Trouble: (A Bad Boy Mafia Romance) (Made & Broken Book 3)

by Nora Ash

  “Ah. Yes.” I sighed melodramatically and let the blade of my knife dance across my knuckles. “You always did envy us, didn’t you? Sucking up to my father so much and yet you always knew… you’ll never be a Steel, no matter how many of us you kill. I appreciate that you’re in a bit of a tough spot, so I’ll give you a couple of hours to mull our offer over: Do you give up dad, or do you give up the only person who actually truly loves you? Because make no mistake, Wesley—William Steel does not love you. He is incapable of love.”

  Without waiting for him to answer I stepped behind him and undid the bindings that tied him to the chair, but kept the duct tape tying his wrists together in place.

  “Where are you taking me?” he demanded as I poked him in the back with the very tip of the knife, ushering him toward the door.

  “Out for a little late-night excursion. You put a bullet in my twin, so I’m afraid that means you’re gonna have to help with the digging.”

  Liam drove. Despite his wounded arm, he assured me he could drive just fine, and to be honest I’d have rather had him by the wheel than in charge of our hostage anyway. Wesley was a big guy who’d been trained by the same men me and my brothers had—if he spotted a weakness, he’d go for it. So I spent the car ride to Highgate Cemetery in the backseat with a gun aimed at him.

  Unfortunately for me, I could still catch glimpses in the rearview mirror of the small looks of adoration Liam shot Audrey’s way. When she put her hand briefly on his while he was changing gears, it took all my willpower not to look away from Wesley so I could no longer see them in my periphery.

  The image from when I’d walked Wesley into the shitty safe house to find Audrey on the couch with Liam was seared into my brain. She’d told him she loved him. And I’d believed her.

  It wasn’t so much the words themselves as it was they way she’d said them—the absolute desperation on her face when she’d thought he might die.

  Yeah, she loved him. She loved him like you’d love your soulmate. Like I loved her.

  She’d made her choice, even if she hadn’t fully acknowledged it yet.

  I fought against the black chasm of despair opening up like a gaping maw in my chest. I couldn’t wallow in my own misery—not now. She might have chosen my twin, but I still loved her until it ached. And I loved him—and Isaac and Marcus and Blaine. I needed them all to be safe, and until they were, I couldn’t dwell on the hollow pit of agony where my heart had once been.

  As savvy as Audrey was with the business side of the mafia, she still needed quite a bit of training on the physical aspects. I caught myself thinking of which fighting styles would be best to teach her so she could defend herself while I pushed her delectable round arse over the cemetery’s high fence. Without thinking, I let my fingers find the seam of her pants and brush up against the heat between her thighs.

  “Stop that, you bloody pervert!” Audrey hissed from her precarious perch atop the fence. With a glare in my direction, she pulled her leg up and then managed to slide down the other side without further help.

  The realization that I wouldn’t be the one to help her settle into life in our Family stabbed through my gut like a fucking icepick, and I forcefully shoved it aside before I scaled the fence myself.

  Not now.

  The cemetery was pitch black, save for the light from the London skyline faintly illuminating the edges of the old graveyard. Liam switched on his flashlight and we began walking the familiar path to our mother’s grave.

  I’d been here plenty over the years. Leaving flowers. Asking for guidance.

  We’d been very young when she was killed, but I still remembered her funeral as if it was yesterday. It’d been the worst day of my life.

  Anger boiled in my gut at the knowledge that our own father was the reason she was gone. He’d murdered the woman he’d proclaimed to love, the only person who’d ever looked out for us, all to preserve his power. His fucking power. It was all that’d ever mattered to him, in the end.

  Everything for Family. What a load of shit. The woman who’d given her life to try and save us from his violence had proven a far stronger portrayer of our family motto than the man who’d beaten it into us every day of our lives.

  We walked through the graveyard in silence, Liam’s flashlight illuminating the gravel path and the old trees lining it. Even that prick Wesley was quiet, though I wasn’t sure if it was out of respect for where we were going, or because he was scheming up some plan to try and escape. Probably the latter. I poked him in the back with the barrel of the gun to remind him what’d happen if he got any ideas.

