by Nicole Fox
Her night with Xavier had been nothing short of breathtaking. Kenzie hadn’t ever felt such an urge to be with someone physically, and it made her wonder just what was going on between the two of them. She had tried as hard as she could to resist him, reminding herself during their conversation at the bar that she had to flirt, but she’d soon discovered that she wanted to flirt. She wanted to touch him, explore him, please him.
As she rounded the corner from the foyer into the hall, something hard crunched into her eye socket. Kenzie fell backward, stunned, slamming into the wall before she slid down to the cool marble floor. Her stomach lurched as stars danced in front of her eyes. Her instinct was to turn and run away from the danger, but her legs refused to work. Barely holding onto consciousness, she tried to put her hands over the wound. The skin was too tender, and it only hurt more to flinch. A pair of meaty hands grabbed her under the arms and hauled her to her feet.
“Good job, Angelo,” said a voice that sounded very far away. “Your aim is perfect as always, although I suppose we should have asked her if the mission was complete first.”
Kenzie blinked and her vision slowly cleared to reveal her father, an expression of curiosity and pride on his face. He was already up and dressed in a suit for the day, and Angelo—dressed similarly—stood next to him. His face was twisted into a crooked grin, affected by the long scar that ran down his cheek. The hired man still had his hand twisted into a fist, ready to hit her again if the first shot hadn’t been enough.
“Well?” Matteo pressed. “Did you sleep with him?”
“Why the fuck did he deck me?” she demanded when she regained control of her tongue. A throbbing pain bounced around inside her skull, and it had nothing to do with the little bit of alcohol she’d had at Xavier’s place.
“I asked the question first,” her father replied calmly.
She could tell that whoever held her up was a big man, probably Tiny. She let him keep her weight, since she couldn’t handle it just yet. Her knees folded every time she tried. “Yes. Now why did he hit me?” Her voice sounded shrill, on the verge of tears, and she hated herself for it. Last night she had been her own woman, but as soon as she returned home she was once again just a pawn.
Matteo pulled her hand away from her face to examine the site of the punch. He cupped her face in his hand, his thumb pressing painfully at her flesh. “I’m just covering my bases. A nice black eye will make our rape story about Mr. Flynn seem all the more believable if we have to use it.”
“Who?” Her brain didn’t seem to be working correctly.
“The biker you were supposed to fuck!” he shouted, throwing his hands in the air and making her flinch. “Jesus, you would think after all this time you could figure out how this shit worked. Angelo, keep her under your surveillance until that bruise has formed, and then we’ll get pictures. Don’t let her put any ice on it.” Matteo pushed past the crowd in the hallway toward his study. Kenzie spit on him as he passed her, but he brushed it off his sleeve. “Your temper tantrums don’t help. I suggest you calm down unless you want your eyes to match.”
Angelo and Tiny brought her into the living room, where she collapsed onto a white leather couch. Her eyelids were heavy, and she wanted to sleep, but she knew that was dangerous with the wound she’d sustained. She tipped her head back and listened to the thugs argue about how to make her look even worse.
“We should put her face-down, so all the blood runs to the wound.” Tiny’s deep voice echoed painfully in her head.
“No, you idiot. We have to press on it to make sure all the blood vessels are broken.” Angelo leaned over the back of the couch.
“Touch me and I’ll bite your fingers off,” Kenzie muttered.
Tiny laughed, and Angelo punched him. It carried on like that for a while until they were finally ready for the picture.
“That’s it,” her father crooned, having come out of his office to supervise, “look nice and pissed off. Those tears are a perfect addition. Everybody will believe you.” He stood just behind Angelo as the digital camera snapped the images, acting like a director on a set. Matteo was obviously proud of the work “he” had done.
Kenzie thought about firing back at him, asking him how he thought this was possibly okay. But she knew without saying a word what her father’s reply would be. They were doing this for the family. They were doing this because that bastard Xavier Flynn had stolen several of their sources of income from him, and it was time that he paid. It was just work, just business. It always was.
When she was finally released to go to her room, Kenzie slumped down at her desk. She had a paper due later in the week, and she knew she’d better get it done before her father needed anything else from her. She flung open her notebook and scanned the notes she had already jotted down, but the words blurred in front of her eyes.
“Stop it, Kenzie,” she whispered to herself as she grabbed a tissue and dabbed carefully at her eyes. “You’re tougher than this. It’s over now, so just get the work done.”
Still finding it almost impossible to focus, she tried reading the words out loud. “The relationship between poverty and crime rates is one that should be thoroughly examined in order to … in order to …” But she couldn’t finish. It didn’t matter that she had carefully avoided the other suggested topics that explored the relationship between mental health and crime, or whether criminal behavior was hereditary. All of it came back to her father and the family, and she couldn’t possibly research something that hit so close to home. She couldn’t get away from it, no matter how many classes she took or how much she tried to educate herself.
