by Lexi Whitlow
“Yeah.” I won’t deny it, not now. I can still feel her on my body, can still smell her. I crack my knuckles. I outweigh Cullen, but he’s strong and fucking quick. “And you have her aunt.”
“Conflict of interest I’d say, Jonny.”
“Not really. You let the woman go, and there’s no conflict.”
“You’re tied to this family in blood, Jonny. There’s no escaping it, not even for the lass.” Cullen leans in and whispers so his prisoner can’t hear. Cullen’s never scared me before—I outweigh him by fifty pounds of muscle, and his right leg is near useless from a knee-capping twenty years ago. But when it comes to the woman sitting over there—his ruthlessness hits home. He’s often spoken of Bianca as an old friend, letting her pay him late on loans and forgiving a light payment here and there. But with his campaign to take Hell’s Kitchen back for the Irish, it seems his memories aren’t as dear as they used to be.
“Cullen—” I start. I haven’t argued with the man before because he’s the boss. He’s told me what to do and where to be ever since I entered into my debt agreement with him. There’s no reward. There’s no raise. There’s just me not ending up dead behind the club.
“You think I didn’t know about you and the girl? I do. But when it comes to loyalty, you think only of the family. She and her aunt have crossed a line, and there’s no going back.”
I move my gaze to Bianca. She’s sitting in one of the antique Irish chairs, hands tied in front of her. She wears a haughty expression on her face like she’s a fine lady with better places to be.
She’s always made Cullen mad as fuck, since she’s from an old Irish family but would never bow to him like the others have. Maybe it’s because she was raised in the states. Maybe it’s because she and the boss had history, but he’s never laid a hand on her until now. She’s in a position she could easily escape from, but it’s a dominant move on Cullen’s part even if she doesn’t realize it. She’s not an old woman, but she’s slight and lean like Summer, and even a grizzled old bastard like Cullen could overpower her in an instant. I look at her and she regards me coolly, like Summer does each time she sees me. It’s like looking forward in time, seeing the woman that summer will become. It’s eerie, unnerving. My stomach churns. Even though I’ve never felt it before in our methodical takeover of every business in Hell’s Kitchen, guilt comes over me when I look at her. She wears a look like she’s sure Cullen is bluffing. But she’s a victim of a decades-old vendetta, and Cullen’s decided it’s come to a head.
“This isn’t necessary,” I growl, my body poised to strike like a coiled snake. But Cullen smiles that creepy Cheshire cat grin. Like a lot of things these days, it sends an emotion through me that I haven’t experienced in a long time—disgust. Like a shiver running through me, taking residence in my soul and refusing to let go. “The woman was just trying to run her fucking business, Cullen. Make an alliance—”
“Too late,” he says, still smiling. “Because of our friendship,” he says, speaking up so that Bianca can hear him. “I’ll spare her body for now. I know how effective a knee-capping can be. But right now isn’t the time for that.”
My stomach drops again. The last man whose kneecap I shot screamed and drooled and begged for his mother, alone in the dark alley behind the club. But there are even worse things—especially when Cullen knows your family.
“Our friendship—” Bianca sputters, her voice rusty and thick with emotion. “A friend wouldn’t keep me here away from my business, my family.” She emphasizes the last word, her eyes pleading. “That girl—that girl is all I’ve got. You don’t know what you’re doing—”
“Gag her,” he commands me. “I was mistaken not to do it in the first place.”
“Whatever you say, boss.”
I go to Bianca and do as he says. She struggles beneath my hands like a trapped mouse, looking up at me with sad, accusing green eyes. She struggles to get out of the gag, pushing her tongue against the white cotton, trying to say something, desperate and loud. Cullen goes up to her and takes her face in his hands, and Bianca stills for a moment.
“Cullen, Summer isn’t a part of this,” I tell him.
