by Zara Cox
Despite knowing the cruelty that Finnan was capable of, the sheer amount of blood on his hands is shocking. But I also feel guilty relief that Axel wasn’t involved. “But how are you going to make him? He’s dangerous, Axel.”
His small smile chills me to the bone. “I said I wasn’t there when it happened. But I was there directly after. I have everything I need to end him with what he did at Taranahar.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
His face closes completely, a mask of desolation overtaking every other emotion. “Because dismantling his operations with the Bratva and the Armenians isn’t enough. He needs to pay for everything.”
“What—?”
“I’ve told you about Taranahar,” he slices across me, one hand coming up to hold my chin steady. “Tell me why.”
I can’t tell him everything, not until I’m sure my mother will be safe from him. So I tell him the fraction of the horror that I can.
“When we went to Boston, he found out my father put a six-million-dollar trust fund in my name which I could access on my twenty-fifth birthday. If I waited, it would double on my thirtieth birthday. He wants the twelve million, and he’s been…blackmailing me since to keep me in line.”
Axel’s face is a mask of unadulterated rage. “Jesus…” His voice trails off then he tenses as if he’s been knifed. “How has he been keeping you in line?”
“Axel—”
“How?”
I would’ve been less afraid if he yelled out the word. The deadly cadence of his voice is chillingly terrifying.
“With…videos.”
His face loses all color. “What videos?”
He doesn’t know your mother survived.
My whole body is caught in a trembling I can’t stop. “Videos that show his guards threatening people. There was one of…you. He had two of his bodyguards film while you were asleep. One had a baseball bat. The other held a vial of heroin. I was told to cooperate or he’ll have you beaten and then injected—” I stop, shuddering.
Axel’s lips are white with fury. “I get the idea. How many more were there?”
“Dozens. Of people I knew, people I didn’t know. Some of them he actually hurt when things didn’t go his way.”
Axel rolls off me and launches to his feet. He paces the side of the bed, his body bristling with rage. I sit up and pull the sheet up over myself.
He stops abruptly, his face set in a painful grimace. “So all the times I sent you back empty-handed from the club?”
My gaze drops to my twisting fingers.
He paces to the side of the bed, his powerful body crowding me as he raises my chin and reads the answer on my face.
“Fuck!” He shoves his fingers through his hair and resumes pacing, his body growing more agitated until he stops.
When he starts to move toward me, there’s a rabid look in his eyes that I want to recoil from. But there’s also a ragged pleading that holds me in place.
His lips are bloodless white. They move for a few seconds before the words form. “You slept with him. I know you did. But…was it of your own free will?”
Shock plows through me. “You know? How?”
Gray eyes turned black and endlessly volatile pin me to the bed. “He sent me a video too.”
My hand flies to my mouth. “No! Oh God…oh God, no…” My skin prickles with a thousand darts of shame and horror.
“Did he…did he force himself on you?”
My head feels heavy when I move it. “Yes. A week after my eighteenth birthday. Then a few more times…over the years,” I whisper.
He lifts trembling fists to his face, his knuckles digging into his eyes, his forehead. The roar that charges from his soul is one I’ll never forget. Whirling away from me, he lurches for the far wall, still cursing. Still shaking, caught in the deepest vortex of hell.
He drives his fist into the wall. Then again. And again.
Fear and concern drive me off the bed. “Axel, stop!”
But he’s locked into a cycle of pain and rage. He pounds the wall again. Drywall flies.
I approach, heart in mouth. Lay a trembling hand on his back. “Axel, please stop.”
He jerks around. Deranged eyes lock onto me then drop down my body to where Finnan’s assault has faded from sight but not from Axel’s mind. “I’m going to bury him. But not until I’ve ripped him into a million fucking pieces for everything he’s done to you.”
What about what you did?
“Jesus, I fucking hated you for so long…” He says the words almost to himself, but they zap through me like an electrocution.
I stumble back a step. Then another. “You…hated me?”
“In the video, you looked like you were enjoying it. You were making these…sounds.” He stops and shudders.
“He took longer if I didn’t—” Nausea punches up my windpipe and swallows my words. I turn and run for the bathroom, barely making it before I hurl. He’s there, holding my hair out of the way. Caring for me. Loving me. Hating me. Oh God.
I bat his hands out of the way and stagger to the sink. I don’t have a toothbrush so I rinse my mouth half a dozen times. He’s there, dabbing my mouth with a damp cloth. Moving closer. Sliding his arm around me.
“Cleo—”
“You hated me.” I can’t get past that.
His chest rises and falls. “I hated you. And I loved you. I couldn’t stop. It fucking tore me apart, knowing I couldn’t turn it off. That it was taking over my life. Wanting you. Needing you. Craving you every single moment of every day. Knowing that no matter what hell hole I ended up in or how hard I worked to add more fucking zeros to my bank account, I could never close my eyes without wishing you were next to me. That I could hear you breathe. Hear you laugh. Make you scream with fucking ecstasy.”
My heart lurches. I pull away and look into his eyes. “You…love me?”
“I love you, Cleo. I never stopped loving you.”
A part of me is shrieking with happiness. The other part is curling up in a ball of agony. “You love me.”
