by Kasey Krane
Tristian
The Doherty Mafia #5
Kasey Krane
Savannah Rylan
Copyright © 2021 by Kasey Krane & Savannah Rylan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Contents
1. Elsie
2. Tristian
3. Elsie
4. Tristian
5. Elsie
6. Tristian
7. Elsie
8. Tristian
9. Elsie
10. Tristian
11. Elsie
12. Tristian
13. Elsie
14. Tristian
15. Elsie
16. Tristian
17. Elsie
18. Tristian
19. Elsie
20. Tristian
21. Elsie
22. Tristian
23. Elsie
24. Tristian
25. Elsie
26. Tristian
27. Elsie
28. Tristian
29. Elsie
30. Tristian
31. Elsie
Epilogue
Sneak Peak at Nolan
About Kasey Krane
More Books by Kasey Krane
About Savannah Rylan
More Books by Savannah Rylan
One
Elsie
Ten years ago
I sat with my legs hanging off the jetty, staring out at the calm waters of the lake in front of me. The sun was about to set and the sky was a deep purplish color I’d fallen in love with.
At first, when my parents told me we’re spending the whole summer out at this lake house, I was hesitant to go. I didn’t want to leave the city, I didn’t want to be away from my friends for that long. But once I got to the lake house and saw how pretty the sky looked in the late evening, I never wanted to leave.
I had a book in my hand which I hadn’t been reading. Still stuck on the first page of the first chapter. I just couldn’t focus on the text. There was so much on my mind. Which, as a twelve year old, usually meant crushes and boys.
It was exactly how cliched I was. Just another stereotype.
I had a crush on Jasper Conron ever since I remembered. Ever since I saw him at kindergarten. He had big blue eyes and a winning smile, but it was like he never noticed me.
Maybe it was my fault. I was too geeky and nerdy, too predictable. I was too interested in books and math. We had spent so long together, with our lives running parallel to each other’s. However, it never happened to coincide. Jasper probably didn’t even know I existed.
The older we got, the more handsome he became. He turned into the guy every girl in school and in the neighborhood had a crush on. And he knew it.
My best friend, Sonya, and I would spend hours daydreaming about marrying Jasper. What our dream wedding would look like. How many kids we’d have.
Just childish stupid stuff.
Neither of us ever expected it to come true. Neither of us expected him to notice us.
And then, just like that, out of the blue, he did.
But it wasn’t me Jasper noticed. It was Sonya.
I was shocked when he walked over to us one day at the cafeteria and asked Sonya if she would have lunch with him. She didn’t even give me a second glance as she breathlessly accepted his invitation and they trotted off together.
When I called her after school that day, because I hadn’t been able to get a hold of her after lunch, she refused to come to the phone. She didn’t speak to me at school the next day. I didn’t know what I did wrong, but it felt like I’d done something.
She was embarrassed of me.
Sonya did eventually come clean. A whole week later.
She didn’t even want to be seen talking to me, so she promised to stop by my house after school. She only stayed for fifteen minutes that day. She told me she was officially dating Jasper now. That she even planned to have sex with him, she’d make her dream come true and marry him. But, I couldn’t be a part of it.
Sonya didn’t want me to be around because Jasper was too cool for me.
I didn’t know what to be more heartbroken over—the fact my best friend now dated the boy who I thought was the love of my life. Or, the fact my best friend had now written me out of her life because I embarrassed her.
Either way, the plan of going to the lake house for the summer, couldn’t have come at a better time.
I sat alone on the jetty for a while before my father joined me. He settled in beside me with his legs dangling a few feet above the water too.
“It’s nice out here, right?” he said.
“How’d you notice? You’ve been working ever since we got here,” I grumbled.
According to him, the lake house belonged to a business associate of his who had kindly lent it to us for the summer. But it looked like—in exchange of the favor, they also expected my father to be available for business meetings whenever they wanted. He’d been gone for hours every day since we arrived.
He threw an arm around me now, drawing me close to him.
“I’m sorry for being busy, honey. I promise I’ll wrap things up quickly so we can spend more time together.”
I pushed his arm away and continued staring out at the sky. I preferred to be alone with my thoughts. And it seemed like my father understood. We just sat in silence there for a long while before he spoke again.
“Mom told me about what happened with Sonya.”
I turned to him with an angry jerk.
“Why can’t she keep a secret?” I snapped.
“I’ll tell you a secret, honey. The key to a good marriage is honesty and loyalty. Your mother and I tell each other everything,” he said, smiling softly.
I rolled my eyes at that. It wasn’t the moment to give me a lesson on marriage and relationships.
My father held his hands up in surrender.
