“I’m so that date.”
“Let me give him a ring, and then we’ll talk more about what’s going on.”
“Deal.”
Chapter 17
Matt
I’ve attended more balls than I can count, and at most of them, Reina and I have arrived separately. We’ve never been in the midst of a very public war while having other dates, or well, ever. Our fights have been behind closed doors, or only in front of our friends. Although I’ve hurt her in many ways over the years, I would’ve never humiliated her in public if it wasn’t a matter of life and death. Hers, as well as the lives of the other women in my family. The only thing making this bearable is that she knows I didn’t mean it. And I know she knows because of what she’s wearing, along with her damn red dress. The ring I gave her is on her finger, and that’s all that matters, or it should be anyway.
When she walked on the arm of whoever the fuck he is, I wanted to commit murder. She’s got on a strapless red dress that is higher in the front, and trails on the ground in the back. Her lipstick is red, and I want that color all over my cock. She’s never worn red for me, and I’m seeing that color filter my vision right now. Fuck if she’s not even hotter in that color than in the shades of blue she’s always worn before. I don’t care what it takes, that lipstick is going to be smeared all over me tonight.
For now, I have to pretend that I hate her, and make a scene. The girls figure us fighting here, where the Society mentors were so obviously lured, will flush out the people behind this. They’ll reveal themselves to Reina, if not to me. I use the jealousy I’m feeling towards the dickhead who has his hand on her waist, and stalk over to the two of them.
“Well, if it isn’t my loving wife.”
“Matthew,” she says, with a sneer on her face. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Well, I am. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your date?”
“No. What I do is none of your business.”
“What or who?”
“Both.”
“You said there wouldn’t be any trouble if I brought you, Reina,” Mr. Douche says.
“There won’t. My soon to be ex-husband is going to walk away now.”
“Am I?”
“If you don’t want me revealing all of your family’s precious secrets, you will.”
“Bitch.”
“Yes. I am. Bye now.”
I walk away because I have to. If we weren’t playing right now, I’d throw her over my shoulder and take her somewhere so I could show her who her man is. I can’t, and I really need to stop thinking that way. Sexy Skype session aside, we’re not together, and we may not be when this is all over. It’s her decision, and hers alone. I took too much from her over the years, and now I’ll give her everything, even if she decides she doesn’t want me.
Helen comes up to me, and pulls me onto the dance floor like I’m one of her boy toys. I love the woman, but that’s never gonna happen. “Stop looking so scared. I’m not going to maul you on the dance floor. I’m classier than that.”
“You were practically climbing your date at my wedding.”
“He was hot.”
“I really don’t want to be hearing about these things.”
“I know. That’s why I like to torture you with them anyway.”
“Yay me.”
“In all seriousness, I pulled you out here to tell you that was a good show you just put on.”
“Thanks. I just hope it works.”
“It already has,” she says, nodding behind me.
I turn us, and watch as Reina is led away by a man I saw watching us earlier. Her shoulders are high, and she’s walking as if she owns this place. I know she’s brave and strong, but seeing her walk into the unknown without showing any fear makes me love her more than ever. I track her with my eyes, because I can’t follow her unless I want to blow this. It’s torture to just stand here dancing like I don’t care, but I have to. Helen squeezes my hand, and I smile down at her.
“It’s going to be alright, Matt.”
I know it will be. It has to be.
* * *
Reina
When one of the men who’s been tailing me asked me to go with him, I didn’t hesitate. If he was going to harm me, he wouldn’t have asked. At least that’s what I keep telling myself as we make our way upstairs. He stops outside the fifth door we come to and knocks before opening the door and motioning me inside. In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have imagined what I see when I walk in.
Alex, Jessica, and Jane are sitting on a couch. They aren’t tied down and they don’t look hurt. I know I need to react correctly, so I say what I need to.
“Well, if it isn’t my in-laws. How are you bitches? I bet you didn’t expect to ever see me again. I know I sure as hell never wanted to see you.”
“Don’t worry, Reina. Your time with them will be brief. You help us, and we’ll help you.”
I turn to the woman who’s speaking from behind me. I saw her when I walked in. I saw them all. They are what nearly stopped me in my tracks. Only the years of training I’ve had allowed me to act like it was no big deal.
“Zara? That’s who you are, right? Matt’s mother?”
“Yes. I’m your true mother-in-law. I should’ve been there at your wedding.”
“You should have,” I agree, playing along.
“Do you recognize my friends?”
“Michaela Evans, and Cara Lockton.”
“It’s Cara Griffin,” the woman says to me, and I apologize, because I’m not about to stir up any extra crazy. The woman’s been divorced from Gary Griffin for over thirty years, but if she wants to pretend she’s still a Griffin, then yeah, you go lady.
“Now you know who we are, you must realize why we’re going to bring down the Society as it is today,” Zara tells me.
“Revenge. I get it. I hate them all too.”
“I knew you would. They’ve taken your life from you, and my son has humiliated you over and over again. I wasn’t sure you would want to join us, but now I am. Once everyone else is gone, we can set our own rules and run the world.”
