by Mia Madison
Quinn and Jade are sitting side by side against one wall, holding hands. They’ve got Adamos to either side of them. Women give them babies to hold, squeeze their hands in passing, offer them food.
Under the circumstances, some resentment would be understandable. My sisters and I are, in a sense, the cause of all the disruption, even though it’s not our fault Santiago targeted us, or that Jeeter’s in danger. But no one’s making any distinction between us and them.
To the Adamos, we’re already family.
It makes my throat swell with emotion. I’m glad we’re doing an instrumental piece. Things were really hard after Dad died; the three of us stuck together, but we felt so alone in the world.
Now it looks like we’ve been adopted, by so many relatives we’ll never run out. Never be homeless again, no matter what happens.
A muffled boom shakes the house. Some of the children start to cry, the sound mingled with men shouting and feet running. We give up all pretense of trying to play.
Cait runs toward the front door, and I follow to find her standing by the security screen, flipping through the views, trying to see what’s going on outside. When she gets to the view of the driveway, there’s a car at the gate.
I gasp when I see the drawn, fearful expression on the driver’s face. “That’s Detective Holland; she works with Lando. She must have an update.”
Cait hits the button to open the gate and I dash for the front door. “Bree,” she says behind me, but I’m already gone, running as fast as I can down the long drive. The car meets me around the first curve past the house, and I rush up to the driver’s side window.
Holland already has it down. “Brianna, thank god. Hurry; I’ll take you to Lando.”
I run around the car and pile into the passenger seat, and Holland reverses before I even get my seat belt on. “What happened? Where’s Lando?”
“It’s bad. They ambushed us.”
“Oh, fuck!”
“He’s in the hospital. I told him I’d bring you.” She reaches the gate, which automatically rolls aside to let us out. I pat my pockets, searching for my phone so I can text Jade and Quinn, but I don’t have it with me. I’ve left everything in the house.
“Can I borrow your phone? I need to let them know—”
Too late, I see the stun gun in Holland’s hand. I twist away, but there’s nowhere to go.
“Sorry, Callahan.” She presses it into my side.
Pain fills me an instant before everything goes black.
I come to with my head pounding. I’m lying on a cold, hard surface and the air around me is freezing. I’m in nothing but my jeans and t-shirt; all my warm clothes are back at Tonio’s house. I feel like I’m going to puke, so I take shallow breaths and try not to let on that I’m awake.
It doesn’t work. Something hard bumps me, none too gently, in my ribs. I flinch away and cry out, then roll over and lose the contents of my stomach. I’ve barely finished when another hard shove in my side sends me over onto my back again.
A light flares on. I squint at the two silhouettes looking down at me. “Pretty,” a man’s voice says. I don’t recognize it. “We’ll have fun with you.”
The other man leans close. “Santiago told us to take our time with you. We’ll film it all, send it to your boyfriend. Then we’ll send him pieces of you.”
I roll onto my side, moaning. The first man shoves at me with his booted foot. “On your back, bitch.”
“Tie her up?” the other man says.
“Nah. She’s too weak. We’ll shock her again if she gets feisty.”
More lights come on around me. Now I can see where I am; they’ve brought me to the ruins of our farmhouse. I’m lying on the ground in part of the original house. It’s open to the sky, but its stone walls are largely intact.
There’s no sign of Holland. How fucking stupid of me to not suspect a woman. If I somehow survive this, I won’t make that mistake again.
At least I know Lando’s alive for them to send the recording to. There’s a camera on a tripod a few feet away, pointed at me. With the added illumination, I can tell that both men are wearing guns.
I’ve never seen them before. Not surprising if they’re Santiago’s henchmen. One of them is holding a long knife, its blade glittering. Ice fills my veins.
The man drops to his knees beside me. “Gonna cut your clothes off, bitch. Eventually.” He settles his weight on me, forcing my thighs apart, and the knife rests against my throat.
