But Link was right.
He wasn’t going anywhere.
I eyed him, then the marriage contract, and shook my head. “Like I was a piece of meat.”
“To him, you were.” He untangled our fingers, then reached for it and tore it in two. “Your father misjudged you though. He thought you were mindless and you’re not.”
“No. I’m not. He mustn’t have thought I’d read through these things first.”
“Seems there’s an advantage to him thinking you’re an idiot.”
His wry comment had me grinning. “You’re right.” I peered around the bedroom, with its gaudy colors and horrendous furnishings, and asked, “Link?”
“Yes, babe?”
“Do you have to live at the clubhouse?”
He arched a brow at me. “No. Most councilors with Old Ladies and kids don’t.”
“Nyx and Giulia do,” I pointed out.
“Nyx is a control freak. If he isn’t on hand twenty-four seven, he feels like he’s letting the club down.”
I pondered that for a second, then figured I’d go for broke. “Fancy moving in here?” I peered up at him from under my lashes. “I mean, the bunkhouse is nice and all—”
“But it isn’t a mega mansion.” He snickered. “I think I could deal with this kinda crib.” He rubbed his chin. “In fact, I think I could more than deal with it.”
I beamed at him. “Want to help me trash this room?”
“That’s a Picasso, babe. I ain’t trashing that. I ain’t that much of a sinner.”
“We can keep that safe. I want everything else destroyed.”
He winked at me. “I’m down for that.” He gathered all the papers together, then reached for my hand and hauled me to my feet. “You got what you wanted, sugar tits. The money and the freedom—”
“I got more than what I wanted, Link. I got you.” I reached up and pressed a kiss to his lips. There were so many things I wanted to do, so many ways I wanted to tarnish this room… But I wasn’t about to waste a kiss from Link. So I gave him all my focus, imbued the meeting of our mouths with all the love I felt for him, and let him know, in no uncertain terms, that he was as much mine as I was his.
When his hands came to my ass, I didn’t tense, couldn’t. In this room, that kind of touch held bad memories. But this was Link.
I was his.
He was mine.
When he pulled away, pushed his forehead against mine, our breaths mingled.
“You sure about this, sugar tits?”
I frowned. “Sure about what?”
Uncertainty appeared in his eyes, a vulnerability that I hadn’t anticipated. It melted me. Turned me into a woman-shaped vat of mush that wanted nothing more than to be in his arms.
“Never question this.” I reached up on tiptoe, then gently pecked his mouth. “Mine.”
His smile made an appearance at my declaration, only this time, there was a cockiness to it that had me melting some more.
“Well?” he rumbled, prompting me to arch a brow at him. “What are you waiting for? Bring on the destruction.”
With a hoot, and needing no more encouragement, I darted off. Adrenaline buzzed through my bloodstream as I grabbed one of the fancy lamps that graced my father’s nightstand and hurled it into the wall of mirrors that lined the panels opposite the bed.
As the glass smashed, spraying in an arc of destruction, I let loose a holler. One that turned into a scream loaded with the freedom I felt as I reached for the cell my father had contacted me on and sent it flying into the window.
Liberty came in many guises, and my shackles?
They were no more.
* * *
Tiffany
“Babe, you gotta be shitting me?”
A snort sounded down the line, making me shake my head. “I’m not shitting you. Anyway, it wasn’t me doing the shitting. You found out on the news.”
I rolled my eyes. “Exactly. You should have told me first!” I was actually a bit pissed off at that. Pissed off and hurt. Lily was my best friend, and I was hearing this shit about her dad from the TV? What the fuck was that about?
“I didn’t know,” she admitted softly. “I didn’t realize something was being released so soon.” She sighed. “Not to the news anyway.”
“It’s not true, is it?” I whispered, my eyes on the screen. “I mean, it can’t be. Can it?”
I’d known Donavan Lancaster since I was a little girl. He wasn’t the warmest of fathers, in fact, he’d always given me the creeps, but creeps and this? They were two different things, right?
