by Keta Kendric
I placed a tender kiss on his pec before setting my chin against the firm mass of warm flesh. I was in awe of him as I looked up into his face, my actions causing him to smile.
Khane smiling was one of the most beautiful expressions I had ever seen. Without him having to tell me, I sensed that he didn’t smile much.
The tips of my fingers traced along the hairs of his forearm before I flattened my hand and let it glide the rest of the way up his arm. I would have given anything to have this companionable bliss with him permanently, but this one stolen night was all we were destined to enjoy. When the truth of that thought gripped my happiness, I shook it away to relish every second we had left.
“At a certain point, so much had happened that I learned to embrace this lifestyle,” he started.
“The Ferali Syndicate isn’t a traditional outfit like some of the other crime families. You grow up in this, and you contribute to it, feed it power. Arjen and I were death soldiers, trained to assassinate for our father, but ultimately, it was always for the syndicate. Later, Arjen took my father’s position and appointed me his second in command, kind of like a CEO and vice president. However, those titles are secondary to our roles in the syndicate. When they need someone dead, we answer the call.”
The lump of fear his words put in my throat didn’t go down easily. They were confirmation of some of the updates Mecca had given me. I was under the impression that he killed for his family’s sake, but now I knew that he was also a hitman for the deadly organization he had grown up in. He would never be free of this, could never get out of it. And Lord help me, I was marrying into it.
“The syndicate has been around for hundreds of years, long enough for my father, and the grandfather I never met, to grow up in it. Unlike some crime units, we are run like a corporation, with the ability to make deals using a governing vote. It’s kind of like getting a bill passed through congress. Guns are the major product resource, but like any major corporation, the market has expanded to a variety of products: accessories for weapons, body armor, and spy equipment. They hold patents for new equipment and new technology. They have scientists and doctors working on scientific and medical advances.”
He shifted to tuck the pillow tighter under his head. His movement had my gaze running along the muscles that worked in his arm as he adjusted.
“The syndicate has mastered the ability of maintaining functionality as a whole while forming alliances with hundreds of other entities. Extensive research has to be done to ensure an alliance doesn’t upset the balance set within the organization because it is a tightrope of push and pull that rarely gets tested. The alliance we made with your family wasn’t based on a handshake. It went through channels and levels, individuals that we haven’t even met. It took months, signed documents by Arjen and your father, and votes, lots of syndicate votes.”
His update put a crease in my forehead. It meant that my father had known of this arrangement for months. Did he have that much faith in knowing I would agree to the arrangement?
“Our syndicate maintains over fifty percent of the world market in arms sales. Although weapons bring in billions each year, the syndicate also empowers one of the most diverse criminal curriculums. People like me, who grew up in this, could have gone to a syndicate-funded school, for anything from money laundering and hacking to crime scene cleaning and staging.”
This wasn’t just an organization. It was a sub-world, providing training on how to be expert criminals.
“In dealing with anything illegal, you first have to know how to protect yourself, legally and physically. You have to know how to kill. You have to know how to capture. You have to know how to escape. When we were younger, Arjen and I ran away three times, but our father easily tracked us down. When he gave an order, you followed it, or suffered the consequences.”
Where would he be if his father were still around?
“Like I mentioned to you before, we were homeschooled. We didn’t study the standard curriculums. We each had one-on-one tutors, and if they didn’t have us a level or two ahead of kids our age, my father would fire and replace them. We learned for mental strength and trained for physical strength. We were punished as severely for a slip up on speech or for below-average grades, as we were for our physical training. He would always say, “No son of mine is going to sound like an ignorant fool.” The only kids we were allowed to spend time with were other boys who were in training. Unless it involved a special assignment, we rarely interacted with kids that weren’t brought up in the syndicate.”
He had been segregated from normal society. I couldn’t imagine what that must have been like. Now, I was starting to understand his loner personality.
“Arjen and I had been tasked with capturing and killing a man who’d come into our territory and set up an arms operation without consent. With the exception of New Mexico and Alaska, my father ran the entire west coast. He never bothered with men like the one we had been ordered to kill because independent arms deals like his were small enough not to pose any real threats. However, this particular arms dealer was to be used as an example of my father asserting his power, showing what would happen to others like him.
“High ranking committee members were the closest my father had to bosses because they held the power to sway decisions made for the organization. They were in town, visiting my father. Therefore, he was going to make a bold statement where it concerned handling us and the arms dealer who infringed on his territory.”
My sluggish breaths were starting to increase in tempo with each sentence he added.
““You disobeyed a direct order! Your orders were to capture and prepare him for the kill!” he yelled at us. “Why wasn’t it done?” We were aligned against the wall in the basement of his mansion. Arjen was fifteen, and I was thirteen. We were receiving our father’s version of training for life in the syndicate.
“We had captured the man as ordered, however, he had gotten the drop on us and escaped, and one of our men had been shot and killed during our attempt to recapture him. Our father had to discipline us for allowing the man to escape. With major players in the syndicate present, we knew that he needed to make the punishment worth their time. He had to prove his ruthlessness.”
