“Shit, do you really think—” He ran a hand through his hair. “Do you think I would do that? Now? After…” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t.” He placed a hand over mine. “I won’t.”
I gave him a silent nod and then dropped the bomb. “She betrayed you.”
His eyes flashed.
“Maybe if you talked about it—”
“To the help?” he sneered.
I flinched as if he’d slapped me.
“Luc—”
“Go,” I said with a sad smile. “It’s my job, remember? I’m just… the help.”
He stood, crossed the room, then slammed the door behind him.
While I looked down at her picture and cursed her to hell.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
“It’s almost time.”
— Ex-FBI Agent P
Chase
I felt like shit.
It wasn’t a foreign feeling, but this time I knew I’d really hurt her, and that was the last thing I wanted to do, for her to think of me with disdain when I was gone. Why couldn’t I just get over it and give her a good few days? Give myself a good few last days?
Because I really was broken.
So. Broken.
I wanted to lash out, because it hurt so much to keep in.
I grabbed my phone and looked out at the pool in stunned silence as snow began to fall.
My phone dinged.
About damn time.
Sergio: I cut straight to the times when he touched her and was speaking to her. Don’t kill him yet. Your body count is high enough as it is.
Me: No promises.
I watched him touch her, scare her. I watched him lick her ear and felt such a possessive rage wash over me that I threw my phone against the wall.
“Shit!” I tugged at my hair and did a small circle in the kitchen. What game was he playing? And how the hell was I going to protect her from the grave?
I went to pick up my phone, thankful that the case had broken its fall, and texted Sergio.
Me: I want security on her until Petrov is wiped from this earth…
Vic chose that moment to walk by with a wave of his gun, as he performed his new ritual of walking the premises before sitting in the garage on his computer watching the perimeter cameras.
Me: Vic. Use Vic.
Sergio: Okay… any reason for this? She’s under the protection of the Families already.
My hands shook as I typed out.
Me: Not good enough.
Sergio: But—
Me: Don’t argue with me on this.
Sergio: Interesting.
Me: Don’t read into it.
Sergio: Too late…
I rolled my eyes as I stared down at my phone and then sent a text to Phoenix, her words haunting me the entire time.
Me: Do you still see her face at night?
Phoenix: Her blood will never wash off my hands.
Me: How did you come back from it?
Phoenix: From…?
Me: Everything — the rape, the women, the prostitution rings, the need for violence — how did you come back from it?
Phoenix took a while to respond, but when he did, I almost dropped my phone.
Phoenix: I didn’t.
Me: What do you mean?
Phoenix: It’s a part of me. So I learned to accept it and allowed others to love me through it.
I closed my eyes and set my phone down as memories flooded my mind… her mouth on mine… the trust in her eyes… the surrender of her body.
Me: I’m a piece of shit.
Phoenix: You’re just now figuring this out? I’ve been telling you this since we were twelve….
Me: I’m giving her the next few days off. In fact, I don’t want her working on any of the background information until after the commission.
Phoenix: Your call, but can I ask why?
Me: No.
Phoenix: Thought so. Oh, and you’re still a piece of shit. Try not to freeze your balls off in that empty house.
I smiled.
It wasn’t empty.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
“Take down one, take them all.”
— Ex-FBI Agent P
Nixon
I drummed my fingertips across my desk as Trace slowly made her way toward me with a glass of wine. She sat in my lap and handed it over. “What has you looking so… depressed?”
“Chase.” I swallowed the anger, the resentment, the guilt, and looked away. “What else?”
She shrugged. “Anything I can help with?”
I took a sip of wine. “I love you… more than anything.”
Trace frowned and wrapped her arms around my neck. “And I love you, but where is this coming from?”
“I want to murder him.” I spoke the words slowly and gauged her reaction. Her eyes widened a bit but other than that, she seemed more confused than anything.
“O-kay…” She drew the word out. “Why?”
“He kissed you.”
She smiled and burst out laughing.
I didn’t.
“Nixon, that was years ago!”
“Doesn’t matter. I still… I can’t compete with the friendship you guys have, and I don’t want to. Doesn’t mean I don’t like it. I hate it. I dream about his murder at least twice a day now then feel guilty as hell because he’s like my brother. I just… I don’t know him anymore, can’t predict his movements, his actions. Nothing about his behavior makes sense to me. He’s a loose cannon.”
Trace sighed. “That’s where you’re wrong. You know exactly what it feels like to lose it all.”
I shook my head. “What do you mean?”
“If your plan with Luca and Phoenix hadn’t worked… You saw me and Chase kiss and didn’t know it was a ruse. You saw him shoot me, heard the gunshot… You know that feeling in your chest.”
I rubbed at it and looked down. “Yeah.”