  “It’s here,” Liam said softly, more to Audrey than to me, as he stopped in front of an achingly familiar slab of marble. I could recognize that tombstone anywhere.

  “Eleonore Steel,” she read from the stone. She didn’t speak the next words out loud, but I could see her mouthing them out to herself in the cone of light from the flashlight. Mother and wife. Forever missed, never forgotten. With love, we say goodbye. With love, we will reunite.

  “She died so young,” Audrey whispered. With an anger that surprised me, she turned to glare at Wesley. “How can you work for a monster who killed the mother of his own children?”

  “She was weak. She betrayed the Family,” Wesley said, his voice as cold and detached as ever.

  “To save her kids. Are you telling me you won’t do anything you can to save the ones you love?” She looked him up and down, contempt clear on her face at his unmoving features. “I pity you. And whoever you’ve told your heart belongs to. Clearly you have nothing to give them but hatred.”

  “Big words for a woman who so easily threatens an innocent just to get her way,” Wesley hissed. “You think spreading your thighs for these two pricks means you know anything about their Family? About love? You will never be more than second best. You will never mean as much to them as their own flesh and blood.”

  “That’s enough.” Liam pulled his knife and sliced through Wesley’s bindings before shoving a shovel into his hands. “Dig.”

  Wesley stared from the shovel to the grave, then back to Liam. “You’re not serious?”

  “Deadly.” Liam stared unblinkingly at him.

  “I thought you were supposed to have canonized the woman, and now you want to dig up her grave?”

  I’d never thought Wesley had any limits with the despicable shit he’d do, but apparently, grave robbing was over the line even for him.

  “We’re doing this because we loved her, you twat. Maybe she didn’t die for nothing after all. Now get digging—I ain’t telling you again.” I cocked the gun in warning.

  It took Wesley and I a good hour before I finally hit something hard with my shovel. I froze for a second when the metal scraped over something decidedly wood-like, but quickly realized we weren’t deep enough down to have reached the casket. I sucked in a breath of relief. As much as I wanted to believe that whatever Isaac had hidden away would somehow justify losing our mother, I didn’t want to come face to face with her casket. The day they’d lowered it into the ground had been more than enough for me.

  “Whatcha got?” Liam asked, leaning over the edge of the grave to peer into the shallow hole we’d dug out.

  “Looks like a wooden box of some sort,” I said, bending to pick it up.

  It was indeed a wooden box. Varnished but undecorated, just slightly larger than an A4 sheet of paper, and maybe six inches tall. I bent to pick it up and brushed the caked dirt off its lid. “I think this is it.”

  I handed it to Liam, and he flicked the lid open and grunted in confirmation at whatever was inside. “Looks like it.”

  “Put it in the car,” I instructed, turning back to Wesley with a grim expression. “We’ll need to get this filled as quickly as possible.”

  Liam handed his flashlight—and, very demonstratively, his gun—to Audrey, leaving us with the clean up. I had my own weapon at hand, but knowing Wesley, it was good if he knew there was more than one gun aimed in hi
s general direction. I didn’t know if Audrey had ever held a gun before in her life, but as long as Wesley thought she might have a chance of shooting him before he could overpower me, we’d be good.

  Whether it was due to Audrey’s watchful eye or not, he didn’t try anything, and we got the grave filled back up and smoothed over quicker than we’d dug it. There wasn’t much to do about the bare soil where lush grass had grown until tonight, but I made a silent promise to Mum that I’d come back with some grass seeds and fertilizer once we’d sorted out Dad. And roses. She’d loved roses, Marcus had once said, so those had been my flowers of choice when I came to visit her grave.

  “What’s keeping Liam?” Audrey’s voice pulled my attention to her. She was looking back in the direction we’d come, a note of worry in her voice.

