a low voice of reprimand. “I won’t allow it.”
I can feel her skin turn cold as she waits for my command. She’s barely breathing, still scared and confused. With the knife in her hand, I pull her back into my lap, taking my time to calm her so she can see clearly.
Fear can cloud everything, turning reality into falsehoods.
“Are you mad at me, songbird?” I ask her gently, cupping her jaw in my hand. I can feel her swallow tightly and peek back at Stephan before looking at me. “Why?” she asks me with such sadness.
“You needed this,” I whisper against her lips, nearly pressing mine to hers in an effort for her to understand how crucial this moment is, both for her and for us.
Her bottom lip quivers as tears prick the back of her eyes. “I thought you were giving me to him,” she confesses as her voice cracks and her shoulders shudder.
Gripping her tighter I speak clearly, loud enough for everyone in this room to hear. “You are mine and Romano lied to me when he gave me to you,” I hiss.
“Bullshit!” Romano dares to interrupt me and my hackles rise, the anger brimming. But I’ll deal with him once I’m through with Aria. She will always come first.
“You were damaged.” Her expression crumples at my words, shame filling her hazel eyes as I add, “You were so fucking broken I couldn’t have my hand in it.” I turn my head to sneer at Stephan. “Not when someone else has such control over you.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and the tip of the knife hits the table as her grip loosens.
“Did I tell you to drop the knife?” I ask her and instead of taking the hint and holding it tighter, she drops it to the table, covering her face with her hands and leaning into my chest.
“I really thought…” she pauses as her chest heaves and I give her this moment. I comfort her and make the men wait. They will wait for her. And so will I.
For this I’ve waited so long already, another minute can be spared for her pain.
“I thought,” she continues to stammer, and I kiss her hair, rubbing her back as she tells me, “I thought you were done with me.”
Pulling at her shoulders, I force her to arm’s length in my lap. “Never,” I tell her with all sincerity, feeling the truth down to my core, coursing through my blood and in every thought I could ever have.
Aria’s breathing calms as she stares into my eyes, while a softness I’ve never felt drifts over me. “You scared me,” she whispers.
Running the tip of my nose against hers, I whisper against her lips, “It’s a gift for you.”
When I pull away, her eyes are still closed, but slowly they open and I nod toward the knife.
“Kill him, Aria.”
Romano curses, but one of my men presses the barrel of his gun to his head.
“Pick up the knife and end him.”
I watch Aria’s shaky fingers pick up the knife, and then she stares at her prey. He scowls at her, but she doesn’t back down. Her chest heaves again and the way she holds her chin up lets me know she’s scared but doing her damnedest not to be.
Fear can never hide though.
“I won’t be with y
ou if you don’t,” I tell her and instantly regret the words. Her eyes widen, and she sucks in a breath. “I can’t let you continue like this,” I tell her, wishing I could take back the first words I gave her.
Her eyes flicker from me to Stephan and she nods her head slightly, but still, she doesn’t move.
Even knowing she has the knife in her hand, I lean forward and rest my head against her chest. “This is for you, Aria,” I whisper in the hot space between us. “It’s all for you.”
Inhaling her scent and feeling her body against mine, I kiss her throat and move to the crook of her slender neck. Her nails dig into my shoulder as she gasps.
It’s an apology for the threat I just made that never should have left me.
My lips slip down her shoulder and she moans softly, relaxing into me as my hands travel up her waist.
“Kill him, Aria,” I command her and continue kissing her neck, my touch turning ravenous.
Raking my teeth down her jaw, I worship her.
My brothers are witnesses to what I’d do to have her be completely mine. Romano and the dead fuck Stephan watch with a series of slurs and profanity.
Let them all see. Let the entire fucking world see.
My cock is hard when I pull away, seeing her breathless and in need.
“First, you take care of him.” I nod toward Stephan and then tell her, “And then you will be truly mine.”
Aria’s nod is swift and she’s quick this time to leave my lap, although her touch lingers on my shoulder as she steadies herself.
Three guns are pointed at Stephan, but he’s only looking at her as she rounds the table. I follow her at a distance, giving her this.
Stephan’s smile is grim and unnerving as he sneers, “She’ll never do it. Just shoot--”
Before he can get the last word out, Aria whips her hand through the air, slicing his neck open and forcing blood to pour from his neck. As his hands reach up to his throat, she screams a bloodcurdling sound, slicing again in the same pattern. Only this time, it cuts through his hands, nearly severing one of his fingers.
She doesn’t stop. She stabs frantically into his chest, hitting his arm, his shoulder, his throat again. Her aim is reckless, and my men take a step back, blood drenching his shirt and spraying from his cuts.
She’s savage in the stabs. Chaotic even. For a moment, I want to tear the knife from her for fear of her cutting herself.
She screams out as the knife pierces through the expensive fabric and into his soft flesh, the blood seeping through his clothes. The cry from her is sickening. Not because of the piercing scream, but because of the overt sadness. She kills him with her pain.
“Let it out,” I say without conscious consent. I can see Daniel turn his attention from her to me, but I ignore him. None of them matter right now.
She needs this more than anything.
Romano stands from his seat, backing away and it’s only then that I break my focus on Aria.
“Sit,” I practically snarl. The anger is mostly because he dared distract me from this.
He grits his teeth and feigns irritation as he slowly obeys me, but he can’t deny the utter fear I can see in his gaze.
With both hands on the armrests, he slowly takes his seat and I can focus on Aria again.