“That’s a sliver of what he’s still feeling at having the woman he gave everything to throw it all back in his face as if he wasn’t enough.”
I listened.
And closed my eyes. “I never want to feel that way again.”
“I suspect he doesn’t either, and yet…” She lifted a shoulder helplessly. “…all we can do is support him and try to prevent him from murdering another fifty-seven people. He says if you guys say no, he’s still….” She didn’t finish as tears filled her eyes.
I kissed her forehead. “Then you know what we have to do.”
A tear slid free. “Can’t you make an exception?”
“No…” My voice shook. “…not in the mafia.”
She pressed her hand to mine. “Blood in, no out.”
“No out,” I repeated, kissing her mouth like she was my drug, because she was. My everything, my heart, my soul.
Pain crushed my body until it was almost too much to bear, and I realized… had our positions been swapped…
Those people would already be dead.
CHAPTER FIFTY
“I have done everything in my power to set things up. And now, I watch.”
— Ex-FBI Agent P
Luciana
The smell from the kitchen interrupted my pity party in the office, I’d started in on the very boring, very tedious notes from the last lawyer and wanted to set the book on fire.
Basically, my job, unless I got fired, was to protect the families at all costs, deal with payouts, bribes, keep the wills up to date, and all the normal things you would assume a crime family would need.
No wonder they were paying me so well.
If word got out…
If one party slipped, if for some reason the FBI or police stopped working with them, I’d be in prison for the rest of my life.
I gave my head a shake and went in search of a bottle of water or soda, something — anything — to dull the ache in my chest and the choking sadness that filled the house.
Chase was at the stove stirring something. I tried not to be affected by his biceps or the ta
t that wrapped around his neck, but it was impossible. His neck was too huge.
His body too dangerously lethal.
Any woman would stare.
And I’d tasted him.
I felt my cheeks heat as I quickly snatched a bottle of water out of the fridge and opened it, only to take a swig and spit it out onto the floor. “It’s snowing?”
“You swallowed earlier. It’s the same thing, Luc, only this time it’s water,” Chase said in a bored tone.
Maybe it was the stress.
Dead bodies.
Prison.
The constant yelling.
Guns.
But I lost my mind.
And chucked the water bottle at his head.
Water sprayed everywhere.
I froze.
Chase stopped stirring and, very slowly, turned around.
With wide eyes, I braced myself on the other side of the counter and waited for him to move.
He did.
So I ran in the opposite direction.
Apparently, too slowly, because he grabbed me around the waist and threw me onto the counter. With one swift movement my ass was bare against the biting cold granite and my leggings were at my ankles.
He gripped my thighs and jerked me down the counter then wrapped my legs around his neck. His icy blue eyes flashed as he purposefully lowered his head, locked eyes with me, then parted my core with his tongue.
And licked.
My mouth dropped open as he swirled his tongue then sucked. His triceps flexed and stretched as he gripped me, working me into a frenzy, finding so many sensitive areas I forgot to breathe.
I squeezed my eyes shut as his tongue dove deeper, only to pull back just when I was ready to fall off the edge.
Or the counter.
Whichever came first.
Another flick of his tongue, and then he drew my bud into his mouth and sucked.
“Chase!” I pounded my hands against the granite. Nothing to hold onto, just him, just this horrible, gorgeous man.
“Open,” he demanded, gripping my thighs harder, digging his fingers into them as he moved deeper. His blue eyes flashed with hunger.
I pulled his head down, whimpered, and then lost control of every inhibition I’d strategically put in place as I spread my legs for a murderer and liked it.
The lights flickered out just as he lifted his head and jerked his shirt over his head.
I followed with mine.
My body moved without any mental cues.
Primal.
Everything with this man was primal.
Need.
Want.
No hesitation.
No control.
Just hands removing clothing as fast as humanly possible.
I unbuttoned his jeans, pulling them over his hips. He crawled up onto the counter, his mouth meeting mine in a frenzied kiss as I clawed at his back. More. I wanted more.
He was driving me wild. My heart slammed painfully against my chest as his mouth found mine, eager, wanting. More desperation lit between us as the darkness rolled off his shoulders in waves.
I felt in then.
What plagued him.
And I promised to take.
Every awakening breath stimulated another mind-blowing and meaningful caress of his tongue against my mouth as if he couldn’t get enough, and my responses only encouraged his aggressiveness.
He bit down on my lip and then sucked. His knees clamped around my naked hips. His blue eyes sparked, filled with longing, and then, without warning, he filled me so completely. I gripped his arms, holding him still. “That was…”
I could feel him everywhere.
Between my thighs.
Our bodies pulsed together, blood pumping, heat spreading faster than I could control as my muscles flexed to keep him in, to move.
Somehow, in that moment, it was like I could feel his darkness in my soul, as if he demanded I see him and accept him, darkness and all.
