by V. Domino
“About half an hour. I’ll get Nonny to put some food on.” He leaves his office and I finish my drink before heading upstairs to find Tilly. I’m surprised when I find her in my room.
“Did mum put you in here?”
“Yes, is that okay?” she asks.
I smile, “Hell yeah, I just thought she would have put you in a spare room and not mine.”
“This is your room?” Ah she didn’t realise.
“Yes, baby it is. Now tell me how you feel about it.” I walk towards her and she backs up to the wall.
“Tilly?” I question as I lean closer to her.
“I don’t want to be anywhere else. I want to stay with you, I know you’ll keep me safe.”
“I’ll do my fucking hardest to, Tilly. I really will.” I don’t want to wait any longer and I kiss her again. She’s like a drug and she has me addicted after only a few hours. When I pull away I can see the lust in her eyes.
I take her hand and pull her to the bed, but just sit on the end. She does the same. “We need to talk,” I say as I look her in the eyes.
“Not that line again. Are you going to keep saying that to me - just fucking talk already.”
I can’t help but laugh at her, she is hilarious. And I know that she is going to piss Alexei off big time. He likes women who are submissive and do whatever he wants them to. I can’t see how that is going to keep him happily married - maybe that’s why he hasn’t found a wife yet.
Now I just need to tell Tilly what’s going to happen. She needs to be prepared.
He wants to talk. What the hell does he want to talk about now.
“So, you worked out who my granddad was. I walked away from the family business because I’d seen a lot of bloodshed and didn’t want to be involved in it. So someone has come after me because my grandad died. They think they can swoop in and take over our business. I may not know a lot about it but I know that my parents are proud of who they are and they will do whatever it takes to keep control.”
“They sound very passionate about family.”
“They are.” He says rubbing his thumb over my hand as he talks. I wonder if he knows he’s doing it. It’s comforting. “There is going to be bloodshed, Tilly. There will be some deaths, hopefully none of us, but there’s always a chance. This is why I stay away from everything because I don’t want to die and I don’t want to be the cause of fighting either.”
“From what I know though, Silas, this happens all over the country, and that in London there are a few ‘gangs’ that have control. This is the way things are done on the streets. Even the cops leave these things to sort themselves out - they don’t want to know. They don't want to interfere. So if there is a problem the only way to deal with it is to handle it yourselves.”
He strokes one of his fingers down my cheek to my chin and then he moves it so that I’m looking in his eyes. He leans forward and kisses me. God I love his kisses already. I’ll miss them when I go home.
“How did I get so lucky that the woman I kidnapped would like me and would understand what my family does. That understands the situation we are in. You could be at home in your apartment, tucked up and getting ready for your Christmas party.”
“Shit, I forgot about the party.” I look at him. “I think we can have a better party here, Silas. You and me. I don’t like my job and I hate the people I work with, so I don’t care and if they decide they want to sack me, it wasn’t worth it anyway.”
He pulls me into his body and kisses my ear. “I want to fuck you right now, but I know my brothers and sister will be here in less than ten minutes and I want to spend more than that devouring your body. Can I have a raincheck?”
My body spasms at the thought of what he just said. “Of course you can, but you will have to spend a lot of time devouring my pussy.” I look at him with my innocent eyes and see his widen as he starts to laugh. I join in and we both fall against his bed.
Suddenly his door swings open so fast as it hits the wall. We both sit up and look at a man who has barged his way in.
“Well, well if it isn’t our big brother who has come home because he’s in trouble and needs the help of his psycho brothers. Isn’t that what you called us before you left home, Silas?”
Silas stands and walks toward his brother and it’s the first time I’ve seen any form of aggression in his body. “Alexei, so good to see you. Thank you for helping us out - the quicker it’s done the quicker I can be out of your hair. Brother.”
When Alexei doesn’t get a rise out of Silas he turns his attention to me. “You brought a whore with you - do you really think this is a time for laughing and fucking?”
Before Silas can answer on my behalf I stand in front of Alexei. “Don’t you fucking talk about me like that. I am certainly not a whore. If you think I’m easy going then just you keep pressing my buttons,” I poke his chest with my finger. “Pal.” Then I walk back to the bed and sit down.
Silas is looking at me as if he wants to eat me up and devour me. Alexei is looking at me as if he doesn’t understand that a woman would talk to him like that.
“Jesus, you pick your woman as well as your choice of life. Badly.” Alexei storms off and slams the door behind him again.
Silas looks at me as if he thinks I’m going to cry, but I can’t stop laughing. Soon Silas joins in. “Did you see his face when you were poking him in the chest? I thought I was going to keel over with laughter.” Silas is shaking his head and laughing so much. “Babe, I think you might have made an impression, the problem is I’m not sure if it was a good one or not.”
“I don’t care, no one talk about me like that and gets away with it.” He takes my hand and helps me up off the bed.
“No one should talk to you that way, he’s a prick. But he’s right we do need to go down and talk about this and now isn’t the time for me to be thinking about getting in your knickers.”
I lean into him. “Who says I’m wearing any?” I move ahead of him and let him look at my ass.
