by Raven Dark
But his words raised a question. According to what he was saying, someone in the Ferrara family—likely our unnamed woman—was behind the accident. That made sense, but why would she have sent men after Anika’s father? Twice?
I had a feeling he was right about the who. He was just wrong about the why.
“Why are you helping me, Dominic?”
“I’m not. I’m helping myself. I need you in my corner, and I need your family’s resources. And I meant what I said. You or that gorgeous slave of yours make one mistake, and you’re mine. Both of you.”
Protective anger for Anika ripped through me, but before I could say anything, the driver opened the door and pulled me out. He shoved me backward, and I barely avoided slamming into the ground. The car sped off before I was even on my feet.
One of the valets hurried over to help me, but I waved him off. Thoughts spinning again, I stormed back into the building toward my table. I signaled to Anika. She stood up, and I pulled her aside, away from the tables.
“What is it?” Worry pooled in her eyes. “What did he say?”
I leaned over and quickly told her what Dominic had said. She stiffened against me, snatched a sharp breath. Keeping her head close to mine, her voice low.
“So it wasn’t him. It was her who had your brakes cut. The Ferrara family.”
I nodded.
Before I could say more, Kelly rushed over to us. I thought I saw her nose wrinkle, taking in Anika standing so close to me. Then her face cleared to that overly professional, fake smile. “Mr. Davros, your speech.”
“Fine, I’m coming.”
While I was behind stage preparing, Kelly went onstage and announced me with all the usual pomp and ceremony. Anika brushed off my suit and flashed me a covert smile. I tried to keep my expression cool, but I must let it slip because her brows knitted together.
“What?” Barely moving her lips so that the staff and stage crew back here didn’t hear her.
Kelly’s voice rang over the crowd. World’s most sought after bachelor, for another five months, anyway, heir to the fourth-richest man in the world, yadda yadda. Cameras clicked. Kelly made some joke or other to warm up the crowd, and laughter rippled through the room.
“What is it?” Anika prompted again when I didn’t reply right away.
“It’s nothing. You have to—”
She bent at my feet.
“What are you doing?”
She untied my shoe and then made a big production of retying it. “Buying time. Look, Kane, I wanted to say…”
I scrunched my brows at the warmth in her eyes, meant for only me to see. Another bolt of elation hit me, like the one I’d felt at the table earlier. It almost drowned out the thought of what Dominic had just told me about the mob vying for control of my family’s wealth. There was still a chance he was somehow right about why the Farreras were after us, even if it didn’t seem to make sense now.
“What is it?” I could see it in her eyes, a powerful emotion. It hit me that, if she felt the way I hoped, I should just tell her I loved her once and for all. I should make her mine, and then we’d run off, somewhere where my family and the mob would never find us. Yes, I knew damn well how impossible it was to escape the mob when they had you in their circle, but there had to be a way. If only she felt—
She opened her mouth, then closed it. Stood up, giving my suit a final brush off. “Er, break a leg.”
Damn. That wasn’t what she’d meant to say. I shook off the disappointment that pricked at me. I wasn’t ready to give up on a future with her just yet, even if the future we ended up with wasn’t the one we both wanted.
“Right.” I wanted to claim her soft lips, feel their warmth beneath mine. Instead, I motioned to Kelly who slipped backstage, instructing her not to let Anika out of her sight. Then I allowed the subtlest of smiles that could have meant anything, and turned and walked on stage.
As soon as Kane went onstage for his speech, I let a private smile slide across my lips. Seeing how he handled being at that table with Dominic and his parents, all people who wanted to control him one way or another, made my love for him bloom until it was almost too large, too painful to contain.
It hit me then and there, the life he was forced to lead. One filled with loneliness and violence, always having to watch his back and never let anyone close, lest he put them at risk. Funny, that only made me wish I could stay with him all the more. Made me wish I could fill the void his life would hollow out in him, offer the warmth and stability he needed. But to do that, I would be giving up any chance of love, any chance at the kind of forever my heart burned for. I’d bind myself into a fierce, but loveless life of playing mistress.
Oh, I almost wanted to give up that chance. In fact, guilt tore at me for not instantly giving it up for Kane. I felt selfish and childish for wanting more.
Peeking at him through the curtains, watching this Adonis I loved play the crowd and shine like the diamond he was, my throat tightened at the thought of what I would eventually have to lose.
“In so many countries, so many people who deserve a better life are forced to go cold and hungry, for no other reason than money. Pieces of paper and chunks of metal that all of us take for granted.” Kane’s voice rang out, strong, compelling. “You can make a difference, all of you. Give what you can. Change the world. Save lives.”
“Isn’t he wonderful?” Kelly put her hands together under her chin in a way that reminded me of Harley Quinn and batted her fake eyelashes.
Oh, brother. If I ever get like that over him, please shoot me.
Still, I shivered at the power in his voice, at how easily he captured those around him. The same way he captured me. Suddenly, the last vestiges of my father’s hatred, the hatred he’d instilled in me, vanished like smoke. My father, if he ever woke again, might never accept Kane. But he’d never see him the way I did. No one could.