I tensed. Even without hearing Khane’s full story, the way he lived hinted at the hellish life experiences he had suffered.
“My father had handed out harsh punishments to us over the years: brutal beatings, broken bones, burns, and extended periods of time in a soundless black hole in the ground he called the vault. Of all the punishments, the vault was the worst, and where I assumed we would go for our punishment. The vault messed with your head, and it would take weeks after you came out to re-acclimate your mind.”
I swallowed, attempting to push down the thick lump in my throat, imagining the traumatic events he had suffered.
“Arjen and I pleaded, praying that our father wasn’t about to do what we knew he was capable of doing. He didn’t treat us any better than the rest of his soldiers. If anything, sharing his blood made him even tougher. “An eye for an eye,” he said, glancing back at the audience. My father had lost a man because of our mistake, so he was going to take something from us. “Do I have a volunteer?” he asked, glaring at me.”
Khane’s gentle hand eased down my tense shoulder, rubbing away some of the stiffness.
“I shook with unchecked fear. The first step my father took towards me, Arjen stepped in front of me, always my protector. “I volunteer,” he told our father with no fear, knowing what was about to happen. Our father’s brutal mentality was what had earned him a top place within the syndicate. It alone was enough to fear. He didn’t answer to many, which meant that he often went unchecked in his methods and guidelines.”
At this point, I had gone still, my nerves scratching at my bones. Even though I had an idea of what Khane was about to reveal, it didn’t relieve the tension that his words had built within me.
“My father shoved Arjen out o
f the way and promised him a month in the vault for interfering. His gaze had never broken away from me. “Pick one,” he barked at my face. I pointed to my left eye, knowing that my right was dominant. I knew that, if I survived, I would need it more.”
I inhaled deeply as my arms tightened around Khane and my tears started to seep out.
“More determined spikes of fear hit me when I saw the blade he extracted. Five men were witness to the barbaric event, but none stopped my father’s cruel punishment.”
I shook my head, picturing the scene like I was there, not realizing I was gripping Khane in a hug, so tight he had to ease me back a bit before kissing my forehead.
“With the blade pointed at my face, I begged my father. The tears streaming down my face made him angrier because he saw weakness. He didn’t see a thirteen-year-old kid begging to keep his eye. I don’t even think he saw me as his son. I pleaded like I never had before, my hands outstretched, asking for mercy. Arjen intervened for me too. “Father, it was my fault. I didn’t secure the man properly,” he told him, lying to help me. My brother ran the risk of getting the same punishment and more time in the vault for interrupting. He knew as well as I did that our father had made his choice long before we had entered that basement.”
This bit of information caused me to lift a brow. I didn’t understand how he was so relaxed, talking about something so traumatic.
“My father had never wanted me. I was the bastard son. The son he mistakenly created when he decided to be careless when cheating on his wife. When my mother could no longer take care of me, he saw an opportunity to gain another soldier, so he took me. My stepmother hated me because I was a constant reminder of my father’s betrayal. My mother was Mexican, so I was called some colorful names by my father and stepmother. When I would slip and speak Spanish, he would punish me, not even wanting me to speak a language I had naturally inherited. When my stepmother would put me out of the house and make me sleep on the back porch, Arjen would always sneak out of the house, stay with me, and sneak back into the house in the mornings.”
A pang of guilt hit me as I started to realize how much Arjen and Khane loved each other, and why Khane had fought so hard to protect his allegiance to his brother.
“I was the subject of many of my father and stepmother’s fights. One fight was so brutal she ended up having a brain aneurysm. She never recovered and died hating me. Of course, I was to blame for her death, so our father punished me every chance he got. I did everything he asked, but none of it mattered. When he made me pick an eye that day, it was the last day I cried. I was finally getting the punishment he had been angling to give me since the day I had shown up on his doorstep as a toddler.”
It must have been my accelerated breathing that caused him to draw me tighter into the comfort of his embrace.
“My father never confirmed it, but I’m certain he killed my mother. She had been his maid and when he found out she was pregnant, he fired her and put her out on the streets with no place to go. Based on conversations I’d overheard, I believed he ordered her execution the night she dropped me off. He was making sure she could never come back to reclaim me.”
His father sounded like a real basket-case. I couldn’t imagine the horror he faced growing up, which made me see him in a new light. His upbringing could have turned him into the monster he allowed the world to see him as. His reputation was the animal he had been groomed to be. However, I knew he was so much more.
“No amount of yelling or screaming on my part deterred my father from the decision he had already made. His strike was quick, the jagged pain intense, and the gasp of the audience sharp. My legs gave out immediately, causing me to crumple to the floor. My hand covered the area I could no longer see from as blood oozed between my trembling fingers. Arjen was there with me, holding and shielding me from watching eyes, promising in my ear the whole time that he would find a way to make him pay.”
Was that a smirk I’d saw flash across his lips?