Kenzie carefully touched the tender flesh around her eye. Even without looking in the mirror, she knew it was bad. How would she cover that up for school? She could do a good job with her makeup, but it wouldn’t hide the bruising. She’d have to miss class unless she wanted to endure questions from a concerned teacher, which would only make things worse. The last thing she needed was to sit down with a guidance counselor and pretend that everything was all right.
One tear and then a second plopped onto her notebook, blurring her rushed scribblings from a study session in the library. What had her life come to?
By the next morning, she had cried all the tears her body was capable of making. She was bruised all to hell, but she could handle that. Crying and feeling sorry for herself weren’t going to make anything better. She’d been hurt worse before. While she usually wore her hair in a ponytail to keep the dark, silky locks out of her way, that morning she brushed it carefully down over the offending eye. Concealer and foundation only did so much, but they helped. It was time to act like nothing happened and put it all behind her.
But that was impossible to do when her father sat down across from her at the breakfast table and grinned at the handiwork his man had done. “That’s a beaut! Should’ve waited to take a picture until this morning; I think you’re even more swollen now. The time stamp had to be right, but I guess we could have always changed it. That doesn’t matter. It still works, since you’re going to Flynn’s house today.”
“What?” She set her coffee mug down slowly; she was going to need all the caffeine she could get just to make it through the day. “I thought my part in this fiasco was done.”
Matteo laughed as he cut into his eggs with the side of his fork. “What makes you think that? You still have the most important part to play. You’re going to Flynn’s house, and you’re going to tell him to pay up.”
“You never said I would be the one to extort the money,” she countered. The very last thing she wanted to do was to see Flynn with this shiner on her face.
“Trust me, it’ll be much more effective if he can see you in person. He’ll know just how much hot water he’s in, and he’ll shove money at you faster than you can take it.” Matteo laughed again, and his ever-present thugs laughed along with him. “You’ll have to take that makeup off, though. I need you to look like you’ve been dragged through hell.”<
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Kenzie already felt like she had been, and that she hadn’t been able to escape yet. She closed her eyes and shook her head. There was no arguing with him when he believed he was right, and she just wanted to get this over with. “Fine. I assume you have a plan?”
“Of course, I do. We’ve been watching Xavier, so I know just when you can catch him home alone. And you’ll have a wire on, so don’t think you can say anything other than what I tell you to.” He shook his finger at her in warning. “Xavier Flynn will play right into your hands.”
Chapter Ten
Xavier
Xavier sat at his desk, going over some paperwork. It was fortunate they had been able to get away with the drug shipment, because some of that money would be needed for the funerals of the lost members. He sighed heavily, wishing it hadn’t come to that. Still, any man who joined the Reaper’s Hearts knew what the risks were. Some of them just got luckier than others.
A knock sounded at the door, pulling him away from his figures. He hadn’t been expecting anyone. Taking the same precautions he always did, he tucked his pistol into his belt and cracked the curtain. A nice sedan sat at the curb. It didn’t look like anyone was waiting inside; whoever was on his doorstep had come alone. It was probably a salesman. Xavier crept on silent feet to the door and looked through the peephole, just in case.
The hair of the woman on his doorstep covered half her face as she looked down at her feet, but he instantly recognized Kenzie. Xavier backed away from the door for a moment to think. It had been a few days since they’d slept together. Although he’d thought about her a lot, he’d made no effort to contact her. It was just his policy. It didn’t matter how tempting it was to see if she wanted to hook up again, because repeated contact might imply a relationship. But he’d made the mistake of bringing her back to his place instead of getting a hotel room. The poor girl had probably decided she was in love with him, and now she had tracked him down to tell him so.
He yanked open the door but made sure to stand on the threshold. He didn’t want to give her the impression that she was invited in, not unless she was looking for another romp in the hay. He might agree to that, policy be damned. “Hey, Kenzie,” he said casually, trying to keep the surprise out of his voice. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you.” Her words were short, like she had bitten them off, and she kept her gaze on the concrete of the patio.
“That’s cool, but I don’t really have a lot of time. I’ve got a busy day ahead of me. I’m sure you understand.” He started to close the door.
Kenzie’s hand reached out and blocked it, and she shoved her way past him. “No, I need to talk. And we’re going to talk. Now.”
Xavier’s shoulders sagged as she marched into the middle of his living room floor. He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, trying to find the nicest way to make sure she understood that he didn’t want this. “Look, this happens a lot. I probably should have told you up front, but I’m really not interested in a relationship right now …” He brought his eyes back down to see her reaction, expecting her to cry or scream, but instead saw the massive contusion that took up a third of her face. She had tucked her hair behind her ear, revealing purple blotches that completely surrounded her right eye. She hadn’t put any makeup on, which only contributed to her miserable look.
“What the hell happened to you?” His shoulder tensed, and he wished that whoever had hit her was right there with them. He would bury his fist in their face.
“You did,” she snapped.