Believing someone to be a little odd and then finding out they had women captive in the forest? Women they…what? Tortured?
My stomach churned.
This had to be a joke.
I mean, we’d had the Lancasters over for dinner. I’d eaten bouillabaisse with Luke and Donavan while I’d been texting under the table with Lily…
“Lily,” I whispered, “please. Tell me this is some kind of dream.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry, love. It isn’t.”
There was something in her voice, something that put me on red alert. “You knew?”
“About the women?” She cleared her throat. “I’m the one who found the evidence to give to the police.”
A sharp gasp escaped me. “Oh my God, how the hell did you find that?”
“I snooped around on Luke’s computer. He was a sick bastard, Tiffany. I can’t even tell you what he did to them. Not without wanting to throw up.”
The trace notes of a quiver in her voice made my eyes well with tears. “Did Luke hurt you?”
“In ways no one can ever understand,” she rasped. “But I don’t want to think about that now. I don’t have to.”
I shook my head like I’d just climbed out of the pool and was trying to get water out of my ears. I’d always known things with Lily’s family were odd, but this went to another level that was just beyond the extreme.
“Are you okay?”
“I will be.” She blew out a breath. “I’m going to go, love. I have things to sort out.”
I could only imagine. “Keep in touch.”
“Are you sure you want to? Now that you know?”
Anger washed through me. “Lilian Maria Lancaster! How dare you? I stood by you through the Mohawk Disaster of 2015 and the Cheerleading Charade of 2016. You aren’t getting rid of me, even if your family is starting to look like it belongs on an episode of Mindhunter.”
“Mindhunter?” She snorted. “I don’t want to know.”
I rolled my eyes. “I swear, how is it you know none of the shows on Netflix?”
“We don’t all have a cinema in our pool house,” she teased, and I pulled a face at said cinema as I slouched back on my favorite armchair in the room.
“True. Girl, I love you, you know that, right?”
“I do now, Tiff. Thank you, sweetie. I’ll speak to you later.”
“Do,” I urged, suddenly concerned that I’d never hear from my bestie again, and I cut the call so she didn’t have to.
For a second, I stared at the ceiling that had faux stars in it that twinkled, then I switched my gaze to the screen that had the news on a loop.
Donavan Lancaster’s fall from grace.
Lancaster’s evasion of arrest.
The Lancaster Corp throws Donavan Lancaster from their board of directors.
Lancaster’s flight to Vietnam.
It felt surreal. But what felt even more surreal was the woman on the screen. A woman who was talking about what the Lancasters had done to her.
Shakily, I switched off the news and clambered to my feet. My sanctuary felt like it had been violated as I shuffled out into the hall, and I carried onward until I was by the pool.
The garden was neat, manicured precision wherever you looked. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Mom, when no one was looking, dropped a squat and measured the blades of grass on the ground just to make sure they were the perfect heig
ht.
Rolling lawns led to a kind of rockery that surrounded the pool where I lived, and surged into the sandy gardens that housed hundreds of succulents and cacti that were my father’s pride and joy, even if he didn’t do a damn thing to take care of them.
Dad liked to think he was helping the environment even as he was raping it by building these massive developments, and the truth was, I couldn’t fault him for trying. We had more solar panels on our roof than tiles, and we more than did our bit to save the Earth.
I tried to reconcile that man with the one who knew Donavan. How had they been friends?
I mean, they had been friends. We’d gone on vacation with their family. You didn’t just do that because your daughter was friendly with another family’s daughter, did you?
Had it been business?
Far as I knew, Donavan had never invested in my dad’s deals. Just like with the development here, he’d been a prick and had built outside my father’s subdivision…
Perplexed and unsure what my brain was even struggling to form, I slouched into the house from the verandah and headed to my dad’s office.
The shouts hit me first, which had me pausing and hovering in the hall.
