by Ella Miles
My father leans over to me, alcohol heavy on his breath as he says, “There is so much more you don’t know, Kather—Kai. So much more. Find the truth before Enzo does. It’s the only way to win.”
I straighten and look my father dead in the face and speak loud enough so everyone can hear my declaration. “I don’t want to win.”
14
Enzo
We return across the plank to our ship in silence. I hold out my hand to her as I did before. Walking onto the ship, she held my hand like we were a team. Walking off, she didn’t take my hand.
I don’t know what her father said to her, but it wasn’t an apology. It wasn’t what I told him to say.
She fired him. That was her vengeance. She’s hoping by sending him away she will be able to heal and get over this. She doesn’t realize a child never gets over the betrayal of their own father.
Never.
It’s something I will live with the rest of my life.
And so will she.
Kai walks straight for our private rooms once aboard our yacht. She is in no mood to talk or be around other people. I unlock the doors for her because it will be faster than waiting for her to do it herself. I hold the door open, and she steps inside. She heads directly toward her room.
She hasn’t slept in that room since she boarded the yacht. She’s stayed in my room, but right now, it looks like she wants to be alone. And I can’t handle that. I want to help her. I want to heal her. And I can’t do that if she locks me out.
I put my hand on the door to her room, stopping her from opening it.
“Want to get a drink with me before bed?”
She looks at me, and I see the pain etched on her face. I want to make her smile. I want her to be happy. But she can never be happy here with me. She will never be happy until she is free of this life.
She takes a deep breath, probably to tell me off.
“We can play a game while we get a drink,” I say, hoping that getting to play a game of truth or lies with me will sweeten the deal.
She smiles softly. “Okay.”
It’s the most beautiful word I’ve heard. It warms me to know I get to spend a few more hours with her. Even if she doesn’t share my bed tonight, I will still have this.
I don’t hold out my hand to her again; I already know she won’t take it. I think she thinks that by not touching me she will break our connection, that I won’t be able to read her mind as easily if I can’t feel her.
But I don’t need to touch her to understand her. I feel her heart fluttering too quickly in her chest. I feel the throbbing ache in her chest. I feel the coolness of her breath. She wants to shut down so she doesn’t feel. That’s why she wanted to go back to her room alone. So she could go back to her icy cage and not feel anything.
I open the door to the lounge, decorated with beautiful, elegant white couches and soft lights to make it feel light and airy. There is an all-glass bar in the corner, and the room could easily fit fifty people for a party. Instead, it usually only holds me, and now Kai. I don’t need more than that.
“What do you want to drink?” I ask as I walk behind the bar.
She stares at all of the high priced liquors floating on a glass shelf overhead.
The yacht rocks hard, and we both grip onto the cool glass of the bar to keep from falling over. My eyes lock with hers trying to calm her, but I don’t see as much fear as I would expect. Her father hurt her too much to care about a rocking ship at the moment.
It rocks again, and I know we are heading into treacherous waters. Storms are coming, both natural and man-made. Milo will be coming soon if we don’t attack first. And we still have to face the second round of games.
Kai steadies herself and grins as she stares up at a bottle of liquor. A cheap bottle. I don’t even know how it got onto this yacht.
“No,” I say.
“Yes,” she says.
“No way. We are not drinking that poison.”
She nods hungrily. “Yes, we are. If you don’t want me to head to my room right now and shut everything out, then you are drinking with me, and I get to choose the drinks. And I choose shots of Jagermeister.”
“Ugh,” I moan. “I don’t think my stomach can handle it.”
“Come on, Black. I thought you were made of stronger stuff.”
She’s back to calling me Black again. And I didn’t miss her declaration to her father. She doesn’t want to be Black. She just wants this to be over. She wants to pretend this life never existed. That I never existed.
It hurts, but not as much as drinking this liquor is going to.
“Fine.”
She smiles triumphantly and climbs up on the counter to reach the bottle herself.
I reach for a couple of high ball glasses so I can at least mix coke or something into it to disguise the taste.
She wags her finger at me. And then reaches behind me for the shot glasses.
Oh, hell no.
“Seriously? Shots?”
She nods. “We are about to get wasted.”
I sigh. I would do anything for this girl. She has somehow snuck onto my very limited list of people I would lay down my life to protect. That list includes Langston and Zeke. Both brothers who would protect me as readily as I protect them. Then there is Liesel and Kai. Only four people I truly care about.
Kai carries the bottle and shot glasses over to the biggest couch, sits, and pours two shots.
I sit next to her and reluctantly take one of the glasses. She holds hers out with a huge smile on her face, and suddenly this is all worth it. I’d drink myself to death with the shitty liquor just to see her smile.
We both slam the drink down, and I try not to vomit from the taste.
“Why do you like this so much?”
“I grew up on this shit. You think my father could afford better?”
Yes, I think your father could afford a lot more on the quarter of a million dollar salary we paid him each year.
