I rolled my eyes. “We don’t even know what the job is, other than Andrei clearly followed us from New York and set up camp.”
“Exactly! There has to be a reason he’s here and not there.”
The woman had a point.
“I’m going to regret this. And I’m going to get killed,” I muttered under my breath as she beamed up at me. “Go change into something black, something tight, something sexy. Yeah I’m regretting this.”
“This isn’t sexy?” She frowned down at her ripped jeans and T-shirt.
“Nice bait.” I pressed my lips together in a firm line. “I’m not taking it by the way, I have a sister I know how this conversation ends.”
“How?”
“With a knife impaled in my aorta.”
“Maybe you are smarter than you look.”
“Not taking that bait either. Not engaging,” I said in a bored tone. “Go change.”
She let out a frustrated sigh. “Fine, I’ll wear something sexy, you’ve been warned there’s a reason I don’t wear nice things.”
“Oh, why’s that?”
She crossed her arms. “It puts me in a bad mood when they get dirty and he—” She paled a bit. “He used to dress me up for his associates… and then I’d have to go wait… sometimes for hours and then the dress was never worn again.”
I tried to keep my rage in check, for her sake, so I didn’t scare her. “Why?”
“Because he was almost always covered in someone else’s blood when he came to bed.”
“I wish he was alive so I could chop off his dick and feed it to him while I cut his heart out.”
She jerked back and then pointed toward the hall. “I think I’ll go get that dress now.”
“Do that.” I gritted my teeth and braced my body against the counter. Breathe in, breathe out.
No wonder she wanted a Chris.
Chris wouldn’t dream about her husband’s death and wake up with a smile on his face.
Chris would shit himself if he saw blood.
I shit myself if I don’t see it.
I craved it.
El deserved better than my shaking hands — the same ones who imagined what bliss it would be to choke out the very man who thought he had a fucking right to touch her — with anything but goodness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Dante
I KEPT MY eyes on the road.
I kept my breathing even.
With great difficulty.
I existed next to El and The Dress.
With great difficulty.
She’d taken my advice to heart, and now I referred to The Dress as its own tangible thing. It was the dresses fault that I was having trouble focusing, that I kept seeing flashes of her thighs and imagining them wrapped around my body squeezing me tight until I felt nothing but her heat pulsing with every beat of my wicked heart.
She cleared her throat.
I cleared mine.
Like a genius on his first date.
“Remember,” I pulled into campus and parked the car, my movements jerky and awkward. “Any guy touches you and you use the knife.”
“What knife?”
“The one I’m giving you.”
“Oh okay.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m really not sure about this.”
“I can do it.” She covered my hand with hers.
I finally looked at her. She was wearing makeup. She never wore makeup, her eyes were outlined, her face was soft. She’d been breathtaking before and it had always bothered me how afraid she was of her own beauty.
And now she was highlighting it for the world to see.
For me to see.
“You’re beautiful,” I whispered. I meant it. You’d think I slapped her with how stunned her expression was, like she’d never heard anyone say that phrase out loud and actually mean it, or maybe like nobody had ever said it out loud without wanting something in return.
“Thank you.” Her eyes searched mine.
The tension in the car doubled.
I took a steadying breath. “We should go.”
“Yes.” Her eyelashes were so long I wondered what it would be like to get closer, to be near them, yeah if her eyelashes were doing that much to me I was in deep shit.
It was physically painful to tear my gaze away from her face, to go through the motion of opening my car door and making sure my gun was snug in the back of my pants. I assumed they wouldn’t pat me down since there wasn’t any fighting, unless they fought every night, but campus was pretty quiet.
I gripped one of my pocketknives in my right hand as El made her way around the car and waited.
“Here,” I tossed it to her.
She caught it midair. “Do I just hold it?”
I stared, and kept staring. I think I blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Do I hold it?”
“What else would you do with it? Eat it?” Was this real? Did she really not know what to do with a knife? She’d given me the impression she did.
Wearing a scowl, she marched over to me. “I know how to use a knife you jackass.” I smirked at that maybe I liked being called an ass more than my own name, or maybe I just liked to see the fire in her eyes when she said it. “I just don’t know where to put it, I don’t exactly have pockets and I’m not wearing a bra.”
“Shit!” My cursing had everything to do with the fact that I was imagining her topless and nothing to do with the problem of no hiding place. “Are you…” I shouldn’t have brought her. It was a giant mistake. “Are you wearing underwear?”
Her cheeks pinked a bit before she gave me a jerky nod.
“Thank God.” And I meant it. I grabbed the knife from her hands and knelt in front of her. “Don’t move.”
She stilled.
I reached under her dress, my right hand grazed her thigh, when I came into contact with whatever lacy thing she was wearing I almost ripped them with my fingers then imagined doing the same thing with my teeth.
She trembled from my touch.