“What the fuck? No way.” Her statement caught him completely off-guard. He’d had a few beers that night, but he hadn’t been so drunk that he’d forgotten what happened. If she’d been injured like that, especially at his hands, he would have remembered. He used women, but he didn’t abuse them. “Why would you say something like that?”
Kenzie’s eyes were obsidian as she glared at him. They held his gaze so deeply that it took him a moment to register the pistol she had just pulled out of her jacket pocket. “Sit down, shut up, and listen. I want to get this over with.”
He held up his hands and took a step back. “I’m not into that dominatrix stuff.” He’d never had any girl show up on his doorstep so desperate that she would use a weapon. He must have been a better lay than he thought.
“I said, sit down, motherfucker!” She gestured toward the couch with her gun.
Xavier knew he could take her. She was strong, but she was small, and he knew how to subdue someone with a weapon. He could even have drawn his own weapon and created one hell of a standoff, but he was curious to hear what she had to say. He sighed and did what he was told, but he kept his fingers close to his weapon. Kenzie hadn’t made an effort to disarm him, so either she hadn’t noticed the gun at his waist or she was on a suicide mission. “All right. I’m listening. What do you want?”
Without taking her eyes off him or setting down the gun, she pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and tossed it in his lap. “This details the amount of money, weapons, and other items you’re to turn over to the Labriolas by the end of the day. If you don’t, you’ll have to face the consequences.”
He skimmed the list and gave a low whistle. “That’s a lot of stuff. Now tell me why the hell I would do such a stupid thing, and then tell me who dotted your ‘’'.” None of this was making any sense. Maybe she’d been hit harder than he thought.
She ignored the last request. “Because if you don’t, I’ll go to the police and tell them you raped me. I have a copy of the affidavit right here.” She tossed another paper into his lap. “I’m sure you can imagine there are plenty of pictures of me after our little tryst.” Kenzie pointed with her free hand at her face.
Xavier watched her carefully. She didn’t have the sexy makeup on that she’d worn at the bar, and the purple bruising on her face certainly changed her look. But now he understood why she looked a little familiar when he’d first seen her: she was Matteo Labriola’s daughter, and he had let her play him like a fine fiddle. “Tell me, Kenzie, did you have this planned out before or after we slept together?”
She waved the gun, getting really pissed now. “Does it matter?”
“It does to me.” He started to stand up, but she shot forward and shoved him back down on the couch. Her athletic legs straddled his lap in a manner that would have been incredibly sexy if she hadn’t been pointing a gun at his face. Well, it was still a little bit sexy. “There’s an address at the bottom of the list. You’ll meet my father’s men at that address tomorrow morning with every bit of what he’s asked for. If you don’t, he’ll release all the information to the police and you’ll find yourself in jail before you know it.”
Xavier was careful to keep his face calm. He couldn’t let her know the fires of rage that were burning inside him. How dare she use him just for her father’s business purposes? How dare Matteo use her to get him back for the markets the MC had stolen from the family? The whole thing was ridiculous, and he wasn’t about to play their game. “You can leave now,” he said quietly.
“Does that mean I can count on you to be there?” She lifted the muzzle of the pistol just a fraction of an inch, indicating she was just as done with this as he was.
“No. It means you can stop bothering with threatening me. It’s not going to work.” Xavier kept his eyes focused on hers, careful not to cringe at that wound. Jesus, it was bad.
Her lips twitched for a moment as she thought about what to say. Xavier had kissed those lips, thoroughly, but he had never expected to hear such bullshit come out of them. “You’re an even bigger idiot than I thought you were if you don’t pay up,” she hissed. “He’ll kill you. You know that, right?”
“I’m not afraid of Matteo Labriola. I’m not afraid of anybody, and I’m not going to let someone blackmail me just because they think it’s a quick way to make a buck. Leave. Go home to your father, and tell him that I’m not paying him.”
Her jaw tightened and her eyes narrow
ed, but her finger moved off the trigger as she tucked her gun back into her jacket pocket. “Trust me, he already knows.” She stormed out the front door, slamming it on her way out.
Xavier stood at the window and watched as she pulled away, her driving erratic. She would go straight back to her father’s arms and tell him what happened. Who knew what he would do to her then? With a bellow of fury, he turned and buried his fist in the wall.
Chapter Eleven
Kenzie
Kenzie’s phone rang almost as soon as she got back in the car, and she answered it with shaking fingers. She didn’t need to look at the Caller ID to know it was her father, and she directed it to her Bluetooth speaker. “What?”
“That sounded like it went well,” he replied smoothly.
“Well? Ow!” She ripped the tape from the wire off her skin as she drove, flinging it into the passenger seat. “How can you possibly say that went well?” Kenzie wanted to pound her fists against the dashboard, to yell and rage and scream at her father until he understood what he was doing to her, but she already knew it wouldn’t do any good. Father always knew best, even when he was completely wrong.