“I love you,” he repeats, his voice pure and deep and strong. “So much. From the moment we met, every breath I’ve taken is for you. I’ll lay down my life for you, Cleo, because it’s worth nothing without you.” He steps closer, his not-quite-steady hands reaching for me.
And that’s when I see it. The ripped flesh on his knuckles. The blood seeping from it, coating his hand.
His blood.
My father’s blood.
He pulls me into his body, wraps his arms tight around me.
Staining me with the blood.
“I love you.”
Then why? I want to scream.
So much emotion. Too much violence. So much…everything. The sob tears out of me without warning. The dam bursts and I can’t stop.
“Christ, don’t cry. Please don’t cry.” Axel rains urgent kisses down my face, my neck, my mouth, his hoarse pleading doing nothing to stop the torrent and torment that gush out of me.
I faintly register when he picks me up and walks to the tub. The sound of powerful jets fills the room. Then he’s placing me in the warm, scented water. He slides in behind and cradles me in his arms.
My sobs subside when I have nothing more to give. Drained, I let him wash me. When he’s done, he just folds his arms around me, cocooning me in warmth.
In heaven and hell.
“I love you,” he whispers fervently in my ear, kissing my hair, my jaw.
My heart kicks. Hard. Wanting to break the last, monumental shackle holding it. Falling back down when it can’t.
And because I’m spent, because my world can’t get any more desolate, I lay my head on his shoulder.
An eternity later, we leave the bath. Dry and clean, we return to a bedroom that looks the same but also so much different.
Once again, he pulls me into his arms. Once again, I go. It’s where I fall asleep. Where I dream the dream of the damned.
Wher
e I wake up to find his adoring eyes on me, his hands running down my body. Where I can express myself physically in a way I can’t with words. When he slides inside me, fresh tears fill my eyes.
He brushes them away with his thumbs. “It’s okay, baby. I know you can’t love me because of what I am. But I swear, if you can bear me to love you, to worship you, that’ll be enough for me.”
“Oh God…Axel.”
He places a soft kiss on my mouth. “Shh, just let me love you.”
And because I’m weak, because the love I shouldn’t feel for him burns just as strong, I let him.
* * *
One week slides into the next.
With the Bratva, the Armenians and the Albanians on board, it doesn’t take much more for Axel to gain support in his campaign to isolate Finnan from every ally he can rely on, on the mob side of things. With the help of his brothers, he manages to pull the wool over his father’s eyes. We remain on tenterhooks, knowing the hold won’t last. Finnan is too shrewd to be fooled for too long.
Twice, I go with Axel to meet with Finnan’s lawyers, and I’m stunned by his ability to calmly reassure and strategize while seething with deadly rage.
Even though Axel refused to let me into the room, I insisted on attending the meetings. I needed to see Finnan, to reassure myself that he believed I was playing the game too. Each time, his smugness reassured me that the ruse was working, that my mother was safe. For the time being.
But while Axel plots, I also make plans to move my mother. Now that I know the extent of Finnan’s sins at Taranahar, I know he’s preoccupied with saving his own skin. It’s not an easy decision, but I risk calling my father’s attorney and requesting the money I need to act when the times comes. Someday soon, Finnan will come face-to-face with the force of his son’s vengeance. I can’t afford for my mother to be caught in the crosshairs of their war.
Her doctors disagree with me, of course. Nevertheless, I quietly put them on standby and make arrangements with a private facility in Pennsylvania.
And I just…exist.
Axel’s stunning penthouse is my sanctuary and my hell. It’s where I’m saturated in his love and mourn my inability to embrace it.
I remain at the penthouse when he goes out. It’s an easy choice given his concern for my safety and my own desire to stay put. A not-so-easy choice was finding a way to get through the hours without driving myself over the edge.
Because with time on my hands and the threat of Finnan temporarily held at bay, my brain gains the audacity to plot a future. A future I’ve never contemplated.
A future where I might learn to accept a killer as the love of my life? Possibly the father of my children?
For the hundredth time, I push the thoughts away. But they return, stronger than ever.
When my phone beeps, I jump on it. It’s a text from Axel.
Need to escape this madness. Lunch?
My fingers tap out a Yes before I take my next breath.
Great. See you in half an hour. Wear the yellow sundress.
The irony of distracting myself with the same man who dominates my thoughts isn’t lost on me as I quickly shower.
By the time Axel walks through the door a whole ten minutes early, I’m ready and waiting.
He gives me the once-over, from my carelessly knotted updo, to the strapless heels complimenting my dress. Striding over, he catches me in his arms. His mouth trails kisses along the curve of my shoulder before he breathes me in. “You look breathtaking, baby. Although I was hoping to catch you just out of the shower.” His hands mold my ass, and he uses the leverage to yank me into him. He’s hard and ready to go.
My body revs to attention, a slave to its need. With no shame, I melt into him.
He groans and pulls away. “I’d love nothing better than to fuck you right now. But our ride is waiting.”
Catching my hand in his, he kisses my knuckles and walks me to the door. When we reach the elevator, he hits the button for the roof.
“I thought you said our ride was waiting.”