  I glanced at my wristwatch and cussed. It’d been more than half an hour. He should have well been back by now.

  “Come on, best go ch—” It was only the faint flicker of movement I caught out of the corner of my eye that made me move to the side just in time for Wesley’s shovel to impact with my shoulder and neck instead of my skull.

  I crashed to the ground with a grunt, pain exploding through my body from the impact. He’d put all his weight into that swing—if I hadn’t moved just then, I’d be dead, my skull cracked like a grape on the ground.

  As it was, I was pretty sure my shoulder was broken. I gritted my teeth against the nauseating wave of pain and looked up just in time to see Audrey take aim and fire.

  The bullet went way wide, chipping a small piece of the marble tombstone.

  “Nice fucking try,” Wesley snarled. He swung the shovel again, smacking the weapon out of her hand and sending it and the flashlight flying in between the graves. A metallic smack followed by complete darkness announced the flashlight’s death; murder by tombstone.

  “Audrey,” I gasped. “Run!”

  She obeyed—thank the stars above, she obeyed. But my relief at the sound of her hurried footfalls disappearing off toward the gate was quickly interrupted when Wesley’s shovel smacked down full-force on the ground right next to my head.

  I rolled, grunting from the pain in my broken shoulder, and kicked into the darkness. My foot connected with something solid, and Wesley huffed as I swiped his ankles from underneath him, sending him crashing to the ground. I tried to get on top of him, but was too hindered by my shoulder to make it before the large man had recovered. Too late I went for my gun, but Wesley beat me to it. He ripped the weapon from my belt and I heard the click of the safety being uncocked.

  Cussing, I rolled again, cringing when I landed on my broken shoulder, but it was just in time.

  A shot rang through the night, so close to my head it was deafening, but he didn’t hit me. I scrambled to my feet, narrowly avoiding the second shot, and threw myself further in between the graves.

  Wesley shot one more time, but this one was wide off. He didn’t know where I was hiding, and in the darkness, it’d be impossible for him to tell. I heard him swear under his breath when he realized, but my momentary relief came to a dead halt when the sound of his feet hit the gravel, and he set into a jog. In the same direction Audrey had disappeared.

  My heart gave a spasm as cold dread filled my lungs. Oh, no. No, no, no.

  I didn’t think—didn’t care that my shoulder was screaming in agony as I scrambled to my feet. All I cared about just then was that an armed man, an enemy, was chasing down the woman I loved.

  As soon as I took a step forward to run after them, my foot hit something metallic. “Thank fuck,” I whispered into the night air as I bent and let my fingers close around the familiar handle of Liam’s gun. It was the same model as my own. I didn’t bother putting it away as I took up chase after Wesley, biting down on the pain when every step sent jolts of agony shooting through my shoulder.

  The further I ran without seeing any of them, the more my anxiety gnawed at my gut. Where was Liam? He didn’t have a gun to defend Audrey with, but I knew she’d still be infinitely safer with him than on her own.

  Fuck, if only—

  My thoughts came to an abrupt halt when I rounded the final corner before the gates next to the fence we’d climbed. They were open, but that wasn’t what made icy fear freeze every muscle in my body. I came to a stumbling standstill as I stared at the people illuminated by the single street light outside the cemetery.

  A dozen men stood on the other side of the gates. One of them held Liam with an arm twisted up behind his back, a gun pointing at his temple. Audrey stood close by him, but the person holding a gun to her head was my father. By his side, Wesley stood with the smuggest look as he stared me down, and I wished I’d killed him when I’d had the chance. Everything inside of me itched to put a bullet in his brain. I’d never wanted to kill someone so badly before.

  “Just in time.” My father’s cold voice rang through the quietude, sending sharp spikes of fear through my body. “But you two were always my dependable sons, weren’t you?”

  He had them both. The two people I loved more than anything else… he had them. The man who’d had his own wife and child murdered in cold blood.

  I looked across his row of men and knew I could do nothing against them all. Even if my father didn’t have guns aimed at Audrey and Liam, there were just too many for me to take down. So I did the only thing I could. I raised my gun and aimed it straight at my father’s head.