“Do you want to be involved in what’s going on or do you want to just stay here and wait it out?”
I stop and turn to face him. “Silas in the few hours that you’ve known me, do you think I’m a woman who wants to sit back and let a man fight for her?”
He shakes his head. “Not in the slightest, but I don’t want to assume, just in case I’m wrong.”
“You’re not wrong, Silas. I want to fight at your side.” We make our way downstairs to meet the others.
It was hard watching her stand up to my brother. No one has ever done that except me before and it was exhilarating.
When we step into the lounge this time, my sister Annika throws herself at me and hugs me. “Silas, it’s been too long. I miss you.” Annika is twenty and she’s at college. We’ve tried to hide her identity from most people so that she gets the chance to have a normal life for a while.
She lets me go and turns to Tilly. “And you must be the new woman in Silas’s life. Well the only woman he’s ever brought home to meet us. He must like you a lot.” She holds her hand out to Tilly. “I’m Annika.”
“I’m Tilly,” she says as she shakes my sister’s hand. “We’ve not known each other long, it’s new.” She looks at me when she says it and a warm feeling washes over me.
“Well, i’m so happy to have another woman in the house. It’s always those three against me and I hate it. Come and sit with me.” She moves over to the couch and Tilly sits down next to her. I sit on the edge of the couch next to Tilly and I rest my arm on her shoulder.
Maxim looks at me and says, “Your fault we’re here is it? What did you do?”
I laugh. Maxim acts tough, but he’s not really - he just always feels he has to compete with Alexei who is angry all the time. “Someone was after me and I tried to escape but kind of grabbed Tilly on the way. So, we need to do something to stop them coming after any of us again. We need to retaliate and we need to do it quickly.”
“Sounds strange
hearing you talk like that,” Dad says. “You’re right though. I’ve got the word out to find out who was after you and we need to plan our attack and I think we need to do it quickly, before they have a chance to try something else. They won’t think we will go after them, they think we aren’t strong enough now that your grandfather is gone, but they forget we have the new generation of Wells-Petrova’s and they’ve all been taught well. We protect our family and anyone who we love.”
At that moment Nonny comes into the room. “Dinner is served.”
We all stand and follow her to the dining room. I take Tilly’s hand to make sure she’s okay.
“Are we really going to eat while we wait to start a war?”
I laugh. “Yes, we need to get our strength up.”
She laughs back. “Bunch of weirdos.”
Dinner is good, as always. And everyone around the table is relaxed. We never brought out fights to the dinner table. Alexei is still a little bit uptight, but that never changes. I pity the woman he chooses as his wife.
Dad gets a call during dinner and he steps out of the room to answer it. When he comes in he sits back down, but doesn’t say anything. I know he’s waiting for us to finish our meal first.
We’ve had desert and wine and then Dad tells us that he would like us all in his office. He looks at me and nods his head toward Tilly showing me he wants her there too.
I take her hand and walk into his office, when I sit down I pull her on my lap as there aren’t enough seats.
“So, the call I took was from Victor. He told me that someone whose father used to be in Ares’s mob was responsible. Apparently he’s been biding his time to get payback for the death of his father.”
“I didn’t think he had any family,” Mum says.
“Nor did I and I worked with him,“ Dad says, looking perplexed. “I’m going to need to do some more digging into him. Alexei can you chase our contacts to see what they know. Maxim, find out where they live, where they dine, where they take a shit if needs be. Silas, find out what they want. What are they hoping to achieve?”
Tilly clears her throat. “What can I do? I want to help?”
Alexei starts to laugh. “Nothing, don’t you think you’ve done enough?”
“I didn’t do anything. I could be trying to call the police to have Silas arrested, but I’m not - am I? I want to help. If there is anything I can do then let me know.”
I rub her back to show her that I’m proud of her.
“I’ll bear that in mind, Tilly. Thanks,” Dad says as he indicates that the meeting is over.
Annika comes over to Tilly. “Do you want to come chat to me and let the men do their thing? I’d love to get to know you better.”
Tilly looks up at me and I smile. She leans up and kisses me before she goes off with Annika.
God, she’s special. How the hell did we end up together? Fate works in mysterious ways.
“Right, let’s get this started and find out who is involved and what we need to do to fix it,” I say as I walk to the lounge to start making some calls.
Annika is lovely. I can see we’d be really good friends. She’s funny and so down to earth, which I find amazing seeing as she obviously grew up with money. I sit on her bed and watch her as she goes into her walk-in closet. “I thought you didn’t live here anymore,” I ask following her in.
She continues to pick some clothes out. “I don’t, but we all have a full closet of clothes just in case we have to hole up in here. This is our safe haven, this is where we are totally protected and this is where we fight together as a family.” She walks back into her room and I follow her.
She hands me some clothes, some black jeans and a black t-shirt. “Those should fit you. We look the same size.” Then she passes me some boots. “Put these on, then you’ll be ready to kick some ass and not just my brothers.” She laughs. “I heard you stand up for Silas in front of Alexei, that was impressive. Most people cower when he gets angry but you realised he’s a soft touch really.”