I fought like hell to keep myself from doing something neither of us could take back as I fumbled with the closed knife and very carefully opened it slightly to fold it over the side of her underwear near her thigh, she would have to be careful but at least it was hidden.
The knife was secure.
But my brain was having a hell of a time trying to convince my hands to move away from her hot skin.
I gripped her ass with both hands, moaned, pressing my face between her thighs as I took a deep breath and just existed.
And when she ran her hands over my head, her fingers digging into my scalp, playing with my hair.
I almost died a thousand deaths.
Finally, painfully, I moved my hands and stood.
We were chest to chest, her breathing about as erratic as mine and I wondered if I pressed my palm to the skin on her chest, would her heart be beating as wild? Would it match the cadence of mine? Would it matter?
I took a step back and held out my hand. “Use the knife if you have to.”
“Okay,” she said, voice weak.
We walked in silence all the way back to The Spot.
A guy waited at the door, he must have recognized me from the night before because he let us both in.
Music pumped through the room.
The damn thrones were back in their spots.
Alcohol was everywhere.
And so were drugs.
“Think we found the cocaine and heroin,” I whispered against her hair before gripping her hand and weaving us further into the crowds.
People were draped around each other, pressing each other against walls, drinking, partying.
It was basically an all-night orgy.
Only the guys on the thrones had guns.
And everyone seemed to be performing for them.
Like a giant fucked up circus act for their entertainment.
At the bottom of the stairs there were two couples going at it pre
tty hot and heavy only to stop when Andrei pointed his gun at them and told them to move out of the way.
Once El and I reached the top I could see better. A few card tables were set up behind the thrones, people played, gambled, probably lost their parents’ fortunes, owed each other favors.
Eagle Elite politics never stayed within the school walls, these students would grow up to be leaders around the world, leaders who owed so many tiny little favors who held secrets as their power, it was a dangerous game to encourage.
And it made someone like Andrei very powerful.
One of the chairs nearest him was empty.
I sat, and tugged El onto my lap.
“Didn’t think you would make it, Nicolasi.” Andrei sounded bored, then again, he’d seen too much to be entertained by mere kids making out in front of him and getting high.
It wasn’t our world.
He knew that as much as I did.
This wasn’t shocking.
Death was shocking.
It was our reality.
So when a freshman got in a fight with a senior and didn’t even draw blood, I kind of understood the boredom.
“Where did you get the drugs?” I asked a few minutes after the fight as El stilled on my lap.
Ivan was the one who answered. “Drugs are drugs, does it matter?”
“It matters if each of you are getting a cut and I’m not,” I said plainly.
Andrei chuckled. “Needing some money are you?”
“You know how it works,” I shrugged. “It’s never enough, besides, I thought you knew?”
He turned his face to me.
“I’m not a boss.”
His smile fell. “Not yet.”
“Maybe never, I have to prove myself, like I said, you know how it works.”
Maksim and Ivan shared a look before Andrei nodded at them, they walked off.
“Why don’t you send your girl away while we talk business?”
El stood and then leaned over and kissed me on the neck. “See you later.”
“Incredible.” Andrei snorted. “In all the years that whore spread her legs for Xavier, I never saw him kiss her — though I saw other things…” He laughed. The bastard laughed.
Keeping my anger under control was turning into an impossibility, especially where El was concerned.
“I used to hear her screams,” he said casually. “He loved to take her from behind—”
I stood, pulled my gun and pointed it at his temple. “I don’t hesitate, and I don’t give second chances, say any more shit about my girl and your bloody hand print’s going to be next.”
He held up his hands and laughed. “I’m sorry did the truth offend you?”
“Not at all,” I said coolly. “It was the way you said it — you don’t disrespect what’s mine.”
“Not yours yet,” he answered back, calm as shit. “Am I right? She’s not even truly under your protection, I see no ring on her finger, I see no Italian name attached to her. Until then, she’s fair game, you know how it works. What happens when she’s alone? When your gun isn’t here to protect her? I’ll tell you what happens… the past repeats itself, besides.” He grinned. “She’s tasted Mother Russia, what the hell would she go back to Little Italy?”
The only reason I didn’t shoot him was because I needed him for information.
I jerked the gun away and sat.
“You’ve got balls,” Andrei said. “I like that.”
“You like my balls. I don’t swing that way.”
He stopped smirking, nostrils flared. “You want in on the drugs you have to do me a favor.”
It was what I needed.
More information.
To dive deeper in to whatever operation they had and break it from the inside out.
“Depends on the favor.”
His eyes trained on El. “I want her.”
“No.” I shrugged. “Pick a new favor.”
“You didn’t let me finish.”
I wasn’t going to like this.
I knew it in my gut.
I really shouldn’t have brought her.
