by Eva Ashwood
I’m actually thankful to see Grace, if thankfulness is even an emotion you can feel in a torture chamber.
When she went upstairs earlier, we all decided to give her a bit of time to work through shit. Didn’t mean I didn’t want to charge up there and demand to know if she was okay, promise to take care of her, and threaten to kill anyone who hurt her—but I knew that wasn’t what she needed. She needed time, and we gave it to her. As much as we could, at least, before none of us could stand it anymore. Hale left the room a little while ago to go check on her.
She looks a little rough around the edges, just like the rest of us, but she walks into the room with a determined expression on her face, and I know she’s worked hard to pull herself together, to function through the shock and pain.
She’s carrying her head high like the badass bitch she is.
“How long have you been working with Camilla?” Ciro asks, taking a step away from Leland.
Tied to the chair, the middle-aged man sucks in a breath, breathing hard. “A couple years,” he says, swallowing. “She had shit on me that could’ve put me in jail for life. Blackmail. She threatened my family. I was only trying to protect my family, she was going to kill them—”
Hale growls, stalking over to Leland. He doesn’t even have to raise a hand and the guy flinches.
I always knew Leland was a fucking pussy.
“You cowardly son of a bitch.” Hale’s lip curls. “You thought that by bending to her will, you wouldn’t end up hurting people? You thought she was only going to ask a small task of you? One little thing and then it would be over, no fucking harm done? You thought you were keeping your family safe?”
We all take a personal offense to that last lame-ass excuse. Each and every one of us.
It would’ve been like a slap in the face for Damian to hear one of his highest-ranked captains say those words.
Because when you join the Novak syndicate, we become your family. Your own family becomes our family, and our full protection is extended to them.
In the mafia, we value those connections. We take care of our women. Take care of our kids. Leland knows that as well as anyone. If he hadn’t been such a slimy little cocksucker, if he’d been loyal to the organization he swore his life to, his family actually would have been safer. We would’ve done everything in our power to protect them from Camilla’s wrath.
Now? He’s basically hung them out to dry. Painted a target on their backs that she’ll be happy to aim for.
“You had my father’s trust.” Hale’s voice is low, but I can feel his anger rising. “Of all the things you could’ve chosen to do when Camilla threatened you, you chose the one that would bring the most damage to everything and everyone you should’ve cared about. You’re exactly what my father despised.”
Leland flinches at the verbal blow as if it were an actual punch. Honestly, I don’t know if it’s better or worse that Hale’s words obviously hit a sore spot. In some ways, it just makes his actions worse. Even though he was a traitor in the end, Leland still looked up to Hale’s father. Respected him. Loved him.
And yet, he chose to betray him.
“The choices you have made have put your family in more danger,” Hale continues. “The choices you have made put everyone in our syndicate in more danger. I don’t know what the fuck you told yourself so you could sleep at night, but you may as well have pulled the trigger yourself.”
With that, Hale backs off and turns to pace the room, unable to say anything else to the traitor.
I watch Leland closely, observing the way his jaw twitches, his bloodshot eyes staring at the concrete wall behind me with an absent intensity. Ciro’s good. He’s well-versed enough in torture to have pushed Leland right to the edge of his breaking point—and the man’s guilt only pushes him further down that path.
But it’s a fine line we’re walking. In only a few minutes, if we don’t keep him from doing it, he’s going to collapse in on himself, his body and mind shutting down. He’ll go to a mental place far, far away from here.
We have to keep him with us. Keep him talking.
“How did Brian get involved in this?” Grace asks suddenly, her voice steady.
I turn around slowly, glancing over my shoulder at her.
Grace.
No matter how much I might despise her parents, I have to admit they named her perfectly. She’s the embodiment of that word, beautiful and delicate. My heart does a strange skip in my chest as I take in the way she stands so confidently, so sure of herself. I know her well enough by now to know that’s not what she feels like on the inside.
Grace has a different type of strength than the rest of us, something I’ve never seen before.
She’d make a good leader.
The thought hits me out of nowhere, pulling me out of my own head for a second. I never thought of it before, but now that it’s occurred to me, it seems as undeniable as gravity. I can see it in her. She was born to be in command.
I know she wouldn’t believe me if I told her, but it’s the fucking truth.
I will tell her one day. When all of this shit is sorted out.
She watches Leland with a hard expression until he realizes she was the one who spoke. I hate the man even more than I already do for the smirk he gives her, the detached sort of cockiness that fills his tone as he talks to her. As if she’s nothing more than a woman who doesn’t belong in a man’s world. That’s outdated bullshit, as far as I’m concerned, and she’s already proven herself to have bigger balls than this asshole.
My fingers flex into fists, itching to plant themselves in his face, but I hold back.
“As far as I know, Brian has always been a dirty cop.” Leland shrugs, his breathing a little ragged but his voice gaining strength. “From day one. I don’t think that guy had a good bone in his body—he joined the force to manipulate it for his own gain. His own power. He was a fucking gangster in a uniform.”
He stops speaking, seeming to consider the question answered. But Grace isn’t done with him.
