After too much mental encouragement, I slowly take the stairs, each step feeling like I’m climbing a mountain. The house is quiet as I pace down the corridor to her room, and when I get there, I find the door open. Something is missing before my eyes can scan the space and tell me she’s not here. There’s no soul.
No Rose.
My chest expands, searching for oxygen. I walk to the wardrobes and find it full of clothes. It doesn’t reassure me.
Because her red dress is missing, and I know Rose well enough to know that if she was going to run, that’s all she would take.
I blindly stagger to the bathroom, finding everything in its place. My breathing becomes more labored, my body revolting against my attempts to give it air, throwing out every modicum of breath I find on constant gasps. “No,” I roar, turning and throwing my fist into the first thing within range. The mirror shatters, my knuckles split, and I slump against the wall, a rage so potent consuming me.
“Danny?”
I look up. Esther is in the doorway, the basket still in her arms.
“I let her out,” she says unapologetically, her chin high.
I stare at her for a long, long time, feeling a bit lost. She doesn’t back down. What do I do? Punish her? And how? Scream at her? I can’t talk.
I shake my head and brush past her, walking aimlessly through my house. It felt like the soul was ripped out of my mansion when Pops died. It came back somewhat when Rose was here, spirit filling this hollow brick shell. And now it’s gone again.
I feel anesthetized, numb, unfeeling.
Gutted.
My steps become quicker, more urgent, and I barge into my office, swiping up the Scotch on the way to my chair. I drop. I glug. I swallow. And I eventually focus past the end of the bottle.
Red fills my vision.
I lower my drink, swallowing down the burning liquid. She’s sitting on the couch by the fireplace, one leg crossed over the other, her own bottle in her hand, though she’s opted for vodka. Her beauty swamps my mind. That red dress throws me back to the night I first laid eyes on her. Every kiss, touch, and word races through my mind. She caught me. Reeled me in. Blinded me.
And betrayed me.
I slam the bottle on the desk and slowly rise, the fading anger returning now I’m looking at her beautiful, deceiving face. “Nox Dimitri,” I say simply. I’m surprised when she frowns, diverting her stare to her bottle of vodka in her hand. “What, did you forget that you betrayed me?” I round the desk, taking my Scotch with me for support. “The boatyard was crawling with FBI tonight.”
Her eyes dart to mine. “What?”
Her ignorance makes me want to strangle her, and before I know what I’m doing, I’m pulling her up from the couch. My hold of her injured arm is firm, and she comes with ease, meeting my eyes without a wince of pain. I walk her back until she’s pinned against the wall. “I had the pleasure of a photo-viewing session. Saw you and Nox Dimitri together. Heard of your expert qualifications in seducing men too.”
Her eyes widen. “No . . .”
Her denial angers me more, my hold of her constricting. “You’ve been feeding information to that Romanian cunt and now I’ve got the FBI crawling up my arse.” I push my forehead to hers, hard and forcefully. “The attempts on my life are because of you.” I release her before I really hurt her, pulling myself back to a reasonably safe distance. “You lying, filthy whore.” I say it with as much conviction as I feel, laughing on the inside when she appears to look insulted.
Her chin lifts in an act of pure Rose strength and she walks forward, brave and resolute. I can see her locking and loading that sweet palm of hers, and I don’t stop it. She swings at me with a look of pure hatred on her face, landing me clean on the cheek with brute force. Her strike creates the most piercing sound, the echo probably carrying through the entire house. “I didn’t tell Nox about the exchange,” she says calmly. “I could have, but I fucking didn’t. I typed out the message detailing where you would be and when, but I didn’t send it.”
I scoff. “Really, Rose? So if Nox didn’t tip them off, then who the fuck did?” I spit back, cricking my neck before taking another soothing sip of the hard stuff.
“I don’t fucking know. I was with you, Danny. Every time Nox tried to put an end to you, I was with you. Why would I do that?”
“Because you want to fucking die!” I roar.
“I don’t!”
Lies. I grab her by the throat, flexing my grip. “Shame,” I sneer, pushing my face close to hers, snarling. “Because I’m going to fucking kill you.”