She frowns, realizing her mistake, and pours another shot for each of us.
“So what do you think the next round in the game will be?” she asks, trying to move on from her father.
I sigh. “I don’t know. But if I know my father, it will be cruel and twisted. Something neither of us wants to do.”
Her eyes grow bigger at that thought. Stealing from Milo was easy. He was a rich asshole who stole and beat women. He deserved everything and more than we did to him. But my dad could order us to kill an innocent. And at least one of us would have to do it if we want the games to stop.
She raises the new shot. “To shitty fathers.”
“To shitty fathers.”
We both down another shot of poison. This time it goes down a little easier.
“You start,” she says, referring to the game of truth or lies I promised. She pours more liquor into both of our glasses while I lean back, getting comfortable on the couch.
I say the first thing I’m thinking, “I healed after what my father did to me, and so will you. Truth or lie?”
“Lie, drink,” she says. She downs her shot, and so do I. She refills our glasses before she speaks.
“I forgave my father for selling me.”
“Lie,” I say as we both slam another drink down.
Kai wasn’t kidding about getting drunk. With the number of shots we are drinking, we are going to be completely hammered.
The ship heaves again—and maybe that’s a good thing. She will pass out and be able to sleep through the storm.
“I forgave myself for selling you.”
She frowns like my lie is painful to her. It shouldn’t be. She will never forgive me, and I will never be able to either.
“Lie,” she says quietly. We both drink, but it’s more somber this time.
She bites her lip, considering her next truth or lie.
“I could never forgive you,” she says.
“Truth,” I sigh, knowing it’s true.
She shakes her
head. “I already forgave you.”
My pupils dilate, and my heart races as if she admitted her deepest secret. She didn’t, but the emotions that spill from her words consume me. How can she forgive me? She’s lying—to me or to herself.
What I did was unforgivable. But we are both too drunk for me to argue with her about it now. So I keep playing the game instead.
If she wants to get deep, then so will I.
“I killed my father,” I say, admitting something I’ve never said to anyone.
Kai looks at the scars she can see on my hands. She looks at the pain in my eyes and the fire in my soul. She’s seen how black my heart can get. I’ve never told her any stories about how my father trained me. I’ve never told her stories about how cruel my father could be. But she knows. She sees the evidence on my skin and heart.
She didn’t kill her father for what he did to her. But I did mine. And she will probably hate me for stooping to his level.
“Good, he deserved to die. Did you make him suffer?”
“Yes, when I became stronger than him, I snuck into his office. I made him bleed on every surface of the office he loved and then painted the walls with his blood. Only when he showed how weak he could be, did I kill him.”
She licks her lips like what I just said turned her on.
I shake my head. We are two messed up motherfuckers.
The boat rocks and I wince, preparing for the fear and pain on her face. She downs her last shot.
“I’m not afraid of the water anymore. The rocking doesn’t scare me. Not when there is something so much more treacherous I fear.”
Milo?
Does Milo now consume all her thoughts that she no longer has more than one fear?
I don’t get to tell her I think it’s a truth. I don’t get to ask her what she’s terrified of. Because she launches herself on top of me, her lips meeting mine as her hips grind onto my crotch.
We’ve both drank so much our bodies literally shouldn’t be able to fuck at our level of intoxication. But with one kiss I sober up quickly, and my cock hardens into stone.
Her tongue dips into my mouth as if she’s been doing it for years, and I’m the liquid she yearns to taste, not the liquor. She tastes like cheap alcohol. It should turn me off; instead, it makes me crave more.
Shit, now I’m going to want to drink Jager all the time because it reminds me of her.
I slip my hand under her shirt, letting her cool skin ease my senses. The self-control it takes to keep the devil inside instantly takes over when I touch her. Her skin makes me feel human in a way I haven’t felt since I was a young kid.
She makes me think I’m not a monster. But I’m just fooling myself. She only pushes the monster away for a few minutes while I focus on her.
I reach for her pants, and she swats my hand away.
“Just kiss me and hump me like two teenagers making out on their parents’ couch. Only when you can’t help but not have me do I want you to fuck me.”
Jesus.
I’m already there, but I don’t tell her that. I flip us over and do exactly what she asks. She wants to get a teenage experience she never had, fine. But after that, she is going to get all man.
I drive my hips into her spread legs, letting her feel as much as she can through our clothes as I dip my tongue in and out of her mouth, kissing her like she’s never been kissed before.
My kisses should be messy and drunk, but they’ve never been so focused on my mission of getting Kai to beg for me to strip her naked and fuck her with my fingers, tongue, and cock.
I want it all tonight.
She didn’t tell me what she fears yet, but I want to take it all away. I will drive it away with sex—at least for tonight. And tomorrow, I’ll figure out what looms over her.
I grind my cock again into her core as her body grips my waist with her legs, begging for so much more than she will ever admit to me.