She takes a step forward. “That doesn't explain how he got involved with Camilla.”
Leland looks from Hale to Ciro, then to me and my brother. As if he thinks he doesn’t have to take her seriously, like he’s waiting for one of us to ask the question instead. He might not think Grace is a threat, but that just makes him a moron as well as a traitor.
Because if he doesn’t watch his mouth, I’m pretty sure she’s gonna hit him as hard as I want to right now.
“Answer her question,” Hale says from the corner, watching Grace with careful interest.
We all are.
This concerns her fucking mom, so she’s got a right to ask whatever questions she wants. None of us are gonna step on her toes here, but we’re all here as backup if she needs us.
“He’d been taking kickbacks, bribes, covering up shit, all of it,” Leland stutters. “Like I said, he was dirty.”
“I think we all know that,” Grace says dryly. “How long has he been working with Camilla?”
She doesn’t call the woman mother, and I don’t blame her for it.
Jesus. And I thought Lucas and I had shitty parents. Hers make ours look almost tolerable.
“It wasn’t until they kidnapped you,” he spits out, venom in his tone, as if we’re the bad guys. “He was offered a large sum of money to find you and kill you or deliver you to Camilla.”
He chose to try to kill her. His own fiancée. A woman he was about to walk down the aisle with, about to swear to love, honor, and protect. He chose money over Grace.
Which shows just what a sick man he was.
“How much?” Grace asks.
“What?”
“How much was he being paid?”
“Half a million,” Leland says. “Plus a bonus if he continued to work for the Rooks. Exclusively.”
The room goes quiet. Grace is totally still, but her delicate brows pull together a fraction of an inch.
“What?”<
br />
Leland blinks, his puffy face twisting into a grimace. He realizes that he’s fucked up by talking about something he shouldn’t be talking about, but it’s too late. “Nothing.”
“No, not nothing.” Her nostrils flare. “You said ‘the Rooks.’ Is Camilla a member of the Rook Syndicate?”
Hale leans forward slightly, his back rigid. All five of us have tensed, actually. Well, six if you count Leland, who looks like he’s about to shit a brick. He stares at Grace for a long moment, his jaw working. Then something inside him seems to give way. His shoulders slump, and it almost looks like he physically shrinks.
“She’s the head of the Rook Syndicate. The founder. The leader.”
Grace’s face goes white. I know all that shit Leland said about Brian already had her on edge, and now she looks like she’s about to lose it.
She swallows, her chest rising and falling as she breathes. “You’re telling me that my mother is the head of an enemy syndicate, a group who’s been systematically trying to undermine the Novaks for years. And that she paid the man I was going to marry half a million dollars to kill me or deliver me to her.”
It could be a question, but the way she says it, it’s not. It’s a cold, hard statement, as if she just wants to make sure we’re all on the same fucking page.
Leland nods, his gaze skating away from her. “Yes.”
Grace’s body jerks a little, as if that one word was a physical blow, and I have to resist the urge to make Leland pay for it with an actual blow. We need him conscious now that he’s finally talking, and I don’t trust myself to hit him once and stop.
For a second, Grace just stares down at Leland. Then her lip curls, fury and agony flashing across her face.
“Fuck you for working with them both.”
With those words, she turns and strides out of the room. She keeps her spine straight, but as the door closes behind her, I see her footsteps stutter, her head dropping.
Lucas catches my eye, worry clear in his expression. We both glance toward the door, and Hale steps forward, jerking his chin at both of us.
“Go. She needs someone right now. She shouldn’t be alone.” He glances over at Leland, his gaze turning hard. “We’ll deal with this motherfucker.”
3
Grace
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
The word repeats over and over in my head, following the rhythm of my footsteps as I walk quickly up the stairs.
Goddammit. None of this should hurt as much as it does. I thought my mother was dead for years, and I came to terms with it. So how can finding out she’s alive be somehow worse than that?
And Brian. Why does learning how much he was paid off make the sting of his betrayal even sharper?
Maybe because it makes it all so fucking real.
It seems insane that only a few short weeks ago, I was torturing myself over the fact that I hadn’t stayed loyal to Brian. Agonizing over the feelings I was beginning to develop for each of the men. Deep in my heart, maybe I knew part of the truth without realizing it—Brian wasn’t good for me. He never had been. Every moment in our relationship sticks out to me as suspicious now, as a red flag that I somehow missed.
Did he ever actually mean anything he said?
Maybe he loved me in the beginning. But obviously not enough. Not really. He was lying to himself just as much as he was lying to me.
I may have cheated on him—every time I let the guys touch me, fuck me, every time I let myself feel something for them. Every time I let my mind wander into those dangerous thoughts, I cheated on him.
But he was going to kill me.
For money.
That’s all that it was ever about. Money. He wasn’t relieved to hear me on the phone when I called him from the bathroom, crouched down by the sink and keeping my shaky voice low. He was relieved because he knew that his job was about to get much easier. He didn’t have to waste any more time tracking me down, not when I told him exactly where I was.
