“God help us all.” He winked. “Promise me you’ll come to me when it gets dark, Serena, and know it will, but know I’m never going to leave your side. I would burn the world, cut out my own heart, and give it to you if I knew it would make you happy. You, Dom, Bella, your mother—you’re my world.”
I leaned up and kissed his cheek. “Shh, I won’t tell Bella I’m your favorite.”
“Odd how you inherited both my arrogance and my love of violence.”
I shrugged. “I’m just special, I guess.”
“You are,” he deadpanned. “You’re everything.”
“Stop.” I felt my eyes starting to fill with tears. “You’ll make me cry, and mafia princesses don’t cry, we fight.”
“Yeah, well, by the looks of what’s going on downstairs, you may be fresh out of sparring partners for a while.”
My stomach sank. “Junior getting his ass kicked?”
He frowned. “Seems sort of even to me at this point, though I saw a tooth go flying, so let’s hope it’s not the front one.”
I winced. “All right, on that note, I’m going to go see if they need a sub.”
Dad sighed. “They break you in any way, I break them. Make sure they get the message.”
“Dad, you cut off someone’s hand and mailed it to their family as a warning. Trust me, they know you mean business.”
“Hey, I was proving a point.”
“Yeah, pretty sure they got it!” I laughed and made my way down the stairs.
The sound of Rage Against the Machine filled the gym, Killing in The Name was one of Ash’s go-to songs. Usually, I ignored his taste in music, but today it held a certain death factor that was hard to ignore.
Both guys had been down there for two hours.
An empty bottle of whiskey was sitting on the bench, and another empty one was completely shattered against one of the walls on the far side of the gym.
My heart pounded as blood flowed over Junior’s face, dripped down his chest. His left eye was already bruising, and blood was caked to his upper arms as he ducked, barely missing another blow from Ash.
Both of them were shirtless angry gods among men throwing punches like they hadn’t been taking shots every time someone scored a point.
I knew the game well.
It was angry.
It was necessary.
It was also a hell of a lot of alcohol by the way they were both staggering around each other. Then again, they were bleeding profusely so it could have been the numerous flesh wounds.
I felt hands wrap around me from behind, and then Breaker was resting his drunken chin on my shoulder, though he looked stone-cold sober again. He smelled like gin.
He sighed against me. “They’re alive, so that’s good.”
I clung to his muscled arms and jerked when Ash landed a blow to Junior’s gut only to have Junior take Ash’s legs out from underneath him as he slammed him to the ground and landed a punch across his face.
Breaker whistled under his breath. “That’s gonna be a bitch tomorrow morning.”
I smiled despite the fact that they were beating the shit out of each other. “Can I ask you something?”
“Depends, do I get to see you naked if I answer right?”
I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see me. Breaker had always been a flirt, but we’d never crossed that line, and he was very aware that I’d crossed it with Junior when Ash had drunkenly told him.
Cousins.
Basically, he was fishing for information in the only way he knew how—offering up his godlike body in exchange.
But I had another god I worshipped.
And it wasn’t the bronze one holding me against his muscled chest.
It was the one with blood dripping from his chin.
The one with vengeance in his eyes.
“You don’t want to see me naked,” I answered truthfully, finally taking my eyes away from Junior and looking over my shoulder. “It will seriously ruin all women for you.”
He barked out a laugh. I’d always loved Breaker’s laugh, even though he was part of this dark world, he still laughed like he was able to find a bit of light, where the hell did this guy come from anyway? “This is why you’re one of my favorite people, and don’t worry, I won’t catch feelings…” He was quiet as his lips brushed my ear. “Sometimes, I don’t think I have them.”
I clung to him tighter as he pulled me back against him. He was too young to be so jaded. Then again, we all were. “You have feelings; you’re just forced to ignore them for the greater good.”
“And the greater good is what? Survival?” His voice was gritty, full of well-suppressed anger because after all, he was the calm one, right?
“Blood,” I said quickly, trying to distract him from snapping. “Are you going to let me talk or what?”
His one hand slid down my side and gripped my hip, trapping me against his heated body as his fingers drummed against my bare skin. “So talk.”
“Junior’s going to kill you,” I said in a sing-song voice.
“Ah, so she finally admits it out loud.”
“You already knew,” I snapped.
His chest felt warm, strong, as he tightened his grip around me. “Ash was drunk; he could have been full of shit.”
“Yeah well.” I licked my suddenly dry lips. “Say you did accidentally catch feelings, would you…” I bit down on my lip. “Would you risk your life to keep feeling them, would you give in, knowing you could die?”
Slowly Breaker turned me in his arms. His eyes flashed as he cupped my face. “Serena…” He squeezed his eyes shut then opened them again. He had the most beautiful features, almost too pretty with his almost olive skin and lighter hair. His jaw clenched. “I really want to tell you to stop thinking what I think you’re thinking, but after today, I’ve completely lost my censor, and honestly, I don’t think a person should live their lives being safe. God knows we only have today. Who knows what’s going to happen tomorrow?”
“Thanks.” I sighed. “I think.”
His grin turned goofy. “Junior looks ready to murder me; it’s made my entire shitty night worth it. I so love getting a response out of him.”