“No, you won’t,” she retorts as she, too, drops her bottle, her hands coming up to mine on her neck.
“You sure about that?”
There’s that resolve in her again, and it makes me pause a beat as she pushes my hands into her throat, goading me to squeeze.
“Dead fucking certain, Danny Black.” She forces her forehead to mine, her words virtually hissed in my face. “Because you love me.”
Chapter 22
ROSE
* * *
Danny drops me like I could be diseased, moving away quickly. He looks shell-shocked. “No.” A shake of his head reinforces his lie.
“Yes.” I swallow, rubbing at my throat, his anger seeming to have transferred to me.
“No.” Now, he laughs, like my suggestion is the most obscene thing in the world. Sad truth is, it is. And that only angers me more. I shove my hands into his bare chest and send him staggering back.
“Yes,” I spit.
His scar deepens with the irritated twist of his lips. “No.”
“Fucking yes,” I scream, charging and shoving him back again. This time, he crashes against his office door, the sound of his naked back smacking the wood echoing around us. My balled fists press into his pecs, my jaw sore with tightness. “I see you, Danny Black. I see you clearly. Just as clearly as you see me.” I step back, freeing him, but he remains coated against the door, stunned into silence. I reverse my steps and dip to collect the vodka that was keeping me company, as well as feeding me some valor. “You can deny it all you like. I did.” I release a huff of laughter, because this whole fucking situation is fucking laughable. “But for my fucking sins, Danny Black, I love you too, you sadistic, twisted asshole.” I tip the bottle and take a healthy dose of courage. “I didn’t tell Nox about the exchange today because I . . . love . . . you.” I raise the bottle, face straight, and toast the air. “And if that isn’t good enough, then kill me, because if you don’t, he will.” I finish the last inch of the bottle and toss it aside, feeling gravity working against me. I start to sway. “I’ve been held to ransom my entire life. Blackmailed to do as I’m told or face the consequences.” I throw my arms in the air and let them plummet to my sides. “A punch to the back here, an invasion of my body there. Yes, you’re right. I was made to seduce whoever fucking Nox made me seduce. And hated every minute of it. Everything at a cost. But I choose to face the consequences this time.” I’m getting louder with each splurge of words, my hands more animated. “For you,” I shout, making him blink a few times. I don’t know who tipped off the FBI. I’m stumped. I tapped out that message and stared at it for an age before deleting it. Then I wrote it again after he left for the boatyard. And deleted it again. All I thought about was every moment between Danny and me that led to my realization. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it to him. I wasn’t sensible this time. I chose him.
Danny remains quiet, studying me. His nonresponsive form, his lack of emotion, tips me. “Why the hell would I still be here if I did that to you?” I scream. Still no reaction. “My fucking life and soul is on the line here because of my insane need to protect a man who apparently hates me, so you could at least say something.”
“You want me to say something?” he murmurs.
“Yes! Fucking say something.”
“I love you.”
I inhale sharply, slamming my mouth shut and moving back. I knew it. Or hoped
it. But hearing him actually say it? “What?” It feels surreal.
“I love you.” It sounds as good the second time as it did the first. So why am I distancing myself from him? “I love you,” he says it again, pushing himself away from the door by his shoulder blades. “Why are you wearing the red dress?” he asks, slowly closing the distance between us.
I look down my front on a frown, my head getting progressively woozier, the vodka replacing the blood in my hot veins. “To remind me of who I am,” I admit, reaching down and feeling at the material. A whore. Cheap.
His bare feet appear in my dropped vision, and I look up when he takes my throat softly, walking me back to his desk. My swallows roll against his flat palm, his cold eyes looking down at me like he hates me. “You’re mine. That’s who you are, Rose Lillian Cassidy,” he says quietly, with genuine conviction. “You’re fearless. I’m fearless. The only thing we’re scared of is each other.” He dips and directs my mouth up to his with a light press of his hand against my throat. “Your scars are my scars. And my scars are yours.” My bottom lip wobbles, and he presses his finger to it. “Don’t cry, baby. It doesn’t suit you.” His lips replace his finger, and he kisses me with so much softness. So much love. It accelerates my emotions and has me sobbing through our kiss, my uncoordinated arms eventually finding his shoulders and clinging to him. He takes the hem of my dress and pulls it up, but only to allow me to crawl up his body and wrap my thighs around his waist. Unrelenting chemistry isn’t fueling this. Unrelenting feelings are. Feelings neither of us have felt before.
