by Max Monroe
Jaybird’s eyes widened just slightly in fear as I reached over and touched the letter opener.
Still, he opened his stupid goddamn mouth anyway.
“She also…came on to me. All of us, actually.”
“Jay,” Eric chastised, trying to look like the hero—the one to keep his mouth shut.
“She did,” Mickey affirmed. “Asked to suck my cock. Told me she’d let me fuck her any way I wanted if I didn’t tell you.”
Jealousy raged inside me despite the falsehoods. Just hearing them talk about her like that, pretending they had the right to touch her anywhere, to give her anything, made me feel like I’d come out of my skin.
I fought to keep it on the inside. Despite winning the battle, my order was still a roar as I dismissed them. “Get out!”
Eric’s saunter was cocky, confident, even fucking pleased, as he made his way out of the room with Mickey and Jaybird. He, of course, mistook my anger as directed at Alex—at the situation. Perhaps at the fact that I had to question if I could trust my lover.
In reality, Alex was trustworthy. I knew it in my soul, and he was lucky I didn’t slit his goddamn throat on the spot.
“Damien,” I called, just before he made it to the door. Harrison looked back over his shoulder, but he moved on when I released him with a nod.
Cal moved close as Damien approached my desk after closing the door. Cal’s skin vibrated, he was so fucking pissed. Apparently, I’d done a good job of endearing him to my Alex. He’d look out for her no matter what happened to me—not that I planned on going anywhere anytime soon. “Find out what the fuck happened. Get video. I want to know every fucking thing that happened after I saw Alex follow them down that staircase last night.”
Damien nodded. “You got it.”
I shooed him with a flick of my hand, and he didn’t dawdle. Cal’s voice was edgy when the door closed behind him. “I’ll cut off their balls myself if they touched her.”
“You’ll have to settle for one ball each, Cal,” I muttered. “The other is mine.”
DEENA’S MEOWS ECHOED OFF THE walls of the kitchen, and I sighed from my perch on the couch. She was hungry. I understood that. But I was also extremely comfortable.
Dilemmas, man.
A lazy Sunday afternoon. My plans revolved around binge watching Orange Is the New Black, snacks, and a whole lot of nothing else.
Sometimes, the idea of nothing was a beautiful thing. Isn’t that why they invented Netflix?
This morning, I’d woken up in Matt’s apartment, but I meandered back to my place when he headed out to run errands. I doubted his errands resembled normal people errands—groceries, laundry, post office. They were probably more like sharpen knives, pick up a new set of brass knuckles, fuel up the boat so it’s ready to dump bodies.
Obviously, I was definitely kidding. Well, sort of. I’d just leave it at the fact that Matt’s version of errands was slightly different from the norm.
But I didn’t question him. There was no need for me to question him. Over the past two months, Matt had intertwined me into his life so much that I knew when I should take issue with something and when I should just roll with it.
Clad in my comfiest sleep shorts and tank top, I rolled straight into nothing.
Deena’s meows grew louder, and I knew it was only a matter of time before she started taking her nails to the cabinet. With a roll of my eyes and unwanted movement from my legs, I tossed my blanket toward the bottom of the sofa and got to my feet. Once I reached the kitchen, a pair of pleading kitty eyes stared up at me.
It’d only been two hours since I’d last fed her, but apparently, my girl was having an “I want to eat anything, everything, and constantly” kind of day.
I could relate. Period week generally consisted of ravenous snacking in between carb-loaded meals. Donuts. Pizza. Cookies. Ice cream. A full sheet cake. The sky was the limit, and the fridge was my motherfucking oyster during that hellish cycle.
I doubted Deena was having her monthly visit from Aunt Flo, though. She was spayed. But who was I to judge, right? I’d once consumed a forty-dollar meal from McDonald’s in one sitting. And, trust me, it took a determined, food-driven woman to reach that bill. Momma wasn’t just shopping the Value Menu that day.
Deena meowed, and I grabbed a can of Fancy Feast out of the cabinet.
“Patience is a virtue, you know,” I said to her as I filled a new bowl with a kitty entrée of steak medallions and a small scoop of dry food.
She didn’t care. Only capable of impatient meows at this point.
If her meows were words, she’d be bitching.
Once I set her bowl on the floor, she pounced. No hesitation. No show of kitty strides around the kitchen before carefully diving in like a sophisticated feline with manners. Whiskers first, my little diva cat filled up her belly, licking her lips with every bite.
Before I could settle back into my spot o’lazy, my phone pinged with a text message. I snagged it off the counter and tapped the screen. A picture message from my aunt waited in my inbox. It was a photo of her standing in front of the Bellagio, a giant smile on her face.
Aunt Delores: Greetings from Las Vegas!
I loved seeing my aunt out and about, traveling around on her terms. But I was starting to wonder if her church group spent more time in casinos than they did in actual church. It was a crapshoot, to be honest.
Me: Wow. I feel like it was just yesterday you were there. Oh, wait, that’s because it WAS just yesterday.
Aunt Delores: It was three weeks ago, Miss Nosy Pants.
Me: LOL. How’s the city of sin treating you?