Before I could ask what the heck he was talking about, he gripped my head and pressed a kiss to my mouth, sliding his tongue past my lips in a dominant way that had me ready to pull my gun on him. He squeezed my ass and then broke off the kiss with a teasing grin in his eyes. “What? I wanted a reward for my honesty!”
“You’re such a dick!” I laughed and shoved him away. “And you taste like gin! I hate gin!”
He burst out laughing then bowed. “I know!”
“Go be annoying somewhere else.” I shooed him away, still smiling.
“I think you mean go be sexy somewhere else.” He winked. “Oh, and tell Junior not to kill me in my sleep. Cool?” He held out his fist.
I tapped it with mine, and then he was zigzag running out of the basement as Junior had already pulled the gun and was trying to aim.
“Doesn’t work if nobody’s shooting you!” I yelled after him, then felt Junior behind me.
Slowly I turned and then made a face. “Are you okay?”
His eyes blazed with unchecked fury. “No.”
“Do you need me to—”
He tossed me over his shoulder and waved off a bleeding Ash, who was wiping his face with his discarded shirt, spreading blood everywhere rather than actually getting clean.
“Put me down!” I pounded against Junior’s back.
He slapped me on the ass so hard, my teeth clenched. “No.”
“Junior!”
He jogged up the steps with me in his arms like he hadn’t just gone a billion rounds with Ash and stomped into the guest room, making sure to lock his door, and then carried me through the bathroom to do the same to my door.
When he was satisfied that all the doors were locked, he went back into the bathroom, me still thrown over his shoulder like he’d completely l
ost his mind, and then without warning, he shoved me into the shower with my clothes still on.
“The hell, Junior!” I roared ready to fight him as my shirt soaked against my skin, my favorite pair of Nike sweats were starting to fall off of me. “What’s wrong with you!”
“I’ll kill him!” he raged. His aqua eyes were wild as he jerked my shirt over my head and threw it to the ground. “If I leave this room, I’ll kill him!”
Blood and water dripped down Junior’s face as he jerked my sweats down to my ankles then painfully pulled my thighs apart, his fingers digging into my sensitive flesh as his right hand found my ever-present dagger.
His eyes never left mine as he pushed the tip of the dagger between my breasts and then dug it into my sports bra, tearing it in pieces. He slid the knife down my belly into the front of my underwear and did the same until they slid to the wet floor with my sweats.
“Whose are you!” he screamed inches from my face.
I’d never seen this side of him before, never seen him so unleashed, so wild.
My chest heaved as I tried to catch my breath. “Y-yours.”
“Whose!” He roared, slamming his hands on either side of the tile by my face, his mouth pressed against mine as he continued. “Fucking, whose!”
“Yours!” I shoved him and then slapped him across the face for scaring me.
His head whipped to the side as his chest rose up and down. He wasn’t calm.
He was ready to commit murder.
“Mine.” His teeth nipped at my bottom lip then gave a painful tug as he flipped me around so the cool tile bit into my cheek and stomach, my breasts ached as the cold almost burned my skin. “Mine,” he repeated, roaming shaking hands around my body, cupping my breasts before lowering them to my hips.
I let out a gasp when he jerked me back against him. With one harsh thrust, he was inside me. I choked on my next breath as the second surge filled me to the hilt only to pull out again.
“Whose?” he rasped, his voice hoarse as he pumped into me, digging his hands into my hips to pull me back against him only to slam me back against the tile with each jerky movement. “Whose!”
“Yours.” Tears streamed down my cheeks from pleasure, from pain, sadness, fear, but most of all, the broken heart that refused to heal between us. “I’ve only ever been yours.”
“I need you.” His voice cracked. “I’m sorry, I need you like this, I’m sorry—”
“Junior Nicolasi, you have me; however you need me…” I tasted the salt of my own tears as I looked down at the blood swirling down the drain. “Even like this, Junior, even like this.”
With a groan, his movements were wild as he got me closer to release, and when I clenched around him, trying to dig my nails into the tile, trying to grab hold of something, anything, he drove in one more time and stayed there. Out of breath, his head resting on mine, his arms wrapped around my body like he was afraid I was going to disappear.
He’d never been rough with me before.
Not like this. In fact, I’d always found it odd how tender he was during sex since it was the exact opposite of how he was in real life. Now I knew. He’d been holding back. He’d given me the prettiest pieces, keeping the jagged ones to himself.
Part of me wondered if this was a piece of him that he’d hidden on purpose—or if Claire’s death didn’t just crack Ash—but the rest of us too.
Because it was suddenly real, wasn’t it?
Because we’d always been told to embrace the monster—because I knew Junior’s number one fear was to lose himself in it.
And now, I wondered if it was too late.
If he was already gone.
And if I was the only thing keeping him sane.
“I’m sorry.” Junior kissed down my neck. “I’m sorry I can’t—” He pulled away, and then he was gone, leaving me with my clothes tattered on the floor and my heart even more broken than before.
Woodenly, I grabbed a towel and felt more fresh tears when I noticed that his door was closed.