Danny turns and walks us out of his office, his palm on the back of my head directing it to rest on his shoulder. No one has held me like this before. Like I’m the beginning and the end of the world for them. My mind is somewhat fuzzy with alcohol, but I will remember this moment, crystal clear, for as long as I live. It’s a whole new world for me.
The sound of the front door opening up ahead doesn’t prompt me to lift my head and look. I’m too calm. Settled. Heavy with drunkenness, but at peace with myself and the decision I have made. I choose him.
Danny stops, and I hear Brad. “She’s still here?” There’s no mistaking the shock in his voice.
“She didn’t tip anyone off.”
“But—”
“It wasn’t her,” Danny grates, his voice quiet but lethal. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
“What the hell am I supposed to tell the Russians until then?”
“Tell them I’m busy. We’ll rearrange,” he calls as he takes us up the stairs. I smile sleepily into his shoulder, using what energy I have left to hold him tighter. I don’t open my eyes until he’s laid me on the bed. Quietly and slowly, he strips me out of the red dress and then rips it apart at the seams, throwing it aside and crawling into bed with me. I’m pushed onto my side, he curls his body around mine, and tugs me back into his warmth. “No one has stood in your shoes before,” he murmurs once he’s settled around me. “No one has experienced me like you’re experiencing me. No one has seen what you’re seeing. No one has felt what you’re feeling. No one has touched what you’re touching.” He kisses the back of my head gently. “I’m yours, baby. All yours.” Warm breath coats my hair and spreads across every inch of my skin. “I love you. Because no one has ever loved me like you do.”
When I wake, I momentarily panic that I dreamed everything. It’s like Danny knew that might happen, so he’s placed himself right in front of me to make sure he’s the first thing I see when my eyes open. Bright, sleepy blues meet mine, his head on my pillow, the tip of his nose brushing mine. His breath is my breath. As every second of last night trickles into my brain, reminding me of where we’re at, I sigh, each minute of my memory enhancing the peace. I reach for his face, framing his scarred cheek with my palm as my eyes dance across his beauty. This wicked, brutal killer is mine. I bite my lip as a soft smile creeps up on me, and he takes my hand from his face, kissing the tip of each finger.
“Come here,” he orders, rolling to his back. I crawl my way onto his front and spread myself the length of him, my face finding his neck. He smells like man and freedom. He smells like he’s mine.
“I love you,” I mumble, nuzzling deeper into him, relishing the feel of his dangerous, rough hands working across my back.
“Are you still drunk?”
I nudge him and let the sound of his soft laugh wash over me. “Are you?” I’m moving, being pushed to my back, swapping positions with Danny. Framing my head with his strong, hard arms, he kisses me. “Only on you,” he whispers, and for the first time in my life, I swoon. Danny Black made me swoon. The merciless, cold-hearted killer made me swoon. “We need to talk,” he says around a nibble of my ear.
I fold, knowing it was coming and is needed, but expecting something doesn’t make it any easier to tackle. “I don’t know where to start,” I admit, feeling his soft, chaste pecks of my neck easing me into a needed sense of security.
“Start from the beginning.” He goes to pull out of my neck, but my hand on the back of his head pushes him down again.