The other man is watching us through the camera. I left my left hand drift up, slowly, until it brushes the holster on the knife man’s hip. The camera’s to my right, the knife man’s body shielding my action from the camera’s view.
“Ever had a blade up your snatch?” Knife man grinds himself against me. Bile rises in my throat. The next time his hips jerk, I unsnap his holster.
“Draw some blood,” camera man says. “And cut off her hair. We’ll send that to him first.”
I twist my hand around so I can grip the butt of the gun at close to the right angle. It’s my support hand, not my shooting hand, but I’ll manage.
Knife man grabs a bunch of my hair. I look at camera man, then behind him, and gasp.
It’s the oldest trick in the book, but it works. Knife man’s head jerks that direction and camera man swings around, going for his gun. I put two bullets into knife man’s torso, then two more into camera man as he tries to turn back to me.
Laying the gun aside, I shove knife man off me, then grab the gun again as I scramble to my feet. Knife man isn’t moving, but I give him a wide berth as I circle toward camera man. His hand is on his gun. Both of them are still breathing.
I want to search them for a phone that I can use to call, but I don’t want to risk getting that close if they’re faking unconsciousness. And I can’t bring myself to shoot them again. I wait, in a relaxed but ready firing stance, the gun pointed midway between them.
It’s camera man who breaks the stalemate, lifting his head as he brings his gun up. I shoot him in the wrist and he screams and drops the gun. I edge closer, kick it away, and spot a cell phone in his shirt pocket.
Camera man hasn’t moved. I manage to fish the phone out and dial Lando’s number from memory. It’s answered on the first ring.
“Adamo,” he snarls. His voice is so lethal that it frightens me for an instant.
“Lando.” It’s all I can say.
“Bree!” he shouts. “Baby. Tell me where you are.”
“Farmhouse. Farm.” I can’t seem to speak in complete sentences.
“Your farm?” His tone is still urgent, but much more gentle now.
“Yes.”
“We’re on the way. Tell me the situation.” He’s speaking briskly now, commandingly. Keeping me focused. “Is there an active threat?”
“No. Don’t think so.”
“Gunmen?”
“Two. Shot them.”
“You’re armed?”
“Yes.”
“How many rounds you have left?”
“One.” The answer’s automatic; my head did the math without me even knowing it.
“Okay, babe. Get your back against a wall. If you can retrieve the other gun safely, do that. We’ll be there soon. Are you hurt?”
“No,” I whisper.
There’s a silence. When he speaks again, some of that earlier deadliness is threaded through the tenderness of his voice. “I want you to move now, like I told you. Come back on and let me know when you’re in position.”
I move to a corner, picking up the other gun on the way. Standing up seems like too much effort, so I crouch down, setting down the mostly-depleted gun and holding the full one. The phone lifts to my ear in slow motion. “Here.”
“I’m gonna stay on the phone with you until we get there. Just a few minutes more, babe. I want you to keep talking to me, okay?”
“‘Kay.” My teeth are chattering from the cold.
He keeps asking me questions, r
epeating them if I don’t answer right away. I understand, at some level, that I’m in shock, that he’s keeping me conscious and anchored to reality. Whoever is driving will be going fast, crazy fast, racing out into the countryside.
At some point, I space out. The hand holding the phone can’t hold it up anymore. I’m still crouched in the corner, staring blankly at nothing, when they find me.
“Bree.” Lando sweeps me into his arms after gently relieving me of the phone and the gun. “Brianna. I’m here.”
“Lando.” I burrow into him, shivering violently. “So cold.”
“We’ll get you warm, baby.” Someone wraps a blanket around me, tucking it in close, and Lando hurries toward an SUV with its engine running. He climbs into the back; voices confer outside, and then someone else climbs into the front and the SUV takes off.
“I thought I’d lost you.” His voice is raw.
“Thought I’d … lost you … too.”
“I’m here. We’re here.” He touches his lips to my hair. “I love you, Bree.”