“Sorry, Kelly, I forgot you were there.”
She gave me a tight smile. “You know, no one has been with Kane as long as I have. He gets bored of women fast.”
Unsure what to say to that, I pressed my lips together and didn’t look at her. Surely a woman as simpering and superficial as her couldn’t be his type. She was too perfect, too gorgeous. My stomach knotted.
“Six months. That’s an eternity for him. I’ve been with him for years.”
“Lucky you.”
“Oh, it’s not luck. It’s what you get for being indispensable. You fill a need no other woman can, and you keep your place. I’ll give it another couple of weeks before you’re gone. You’ll see.”
Again, I remained silent, even though I wanted to give her a piece of my mind. I wouldn’t let someone like her get under my skin. Even so, I couldn’t help wondering if more had happened between Kane and his assistant than it seemed. Kane made no apologies for his appetite for women. Gorgeous women who knew how to please him and turned heads.
Thoughts churning, I turned to walk back to the crowd while Kane finished up his speech. It would take every ounce of strength I had to shut off the love I felt for him and play the role of his secret slave, but I’d make myself do it because that’s what he needed. And I wouldn’t spend another second thinking about his perfect, blond, leggy assistant.
Two steps from the curtain, a man’s hand grabbed my throat. In the next instant, I was being pushed backward toward a wall off to the side. My back slammed into the backstage wall so hard I cried out, but his hand covered my mouth in a violent, suffocating grip, silencing the sound. I stared into the shadow before me.
Victor Davros grinned down at me. “Not so fast, slave. You’re not getting away this time.”
13
Victor Davros’ had squeezed tight around my throat until I couldn’t breathe. I clawed at his hand, bucking and writhing.
At the stairs, I saw Kelly sashaying away. I tried to call out to her, but I couldn’t get the words out. Where the hell were all the staff? It looked as if they’d magically disappear
ed the moment Victor found me.
A step or two down toward the main floor, Kelly turned and looked back at us. Right at us, watching Kane’s father keep a stranglehold on me as if nothing was happening. Panic set in, and I clawed at his hand, reached for his face, but he kept his head out of reach and didn’t let up.
“Let me make this clear for you, Daniella Montrose. I have plans for my son. You will not get in the way.”
“I don’t…I’m not…” My head was starting to feel light. “Please…just a slave…”
“Don’t insult my intelligence, child.” His breath fanned my face, potent with cigar smoke and wine. “No slave would ask a master if he loves her.”
Understanding sank in like the stab of cold steel. Terror pierced through the haze. I’d asked Kane that the other night. When we were in his bed. Alone. “How…?”
“And if my son felt nothing for you, he’d have beat you bloody for even suggesting such a thing.”
As he talked, he altered the pressure he put on my throat, loosening it only enough so that I didn’t pass out, and then tightening it again until I struggled for air. Never once letting me get enough air to yell out.
“I did not spend his entire life cultivating him for takeover, only to throw it all away on a little cunt like you. Kane will marry Gala. You will disappear. I will do whatever it takes to see my son take leadership of the Rossi family. Do you understand me? Whatever it takes.”
My head felt like it was going to float away. I nodded, raking my nails over his hands.
Just when the last of my strength started to fade, as my eyes started to close, someone grabbed Victor from behind. Next instant, his hand left my throat, and he was flying across the backstage area. He skidded across the floor, while I dropped to my knees, clutching my throat and gasping for air.
I looked up in time to see Kane towering over his father, who tried to get to his feet. Kane kicked him hard in the gut. Victor folded in on himself with a cough and a wheeze. Kane bent to him, his voice low and lethal.
“Touch her again, and you end up in pieces.”
I couldn’t tell if Victor was coughing or laughing. Kane spun and picked me up in his arms.
“David, bring the car around back. We’re getting out of here.”
It took me a second to realize he was talking on a blue tooth while he cradled me to his chest in a very not-masterly way.
“Kane, your fa…” I swallowed, trying to get the words out. My brain felt like it was in slow mode.
“Shh. I know. It’s alright, you’re safe.” He hurried me out back and into the limo.
“No, you don’t understand. He knows. He must have…he heard us…”
“What?” He’d set me against the seat of the car and now bent close to me, confused.
“He heard us. In your room. Somehow…”
“Shit.” He climbed into the limo, but before David could shut the door, Kelly poked her head in. She gave us both an innocent look; you’d never know she’d sold me out to his father.
“Mr. Davros, you’re expected to collect donations for—”
“Later. David.”
David pushed Kelly back away from the vehicle, then shut the door.
As the fog over my thoughts began to clear and my heart rate returned to normal, it occurred to me why Kane had taken the back way. Even with Gavini gone, there were still plenty of mobsters and well-connected men in there. Kane couldn’t be seen to be protecting me, much less ducking out of a critical engagement for me.
“You’ll get yourself in trouble, Davros. You can’t leave without people asking questions.”
“We’ll come up with an excuse. Don’t worry about that now.” He pulled me to him, and I didn’t have the will to stop him, even if instinct told me he needed to shut himself off.