“Stay there,” I order quietly, needing him all over me, reminding me of why I’m doing this. Reminding me of why I’ve chosen this road. He returns to kissing my neck, each compression of his lips to my flesh injecting me with the strength I need to share my miserable story. “My parents died in a car accident when I was nine. My father was drunk. So was my mother.” I close my eyes and zone out, forcing the memories back but bringing the words I need forward, reciting them robotically. “I had no other family so was fed into the foster care system. Three foster parents tried and failed to bring me under control. I was too angry at my parents for being so careless with their lives and leaving me all alone.” Danny’s lips falter for a split second, before he continues dotting my skin with his lips, weaving his fingers into my hair. As if his kisses have the power to heal. “I was teased at school. My pain wasn’t my own. Everyone else seemed to control it—my mother and father for dying, the bullies for enhancing it. I started cutting myself because that pain I could control.” My voice remains even and strong, but my grief returns, as strong as it was back then. “I was put in a children’s home. The bullying went on and I continued to hurt myself. Every time someone was cruel to me, I cut myself. They put me in therapy. I did one session and ran away.” I take a breath. I’ve never told this story. Ever. “A man found me in a homeless center where I used to go every Sunday to get hot soup. He was kind to me. Put me in a hostel with a dozen other young girls. Some were pregnant. Young girls who’d gotten themselves into trouble and had run away from home. Or so I thought.” Danny’s mouth stops again, and this time his body stiffens above mine. I smile sadly to myself, because he already knows what’s coming. I should have realized back then, but I was young, naïve, and desperate. “The first week was fine. All hot meals, clean clothes, care, and attention. Then the men started coming. The first time I was raped, I just lay there, frozen. It was like an out-of-body experience. I remember telling myself that if I shut down, it wouldn’t hurt so much. Just like I did when the kids at school teased me for being an orphan. That it would be over quicker if I didn’t resist. I was pregnant by fourteen.” Danny’s on his way out of my neck again, and this time he doesn’t let me stop him. His face is expressionless, though he can’t hide the swirl of anger gaining momentum in his shrewd eyes. “It was a blessing and a curse,” I continue quietly. “The men who came to the hostel didn’t want the pregnant girls. I was left alone. Then one day I watched one of the other girls give birth to a little girl. I watched them pull it from her womb and take it away. A month later, she was back in the game. I realized then that the only thing I had that I loved was growing inside of me and the second it took its first breath, it would be taken. I didn’t want to lose all over again. So I ran.”
Danny’s eyes close, his chest expanding from an inhale. Even his jaw is tight. “But they found you.”
“I was in labor. Couldn’t fight, couldn’t run. They t
ook me back to the hostel and I had my baby.” For the first time, my voice cracks, and I fight fiercely to keep my emotions in check. “I held him for a few minutes, and they were the best minutes of my entire life. Then they took him away.”
His head shake is mild as he scans my face. “How did you get away?”
“I didn’t. After I gave birth, I hemorrhaged. I was broken. They had no need for me anymore. But . . .” I pause a beat. “But I still had my looks and my body, even if I’d lost my soul. Nox took a liking to me. I was given to him as part of a deal. Nox was young. He dealt in women and drugs but he had no money. No respect. No power. I helped change that.” I take a breath. “He blackmailed people. I was his secret weapon. It was all I was good for. Dazzling men. Making them stupid. Distracting them. He’s so hungry for power and respect, Danny. He’s evil. Dangerous.”
“And my family killed his family.”
“What?”
“Fifteen years ago. Carlo went to Romania. He’d heard the Dimitri family were planning on moving into America. He went and killed the problem. He killed Nox’s father. I killed his brother.” He swallows, his eyes darting, and I don’t like it. “He wants me dead. He wants my world.”
I lose my breath. This is worse than I ever imagined. This isn’t only business. It’s revenge.
“You could have run, Rose. Why didn’t you run?”
“Because I want my son to live and be happy,” I say, and Danny looks at me, the pain in his eyes unbearable to see. “Every time I needed putting in my place, if a good punch or slap didn’t work, then a reminder that his happiness was in my hands did. That’s how it’s been. I crave pictures of him. I need to see how he’s doing, that he’s safe and happy, away from this evil world. Those pictures have been . . . my reward. I also get them as a reminder that failure to comply won’t just result in me being hurt. So, you see, it’s been very easy to do as I’m told. Because even if I am beyond hope, he is not.”
The Brit Page 28