“She made herself a part of this when her aunt invited her to New York.” Cullen takes a knife from his pocket and flicks it open, holding it up to the side of Bianca’s face where he makes his customary “marks,” the ones that show every criminal in Hell’s Kitchen that this person belongs to Cullen. “Silly girl.” For a moment I think he’s talking about Summer, but his eyes are locked with Bianca’s. “You left New York twenty-six years ago, Bianca. You shouldn’t have come back if you didn’t want to play my game. I never thought it would come to this, but this is where we are. You owe me twenty thousand dollars, and Ash will take care of the little chickie while you get the opportunity to pay up.”
Bianca groans and says something through her gag that sounds like, “Why now?”
Cullen nods, contemplating. “Because I’m sick of your bullshit, Bianca. You couldn’t pay me this month, and I’m done playing your game when you should be playing mine.” He brings his knife across her cheek, and she inhales sharply, beads of blood forming along the slice. The cut is shallow and will fade far more quickly than the others I’ve seen Cullen give. It might not even leave a true scar, not the kind he favors. But the look on Bianca’s face shows what it means to her. Cullen looks back at me with his one blue eye and glares at me.
“Jonny, you take the girl to the safe house tomorrow. Keep her chained. B has a week to get her shit together, or we start with her fingers and work our way down. And don’t worry. We’ll make sure to get regular updates from you about how the girl is. You let her go, we kill her. Keep her with you, under your watch, and she and her aunt both live to see another day.”
I leave, and I drive back to Summer.
I’ll keep her under my watch, yes.
But it’ll be on my terms.
When Bianca is freed with the threat against her family, we can get her far, far away from this man.
And once Summer is my bride, she’ll be off limits.
Cullen can burn down Bianca’s pub or do whatever the fuck he wants. But Summer will be mine, and he’ll have to break his own prideful code to get at her or her family.
And that woman will belong to me.
Present Day
When I come to pick Summer up, she’s ghostly pale and nearly fucking shaking. I can see it even before I pull my car into the spot near the back. It’s either been a hard shift, or it has something to do with seeing her mother and that empty-ass inn.
Seeing her standing there takes me back in time to those strange weeks when I feared for Summer’s life and safety. She looks just as lost and vulnerable as she did then.
In reality though, she never needed me.
I’ve often imagined her standing up to Cullen, telling him to fuck off and leave her and her aunt alone.
She would have left without me breaking her heart.
Despite the fantasies I’ve held onto for years, I know that for sure. Summer was always headed somewhere, and I’m lucky that right now, I’m something she’s considering as part of her plan.
I walk up to her, sauntering, hand in one pocket. She sees me as some kind of asshole bad boy, someone who won’t live up to her standards. Not that I can say I blame her. For the first time in a while, I take stock of myself as I’m walking toward her.
Potentially dead end job? Check.
Still occasionally working for criminals? Check.
Covered in tattoos she probably doesn’t want her coworkers to see? Double check.
But I still keep walking. Acting on instinct, I pull her tight into my arms and kiss her cheek. For a second, she’s stiff and barely responds, but then I feel her hands snake around my neck. Before Summer, there were a hundred women, maybe more. A different one every night. But since I said “I do” in front of that stupid drunken priest, I’ve only been with one. I’ve doubted that decision in the y
ears I’ve been here, especially when the dumb fighting skanks would throw themselves at me after matches, but I pushed them all away.
Summer doesn’t know that. She probably thinks I’ve been manwhoring around like I did before I met her. Standing here, tangling my fingers through her hair and holding her, I think I should tell her. It rests on the tip of my tongue for a minute or more, but it’s not what I end up saying. Right now, this woman is aching with need—and it’s not the kind that’s satisfied in the bedroom.
“You okay, Sunshine? You don’t seem okay.” I’m used to sounding clipped and arrogant, because that’s everything I’ve been in the life I chose to lead after Summer. But when I talk to her, it’s different. It was that way in New York too, but I was always operating on instinct, not stopping to think what it meant.
Now I know what it means, even if she doesn’t.