Mom and Dad never argued. At least, I hadn’t heard them argue ever since they’d started going to Dr. Leibowitz three times a week.
“You son of a bitch!” she was screaming. “You were friends with that prick! How could you?”
My eyes widened.
How could he what?
Heart stuttering, I wandered closer, trying to pick up on my dad’s mumbled retort.
Sliding forward as I strode down the corridor that led to his study, I tried to eavesdrop, but it was just my mom calling him a bastard, an SOB, over and over again. When she started crying, I almost anticipated the crash and figured she’d thrown one of his whisky bottles against the wall.
Back before Leibowitz, that had been one of her regular weapons.
I made it to the door, eyed the carnage in his office, and saw that my dad was sitting at his desk, back bowed, head in his hands.
My mouth opened, then it closed. I did that a few times before, feeling like a little girl rather than an almost twenty-three-year-old woman, I managed to rasp, “Daddy, what’s going on?”
Fourteen
Eoghan
“Got a real surprise for your bachelor party, bro.”
I eyed Declan, who was grinning at me like a shark.
In my opinion, there was nothing to be grinning about.
Nothing.
At.
Fucking.
All.
Arranged marriages were supposed to be a thing of the past, but in my world? They weren’t.
And I was living goddamn proof of that.
In a week, I’d be a husband.
A fucking husband.
And to a Russian.
A fucking Bratva bitch who’d been spawned by a Pakhan who wanted her off his hands.
Our wedding day was her goddamn eighteenth birthday.
Getting married to an eighteen-year-old might be on some weirdo’s to-do list, but it wasn’t on mine. Not that I had a choice.
The shiner I was wearing was a reminder of why I didn’t.
Aidan O’Donnelly was the head of our family in more ways than one. He was my father, but he was also the head of the Five Points’ Gang, and my recent beating was a reminder that one, though he was getting old, he could still beat the shit out of me. Especially when he had some lackeys hold me the fuck down.
Two, I had no say in this. My agreement was not required.
I eyed Declan over the rim of my whisky glass. It was this cool gadget that aerated whisky to perfection, and our elder brother, Conor, was all over his gadgets. His place looked like it would be a wet dream for any Star Trek nerd.
The black, smoky glass meant I couldn’t eye the liquid I was drowning my sorrows in, but it didn’t stop the liquor from doing its job.
“What kind of surprise?” I asked, dubious to the last.
“Such a cynic,” Dec retorted as he slung his elbows onto the bar at my side.
Conor’s place was all techno funk with goddamn strobe lightning all over. It was like a strip joint and a lab combined. The bar was made from tubular steel and glass, which supported some of the finest whiskies and tequilas in the Northern Hemisphere. The station I was leaning against was made from leather, and it had a nice cushion against my elbows. Swank but sterile.
That should be Conor’s slogan, I thought with a snort.
Dec shoved into me. “Fuck’s sake, Eoghan. Cheer up. You know we’re all on the line, don’t you?”
My brow puckered. “What does that mean?”
“Means that if Pa can hook us all up through a deal, he will.” He grabbed my fancy tumbler and took a deep sip. “Shit, this really does work.”
“Fucking told you,” Conor hollered from the white leather sofa he was slouched against, having his cock sucked by one of the strippers Brennan had hired for the occasion.
Dec flipped him the bird overhead. “It’s not like we’re going to get married by our own free will, is it?”
“We might. I might have,” I said grumpily, snatching my glass back.
“Yeah, right,” he rejoined with a snort. “We’re kings in Manhattan, bro. We don’t need to tie ourselves down.”
Which was bullshit. We all knew he was still grieving Deirdre, his sweetheart.
But even though I was pissed off, I wasn’t going to hurt Declan by bringing her up and calling him a liar.
She’d led him around by his dick for the most part, but for some reason, the fucker had loved her. Which meant, by now, they’d probably have had about ten kids and he’d have been even more whipped than he’d been back then.