“Okay, I’m sorry, I’m not going to pry. I just wanted you to know that I’m here if you want to talk, Elsie.”
The truth was; I did want to talk to him. Ever since I was a little girl, it was my father whom I felt was the one person who truly understood me. Except, in this instance, I had no words to describe to him how I felt. The betrayal, the pain, the hopelessness. I didn’t think he’d understand because he wasn’t a twelve year old girl.
My father searched my eyes and I looked away.
“No?” he asked.
“What do you want me to say? You said Mom’s told you everything already.”
“But you haven’t.”
“I have nothing to add,” I snapped.
“What Sonya has done is not fair. It’s a bad move for a friend, and someday, she’s going to regret it. One day, she’s going to grow up and look back on your friendship and realize how stupid she was for pushing you away when you were the best friend she could’ve ever asked for.”
As much as I tried to ignore my father’s words and continue brooding; he had an effect on me. A positive effect.
My shoulders heaved and I breathed in deeply with emotion. I had to put the book down. The idea that Sonya would some day regret her actions, made me feel good about myself.
Then he put a hand over mine and smiled, looking deeper into my eyes.
“Don’t ever let anyone make you feel worthless, Elsie, because you are worth everything. Anybody with a brain in their head would know how special you are. And
if they don’t then they’re not worth your time or your friendship or your love, someone else is.”
I threw myself at him and he wrapped me with his arms. I broke down for the first time since Sonya said those mean things to me. I cried on my father’s shoulder and he didn’t have to say anything more. He’d done his job.
Present Day
I thought about Dad as I stared out the window of the penthouse apartment in the kind of apartment building I’d never normally have access to. It had a fabulous view of the Hudson, of the rest of Manhattan. I was transfixed by the view and wrapped in thoughts of my father and everything I’d learned from him. I missed him. As confusing as those emotions felt right now.
I heard movement behind me, realizing Tristian was back in the room. He said he had to talk to his brother and he went to the other room to make the call.
In the few hours since the previous night I’d spent in Tristian Doherty’s company—the one thing I’d gotten to know about him was he was a man of few words.
Tristian was not a big talker. If he’d met my father, Dad would’ve encouraged him to come to terms with his emotions, to talk about his feelings, to open up. But my father wasn’t here, he’d never be here. And more importantly, Tristian Doherty would probably never appreciate the wisdom my father had to offer. He wasn’t that kind of guy.
I turned to look at him. He was focused on his phone, scrolling, typing, looking busy. There was no denying he was sexy. In the kind of way I’d never considered within-reach before.
Tall, muscular, dangerous, his arms covered in intricate tribal tattoos, his eyes so green and his jaws so sharp and chiseled, he actually looked like European royalty. Well, in a way, he kind of was.
“How was the phone call? What did your brother say?” I asked, making him look up at me.
It was like I was addicted to sinking into his eyes.
Tristian clenched his jaws and breathed in deeply. I sensed this wasn’t going to be good.
“He told me not to trust you,” he replied.
Two
Tristian
This wasn’t a situation I expected to find myself in. This chick, Elsie Harlow, she said her name was—now lived in my apartment. Until we figured out what to do with her.
The previous day had been a riot, and not the good kind. My brother, Brendan’s kid was nabbed by Aldo Baron and his men. The whole family was out looking for the kid and we just couldn’t locate him. The one thing Aldo was good at was hiding out—and because he was a fuckin’ pussy.
Brendan and Rosalie were freakin’ the fuck out because they didn’t know what would happen to their son, Davey. Brendan lost his shit and started burning down Aldo’s warehouses and holding cells. It was a bad move because it was exactly what Aldo wanted. He wanted our family to retaliate and make the first major move. Now the war between our families was undeniable and Aldo had every excuse for vengeance.
But the fact he’d held our nephew, Brendan’s son, made it all worth it. We were prepared to burn down everything, turn the whole city and the state upside down looking for that kid if we had to. But as it turned out—we didn’t have to.
Elsie, who worked with Aldo, managed to escape along with Davey. She saved the day. The night. If she hadn’t made it out with our nephew in time, we weren’t sure to what extent we’d’ve pushed the battle to. It was about to get very bloody and very messy, fast.
Elsie called Brendan and we went and picked them up. While Brendan took his family home, I was stuck with the chick who claimed she’d ran away from Aldo Baron and his clutches. She claimed she’d so far been forced to work for him against her wishes. That she had looked for a way out and when she saw a kid was being held prisoner, she was determined to save him and do something.
So she did.