Aunt Delores: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
Me: Pretty sure that saying shouldn’t apply to church groups…
Aunt Delores: God understands the need for balance and downtime in our lives.
Me: So, does the gambling fit in before or after church?
Aunt Delores: Smart aleck.
Me: I love you. :) And I hope you have fun preaching the word and gambling away your Social Security check. Speaking of checks, my new job is doing really well, and I’ve wired money into your account.
Three thousand dollars to be exact. I wanted to send more, but I knew she’d lose her shit over that amount. Aunt Delores was a woman who hated the idea of a “handout.” Even if said handout was from the heart and with the sole intention of making her life a little easier.
Aunt Delores: Nope. I’m not accepting your money.
See what I mean? She didn’t even know how much, but already, she didn’t want to accept it. Too bad, Aunt Delores. Come Monday, you’ll be three thousand richer whether you like it or not.
I knew her finances, and, although she had a little saved in her bank account, she mostly relied on her monthly Social Security check to pay for her daily expenses. For a woman who had worked her entire life, she deserved to enjoy the last half of her life without money stress.
And as long as I worked for Wonderland, she could expect and accept more deposits into her account.
Me: Too late. I set it up on Friday. You should get it by tomorrow.
Aunt Delores: You’re a pain in my ass.
Me: You love me.
Aunt Delores: That I do. Even though you’re a pain in my ass.
Me: :)
With a smile on my face, I meandered back into the living room, my mind fully intent on couch surfing for the rest of the afternoon. But before I could sit down, three, loud, pounding knocks echoed off my door.
I startled so hard that I dropped my phone, and it hit the hardwood floor with a cringe-worthy thud.
Three more obnoxious, persistent knocks and Deena sought shelter, skittering out of the kitchen and into my bedroom. Most likely, to her cowardly spot underneath my bed.
“Open up, Alex,” Matt’s voice rang out, loud and harsh.
“Just a minute,” I called toward the door. I picked my phone up off the floor and took a rapid inventory of a, thankfully, intact a
nd working screen, before quickly walking toward the front door.
I opened it, and I’d never seen his amber eyes look so dark, so intense, so angry. And this was Matt. He very nearly always looked angry.
“Is everything okay?”
He stepped inside. “We need to talk. Now.”
Concern clutched at my chest, and my hands shook as I closed the door behind him.
Matt strode into the living room and stood in front of the couch, feet planted wide. “Sit,” he demanded, and I obeyed. White knuckles from clenching his fists too hard and gritted teeth from the effort to remain silent, Matt stalked in front of me. His large, intimating form exuded an animosity that was like acid—burning, slicing, potent.
“What’s going on, Matt?” I asked, really worrying that whatever this was about would be too much to cute my way out of.
His face was red with barely suppressed anger, and his internal rage held all the power of a wildfire. I could practically see the flames roaring in his eyes, ready to ignite anything that he came in contact with. We were all just kindling.
“Why didn’t you fucking tell me?”
“Tell you what?” I asked, truly at a loss.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and tapped the screen. “Tell me this,” he answered and handed me the phone.
I stared down at the screen and with a shaking, hesitant finger, eventually found the courage to press play on the video he’d pulled up.
It was footage. Of Evan Saint’s party.
I watched closely as I came into view, roaming around the downstairs level, and then, Eric Queen was at my back, grabbing my attention. He guided me toward the bar, and I knew exactly what Matt was showing me. It was that awful interaction I’d had with a few of his men.
The words sounded just as vile and derogatory on playback as they had in real life.
Once the video ended, I looked up to meet Matt’s hard stare.
God, he was pissed.
I swallowed against the dryness in my throat. “I’m…I’m s-sorry,” I said quietly. “I wasn’t sure how to handle it.”
“If someone, any fucking one, says shit to you like that, you fucking tell me,” he said, his voice deep even to carve the earth. “I don’t care if it’s the goddamn President of the United States or the Dalai fucking Lama, no one talks to you like that. Do you understand?” he questioned. I nodded immediately.
As comforting as it was to know this superscary version of Matt was appearing on my behalf, it was still about enough to make me pee my pants.
Matt leaned down and lifted me off the sofa and into his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist. Nose to nose, his fierce gaze was locked with mine. “I swear to God if someone talks to you like that again, they’re going to spend the rest of their nonexistent life ten feet underground.”
“That seems a little drastic,” I whispered, but he shook his head.
“You are too fucking important to me,” he said quietly. “I’d die before I let something happen to you.”
As he pulled me tighter to his chest and buried his face in my hair, my heart swelled. Somehow, this man who lived by loose rules and a skewed moral compass had become viciously protective of me. He treated me differently. Special. And he never hesitated to take care of me. Even when it was his own men I was up against.
From here on out, when it came to teams, I knew Matt would always be on mine.
It was strange how quickly someone could go from being a complete stranger to being the most important person in your life. That person who made you wonder how you’d managed to survive as long as you had without them. I didn’t know how I’d managed without Matt, but I knew the idea of him not being in my life felt like pure hell.
Ironically, he’d become my one solid force, my one stability in a world filled with chaos, and I so desperately needed that.