He smile is devastating enough to make me lose vital brain cells. “It is,” is all he says before he pulls out a pair of stylish aviator glasses and slides them on.
We exit into the hot late-July sunshine and onto a roof on which perches the sleekest helicopter I’ve ever seen. Black with gold trim, the gleaming machine is even sexier than Axel’s McLaren Spider. And that car is sexy.
The pilot spots us heading over, and the rotors begin to spin.
Axel helps me in and secures my headgear before he sees to his own.
When the aircraft lifts and I gasp, Axel grabs my hand. “Shit, I didn’t ask. You’re not afraid of flying, are you?”
I’m a little startled to hear his voice directly in my ear. When my gaze snaps to him, he points to the tiny mic attached to the headset.
“I…don’t think so. I’ve only been on a plane three times.”
He works it out, and his mouth flattens. “Connecticut to Boston?”
I nod.
“So you’ve never been out of the country,” he says.
“No.”
His face turns grim, but he squeezes my hand. “When this is over, we’ll go on a world tour of my clubs. You’ll enjoy Rio. And Paris. I’ll fuck you in my ice hotel in Helsinki,” he murmurs into the mic.
He laughs when I blush, but I turn away. The future plans I’m trying to run away from come screaming back, but luckily, the banking chopper scatters my thoughts when my stomach dips alarmingly with it.
My fingers tighten around Axel’s. He leans over and puts his arm around me.
“You didn’t say where we were going.”
His lips graze my temple. “I have a place in the Hamptons. And a chef on standby to feed us. I also have a pool where I intend to get you very naked and very wet after lunch.”
He keeps that promise an hour after the chef and staff are dismissed. In no time, my dress is discarded in one of the multiple rooms in the stunning three-story beach house that could easily feature in Architectural Digest. My hair falls down around my face as he scoops me up and strikes a steady path for the gleaming pool.
He allows me exactly one lap of swimming before he lays me out on the double-wide cabana-style lounger and proceeds to blow my mind. After three toe-curling orgasms, we doze in the shade.
I wake up first, a first in itself. Beside me, Axel’s chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm, his face a little relaxed in sleep but no less ferociously dominant. My gaze drifts over his straight nose, sculpted cheekbones, the stubble on his jaw.
God, he’s beautiful. So beautiful it hurts my heart just to look at him. I stare until I can’t breathe. Until I have to tear my gaze away to stop myself from sobbing out the sorrow in my heart.
Shifting in his arms, I look beyond the pool to the private beach below. This time it isn’t the future that haunts me but the past.
A similar beach. A girl who dared to dream of forever.
Of fairy-tale weddings.
Of bare feet and fat bellies.
Of plump, happy babies who grow up in the image of their father.
Babies.
Babies…
Oh shit.
Chapter Thirty-One
IT BEATS. IT BLEEDS.
Axel
I should give her time.
I should keep my promise and let it be.
I should be thankful that my heart is beating again because of her.
That I get to cradle her in my arms every night.
But I see the terror in her eyes even when she’s letting me love her.
And Christ, it hurts.
My heart started beating again only to bleed to death.
She doesn’t love me.
I have to live with that.
But.
Fuck.
How?
Chapter Thirty-Two
PITTER PATTER
Cleo
Open the door, Cleo.”
Oh God.
Oh God.
Oh God.
Burying my head in the sand for two weeks after the Hamptons didn’t work. Sur-fucking-prise. I hold the three pregnancy tests in my wildly trembling hand. Each one happily states I’m 3+ weeks pregnant.
“Cleo, dammit, open the door!”
I’m pregnant.
Oh God.
My mind skates sideways, backward and forward.
The volatile cocktail of terror and joy and anguish surge through my blood. Hysteria bubbles up to fight with the tears clogging my throat.
I’ll never be able to tell this child a cute little story of where he or she was conceived.
On the roof of your father’s sports car in the middle of the forest where I thought he meant to harm me doesn’t sound great.
In a replica childhood bedroom I staged in a punishment club sounds even worse.
“Talk to me, Cleo. Right fucking now or I’m kicking this door in.”
“I’m…okay,” I call out.
“Try that again. To my face. Once you open this door. You have ten seconds.” The menacing power in his voice sends another shiver through me.
Even if I want to, there’s no way I can hide this from him.
But I’m not ready to deal with…any of it.
“I’ll be out in a minute.”
“No, baby. You’ll come out now. Rushing past me and locking yourself in the bathroom the minute you get back from lunch with B doesn’t fill me with elation. In fact, it scares the living shit out of me. So…two fucking seconds.”
I stagger to my feet, the tests clutched tightly in my fists. My legs feel like lead, my heart a rusty pump that barely functions. I’m about to tell my father’s killer that I carry his child. Another golden nugget I’ll never be able to relive with this child.
The moment I turn the lock, he pushes it open. Eyes ablaze with savage intent and dizzying worry meet mine. Rake my face. See my terror.
He exhales harshly as he grabs my shoulders. “Jesus. Baby, what’s wrong? Did something happen at lunch?”
I shake my head numbly.
“Then what? Are you sick? I’ll call the doctor—”