She sobs and then cries, pulling on my neck. I know she thinks she doesn’t look pretty when she cries, but with her tears, humid against my shirt, and her hair, wild and messy and pulled up on top of her head, she looks vulnerable and young—and more than beautiful.
“I’m supposed to be divorcing you!” She yells it into my shirt, and just like always in front of this damn hospital, there are five or so people walking by and looking at us curiously. “Why the hell do you keep coming by when it just makes me—it just makes me—“
“Horny?” She pulls one arm away from my neck and backs away enough to punch me square in the chest. “You know, you’ve got one hell of a right hook. I’ve got a promoter looking for a good female fighter.” She punches me again and laughs, wiping her tears away. A piece of her hair falls out of the bun, just brushing the tops of her breasts. Even though her scrubs cover up those freckled orbs, I can’t help imagining what they look like now.
“You’re not supposed to come around here. You’re just supposed to sign papers and stop coming here and stop looking at me like that—”
“Like what?”
“You know how you’re looking at me.”
“Can’t help it. You’re the first pretty girl I’ve seen in three years.”
She rolls her eyes, but then she smiles, and it seems like the best smile I’ve ever seen. She barely smiled at our wedding, but that all happened fast. The honeymoon though—I remember those smiles. I think of what she looked like all the time. I take a piece of her hair and twirl it between my fingers.
“Seriously, Sunshine. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Stop calling me that.” She takes a step back, but it doesn’t look like she wants to, not really.
“Because you don’t like it?”
She just looks at me and doesn’t answer, crossing her arms over those spectacular breasts. “If you must know...” She raises an eyebrow like she’s not sure if she should let me in on any more of her life. But maybe I’m projecting. That’s what my sponsor always called it—projecting. Like I’m making up a little story about what she thinks. “My mom’s inn is fucked. She has to foreclose. Or declare bankruptcy. Or some shit like that. Maybe she could sell if she did it fast, but it seems like she didn’t think about that, at least not how she should have. And not when she should have.”
I bite my lip. “I thought you probably knew all that. But—”
“You knew? Did she tell you during one of your private conversations I just learned about?”
I give her a shrug. “I like Linda.”
“Jesus. ‘Linda.’” Summer makes a frustrated growling sound to show me just what she thinks of my using her mother’s actual name. In that moment, I get a brief flash of what she must have been like as a teenager. “If I had a few more months, I could dig up the money. I could do something.” She lets her arms hang down by her sides, listless. “We really ought to get the divorce...”
Not this again. I thought we were just about past this. But that’s not what she’s worried about, not really. I try not to let my chest get tight again, try not to let it get to me. It’s like there’s something that happened to her. And each time something bad happens, she comes back to this idea that I don’t fit into her life.
I cross my arms and study her face. “We will.” I pause, sucking in my breath. After years of thinking about this, that’s not something I could possibly do. “If that’s what you want after the separation. But I don’t think that’s what you were talking about—”
“I was talking about that first. And then my mom. She’s really not your concern, Jonathan.” Her words are sharp, but her tone isn’t. Instead, her voice sounds raspy and angry all at once, like she’s about to break.
“I used to hate that name. It was my dad’s name.” The one who trained me to fight and gamble. The one who put us all in debt to Cullen and his sickening group of cronies. She cocks her head to the side and chews on that information, though maybe she’s searching the depths of her soul to see what insults she can sling at me for introducing myself politely to her mother. But she sighs again, still looking defeated, and she comes up short.
She doesn’t hate me. But even after finding comfort in my arms, she has me at arm’s length.
Here it comes, the insult. She puffs up and looks at me, eyes hard.
“Look. I’m sorry. I know you were trying to help her. But I’m fucking angry—at her, and at the bank, I guess.” She sighs deeply and runs her fingers through her hair, making it even messier. “And at myself, for not coming back here sooner. I think I’m just going to go home.” I catch her bright green gaze, and I can tell she’s looking at me with something that’s close to longing. Her eyes are bright with tears, but it’s like she wants to break down that barrier and come back to me.