Our eyes locked.
My breath quickened.
A sense of foreboding slipped between our bodies, and I shuddered as he made a frenzied glance to my mouth as if he was asking permission to claim me as his.
I wanted this.
Wanted him.
A slow nod was all I gave.
It was all he needed.
“No promises,” he said raggedly.
“Okay,” I agreed.
His light eyes turned dark with possession as a wave of feral need flashed across his face, as if I was the savior he’d been waiting for all along. I was heady with desire, with the need for him to move, and then his hand moved my hair to the side as he gripped my neck and slid almost completely out of me. I felt the loss so severely I gasped. His hips moved, his eyes stayed locked on me, as if he wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to disappear.
His muscles flexed as he flooded me again, took complete control, and I let him. I clung to him as he moved, my nails digging into his hot flesh while he greedily took my mouth over and over again.
Lost. I was so lost to him.
Time didn’t exist out of this man’s arms.
Maybe it never had.
I shut my eyes in delirium as he thrust deeper, pulling his mouth away from mine, lips parted like he was breathing me in. My skin felt fevered as I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him in for another kiss and surrendered my body, let go, and gave.
“Luciana.” There was reverence in the way he said my name. “Luciana, I’m sorry.”
His eyes, I knew, would haunt me for the rest of my life, I just didn’t know why. So I held onto the perfect glimpse of Chase Winter Abandonato and the way he filled me.
“You’ll always be protected,” he whispered. “I swear it. Safe, always safe.”
A bead of sweat dripped from his chin onto my chest. My breath hitched as he filled me one last time, slow, deep, perfect.
I fell back against the cold granite as his warmth filled my body, completely taking over every empty space I had.
I couldn’t catch my breath.
Didn’t want to.
Chest heaving, he whispered against my neck, “It’s not nice to throw things.”
“So this—” I caught my breath. “—was my punishment?”
He grinned and then slapped my ass so hard I winced. “No, that was.”
I laughed and shook my head.
His smile transformed his face as he took my mouth again and again. He spoke against my lips, as if it was normal for us to be naked on the kitchen counter. “Hungry?”
I looked down between our joined bodies. “Starving.”
I hadn’t realized, until he was grabbing plates, still naked, that he hadn’t promised he would protect me.
As if he knew he wouldn’t be here to do it.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
“Sex never puts things into perspective. If anything, it makes you selfish. It makes you afraid. It makes you weak.”
— Ex-FBI Agent P
Chase
I was doing dishes.
As if it was completely normal to have sex with my employee on the kitchen counter, eat on it, then clean up.
Something was seriously messed up in me.
And yet, I felt no guilt.
None.
I’d shown her my black soul.
And she’d kissed me anyway.
I had nothing to feel guilty about.
I’d protect her from the grave.
And leave this earth knowing at least one woman found me worthy of something other than being her bitch.
Anger rippled through me as I grabbed another plate. I exhaled slowly and tried to focus my thoughts on Luc’s body.
But my brain kept pulling me back to the past. It lingered there too often, like a puzzle I would never figure out but torture myself with for the rest of my existence.
Nobody knew the hell I lived with.
The chaotic thoughts of my own personal tragedy. What if? What if? What if?
That was my song.
My chorus.
My blood sang it, even as my anger tried to overtake it.
“Hey,” Luc said, making me nearly drop the plate onto the counter.
I tried to appear unaffected by her smile, but it was impossible; the woman seemed to smile over everything.
Especially food.
She’d been so thrilled to have dinner I’d half expected her to get naked again.
“Hey,” I said back, my voice less confident than before, my darkness returning, because that was what it fucking did. I never felt the light long enough to hold on; it always slipped away.
Darkness always took over.
Leaving me exhausted.
And angry.
“So I was thinking…” Luc leaned across the counter.
“Me, too,” I answered. “I’m firing you.”
She jerked back.
I smirked. “I’m kidding. But how about a little proposition?”
“This should be good,” she said under her breath.
I smiled, my chest lightening a bit. I liked that she wasn’t as terrified as she had been before. I mean, she’d thrown a water bottle at my face with intent on physical harm. That was progress in my book.
Which was completely messed up if that was my way of gauging someone’s interest, but whatever.
Luc pulled her hair into a bun on the top of her head and crossed her arms. I liked it, the relaxed look, I liked her naked more but figured if I said that, she’d just think all I wanted was sex.
Which was only partially true.
I wanted to live.
Before I died.
Funny how when faced with your own demise, you see things you never really saw before. Like the few freckles splattered across her cheeks, or the slight curve of her upper lip making it impossible for any sane man to look away without thinking of it wrapped around him.
I braced for her anger, welcomed it, even as I rapped my knuckles against the counter and slowly made my way toward her closed-off form. “Wait until after the commission, then you can get back to work.”