Since we met Elsie, she hadn’t spoken much. I brought her all the way from their hiding spot to my apartment and she barely spoke a word. Granted, it was an awkward situation. She had to spend the night on my couch, and maybe she didn’t trust me either.
I just wanted the family to quickly figure out what we’d do with her so she didn’t have to live here anymore.
Because even though Elsie Harlow barely said a few words to me, I knew I wanted to fuck her, and it wasn’t going to end well for anybody.
She had long dark hair, silky smooth like a curtain that’d never tangle. Her skin was olive and flawless, reminding me of warm sunny Mediterranean beaches. Dark brown eyes, a tiny waist and a big juicy butt. But it didn’t seem like she knew how sexy she was. How her curves made my cock throb.
The way she swung her hips when she walked…
And now I had to do everything in my power to not undress her with my eyes. How much longer was I supposed to keep it in my pants around a chick like her?
“So, none of you trust me?” she asked, crossing her arms over her big tits. I pushed my hands deep into the pockets of my pants, hoping she wouldn’t notice my boner.
I was cursed with having a boner around her constantly, which was a pretty fuckin’ painful way to live your life, in my opinion.
“I don’t know what to think of you,” I replied and she shook her head.
“So I have to convince you now?”
This was the first time she displayed some kind of emotion. It was anger. She was mad at me and mad at the world, even though none of it was my fault.
Brendan had a point. How could we trust this chick we knew nothing about? She claimed she’d made an escape from Aldo’s clutches and rescued our nephew in the process, but how did we know she wasn’t working as a spy for him? Maybe this was Aldo’s plan all along—to infiltrate our family by pretending to have rescued a family member.
After all the shit Aldo had pulled recently, we couldn’t put this past him, in an attempt to win the war. He was willing to kill, destroy and betray anybody who stood in his path, with a Doherty being the prime target of his violence.
“Convince me of what?” I challenged Elsie.
She had her lips pursed tightly together.
“You and your family don’t trust that I’m telling the truth, right? You think I’m lying. That I’m working for Aldo and just trying to trick you guys into trusting me and giving me information?” Her shoulders heaved while she tried to reel in her anger.
She’d hit the nail on the head, so all I could do was shrug.
I went over to the bar in the corner of the room and grabbed two cans of beers from the fridge.
“Yeah, you’ve summed it up pretty accurately,” I replied.
Elsie’s nostrils flared. When I offered her one of the cans, she rejected it.
“What do I have to do to convince you my life is in real danger? If Aldo Baron or his people find me, they’ll kill me?”
“You could start by telling me everything that’s happened to you so far. Every detail,” I said.
“I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“The less you tell me, the more suspicious I become.”
Her eyes filled with tears but she quickly blinked them away.
“I think I’ll need that drink after all,” she said, grabbing the can out of my hand.
Three
Elsie
If I had to be honest with myself, I’d have to admit that trusting Tristian or anybody from his family was a pretty bad idea for me. If there was anything the past few months had taught me, it was I couldn’t trust anybody. Not even my own family. Not even my own father.
Tristian stared at me while I gulped down most of the beer in the can. I didn’t usually drink much, in fact, I rarely ever touched alcohol. I wasn’t sure why imbibing that quantity of beer seemed like a good idea to me at the time. Wasn’t that what they did in the movies? Liquid courage?
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Maybe it gave me some courage I lacked before, because I felt compelled to speak to him truthfully.
“I shouldn’t trust you either.”
Tristian took in a deep breath, then nodded.
&nbs
p; “You’re right, you shouldn’t. Why don’t you start off by telling me exactly why you thought you’d come to us for help.”
“I didn’t plan on calling your brother and asking for your family to help me. That was what happened. They were the circumstances I found myself in. I wanted to get out of there for a while, I just didn’t know how. And when they brought your nephew in…he’s just a kid. So small and fragile. I wanted to help him.”
Once again, I felt myself tearing up and getting misty eyed. All that time when I refused to speak to Tristian, trying to keep my distance from him—I was able to keep it together. But now, it felt like the floodgates had opened. It all spilled out uncontrollably. I was embarrassed.
It didn’t seem as though a man like him would be moved by my tears.
“So you just happened to be in a position where you had something to offer us and now you think we owe it to you to offer you protection?”
No matter how sexy he was and how I imagined sparks flying between us, the way he spoke to me reminded me he wasn’t on my side. I had nobody on my side. I was completely alone.
“Isn’t that the least you people can do in exchange for the life I saved?” I asked bitterly.
When Tristian didn’t reply, I drank the rest of the beer. It tasted bitter and disgusting and I almost gagged on it.
“Something tells me you don’t come from this world, do you, Elsie Harlow? This isn’t reality for you,” he said.