There was a time, however brief it was, when she would have gotten me to fix this.
“I can drive you. Or walk with you,” I say.
Or throw you over my shoulder and make you forget your own name.
I don’t say that part, but I wish I had the guts. It’s been a long time coming, and I’m not convinced she won’t give in. Not just yet.
“No.” She puts her hand up when she says it, and walks over to her car. Her ass is still perfect, and I can see the outline of it, even through her scrubs.
“Okay if I follow you in my truck and make sure you’re okay? I don’t like you walking into that apartment by yourself.” The words come out like some macho bravado shit that’s closer to something I’d say to a date back in New York. But I can’t think of anything off the cuff to make it sound much better.
To my surprise, she turns and smiles. “Yeah. That would be fine.” She shakes her head slightly. “You’ve got a truck and everything. It’s like you’ve turned into some kind of country boy. Trying to walk me home, talking to my mama. You’re not going soft on me, are you?”
I shrug. “Not soft. No ma’am.” I put on a Southern accent and tip a fake hat at her, and she gets in her car.
I didn’t get exactly what I wanted, but a patient man must bide his time, even when he know a woman still belongs to him.
I follow her and make sure she gets into her apartment. I park at the far side of her parking lot, and she turns and waves at me.
I said years ago I’d take care of her, that she was bound to be mine.
And I still take that seriously.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Three Years, Four Months Ago
“It’s in and out,” Ash says. He gives me a suggestive look, and I squirm uncomfortably. He’s driving me home again, and something about his car makes me doubly uncomfortable. It’s Cullen’s car, one from his fleet—that should say everything I need to know about this man. But there’s Ash, sitting across from me, red hair like copper in the morning light. “And then you can do what you want, Sunshine.”
“Don’t call me that.” I blush and twirl my hair in my fingers. I always got made fun of for having freckles, for my blushing, for the reddish tone to my own hair. But the way Ash looks at me makes all the taunts fly away, like those memories aren’t part of my past at all.
This is a bad idea. A very fucking bad idea.
In the dark of his apartment, it seemed like everything Ash said made sense, like the sham of a marriage would protect me. But why would it? I wouldn’t be a real member of the family. I’d be a wife. When Ash talks about the wedding, he says it will guarantee my safety. What if it only makes me more vulnerable? What if I’m being guided by the way he looks at me and nothing else?
I move to open the door, and he catches my hand. “I know what you’re thinking, Summer. Cullen is a dangerous man, but he doesn’t break the code. His family has had a hold in this area for nearly a century. Any woman a man takes as his is safe, and her family as well.”
“I don’t belong to anyone.”
“You marry me, you’re mine.” He shrugs as he lights his cigarette, and a ring of white smoke curls out the window. “That’s how it works. My father was in the Family and his father before him. And now I am—and my wife becomes the same.” He cuts his blue eyes at me, then he reaches over and puts one hand on my breast. My nipple immediately goes stiff, and the tight, winding need in my core intensifies. My body responds before my brain can, and I push my body into his hand and open my legs ever so slightly. His fingers run down over my waist and find their way between my legs, lifting my skirt and pressing against my panties. To my shame, I’m already wet, just at the thought of belonging to him. He leans in and bites at the soft flesh of my neck as he slides his fingers against the outline of my clit. Then his fingers move deeper, trapping my clit between them, fabric pulled tight against my sensitive button.
“Ash, what if it doesn’t work? What if we don’t stay married long—” He leans in and quiets me with a kiss, his hand still pressed tight against my panties. I shiver and close my eyes. His fingers move with agonizing slowness, so slow that I start to lift my hips and push against him. He forces me back down on the seat and keeps working his hand. Chills begin to rise from my core, and I groan against his lips. As an idle teenager, I thought of marriage from time to time—what my dress would look like, what flowers I would order from the shop down the street from my mother’s inn, how I would look as I walked into the garden where my friends and family waited.