Why He FIGHTS: A Dark Billionaire Romance Series (Why He Sins Book 5)

by Mary Madison

  And I'd found what felt like a long, rusty screw.

  I could barely feel my fingertips thanks to the blood loss and the tightness of the duct tape, but I still managed to carefully lift the piece of metal off the ground and dig the sharp end into the tape around my wrists. The harder I jabbed it, the more I could feel it piercing the thin skin of my arms, but I didn't care. Hell, maybe if I got some blood going, it could make the tape slippery and help me squeeze out of it faster.

  Or maybe you don't have that much blood to spare, my mind reminded me tersely.

  “You've been tracking my car all this time,” Junior said incredulously, “without even asking my permission?”

  “Look, I knew you wouldn't go for it, okay?” Peter admitted. “I figured you're the boss of this family now, so making sure you're safe was more important than pissing you off by telling you. But seriously, Junior, what's going down here? What are these two doing tied up?”

  “He killed Dad, Peter,” I called out urgently. “It wasn't the Azzarellos. Junior killed Dad. Then he tried to kill Chelsea. He killed Ricky and Anthony for no good fucking reason at all just so he could start a damn war and burn half the city down.”

  Peter looked at Junior, glassy-eyed with shock. “Is that true, Junior? You killed Dad?”

  “Yeah,” Junior conceded. “You saw what was about to happen to this family, Peter. I couldn't let that happen. And I couldn't tell you I was doing it. I couldn't burden you with that, couldn't make you a knowing party to it. You're a good man. Your heart is too big; I didn't want to make you suffer with this. But you know it had to be done. It was the only way. We even talked about it a few times, remember? How what Dad had planned for us wasn't right; how this was the logical next step for us?”

  “We talked about it, sure,” Peter mused, his lower lip trembling. “But actually doing it...”

  Saw, saw, saw. Dig, dig, dig. Scrape, scrape, scrape. Slowly but surely, the tape that was binding me was starting to fray. Just another minute or two, and it would tear cleanly enough for me to make a move.

  If I were strong enough.

  I knew that even if I succeeded in freeing myself, I'd only have one shot and a mighty slim one, at that. I had to make it count.

  “He's lost his fucking mind, Peter,” I implored him. If I could just get Peter to come to his senses, to turn on Junior, then I wouldn't have to rely on my own weakened body to get us out of this. “He's gone off the deep end, but it's not too late to stop him. We can turn this whole thing around, you and me. Put him down and get this tape off us and we'll fix everything together.”

  Peter seemed to consider this for a long moment. Then he pulled his gun from his waistband. Junior flinched and raised his weapon again, and for a single joyous moment, I thought I'd succeeded in turning Peter to our side...

  ...except that Peter wasn't pointing his firearm at Junior. Instead, he was pointing it at us.

  “I'm sorry, kid,” Peter said sadly, “but you're wrong. It is too late. We're in this war with the Azzarellos now, and even if it's built on a lie, well, then we got no choice but to fight for the lie, you know? We gotta fight all the way up to the end so we don't lose face in front of our people or the other families. And when it's over, then we worry about clean-up. Until then, it's all about survival and grabbing everything we can.” He shook his head, mournfully. “It shouldn't have been like this, Des. Wish there were some other way. But the best way for you to serve the family now is by dying so the others can get good and pissed and do what needs to happen next.”

  So that was it. First Junior, and now Peter... both my brothers had betrayed me that night, and if I didn't act fast—if I didn't put every last ounce of strength into this final gambit—then it would all end here on a shabby cement floor where about a hundred guys had croaked before.

  I refused to accept that. Chelsea and I deserved our chance at a future together, and I'd die trying to get it for us.

  With the last breath of strength I had left in my body, I tore the rest of the duct tape around my wrists apart and lunged off the floor at Peter since he was standing closer. He wasn't expecting me to bust loose from my binds, and the surprise of my escape bought me the extra seconds I needed.