And worse, when I tested the doorknob, it was locked from his side.
What the hell had just happened?
Chapter Twenty-Four
Junior
I was a monster.
I pressed my palms into my eyes until I saw black dots, and even then, nothing made me forget the rage that had swarmed over me when Breaker touched her, kissed her. Breaker was one of my best friends, he was family, but I’d snapped, something in me had snapped.
From the hospital to fighting with Ash, to watching him down his whiskey and then burst into tears before I even had a chance to hit him, I had become acutely aware of the last human parts of me breaking in two. I didn’t know how to fix them, how to fix me when all I saw was a red wall of rage.
“I’m fucking lost.” He fell to his knees in the middle of the gym, and then he threw the whiskey bottle across the room, smashing it into the wall. His scream pierced my ears so loud that I was surprised the building didn’t come down around us.
“Fuck!” He slammed his hands into the floor and then his knuckles, breaking the skin immediately, causing blood to drip from his fingertips.
“Ash!” I pulled him back against me.
He didn’t even fight at first; he just let me hold him while he sobbed in my arms.
“I love you.” I held him tight. “I love you, and I have you.”
His entire body shook in my arms.
I don’t know how long I held him like that.
He finally relaxed his grip on me and walked over to the ring, peeling his shirt over his body and sitting on the edge of the mat, his head lowered.
“I was going to marry her,” he whispered, and then in a horrifying moment, my heart crashed to the floor as he very carefully pulled out a blue Tiffany’s box. I hoped to God it was a promise ring, a necklace, a bullet—anything.
He opened it.
Three karats.
Bile rose in my throat as I took the box and looked down. The ring was inscribed, “My heart for yours.”
“Take it.” His teeth snapped like he was ready to go feral. “Take it; I can’t look at it. I can’t—”
“It’s done,” I said softly, tucking the box against my discarded shirt on the bench.
“She’s gone,” he whispered. “And so am I.”
My body chilled at his admission.
Because I knew a part of him would never be the same, and that her death would unleash something otherworldly into our family.
“I wish it was me,” I admitted, taking a swig of the other bottle of whiskey and handing it to him. “I want you to know; I would have died so you could be together. I still would.”
Ash chugged the whiskey and stared me down his expression bitter. “If you knew the truth, you wouldn’t say that.”
“The truth?” I frowned as he passed me the whiskey back. “What truth?” Chills erupted on my skin at his dark expression.
“It was me.” His voice was hollow. “Me and Claire. We were given instructions to break you and Serena apart. My dad knew about you guys, and he knew it was only a matter of time before the rest of the bosses found out and killed you for breaking one of their biggest rules. And selfishly, I didn’t want to lose my best friend. I wanted to make my dad proud. That first day at Eagle Elite, when we made our statement to the students and the staff, I goaded you into making out with that girl in front of Serena. I pushed you when you started stripping her in front of the faculty, and then Claire taunted Serena, both of us knowing full well that in order to make a statement, you couldn’t choose each other, but also knowing that you pretending not to love Serena would break her heart. Claire was so fucking obedient, going along with it even though I could see it killed her to do it. But you guys broke the rules, so the only way to keep you safe, to keep both of you safe, was to put you in a position where you had no choice but to choose Family over each other.” He lifted his chin. “I knew you’d take the bait because you didn’t know how to back dow
n, I knew we needed to make a statement, and I knew that Serena wouldn’t show weakness.”
My mind reeled when I thought about that day, where I’d chosen the Family over Serena, where her eyes begged me to choose her, to leave the girl I’d been seducing in order to make a point.
“You’re supposed to be my best friend,” I rasped.
“And Claire’s not supposed to be dead,” he snapped back at me.
With a roar, I threw a punch, hitting Ash square in the face. He smiled through the blood. I hit him again, knocking a tooth out.
Ash just smiled even harder and then said. “You’re pissed. Good. Now hit me harder.”
He’d done it on purpose.
Told me his secret, so that I’d be all in.
So my anger would match his hurt.
I sat up in my bed and ran my injured hands through my hair. I’d wrapped three of my fingers with tape and knew that I probably looked as shitty as I felt. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
And I’d taken my anger out on Serena. All I kept seeing was her crestfallen face that day we took over Eagle Elite again. The way her eyes begged me to say it was bullshit, that we didn’t have to prove this. Instead, I went along with exactly what Ash had wanted me to do. And the sick part of me liked making Serena angry, liked the control I had over her, preened when I touched another woman in front of her. It was the first time I had realized something wasn’t quite right with me. It was the first time I’d realized I was just like my bloodline: sick, twisted. And I’d done nothing but unleash that same twisted fuck on Serena today.
I couldn’t see past the hurt of all the years we could have been together, and then I couldn’t see past the pain of Ash’s betrayal, and then I couldn’t see past the fear of death if we had stayed on that path.
But now that Claire was gone, all I kept thinking was… I deserve one thing, right? Just one thing that brings me joy in a world so dark and lonely.
And my one thing was Serena.
I’d needed to own her.
Needed her to feel the lack of control I had when I was with her and needed to mark her as mine, so she never forgot.
Ruthless Princess Page 18