Her energy has waned and she’s silent as tears stream down her face. Her small body looks weaker and weaker, but she doesn’t stop stabbing into Stephan’s lifeless body. She’s obviously exhausted, but she doesn’t stop.
Not until I give her the command, my low voice foreboding and dominating in the silent room. “Aria. Give me the knife.”
Her wild eyes glance at me, only for a moment as the knife trembles in her hand and she shakes her head, no.
“Aria,” I raise my voice, forcing it to echo in the room. The only sounds I can hear are the blood rushing in my ears and Aria’s ragged breathing as I grit my teeth and tell her one last time. “Give. Me. The knife.”
Heartless
Book 2
At first, his words were harsh and his touch cold.
I knew he was a dangerous man and he could destroy me if only he wanted to.
That’s not what he wanted though. It’s not what he needed.
It’s not what I desired either.
It’s so easy to get lost in the touch of a man who’s powerful and unattainable.
A man who wants for nothing… except me.
Soft touches and stolen glances made my blood heat and my heart beat in a way I never knew it could.
Yes, it’s easy to fall into a haze of lust and desire.
But there’s a reason his reputation is one of a heartless man.
And I should have known better.
Prologue
Carter
Rain is coming. The kind of rain that makes your bones ache. The dark gray sky is streaked with dry lightning that splinters the crack of pain even deeper.
There’s only so much a man can take. Only so far he can be pushed to the brink and still want to survive.
First, my mother lost her fight with cancer.
Then Tyler, my youngest brother, was struck and killed by a car.
And now, my father has been murdered in cold blood.
The blame for my father’s death is easy to place. A group of thugs who wanted the highest high, and they were willing to do whatever it took to chase it.
They didn’t fear my father. Not like they fear me.
I know that’s why they waited for him to be the one on the street corner, instead of me dealing from the back of the truck. When my mother died, selling drugs was what we needed to do to pay the bills. But months have passed, and it’s more than an income stream now. Dealing, and the fighting that comes with, it is now my obsession.
I’m not just peddling dope or selling off stolen prescriptions. The drug trade is lucrative beyond anything I could have ever dreamed.
But Talvery taught me more than anyone else could.
He taught me where the boundaries were. Taught me what fear is capable of.
He showed me what it takes to make the pain go away and replace it with something more addictive than heroin. Power is everything.
And I feel it flowing through my veins.
Crack! Lightning strikes again, followed by a boom and shaking of the ground.
Rain is coming, but I’ll stand here for as long as it takes.
The priest’s voice is a dull monotone and the cries from distant family members, who I’ve only ever seen a handful of times in my life, numb me.
The casket in which my father’s body lies reflects the first droplets of water. The sprinkling is just the beginning of the downpour threatening to fall any minute now.
He would still be alive if they’d had the same fear of him that they have of me. If he’d learned the hard lesson Talvery had taught me months ago.
Revenge will come for the pricks who killed my father. Not because I love him. Or loved, rather. I think I hated him in the last few years. Truly and deeply despised the piece of shit he became when my mother got sick. The realization is freeing.
That’s not why I’ll hunt down each and every one of those assholes and take a baseball bat to them in their sleep, or a gun to the side of their heads as they creep through dark back alleys, or a knife along their throats in the restrooms of their favorite bars. One by one, I’ll kill them all.
It’s not because I want revenge or because I don’t want my father’s death to go unanswered.
No. I’ll murder them because they thought they could take from me. They decided it was worth the risk to take from me. Anger rises in my chest, heating my blood and forcing my hands into white-knuckled fists. I have to clench my teeth in an effort to hide the rage.
No one will ever take from me again. They won’t take more of my family. They won’t take a goddamn thing from me. Never again.
The day my father was laid to rest, the demon who had long slept inside of me awakened and destroyed whatever bit of go
odness that had lingered in my heart. From that day forward, I decided that everyone would fear me. Simply because it was easier to survive that way, obsessing over the power that fear would bring me.
I craved their fear the way I used to pray for the pain to go away.
It was all-consuming and only the tiniest slivers of this new armor ever broke off. Only when painful memories forced me to confront who and what I used to be. But even the smallest shards of my armor were so easily replaced by the blood of those who dared to threaten what I’d become.
So long as everyone feared me and those closest to me, I would not only survive, I would thrive.
They needed to fear my brothers.
And now they need to fear her. My songbird.
They will. I refuse to let anyone take her.
No one will take her away from me. No one.
Chapter 30
Aria
I can’t stop shaking. My entire body is consumed by fear and I’m trembling all over. My hands are shaking chaotically, and I can’t make them stop.
The heavy knife is gripped tighter than I’ve ever gripped anything in my life. I don’t even feel like it’s my hand holding the weapon. Another person’s hand, on top of mine, is forcing it to stay in my grip. To hold it tighter and tighter until it hurts so much that my body begs me to fall to my knees in agony.
I won’t allow my body to betray me. I can’t drop the knife. I can’t stop myself. The fear and rage are mingling into a concoction that’s far too powerful to deny.
The blood on the blade drips down onto my hand and feels like fire on my skin. The tension, the anger, the pure rage, and terror all boil in my blood as I stare at the dead, milky white eyes of the monster in front of me.
I can’t look at Carter. I can’t rip my gaze from the motionless stare of Alexander Stephan.
I’m waiting for him to blink. To jump up and grab me. The fear I feel is paralyzing, but the adrenaline coursing through me is going to burst my veins. He’s limp in the chair, his throat split wide open although the blood isn’t gushing anymore. It’s only a slow trickle at this point.