“Lando.” I’m pressed as close to him as I can get, and it’s still not enough. “Not … just … a fuck buddy.”
“No, baby. I’m not.”
“Love you too.”
“That’s good.” His arms tighten around me. “Means I don’t have to stalk you.”
My lips form a trembling smile. “Smartass,” I whisper.
“There’s my Red. Hang on, babe.”
The SUV speeds on through the night, but my heart is already warm.
Epilogue
“Lando, we’ll be late for Thanksgiving dinner.”
“No one will mind.”
We’re standing in front of the bureau mirror in Lando’s bedroom. I’m in my new dress, a burnished copper shade that goes great with my coloring. Lando’s behind me in his best suit, his eyes dark. His hand is sliding up under my dress and inside my fancy new lingerie.
He cups me, then parts my folds. “So wet for me.” His finger presses inside me, stroking slowly.
“Lando.” My head goes back against his chest, my heart thudding as my blood thickens. I can’t deny him anything since that day — not that I ever could.
Our sex life has intensified, which I wouldn’t have thought possible. Lando has mastered the art of the satisfying quickie; he’s learned my body so well that he can get me off in no time.
When we’re not in a hurry, though — oh, the things he does. For hours. His quickies are amazing, but his slow burn is even better.
He nibbles the side of my neck. “Go up now, Brianna.” His thumb circles my clit; pleasure swirls through me, my hips starting to move in instinctive response, inviting him deeper. “Who do you belong to?”
“You.” My voice comes out soft, dreamy, husky.
“Who do I belong to?”
I smile. “Me.”
Lando seals his mouth to mine, his free hand working his zipper, working my dress up, tugging my panties aside. His cock nudges at my entrance, then slides slowly inside. He holds my dress up in the front, so we can watch him touching me.
Within seconds, my breath hitches. “Lando.”
“You gonna come for me like a good girl?”
“Yes.” I tighten around him in preparation, and he growls softly.
“That’s it. Take my cock, babe, all of it in your perfect pussy.”
I’m whimpering with every stroke now, so close already. Lando speeds up a little as the urgency starts to ride us, his fingers stroking directly over my clit. My head goes back, he pinches my clit, and I clamp around him like a vise as the climax crashes through me.
“That’s my girl. I love you, Brianna Callahan.”
I smile at him, languid, sated, my heart overflowing. I’m still not used to him telling me; maybe I never will be. “I love you, Lando Adamo.”
“I know you do.” He kisses me again, slowly and thoroughly. “We better get cleaned up; we don’t want to be late.”
I grin at him in the mirror. “Brat.”
He just smiles and pats my ass.
The Adamo clan is too big for everyone to eat together in one place, so special occasions like Thanksgiving and Christmas are hosted at multiple locations. This year, someone not-so-subtly suggested that Jade, Quinn, and I each attend separate dinners. We said no, but did promise to make pies for anyone who wanted them.
This meant we had to tell all our customers to get their orders in early, so we could spend the whole day before Thanksgiving just making Adamo pies. Quinn had a lot of requests for her vanilla spice ice cream, too, so we made a bunch of that.
The Callahans are therefore well represented at all the various Adamo gatherings today, even though we’re all attending the dinner that Kosta and Erin are hosting. One of the reasons we’re eating at their home is that Kosta, who used to run a nightclub and sometimes came up against some shady characters, has excellent security.
That’s the only real damper on the holiday season: we have to stay on high alert because of Bruno Santiago. We didn’t need another special visit from the mystery Adamo — who, I’ve now learned, is Lando’s cousin Matteo — to tell us that Santiago would be furious that we’d thwarted him yet again.
Until he’s no longer a threat, we have to assume he could come after any of us at any time. Some of the Adamo men have been reluctantly talked down from what Romero calls “extrajudicial remedies.” Maybe it makes me a bad person, but I can’t get too worked up about the notion of Santiago meeting some rough justice.