The feeling was so strange; it stretched throughout my whole body. Overwhelmed. Complete. I felt a million things at once. Like I’d stepped into a dangerous fire, yet I was completely safe at the same time.
Within his arms, I found peace.
My heart danced inside of my chest, and a hole, one I’d never been aware of, was filled. I felt so light, like I was on top of the world, yet my heart constricted so tightly that my lungs struggled to breathe.
I buried my face into his shoulder and blinked past the emotion filling my eyes.
I’m in love with him.
I was in love with the big, bad man.
THE FEEL OF HER IN my arms was almost enough to keep me there, in her apartment, until the end of time.
Ironically, it was the burning need to keep her until the end of time that convinced me to stand up, set her on her feet, and order something else entirely.
Her eyes opened swiftly, and she swayed for a moment, caught off guard.
“What are you—”
“Get dressed. We’re going to my office.”
“To…your office. For lunch?” she asked hopefully. She obviously had an underlying feeling about the true purpose of our outing.
I shook my head.
“So that I can meet your assistant?”
“No.”
“To have a visit with Cal?”
“Alex.”
“Come on!” she cried. “I don’t like the sound of this at all. You never take me to your office. Now you come in here, we have this scene, and we’re going to your office? I feel like that’s where people go to die.”
I smirked a little, even as fury still worked through me. I couldn’t not be amused by her. “For some people, I suppose it is.”
“Matt!”
“But not you,” I assured.
“I figured today wasn’t about me—”
“Oh, today is about you,” I interrupted. “It’s very much about you. But you won’t be the one in goddamn danger, that’s for sure.”
She pointed in my face, an adorable wrinkle forming between her eyebrows. “Okay? Do you hear yourself? That’s what I’m worried about.”
“Good,” I encouraged, running soothing hands down the cool skin of her upper arms. “That means you’re smart.”
“Does it mean I can stay home?” She fluttered her eyelashes, and I very nearly smiled.
Christ, she’s cute.
“No.”
“Ack!” she shouted, slapping my chest. Pride surged inside my chest at her fearlessness despite how unchecked I’d been before. “Why not?”
“Because you making a stand is important. As much as I plan to have you at my side every minute, I can’t. You need to know how these men work, how they think, how they suffer.”
“This all sounds really messy.”
“It might be,” I admitted.
“Matt,” she whined looking to the ground and stomping a foot.
“Alex,” I said softly and lifted her chin until her eyes once again met mine. “Do you want to know how to protect yourself?”
“Well, of course I do,” she snapped.
“Do you think I’m going to kill them?”
Her eyes searched mine. “I guess it depends how intense things get.”
I laughed. “A man’s vulnerabilities are his biggest weakness. One guess what mine is.”
Her. Every day, all day, I would lose everything for her. I knew it with vivid certainty, and I knew I also held the evidence undisguised in my eyes.
“Matt,” she whispered.
“I’m wholly in love with you, little one. You are my weakness.”
She smiled, blushing a little before working her arms under my heavy ones and pushing her body toward mine. “I know this is supposed to be romantic and flattering, but it’s really not sounding like it.”
I shook my head at her teasing. “It is flattering, I assure you. But it’s also why your attending this is so important.”
“I don’t get it. Why?”
“Because, little one… I need my weakness to be strong.”
She searched my eyes until she found whatever it
was she was looking for. “Okay,” she whispered. And then, quiet as a mouse, she added, “I love you, too.”
Eric, Mickey, Jaybird, Harrison, and Damien all filed in to my office thirty minutes later, having been summoned by Cal on my behalf. It was a Sunday, so they knew this wasn’t a talk about their spouses or kids or anything fucking pleasant, and it wasn’t something that could wait. As a result, some of their ugly faces got even uglier.
Alex, my little warrior, was tucked away in another office with Cal, waiting for the right time to join the meeting. It was unbelievably important for her to be a part of it, but I wouldn’t subject her to undue torture. Part of this could and would be handled on my own.
“Have a seat,” I instructed by way of greeting. No one looked surprised at the lack of pleasantries.
Three chairs lined the front of my desk rather than the usual two, so that Eric, Jaybird, and Mickey all had a place to take a seat. It was all a mind game, really, having them sit and then standing myself, so that my already intimidating physical presence seemed even more so. Honestly, nearly my whole job was mind games.
Damien and Hare, already privy to the details of what had occurred at the party, stood in the back of the room with equally hard jaws.
They might not have nearly as much invested in Alex as I did, but they didn’t like scheming, and they didn’t like being lied to. The three amigos in the chairs were so mired in the shit, their eyes were brown.
“I had a conversation with Alex, and it seems her version of the story is quite a bit different from your own.”
Eric stayed quiet, diverting his gaze to the others so they’d take most of the heat. The little weasel cocksucker.
Mickey’s face was serious as he sat up in his seat. “Of course it is, Matt. She doesn’t want to look bad in front of you. But I’m telling you, it was an ugly scene. Look at all the stuff with her apartment when we moved her into it. She’s a con artist. A very pretty one, but a fucking con.”