  I grabbed the hand that was holding his gun and wrapped my trigger finger around his tightly, swinging the rest of my body around behind his and cocking my other arm firmly around his neck. He was now my human shield, and I forced him forward toward Junior, stumbling stiffly, my legs tangling in his. I kept his arm extended and made him shoot—once, twice, over and over again, emptying his clip into Junior's chest until the air was full of pungent gun smoke and our older brother slumped to the ground, dead.

  Dimly, I heard Chelsea screaming from what sounded like a thousand miles away.

  Peter and I kept going forward, carried into the wall by the force of our momentum. I heard a satisfying crunch as Peter's nose broke against the concrete and we fell together in a jumble of limbs.

  The gun in Peter's hand was spent.

  Most people wouldn't have known that Peter always kept a spare pistol at the back of his waistband.

  But most people weren't his younger brother.

  I snatched his backup piece away from him, leveling it at his face. His eyes bulged, his chubby cheeks quivered with terror, and his lower lip trembled. “Hey, okay, I wasn't really gonna kill you!” he yammered desperately, licking his lips. “You know that, Des, right? I was gonna turn my gun on him at the last minute for what he did to Dad! You gotta believe me! Here, you wanna take over the whole operation? Fine! It's yours! Screw Junior! It's what Dad wanted anyway, right? You can go ahead and take the big chair, and if you wanna keep me around to help you keep everyone in line, I can do that for ya! Or if, hey, if you wanna just... send me away, then I'll go, all right? I'll disappear. I won't ever come back! Whatever you want! Just don't do anything crazy here, please!”

  “The only crazy thing I could possibly do right now,” I replied coldly, “is figure you won't kill me if I let you go. Sorry, Peter.”

  He opened his mouth, ready to say more, to convince me no matter what it took, but the single gunshot silenced him before he had a chance.

  Chapter Five

  Epilogue—Chelsea

  The months following that horrible night at the warehouse were like a cyclone that picked me up and spun me off to a whole new wonderful world like I was Dorothy being whisked away to the Technicolor land of Oz.

  Once he'd freed me from the duct tape and made sure I was all right, Desmond wasted no time calling the surviving leaders of the Azzarello family to come to view the bodies of his slain brothers. He told them to take the sight as proof that hostilities between the two organizations were officially over—no more Peter and Junior, no more war.

  He assured them that not only were the remaining members of their gang safe from further attacks but any illegal interests still under the control of the Biros clan would be promptly turned over to the Azzarellos once he'd ensured the legitimate future of their other enterprises. It represented hundreds of millions of dollars in potential income for the Azzarellos, plus a chance to be the most powerful and influential syndicate in the Midwest, taking advantage of the sudden power vacuum that Desmond's actions would leave behind.

  And all they had to agree to do in return was dispose of the corpses so no one would ever find them.

  There could be no evidence linking Desmond to the deaths of his brothers, or the legality of his control over the family's businesses would be called into question, and everything he'd done—everything he'd bled for and sacrificed—would fall apart entirely. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, Junior and Peter had to have simply disappeared, no doubt casualties in the very war they'd provoked and escalated. Once they were officially declared dead, Desmond held a press conference denouncing their lifetime of criminal activities and promising a brighter and more sustainable future for the Biros family.

  The board of directors at Stavros Shippi
ng wasn't even remotely convinced. They dropped EEM&M as their legal counsel, and the firm promptly fired me for losing them so much money when I was unable to salvage the Stavros deal.

  I didn't mind, though. I had a new job: in-house counsel to the legitimate Biros financial enterprises.

  All of them.

  It was more money and prestige than I would have gotten in thirty years of waiting to make partner at EEM&M, plus I got to work alongside the love of my life, making both of our dreams come true.