What are you hiding, pretty girl?
I want to fuck it out of her, but that’s not fair. She told me her truth during the game. Now I just have to figure out my own truth.
I don’t know how teenagers make out on the couch anymore. That was something I was never privileged enough to experience. Not because I didn’t have women lining up for me at that age, but because my youth was stolen too soon. At that age, I was treated like a man. My fucks were with women, not teenaged girls.
“Are you okay?” Kai asks, stopping our kisses and looking into my eyes like she can see what haunts me.
I smirk. “Yes, I’m about to fuck the most beautiful woman in the world.”
She cocks her head. “You already decided you are going to get lucky, huh? You still have to win me over, convince me to fuck you.”
I nuzzle her neck and kiss the tender spot there. “I already have.”
I want to torture her slowly, but I have no patience or self control when it comes to her. She controls my body and soul. I’ve never been in a more dangerous position than when I’m with her.
“Fuck me, Black.”
One command and I yield to her.
I could never deny her.
Before this is all over I’m going to sacrifice everything for this woman, I can feel it deep down to my bones.
I pull her pants down before sliding my own down. I barely have time to sheath myself with a condom before my cock grows a mind of its own and slides into her slick pussy.
She groans, and I lose my shit.
Why does making her feel good drive my every action?
Why does she have this hold over me?
I thrust, feeling her tightness and enjoying the beautiful glaze of her eyes as she releases whatever fear she’s dreading.
What is it about Kai that makes everything different?
She has a pussy and a tight body like every other woman I’ve been with. She’s beautiful and smart and fearless, but there are plenty of women in the world with similar attributes.
Is it because we share similar life experiences? Both raised by fathers more concerned with winning an empire than raising children? Both spending our entire adult lives fighting for something we don’t really want?
That’s part of it, but there is something deeper I don’t understand. And when my cock is inside her, like it is now, I have no hope of figuring it out.
I watch her mouth change into a beautiful O shape as she cries out her orgasm. With every other woman, I make her come because it stokes my ego. It makes me feel godlike to know I can control something so intimate. With Kai, simply seeing her orgasm brings me as much pleasure as my own.
Her body settles down, her orgasm finishing its course, and I’m frozen. I just awe in the beauty on her face.
“Enzo? What are you doing?” Kai asks bashfully.
“Watching you.”
She bites her gorgeous lip.
“Aren’t you going to come?”
“Yes, but I didn’t want to ruin this moment. I wanted to be able to watch every second of your orgasm.”
“I’m done now.”
I laugh. “You aren’t anywhere close to done.”
I pound into her body and watch as her body responds. And I know I’ll pull another orgasm out of her soon.
This woman.
This beautiful, broken woman is going to be the end of me.
She is going to take everything.
My house.
My money.
My men.
My family.
My empire.
It will all be hers by the end. I don’t want the empire any more. It means nothing if I can’t keep her safe. I don’t care about winning; I only care about protecting her.
Tomorrow I’ll do more surveillance of Milo Wallace. He’s her biggest threat at the moment. He’s my new mission. Killing him, and then sending a message to the world that Kai Miller is never to be touched.
Kai may never belong to me, but she doesn’t belong to them either.
She’s like the wild ocean waves, u
ncontrollable and with the power to take over the world with one crash if she wanted to. Her wrath will eventually decimate me in one mighty hurricane. Because that is who she is. She can pretend she forgives me, but deep down, she will never let that pain go until she destroys me.
Body, heart, and soul.
It will all be claimed by the sea. Kai doesn’t fear the sea anymore because she’s taken on its power.
And I’m fire—even with all its mighty power, I can be easily extinguished with one crash of her waves.
What do you fear now, Kai? How do I protect you? Because I no longer care if I survive, only that you do.
It’s not because I love her; I’m too fucked up for love. But because I believe Kai is truly better than me. She has the power to change everything in our world. She has the power to stop the cycle of Rinaldis and Millers battling each other for a dark world that shouldn’t even exist.
And because the only way to keep my empire and who I am is to give her up now, not wait until the end of the game. The fucking would have to stop. The kissing. The touching. The connecting. All of it needs to end in order to keep myself whole.
But I can’t.
I want her too much.
I’m about to lose everything to this woman.
And the sacrifice will be worth it.
15
Kai
Enzo Black is broken.
How did I not realize it before?
Yes, I thought he was a little fucked up like all of us are. His father did a number on him. I understand the feeling now that I know my father did the same or worse.
But how did I not realize he’s as broken, if not more so than I am? He doesn’t even think he is capable of love.
Of being loved.
Of loving others.
Of falling in love.
I know Enzo can never love me. We are enemies. We’ve both betrayed each other and will continue to betray each other in different ways, but he needs to heal enough to love again. He helped me heal so I could love him. The only way I will be able to truly walk away from him is if I know he can love another—even if that person isn’t me.