For now, though, we’re playing it straight, giving the system a chance to do its work and bring Santiago down legally. In the meantime, special security protocols have been issued for the whole huge family, even the many Adamos who have nothing to do with the Santiago feud.
It sucks, but it’s for the best in the long run. At least, that’s what I tell myself. Only Lando knows that sometimes I have dreams where I kill Santiago in numerous gruesome ways.
He understands. After that night, when I was released from the hospital, he talked me into seeing a therapist to work through everything that had happened. I’m glad he did. I don’t have any regrets, but I would much rather shoot paper targets than human beings.
Kosta and Erin’s home is sleek and modern, but still manages to be warm and welcoming. All the cousins who were at the diner that night are here, plus Kosta’s parents, and his brother Carmen, and sister Dani, and her husband, a man called Wolf Calhoun.
Now that we’re here, everyone laughing and talking and eating, it’s easy to relax and forget about everything that’s happened, and might yet happen. Until Kosta’s mother, Paola, suggests that everyone say what they’re thankful for. That turns the mood, not dark, but definitely serious. Some of the responses are lighthearted; most of them are poignant.
Then it’s Lando’s turn.
He puts his arm around me. “I don’t think I need to say a lot about what I’m thankful for this year. I count myself the luckiest man on the planet, in every way imaginable.”
I blink back tears as everyone murmurs their approval and he slides his nose against mine. “Since your and Quinn’s birthday party was interrupted, I didn’t get to finish giving you your present.” He hands me an envelope.
Inside is a card decorated with every kind of transportation imaginable. The inside reads simply, in Lando’s distinctive writing, “Wherever your heart desires.”
“I don’t want you to give up your dreams, Brianna,” he says. “I want to help you make them come true.”
There’s no holding back the flood of tears. I fling my arms around him and blubber, “I’d go anywhere with you.”
“Thank you, babe. How about church?”
I draw back to stare at him, baffled. “Church?” Then I see the velvet box in his hand, and the diamond ring nestled inside. “Oh my god. Oh my god oh my god oh my god!”
“Is that a yes?”
Overcome, I stick my hand out, and Lando takes the ring and poises it next to my finger. “Bri
anna Rose Callahan, will you be my wife?”
“What’s your middle name, dammit?” I cry.
A gentle ripple of laughter flows around the table. Lando smiles his beautiful smile. “Andino.”
“Lando Andino Adamo, I will be your wife. And I will love you for all the days to come, forever and ever. Amen.”
His eyes stormy with emotion, he slides the ring on, then crushes me to him in a kiss that turns me inside out. Dimly, I hear the others applauding, cheering, whistling.
I open my eyes in time to see Quinn slip quietly away from the table, a plate heaped with Thanksgiving dinner in her hand. Intuition makes me look away as she sneaks out the back of the house. I don’t know if he’s out there, or she just hopes he is, but I’ll protect her privacy as far as I can.
I’ve yet to lay eyes on him, this Adamo who seems, from what Quinn tells me, far more wild than tame, even compared to his alpha male cousins. Quinn has almost mystical powers of tranquility, but I don’t know if that’s enough. I hope she isn’t heading for heartache.
Still, I just got engaged to the world’s best fuck buddy. Anything is possible.
When Brianna’s sister goes outside with her plate of food, I check my phones — both of them — just to be sure.
No messages.
If Matteo wants me, he knows how to reach me. I’m not sure there’s anything left to say at this point anyway. The battle lines have been drawn; Santiago’s going down, one way or another.
But none of us wants to take him out in a way that will leave Matteo exposed.
After Bree’s abduction, Romero and I met with a very small group of our cousins and filled them in on Matteo’s clandestine visits. All we know for sure is that he’s mixed up with Santiago somehow … but still trying to do the right thing. So far.
Like I said to Matteo at Tonio’s house, he’s family, and he always will be. So we have twin priorities: finish Santiago in a way that ensures he won’t ever threaten us again, and bring Matteo in out of the cold.
Even if he doesn’t want to come.