Again, I didn’t say that. I had the ability to keep my trap shut.
“You’re not making me feel better,” I slurred. “I don’t want to get married. And not to Bratva.” I spat, the globule landing on the leather countertop.
“That’s just gross,” Conor shouted. “No spitting on the leather.”
I flipped him the bird this time. “Jerry ain’t sucking you off very well if you can focus on your fucking upholstery!” I growled over my shoulder, taking in the sight of debauchery.
Every man I knew, every brother high enough in the ranks, and friends from school, were all here. Declan and Brennan really had tried.
What amazed me the most was that they’d managed to get Finn here, Finn who was utterly obsessed with his wife.
Because he loved her.
Because he’d had the chance to fall for someone.
A chance I hadn’t been given.
Seeing him sitting at the dining table that was made of what I could only describe as bottle caps—Conor really needed a style overhaul—I asked Dec, “How did you get him here?”
“I didn’t,” Dec retorted with a laugh. “Aoife did.”
I raised a brow at that. “She has to know what was going to happen tonight.”
The Five Points didn’t have a reputation for being nuns. And on the final night of a man’s freedom? We made Roman orgies look tame.
Dec shrugged. “She has faith in him, and she’s right to by the look of the prick.” He grunted. “Not looked at any pussy all night, more focused on his fucking phone. Might as well have stayed at home.”
My lips twitched. “A woman like Aoife is worth ten of these sluts.”
“True. But a look, man? What harm would that do?”
“None,” I agreed. “But we’d both kick the shit out of him if he did more, wouldn’t we?”
Dec grinned. “Damn your sweet ass we would.”
“Glad you know my ass is sweet,” I muttered, but I was pleased we were on the same page.
Aoife was good as gold. If Finn had cheated on her, I’d have made him swallow his own dick for it. She’d given him a beautiful kid that, honestly, I couldn’t tell whether it was a boy or a girl, and she made the bastard happy
. The man might not be blood, but he felt like it. He was as much my brother as the rest of my siblings, and that Aoife put a smile on the bastard’s face relieved us all.
I wanted that for me.
Fuck, I’d never been sentimental before. Had never given a shit, but that was because I thought I’d had time. Time and choices.
Freedom.
“Come on,” Dec grumbled. “You’re about as fucking grim as Finn is.”
I scowled. “You’re not the one being shackled to scum.”
“Have you seen Inessa?” Dec shook his head. “She’s beautiful. It’s not like Dad is marrying you off to one of the ugly fucking sisters.”
“You like her so much, you have her,” I countered.
“Fuck that. She’s eighteen. What the fuck would I do with an eighteen-year-old?”
“Because you’re so much fucking older than me?” I grunted. “Prick.”
“Look, I could have held onto this treat all for myself, but no. I thought I’d give you a present. Maybe put a fucking smile on your face, but if you don’t want—”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What is it?”
He slapped a hand on my back and said, “Come with me.”
With another grunt, I stood up, then winced as my body registered exactly how much I’d been drinking.
Still, it did nothing more than give me the whisky equivalent of a brain freeze, and I slouched beside Dec as he guided me through the crowd.
Overhead, there were three balls glittering a bright, luminous blue that created a spotlight where four whores were currently fucking each other for our enjoyment.
I’d never understood the appreciation of scissoring, but to each their own. They had a ringside collection of men watching the party on a makeshift dais that had been crafted for tonight.
Behind them was a large sofa that seated around fifteen, and it was where most of the guys, including my brother Conor, had their dicks out while another team of whores serviced them.
By the table, at their back, was Finn. He was slouched against the gray leather chair he was sitting on, and he looked like he was at a meeting, except for the fact he wasn’t wearing a suit. He had on a pair of jeans and a thin sweater that would have had him fitting in at brunch at the Four Seasons.
Link: SATAN’S SINNERS’ MC: TWO Page 27