Crazy doesn’t even begin to cover this. They’re criminally insane if they think they’ll get away with this. They could kill us all, and my girls would still take them down. I’m not going to be the voice of reason right now, though. I need to keep playing along.
“Perfect.”
“You could join us, Alex,” Cara tells her.
“You’re a crazy bitch. I don’t want anything to do with you.”
“I’m your grandmother.”
“Biologically maybe, but it’s Maggie Griffin who has my love and loyalty.”
“You will die with her then.”
“It will be an honor.”
Damn if my respect for my sister-in-law didn’t just grow by a million percent. She’s always been honorable and cool, but to see her stand up to the insanity and accept death? Yeah, she’s a fucking badass.
“What now?” I ask, trying to bring things back on track.
“Now, we wait. We obviously can’t bring the other four up here at once without drawing attention to ourselves.”
“Obviously not,” I agree, while mentally rolling my eyes.
“They’ll be brought up here, and then they’ll all die.”
“Jessica isn’t a Corrigan anymore. I’m just wondering why she’s here.”
“That slut stole my husband, and my son seems to think she walks on water,” Zara tells me.
I don’t tell her she’s right, but she is. Matt loves Jessica. He loves Zara, too, but he knows she’s toxic, and hasn’t talked to her in over a year. I can imagine that it hurts her, but she caused it to happen. She only cares about two things: money, and herself. No matter what she just said, she never put Matt before those two things, and she never will.
I need more info, and I also need to look as sympathetic as possible. “It must’ve sucked when Cyndi took Mara’s side, and disowned you
r husband, huh?” I ask Michaela.
“Sucked? She destroyed us. We couldn’t even show our faces in Chicago after what she did to us. Her and those damn Griffins.”
She and her husband had a crooked judge grant them conservatorship over their daughter, and then tortured her when they found out she was gay. When Cyndi found out what was being done to her granddaughter, she helped the Griffins take Michaela and her son down several notches. Both financially and socially.
“You get to hurt Mara and Owen with this, so that’s a bonus.”
She nods. “It is.”
“You’ve all done a great job of orchestrating this.”
“We’ve been planning for years. We made sure nothing could go wrong.”
“It’s brilliant, really. Mad props to all of you.”
It’s a shit plan, and if they weren’t so blinded by revenge, they’d see it for what it really is. They’re too arrogant to see the gaping holes in their plan, and neither the women on the couch, nor I, am going to point them out. They’ll know soon enough.
“What do you need me to do?”
“You’re going to kill your mentor of course.”
Zara says it with such certainty, and so little emotion, that I can almost believe it myself. I won’t kill Jane, but if she wants to give me a gun? Well, yes please.
“Works for me. How did you find out about the Society?”
“I had my suspicions that Maggie was involved in something secret for years. We all happened to be at the same function, and a friend had too much to drink, and let slip how the bitch and her friends had helped her daughter. The rest, as they say, is history.”
This clusterfuck will definitely go down in history, and I will find out who has loose lips. I’ll need to pay her a visit and remind her that secrecy is paramount. I won’t hurt her, but I will definitely scare her more than a little.
The door opens behind me before I can ask any more questions. Mallory is brought in first, and we glare at each other before she’s shoved down into a chair. A few minutes later, Helen and Cyndi are led in. Maggie is the last to arrive, and I have to clench my jaw as Clara slaps her. Alex stands and lunges for her, but I pull her off, and toss her back onto the couch, giving her a warning look when she turns on me.
“Do any of you have any last words, or things you’d like relayed to your loved ones before you die?” Zara asks them.
“You can kill us, but the Society will never die,” Jane tells her.
“No, it won’t. Because we’ll be running it.”
“The women who work for us will never follow you,” Mallory says.
“They will with Reina on our side,” Cara explains, putting her arm around me. I force myself to smile at her, when all I really want to do is punch her.
“You are better than this, Reina,” Cyndi tells me.
“No. I’m really not,” I say.
Zara hands me a gun, and I cock it before holding it at my side. “Is there anything else you want to say to them, Reina?” she asks me.
“Yes. Sanctimonialis Succurro Totus.”
Sisters Helping All. It’s the Society motto; in that moment, the words mean more to me than they ever have. I raise my gun, and spin. I take out the two guards in the room with us before they can even get their guns out. I turn back for Zara, but she’s grabbed Jane, and is holding her in front of her. I know without looking that Alex has grabbed a gun from one of the fallen men and has the other women taken care of. I trained her, after all.
I have a bigger problem to deal with when Zara pulls out a gun, and holds it to Maggie’s temple. Her neck is slightly exposed, and I can make the shot, but how can I? She may be a psychopath, but she’s also Matt’s mom. I can’t let her kill Jane, but I don’t think I can kill her, either.
“You don’t know what to do, do you Reina? You had better decide soon, because the rest of my men will be coming in here to clean up this mess soon.”
My hand shakes a little, because I don’t think I can do this. One of those women is going to die, and the choice is in my hands. I can’t let Jane die, but will Matt ever forgive me if I kill his mother?