  He laughed. A short, disparaging bark, and then he yanked Audrey’s head backward by her hair, displaying her vulnerable throat.

  “You’ve got some balls, son, I’ll give you that,” he sneered. “Wanna see if you can press the trigger before your twin and the girl are dead on the ground?”

  “You won’t hurt them.” I knew I sounded much more self-assured than I felt.

  “No?” My father cocked his head at me. “It seems to me you have been conspiring with your brothers to take me down. Involving low-lifes like the Perkinsons in Family affairs… And this little tart, whoever the fuck she is. And now here you are, waving a gun in my face. Tell me again why I shouldn’t kill them both? Maybe you and your brothers will fall in line when they get some concrete proof of what exactly happens to anyone who crosses William Steel.”

  “Like you killed Mum? And Jeremy?” I bit back. “You betrayed your own blood. I think you’ve more than proven how little you can be trusted.” I turned my attention to his men. “You hear that? He killed his own wife and child. You think he’d hesitate to kill you? Or your families?”

  “Don’t bother. Unlike my own ungrateful offspring, they understand the meaning of loyalty. Your mother was a traitor. And I guess what they say is true—if there’s something wrong with the bitch, there’ll be something wrong with the pups. I should have killed you all when I learned the truth about her.”

  I dared a glance at his men, and on their faces I saw the truth. They might be scared my father would turn on them, but that was exactly what kept them in line. No one would help me save my twin or my love. So there was only one thing left for me to do.

  “Take me instead. If you let them go, I will come with you willingly. You can do what you want with me—make me an example for the whole city. I’ll do whatever you want me to, say whatever you want. And I won’t struggle when you execute me.”

  “Louis!” Audrey’s gasp was filled with terror.

  “How very noble,” my father spat. “Fine. I accept. Your life for theirs… as long as your twin promises compliance, now and forevermore.”

  “Louis, no! No fucking way!” Liam’s voice was furious, but when I looked at him, I saw the panic in his eyes.

  I lowered my gun until it hung limply by my side, not looking away from the man I’d shared my whole life with. Who meant everything to me, along with the woman who loved him, not me. “Yes. This is how it has to be. This way I get to die knowing the two people I love will find happiness together.”

  “How do you think we could ever be happy without you?” Liam
asked, and the first sliver of despair finally showed in his voice. He knew, too. He knew there was no other way now.

  “I know the love you share. I know because I feel it too. But she’s supposed to be yours, Liam, I understand that now. She was yours first, and she will always be yours first. So please. If you want my sacrifice to mean anything, concede to him. Accept his terms. And live a long life with her by your side. Maybe pop out some ginger babies and name one of them after me.” I tried to crack a smile, to show him everything was all right, but it was impossible. The absolute devastation I saw in my twin’s eyes was too real to wish away with a joke this time.

  “Louis, no! Louis, look at me!” Audrey sounded so desperate, and as much as I yearned to see her sweet face one last time, I knew I couldn’t or I’d lose my nerve. I wanted to be with her more than I wanted to breathe, but it wasn’t possible. And now, at least I could give her up knowing it would save them both.

  Slowly, with one final, lingering look, Liam nodded. Then he turned his gaze to our father. “I will follow your leadership, now and forevermore. If you let Louis give… give his life for Audrey’s and my own, I will be by your side and under your rule until I take my last breath.”

  38

  Liam

  “There is nothing we can do, love. He won.” I didn’t have the strength to look up from where I was sitting on the couch in the flat I’d shared with Louis, my head in my hands. Everything inside me was still numb. It’d been just over half an hour since my father’s men had escorted us here and taken up guard outside the building. Nothing’d been said, but I figured they’d be staying there until Louis was dead.

  Louis. A pang of raw pain made it through the numbness, but I viciously pressed it down. If I allowed myself to think his name, if I thought about what was going to happen, I’d never survive it. And I had to. For her.