“We didn’t kill our father. He lives, caged, and tortured in his own version of hell. After that day, all we did was train harder, learn more, and kill any target put before us. It got to the point where our father started to show pride in us. He’d trained and educated us so well that he never saw us coming for him. We had secretly been planning his downfall for years, meticulously working to make sure no one suspected us so that we didn’t get caught.
“We fixed it so that he was caught in Russia with a kilo of cocaine and the bloody knife that had killed the son of a Russian mob boss in his possession. He is currently rotting away for the rest of his life in Petak Island Prison in White Lake, Russia, one of the worst prisons in the world. Petak is the Russian version of Alcatraz, so there are no visitors. It’s cold, isolated, dangerous, and dark. Beatings, deadly fighting, disease outbreak, overcrowding, and no contact with the outside world are a few of its highlights. He’s been there for over seven years now. We pay the guards to send us recordings of his misery and beatings. As a birthday gift one year, I received a recording of the stabbing that resulted in him losing his left eye.”
This time, a wicked grin formed on my lips.
“No one has enough reach to get him out, even if they knew he was in there. If he ever finds a way out, he will have to face the Russian mafia. He has attempted suicide twice, and although the prison treats the men worse than animals, they are adept at keeping them alive to prolong their suffering for as long as possible.”
“I love it when an evil villain gets his just desserts,” I stated, not realizing I had spoken out loud until Khane’s low chuckle sounded.
“After I lost most of the vision in my eye, Arjen and I grew even closer than we already were. I never knew if my eye could have been saved because I wasn’t allowed to see a doctor. I had to learn how to fight, shoot, and do everything with one eye. I had to train myself how to react from a different sight perspective. Arjen helped, and my determination not to be rendered useless made my father look at me with a little less hate in his eyes. It’s funny, but losing an eye made me stronger. Now, I see nothing but dark shadows and very little movement, but I have always accepted that it was gone.”
He was an amazing man. To go through all that he had and have so much care and compassion left within him was a testament to how strong-willed and mentally tough he was.
“At twenty-three, Arjen became one of the youngest bosses. We never told a soul where our father was. People speculated that he had gone missing in Russia, but no one has ever confirmed it.”
My fingertips flirted with the hairs of his bearded chin before I flitted my hand along his jawline and cupped it. “Your father was a miserable asshole that deserves the hell he lives in.” My words made him smile. The moment my gaze fell away and landed on his lips, we drew into each other until we came together and swirled in a delicate caress.
Was I ever going to be able to flush this remarkable man out of my system?
29
Desiree
Khane woke me from a deep, dreamless slumber with a plate of food. Breakfast in bed. I couldn’t contain my silly smile. Just when I assumed I couldn’t fall any deeper for him, he would give me another peek at how wonderful he could be.
“I’m going to take a shower.” He took off before I could get a word out. The guilt of what we had done had been written all over his face. Guilt hadn’t hit me yet. It lingered, waiting until I faced Arjen. I ate in silence, but the noise in my head wouldn’t ease, calling up all the explicit images of Khane and me.
Once I’d finished eating, I eased my sore and aching body up and padded to the kitchen. After setting the dishes in the sink, I strutted boldly into the bathroom while Khane was in the shower.
He glared in my direction as I peed, washed my hands, and brushed my teeth, but the fog on the glass was too thick for me to read his expression. I had always been way too comfortable with him, and my using the bathroom with him in it was another example of it.
Since I was naked and n
eeded a shower, I slid the door open and stepped inside, easing behind him. He didn’t protest my intrusion, didn’t even stop me when I took the soap from his hand and started washing his back.
Khane possessed every living attribute of the man I daydreamed about. He was the epitome of who I pictured in my wet dreams. I slid my fingers over and across his muscles, through his wet hair, and let them glide along his bearded chin. To have all of this male hotness in the palm of my hands should have been a sin. Instead, it was a delicious fantasy that I was getting a chance to live.
We took turns soaping each other up. The task was an intimate form of foreplay that I would never forget. Once we re-entered the bedroom, he rummaged through the dresser to find me something else to wear.
He should have put clothing on before he sought to dress me because I was unable to stop my hands from caressing his tight ass. The touch put an end to his search. He turned and let his gaze trace every inch of my naked body.
“How much longer do we have?” Heat dripped from my tone, and I pulsed with the demanding urgency that he knew how to calm.
He turned to face me, his gaze growing heavier by the second. “A few hours.” He had given me an answer, and in my crazed mind, it meant that we were on the same page. This would be our last time.
After this, we would never be able to touch each other again. A painful ache shot through my heart at the impacting thought. It had me desperate to stoke our connection until the very end. I didn’t know about him, but I was ready to mess up the shower we had just taken.
A deep sigh left him while he peered down at me, holding an expression of indecision like he didn’t know what to do with me. It didn’t take but a moment for his expression to change to one unleashing an obscene amount of lust.
The stiff prize waiting below called my attention, and it didn’t take me but a hot second to drop to my knees. I had wanted his dick in my mouth since the moment I saw the first full view of it, and I was not leaving this cabin until I got my taste.