“Take the shot, Reina,” he tells me, walking in and putting his arms around my waist. “I can’t, but I need you to. My Gram is the only choice.”
I hear the pain in his voice, and also the conviction. Zara hears it too, and lets out a sob. She shifts a little, and I pull the trigger. Her head snaps back as blood sprays out from the fatal wound. Matt lets me go to pull Jane into his arms.
“We got them all,” Jenysis says from behind me. “The other men.”
“Good job,” I tell her, turning to give her a sad smile.
When I turn back around, Matt has pulled Alex and Jessica into a group hug with him and Jane. I swallow hard, and walk out the door. The Society will take care of the clean-up. No one in that room needs me for that, or anything else. I served my purpose. The women I needed to save are alive, and the man I love will never be able to look me in the eye again. Because no matter what Matt said to me in there, I just killed the woman who gave birth to him. There had to be a way for me to just hurt her, and not kill her, but I didn’t look hard enough for it.
* * *
Matt
I hug my Gram, Jessica, and Alex until they finally get tired of me. I’m so glad they’re alive. These women, along with Reina, my guys, and the Society girls, are my family. The woman who orchestrated all of this may have given birth to me, but she would’ve taken my life just as easily if I’d stood in her way.
I turn to Reina, but she’s not there. I look around the room, but she’s gone. “Where’s Reina?”
“She left,” Jenysis tells me.
“Left? Why would she do that?”
“Because she just killed your mother,” my Gram says.
“I told her to. You had to live.”
“I know that, and deep down, Reina knows that. But she still took the life of someone you loved.”
“And then you ignored her,” Jenysis says.
“I didn’t ignore her.”
“You did. You brought them all into your hug except for her.”
“They’ve been kidnapped for a week.”
“And she offered herself up to save them all. Everyone in this room knows that if just one thing had gone wrong, Reina would be dead right now.”
“You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I was going crazy thinking about what could happen to her?”
“If you were that worried, why are you here arguing with me now, instead of going after her?”
Fuck. I look around. “Go, Matt,” Gram says.
I run from the room and down the steps. I see her date is still here, so I don’t know how far she could’ve gotten. We’re outside the city, so she can’t exactly walk back to her hotel. I make it out front just as she starts to get into a cab.
“Reina!” I yell.
She stops and turns to me. “Matt?”
“I’m coming with you,” I say, ushering her into the back of the cab, and getting in next to her. I nod, and she gives the hotel name to the driver.
I pick up her hand and thread my fingers through hers. We don’t say anything during the drive, but I never let her go. I have so much to say, but it can wait. Everything in the world can wait. Well almost everything. As we ride up to her room in the elevator, I ask her for what I need.
“Put more lipstick on.”
“What?”
“Please. Put more lipstick on, for me,” I say as we walk to her room.
“Why do you want me to put lipstick on?”
“Please.”
She doesn’t ask me again, she just opens her tiny wrist purse and pulls out the tube after opening her door. She uses the small mirror over her sink and expertly applies the red that’s been driving me crazy since I saw her earlier.
“There. I did it. Can you tell me now why I had to?”
“Because you’ve never worn red for me, I was jealous as fuck that some other
guy got to see you in it first, and I want it on me.”
I kiss her hard, but she pulls back. “Where do you want it, Matt?”
“Reina,” I practically beg.
“Here?” she asks, kissing my neck as she unbuttons my shirt. “Or here?” she wonders, kissing the new scars all over my chest and abs while her hands take care of my belt and undo my pants. “Maybe you want my red lipstick here,” she says, taking my cock in her hand. “Is this where you want it?”
“Yes. God, yes.”
She pushes my pants and briefs down with her free hand, and I take them off along with my shoes and socks while she waits. Then she grabs the tube again as she drops to her knees. She takes me back into her other hand, stroking me hard, and I’m seriously not sure how long I can realistically last. I should be worried about it, but I want her mouth on me more than I want to prove my stamina to her. Besides, she already knows what I can do.
She does her lips again, and then she does me. She places kisses all over my shaft, leaving lipstick in her wake. Once she’s covered me from base to tip, she sits back and looks up at me, licking her lips. “Is that what you wanted, Matteo?”
Oh fuck me. She just called me that again after leaving lip marks all over my cock. The orgasm I knew was coming hits before she can even put her mouth back on me. She opens her mouth and catches some of my cum as it shoots out, stroking me through it. I know I should be embarrassed that I just shot out like that, but I’m not.
“That was the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“I love the way you taste. How it slides down my throat.”
I growl, and pull her up to sit on the sink. I leave her there as I go into her small shower and turn the water on. We don’t use condoms, and I’m not sure if it’s okay to get lipstick all up inside her, so I need to wash myself off. I also need to clean up what she missed. I stumble a little just thinking about that. I wasn’t lying. I have never seen anything that hot.
I make sure the water is warm enough, but not too hot, and turn back around. She’s sitting there now in only her red lace bra and thong. I didn’t hear her take off her dress, but it’s in a pile along with my pants and boxers.
“You have too many clothes on, Reina.”
Loving My SECRET (Corrigan & Co. Book 10) Page 18