  And just because Stavros wasn't willing to merge with us didn't mean their biggest competitor, the third-largest shipping conglomerate in the world, wasn't willing to come to the table and hear us out. Desmond was able to convince them that the days of the “Biros crime family” were over and that investing in a future with us was a solid move in terms of their profit margins. They agreed, and the deal went through, allowing Desmond to achieve what he'd always wanted—a chance to be free of his father's legacy, just as I was now free of my father's.

  We celebrated with a huge wedding, inviting all of the Biros clan's new business partners to get to know us better—and Ernesto, of course. Asking him and his fiancée was the least we could do after all the trouble we'd caused him.

  Then we decided to honeymoon in Barbados.

  We'd landed on a private airstrip less than an hour before when I was in our hotel room, wearing a silky white wrap and shamelessly admiring the platinum wedding band on my finger as I mixed drinks for us at the counter near the minibar.

  Then I felt Desmond's hands slide around my waist, the smooth palms traveling upward—one resting on my right breast, the other cupping my neck gently. I gasped with pleasure, setting down the glasses and relishing the way his body felt pressed against my back. His warm breath tickled the area behind my ear, making me want to giggle and melt all at once.

  “I've waited so long for this,” he whispered.

  “Mmm, you couldn't have been waiting that long,” I corrected him playfully. “We only came back into each other's lives a few months ago.”

  “I've been waiting for you my entire life,” he replied, kissing the side of my neck passionately. “I just didn't know it until now.”

  His words made me feel faint and breathless with sheer desire, and goose bumps slinked and skittered up my arms, just as droplets of pure lust trickled down my inner thighs like dew on a sultry spring morning.

  His hard bulge pressed against me from behind, firm and pulsing as he sensually nipped and nibbled my shoulders and upper back. I let out a long, contented sigh that crescendoed into a faint moan—his hands were cupping my breasts harder, kneading them, sliding the slippery fabric down over them until my nipples were bare and painfully stiff to the touch.

  The need that was coming off him in waves was hungry, all-consuming. He was pushing himself against me harder, more insistently, as though there were something wild in him that wanted to mount me like I was in heat. And I was... The spot between my legs was damp and quivering, aching to be filled, to be claimed—owned.

  I wanted to belong to him—body and soul. I wanted him to tear me apart, to claw and bite and ravish me, to devour me utterly.

  His hand clamped hard on the nape of my neck and pushed me down onto the counter, where the chilled surface made my exposed nipples throb even more painfully. Every nerve ending vibrated at some sacred frequency, a divine pitch that could shatter the very halos of the angelic choir.

  Reflexively, I tried to raise my body, but his left hand pushed me down again, holding me in place while his right hand slid the hem of the wrap up over my hips and pulled down my lacy white panties. My wet lips were exposed now, and I felt a shameful kind of pleasure rippling through my pelvic floor, arching my back and cocking my hips upward to reveal every inch of my slippery and gleaming folds.

  To offer myself to him. To ease his entry into me anyway I could. To silently beg him for it.

  I heard his fly unzip, felt his tip press against my most private and sensitive strip of flesh—and then my lips parted suddenly. I let out a ragged gasp, and he filled me with every inch of his massive cock, slamming into me, more powerful and controlling with every savage thrust.

  I was helpless in his grasp, unable to do anything except lie there and take it as hard as he wanted to give it to me.

  And I loved it.

  I'd never been at the mercy of anything so fierce and relentless before. It was like making love to some primal force that could never be tamed, only clung to and rode with white-knuckled abandon until it either tired or threw you off.

  I wasn't going to be thrown off. I was going to ride it all the way to the end, no matter how intense it was or how brightly its uncontrolled flames burned within me.

  A growl of pure heat ripped from his throat as he plunged himself deeper into me than he'd ever gone before. We climaxed as one, our bodies merging into a single pumping engine of heat and steam and pressure which hissed and moaned and churned all through us.

  Our sweaty bodies were stuck together in the afterglow, trembling and breathing and shaking. We were fused now, a single machine of love and lust and devotion... one whose components could never be pried apart or separated ever again.

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