“She has a tattoo on her arm, she’s been branded,” He pointed to his forearm. “I want you to run a knife across it — she is no longer allowed to wear our bloody crown. And you know how these things work.” His cold eyes met mine. “Blood must always be spilled. A life for a life. You spill her blood, you do it now, and you’re in.”
“How much are we talking?”
“We have a silent partner.” He shrugged. “They get seventy we get thirty until we are in full operation again, the school protects us from the feds, and they funnel everything through their own operation. We come off clean. It won’t get traced to you. Your cut’s ten mill.”
Little did he know, the Nicolasi dynasty was worth almost one billion. I didn’t say that, kept that to myself. Only Phoenix knew how much we were worth. He kept the secrets.
And dealt in favors.
So, when I told him not to tell Val.
I had to sign in my own blood that I’d do something for him when the time was right.
“Give me a minute.”
“No.” He gripped my arm. “You don’t get to warn her, that’s not how this works, Nicolasi. You do it now, or you leave.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
El
I COULD FEEL Dante’s penetrating stare from across the room. I’d walked around for five minutes, nobody would talk to me nobody even acknowledged me.
So basically, I was useless and in an uncomfortable dress that made me feel naked, with a knife plastered to my thigh.
It was naive. To think that I could help Dante in any way by simply being by his side.
What was I doing?
I’d wanted safe.
I’d wanted Chris.
And there I was, in the den of Hell with the one guy who was bad for me.
I shuddered and looked up just in time to see Dante crook his finger.
His movements were casual.
His gaze heated — pissed.
Andrei was still as a statue behind him, for the first time since I’d seen his eyes — they were alive — with excitement.
I didn’t like his look or the evil way they glinted when I finally made my way over to Dante, only to have him grab my hand and squeeze it. “I’m sorry.”
My heart sped up as he locked eyes with me and then very slowly ran his hand down my hip, touching where the knife was. I had no time to react as his mouth fused to mine, his tongue plundered, captured, dominated, until I stumbled backward, he caught me before I tripped his lips ran down my ear. “No choice.”
I bit my lip and nodded.
“Be strong.” He set me on my feet and leaned down, his hand inching up my thigh as people started slowly circling around us.
His fingers caught on my underwear and that look of awe was back in place, and then shut down like he had no choice but to be all business when his hands — his body was all about the pleasure.
He pulled the knife free and stood.
He didn’t turn around.
He faced me.
“Give me your arm,” he said in a low voice.
Shaking, I gave him my right arm.
“Not that one.” His eyes fell to my left, where I’d cheerfully set up enough bangles to cover the tattoo that marked me just like it marked Andrei.
One by one, Dante pulled the silver bangles off. They dropped to the ground with the finality of a gunshot.
The crown signified power.
The blood signified the only way to stay in power.
Sacrifice.
Xavier was so proud when they gave him his tattoo.
I was sick.
Would have rather been dead.
“I’m going to take this from you,” Dante whispered, pointing the knife down in the middle of the crown. “It’s going to hurt.”
“You’re going to… take it?” I repeated. “How—”
He swore.
/> The knife pierced my forearm and dug in.
I barely held back my scream.
The horror of what he was doing to me, hurting me just like him.
Willing to do anything to be with them.
Why did I keep telling myself Dante was different?
I tried to jerk my arm free.
Dante gripped my wrist so hard I was afraid I was going to have marks on my skin.
Just like him.
Abusive just like him.
“No!” I shook my head. “Stop!”
But he didn’t. He ran the edge of the knife along my skin creating one long line across the crown, like it was getting pierced by my fresh blood.
The cut wasn’t deep.
It also wasn’t so shallow that I didn’t start bleeding immediately.
It still felt like I was getting filleted alive.
Dante finally stopped.
His eyes locked on mine as he squeezed.
Several drops of blood fell to the ground in swift succession.
“The tattoo is drawn through — and blood has been spilled.”
Andrei frowned. “She’s barely bleeding.”
Speak for yourself asshole!
“You said blood must be spilled, you never said how much, if you wanted a massacre you should have been specific, better yet, let me fight one of them and I’ll give you your blood.” He nodded at Maksim who backed up like he didn’t want a fight.
“Fine.” Andrei nodded and then sat back down as the rest of the people around me continued their drinking and partying. “We’ll be in touch, enjoy the party.” And then he basically ignored the fact that I was still bleeding and that Dante looked ready to kill.
Fear wrapped around my heart like a vice, Dante let me jerk away from him, but not before wrapping an arm around me and leading me toward the door. “We’re going home.”
“Are you insane?” I snapped. “I’m not getting in a car with you!”
“Oh, okay.” His nostrils flared. “Should we just call an Uber and let you bleed all over it? You want to explain to Chase why you have a slit forearm?”
“No, I think I’m going to enjoy watching you explain it to him!” I yelled, then raised my hand to slap him across the face.
Dante caught my arm, his expression pained.
“Let me go!”