In that moment, he didn’t hear my voice on the other side of the phone. He didn’t hear his fiancée.
Scared. Alone. Desperate.
He only saw the paycheck that Camilla had promised him hovering within his reach. He was thrilled, not because he was going to get me back, but because he was finally going to get rid of me, once and for all.
He would’ve bought things with that blood money. Maybe one of those expensive cars he always talked about, maybe a house. Maybe he would’ve blown it all on women and booze and gambling in Vegas—I don’t know. The law abiding Prince Charming I thought I knew was just a role he played. The cover for a cold-hearted asshole, a dirty cop.
After all the promises he fed me, after the years we spent together. He threw it all away for money. For a fucking payday.
And the worst part is, Leland made it seem like Brian had a choice. He had a choice to bring me in or kill me. Which did he choose?
He wanted to kill me.
I don’t even want to know how he decided on that. If he wanted to watch me die, or if he just thought it would be easier than handing me over, knowing I was still alive. I don’t know if he wanted to kill me as a fucked-up way of trying to protect me from whatever Camilla planned for me, or if it was a cheap thrill for his sick mind.
When I reach the second floor, I stalk down the hall and slam the bedroom door behind me.
I don’t know what to do. I want to go into a rage—throw things, smash things, pull apart the room with my teeth and nails, but I can’t. I can’t destroy anything else. I can’t let my presence ruin anything else.
Fuck.
A knock at the door makes me jump. My back is pressed to the hard wood, so the sound is loud right next to my ear. Trying to get my breathing back under control, I press away from the solid door and turn to open it.
Zaid and Lucas stand outside, concerned looks on their faces. It reminds me of the way Hale looked when he came to get me earlier, and I hate that I’ve lost my cool. Again. I thought I had put myself back together well enough to face my past, but I’m obviously hanging on by a thread, and they can all see it.
I don’t want sympathy though. I don’t want worry. Not now.
I don’t know what I want exactly, but before the twins can open their mouths to say anything, I pull them both inside and shut the door behind them.
“Are you all right, princess?” Lucas asks, catching my hand in his.
“No.” I shake my head, done trying to cover up the truth. “I’m not. Everything is so fucked up. Everything hurts. I’m sick and tired of hurting. I want to feel good.”
With those words, I press my lips to his, kissing him hard.
I’m so fucked up, my emotions so tightly wound, that my skin feels like it’s sparking with electricity. My whole body feels like it’s vibrating, like it’s going to explode if I don’t release some of this pressure.
Our tongues tangle, and I don’t hold back, attacking him with this kiss. I don’t want to talk things through and pretend everything will be okay. I want both of these men to devour me until I don’t know my own name, until I’ve forgotten everything that’s happened over the past twenty-four hours. Over the past twenty-two years.
“I want you to make me feel something good,” I pant, pulling away just enough to get the words out.
Hands grip my hips, and suddenly I’m being spun around to face Zaid instead. One arm wraps around my waist as he lets out a low, possessive snarl. The sound makes my pulse spike, heat flashing through me. I don’t have to ask him to drag me against his body and kiss me with the same intensity his brother just did.
He’s already doing it.
His free hand roams my body as he kisses me, finding my breast and squeezing hard enough to make me yelp into his mouth. My body tenses at the slight pain, and molten heat pours through me.
I grip the short coppery blond strands of hair at the back of his head, fisting them close to the roots.
“Please, Zaid. I want
you and Lucas. I want you to fuck me until I can’t feel anything else.”
He growls in response, hiking me against his body and letting me feel the way his cock is already stiffening at my words. Lucas is right there with him, his body pressed up against my other side as his hands roam over my curves.
Zaid lifts me up a second later, hooking one of my legs around his waist as he moves toward the bed, his lips still devouring mine.
Both of these men are hot as fuck and make no secret of the fact that they love sex. They’re always flirtatious and sensual, but right now, what’s happening between us feels different. There’s an almost brutal desperation in the way they touch me that lets me know I’m not the only one who’s been feeling the strain these past few days. We’ve all been affected by the revelations that’ve blown everything we thought we knew to smithereens.
And I think we all need this.
A moment to reconnect.
To stop thinking and just feel.
To remember that there are good things in the world, and not just a relentless march of lies and secrets and cruelty.
When we reach the bed, Zaid tosses me down on the mattress. I bounce gently as my back hits the soft surface, and before I can press up onto my elbows, the twins are on the bed beside me. Heat spirals between us like wanton licks of flame as they make quick work of my clothes. Zaid unbuttons my pants and yanks them down, and I kick my legs to help him as Lucas peels my shirt off. He palms my breast again, massaging it through the material of my bra, before reaching behind me to unclasp that too.
We both watch as Zaid drags my underwear down my legs, and when I’m completely naked, the two men gaze down at me. They’re both sitting on their heels, Zaid between my legs and Lucas near my head, and the near-matching green of their eyes burns bright with desire as I look up at each of them.
“Your turn,” I murmur, unable to resist running my hands over my own body as I watch them hungrily. “I want to see you.”