“I wasn’t going to have him call me a whore and get away with it. I’m an innocent by-stander in all of this. I didn’t want to be taken out of that changing room, but it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It gave me a chance to meet and get to know Silas. I feel so close to him already. I don’t know what’s happening.” I sit down on her bed again and zip up the boots she gave me.
She comes and sits on the bed beside me. “Seriously, Tilly you and Silas look good together and it’s obvious you both want each other. I know it’s only been a few hours, but these chances only come around once in our lives, take it by the horns and see where it goes. I love my brothers and I want them to be happy. Especially Silas. It was difficult for him to walk away from the family business but our parents respect him for it. If he wants to stay after all of this they will let him and there won’t be another thing said about it. He’s loved a lot here regardless of what Alexei says about him.”
“I don't know what it is about him, but he’s just so… special. He’s not like any man i’ve ever met before. It’s early days, but I want to see where it goes.”
We chat some more and then we decide to go downstairs and see what is happening. I feel like I need to see Silas myself. They are all working hard to find out who is behind this and looking at our next steps.
Silas kisses me as he’s on the laptop searching for anything he can find. “Hey, Tilly. Did you girl have fun? You look hot.” He says as he stands and hugs me. This man makes my heart race.
“Thanks.”
“Hey, Tilly let’s go take a walk outside, we’re safe here. It will do us good to get some fresh air and get away from these men for a while.”
I look at Silas and he nods his head. He kisses me again before taking his seat and checking the laptop again.
Annika and I leave and we walk the grounds. Their estate is huge and it backs onto the Thames. It’s beautiful and I can’t imagine being brought up here, all I know is my small house in a bad part of town.
“So, what do you know about our family?” Annika asks as she shows me around the grounds.
“Not a lot really. I didn’t realise who Silas was until he told me and then we came here. I was just in a lingerie shop trying on something to wear under my dress for my Christmas party.”
Annika laughs. “Only my brother would think that he could hide out in a lingerie shop. Did he give you chance to get dressed before he kidnapped you?”
“No, I was sitting on his bike in the lingerie and his jacket. Annika, everyone could see my ass.” She laughs and I can’t help but laugh at it too. It is by far the scariest and the funniest thing that has happened to me so far.
The two of us can’t stop laughing and I know it’s my expense, but it is so ridiculous it’s funny. Annika walks me down to the river and shows me one of their boats. As we turn toward the boat, someone comes out of nowhere. Before we both get chance to scream, we are both hit on the head. As I drop to the ground, I see blood coming out of Annika’s head. Fuck. I might not live to see Silas again.
Everything goes dark as I feel someone lift me up and carry me away. Where the hell are they taking me and who the hell is it?
We’re in dad’s office catching up on what we’ve found out today.
“So, Ares’ son, Dareios, has decided he wants to take over where his father had left off when he died,” Dad says looking at the three of us. “I didn’t know he had a son and I think he was waiting for your grandad to die. He had a lot more power that we did, but when we joined forces our reach expanded and people were afraid of us. We have to stop Dareios before there’s bloodshed on our streets. We need to protect our family and then we protect the streets.”
“I’m here to do whatever you want, father,” Alexei says, always a lick ass.
“Dad, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep my family and Tilly safe.”
“She means something to you already, son?” He looks at me and the edges of his lip curls up in amusement
. “Just like your mother did to me. She’s forthright and ballsy, I’ll give her that. All those traits remind me of your mother and I know that you are in for a fun ride. We will keep our family safe and Tilly is part of our family now.” He puts his hand on my shoulder and walks toward Alexei.
“Alexei, I want you to take control of this situation. You lead us all. I know you’re angry with Silas, but we all have choices in life, he made his. But he’s family and we protect our own.”
“Alexei, I’m not trying to take over from you. Just because I’m the oldest sibling doesn’t mean that I should be in charge. You’ve been destined for that position more than I ever have and I would never dream of stepping on your toes. You know what I’m doing and I will obey anything you tell me to do. I love you, brother, both of you.” God, why am I so emotional?
Alexei stands. “Thanks, father and Silas,” he steps up to me and holds out his hand. “I’ve always been jealous of you. You always trained harder than me, you were more intelligent and when you walked away from the family business I hated you, but a part of me was delighted because it meant that I could really show my potential. I apologise for calling Tilly a whore earlier and I promise that I will keep our family safe and I will make sure that no one touches Tilly”
“Thanks man,” I say as I shake his hand and pull him into a hug where I slap him on his back.
An alarm goes off and dad presses a button under the desk. One of the pictures on the wall slides down and a row of monitors is revealed. We all stare at the screens, it means we have intruders.
“What the fuck?” I point to one of the monitors trained on the marina. “That’s Annika and Tilly.”
Dad gets onto the phone and calls security, but there’s no answer. We watch as two men run up to Annika and Tilly and grab them both. Then we watch as they hit them over the head and put a cloth over their mouths and drag them into a small boat.
I can’t watch anymore, my feet carry me out of the house and through the grounds. Why did they have to have so much land between them and the river? My brothers and dad are behind me, each of us with a gun in our hands.