Drawing back, he looked over my neck, caressing a line around it. How bruised did it look? His father had squeezed pretty hard. By the way Kane’s nostrils flared and his eyes blazed, it must have looked terrible.
“Are you all right, angel?”
“I’m good. It looks worse than it feels, I’m sure.”
He sighed and kissed my hand. “I can’t believe him. Trust me, I’ll deal with him.”
When we reached the house, Kane and David wasted no time. They went straight to the bedroom, tearing books from shelves, ripping up linens, going through every stitch of clothing and electronics, looking for the bug Kane’s father had somehow put in the room.
“How the hell did he get it in here?” I helped rip off the mattress cover. “David, didn’t you and Kane tell me you do sweeps of everything we use every day?”
“I have no idea how he got the bug in here, or how he hid it so well. He must have put the device somewhere where I wouldn’t think to look. Listen, you two get out of here. I’ll find the bug.”
Kane nodded and led me out of the room. I tried to ask him where we were going as he led me down to the doors of the mansion and called a cab, but he wouldn’t answer until we were in the taxi. It was a measure of his worry that he was allowing us to take a cab considering his rules against them.
“My father obviously already knows you aren’t a slave, but there’s no point revealing any more than we have to.”
“Wait…you think he bugged more than just the bedroom?”
“I doubt it, but I don’t want to take any unnecessary risks. I want you out of the house and away from anywhere he might be listening until David gives the all clear. You’ll stay with Gala until we go back to New York.”
I nodded. “Of course.”
Anger pounded off him with frightening intensity. One arm held me almost too tight to him, the other fist clenched on his knee. Hatred for his father ate at me, a slow burning poison that infused my veins and sent dark thoughts through my mind, ones that, weeks ago, I wouldn’t have believed myself capable of.
“I’ve never wanted to kill someone before.” I shook my head.
“Get in line,” Kane growled.
I snapped my head up. Oh, God, he meant it. Retribution against the mob was one thing. It’s how you survived in his world, but his father?
As soon as the car stopped, Kane helped me out. I looked around. We’d parked in front of Gala’s massive mansion.
“Would she be home yet?”
“She’ll be back within the hour, as soon as she can duck out of the charity auction. She never stays long at those things. Gala hates crowds. Her staff will attend you until she arrives.”
“Kane.” I stopped him at the doors. I could feel the need for vengeance, the deadly protection in him. “You can’t—”
“Just stay here. I have something I have to do.”
Desperation made my muscles clench. I was pretty sure I knew exactly what it was he thought he had to do. “No, Kane, wait.”
Inside, he shut the doors and pulled me to him. “Are you sure you’re alright?” His fingers brushed my neck.
“I told you, I’m fine. Kane, listen to me. You know you can’t kill him, right?” I glanced around the empty hall, keeping my voice low.
“I won’t kill him. But I will make him pay for what he’s done to us. To you.”
I had no idea if his reasons for not putting a bullet in his father’s brain were the same ones I was thinking, but he didn’t give me a chance to find out. Kane crushed me to him, then cradled my face in his hands and crushed his lips to mine.
“Please, be careful.”
“I will. Angel, it’ll be all right.”
He opened the door and was gone.
“Damn it.” I ran my hand through my hair, not caring that it pulled out my slave pin. “Please come back to me.”
I’d expected getting to my father would have been much more difficult than it was. Even at almost eleven o’clock at night, I expected there to be an armed guard or two at the doors to his office, and perhaps one at the receptionist desk. My father had always spent more time at his offices than he did at home. But there was no one on his floor of Davros To
wers, other than a cleaning lady who confirmed he was in the office. She confirmed he was there, and then disappeared fast, obviously wanting to put as much distance between herself and the office as possible before the inevitable explosion came.
It couldn’t have been more obvious what was coming. Keeping my face a cold mask, I marched down the thickly carpeted hall to the large conference room that, God willing, would soon be mine. I’d brought my Glock, holstered under my blazer, but Anika was right, I couldn’t kill him. No one killed a man like my father and got away with it, but I’d come up with ways to make him pay. To see that he lost everything, and, in the end, wished he was dead. The gun was just a precaution.
As soon as I burst through the doors to the office, my father’s lips peeled into a devil’s grin. He didn’t move. Why?
“Get up.” I stalked over to his chair.
“Are you going to kill me now, boy?”
“Yeah, right. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, for me to lose my mind and try to blow your head off.”
He still didn’t move. I grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him to his feet.
“Awfully protective of that little piece of ass, aren’t you? But then we both know—“ He ended in a shout when I threw him into the back wall. He slammed into it, shattering the bar there. Bottles crashed to the floor, and liquors splashed the expensive white carpet in red, purple, gold.
My father pulled himself to his feet, but instead of coming at me, he laughed. Laughed.
“You don’t get it, do you? Stupid, stupid boy.”
“I don’t think you’re in a position to call me names anymore.” Years of hatred and the fear that had long since turned to rage boiled to the surface, and for the first time I didn’t push them down. I channeled them, hurtling my fist into his face.
Victor’s head flew back, and he grunted in pain, hitting the floor. “Did you enjoy listening to us, Dad?”
