Glitter and Greed (Brooklyn Brothers #4)

by Melanie Munton

  She blew me a kiss on her way out the door. “You know I never make promises I can’t keep.”

  “A rage room?” Roxy screeched excitedly. “Seriously?”

  “Holy shit, this is amazing,” Jasmine mused as she looked around the room with stars in her eyes.

  “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” Lexi whispered in awe.

  I had to agree with them. This was pretty badass. I’d never heard of a rage room, didn’t even know they were a thing, but apparently, they were becoming quite popular all over the country.

  When Gia invited me to their girls’ night earlier, I had jumped at the opportunity. Not just because it would be awesome to actually have real friends in my life. But because I was hoping it would distract me from dwelling on what a horrible human being I was.

  I had lied to Luka.

  At least partially.

  I still couldn’t believe I’d told him most of the truth about my tormentor. But I also couldn’t believe I’d omitted the most important details. Luka had done more for me than probably anyone in my entire life—he deserved to know everything.

  But I was trying to protect him.

  The less he knew about the man who hunted me, the better. The man was a soulless killer, and I didn’t want Luka to ever even breathe his name for fear it would curse him. Luka was a protector and a guardian to his core. He’d taken it upon himself to defend my honor in all ways, so I had no doubt he would try to get involved if I told him the man’s name. He would go searching in the wrong places. Ask the wrong questions to the wrong people. He’d get too deep, meddle too far.

  He’d put a bullseye on his back.

  And the people those bullseyes were meant for…they never missed.

  I couldn’t stand the idea of anything happening to Luka, especially because of me. I’d already had to accept the fact that Luciana had been taken because of the choices I’d made. Everything that had happened to her in the last six months and everything to come was on my head. She wouldn’t be in the position she was in now if I had never met my stalker. The guilt that poisoned my blood was so bad that some days, I didn’t want to get out of bed.

  But I had to keep fighting. For Luciana.

  I wouldn’t allow Luka to get tangled up in my twisted web. He did good in this world. He took care of others, protected them, fought for them. The world, especially the community he watched over, needed someone like him because there weren’t enough out there. I couldn’t be responsible for one less good one.

  And if I was being honest…I didn’t think I could survive losing him.

  The hole he’d leave in my heart would be too big for anyone to survive a wound of that magnitude. In such a short amount of time, he’d become as important to me as Luciana.

  Gia clapped her hands, drawing our attention. She did her best accent of an English aristocrat, making us all giggle. “Welcome to the Overkill room, ladies. You have approximately one hour and fifteen minutes to break as much shit in this room in any possible way you can break it. And don’t be shy. Let’s face it. We’re not here to actually be ladies.”

  Everyone whooped and cheered at that.

  “We’re here today to purge every motherfucking bit of anger and frustration inside us because we all know it’s there. The men think they’re the only ones who want to randomly punch shit sometimes? To bash someone’s face in whenever they disrespect or demean us?” She shook her head, wagging her finger. “Absolute rubbish. If anything, we’ve got more because we’re the ones who are expected to hold it in. To keep our cool.”

  I could certainly relate to that. My má was a meek, soft-spoken woman who had raised her two daughters to act the exact same way. If I so much as raised my voice to someone older than me, I had pulled extra cleaning or gardening duties.

  “Well, not today, I say unto you,” Gia continued dramatically. “Today, we get to have some fun too. Today, all these mirrors, lamps, electronics, porcelain figurines, and glass bottles can suck it!” She waved over at the line of tools. “These are your weapons.” Then she waved around the room. “That is your battlefield.” She winked. “Go be bad girls.”

  With excited screams everyone ran to the row of tools that included hammers, bats, metal pipes, mallets, and sledgehammers. They each grabbed their weapon of choice and ran off to start smashing.

  “And don’t be overdoing it with that bat, preggers!” Gia yelled at Lexi. “You get yourself and that baby too worked up and Nico will have my ass. Everyone else remember that Russian over there has a wide berth around her.”

  Lexi tested the weight of the baseball bat in her hands. “Don’t worry, I’m only going half power. Believe me, if I stress her out, she won’t let me sleep tonight.”

  Commence bashing.

  The sounds of shattering glass, objects breaking, and hollering women filled the room.

  But for some reason…I froze.

  I hefted the sledgehammer in my hand and stared at the stained mirror in front of me. I wasn’t even sure who the girl looking back at me was anymore. Once upon a time, I’d been a hard-working, family-oriented girl, who was trying to save up enough money to maybe go to a community college and work my way toward a degree in Psychology. I’d always been drawn to family counseling and thought my personal experiences could help other children who’d had rough upbringings.

  Now, all I saw in that reflection was a lonely stripper on the run, who’d lost all purpose in her life aside from finding her missing sister. I no longer saw the youthful fire in my eyes. The only time I even recognized the same spirit I had when I’d been naïve enough to think I could take the world by storm was when I was around Luka. He reminded me of who I once used to be, and who I wanted to be. He made the dreams I’d once held so close to my heart seem possible again.

  But had my own self-worth become dependent on him?

  Did I even see value in myself without Luka around to fluff me up with his compliments? To make me feel wanted from his fervent desires?

  “Don’t tell me Latinas having fiery tempers is just a stereotype.” Gia sidled up next to me. Her reflection stared back at me, challenging. “‘Cuz that would be real disappointing.”

  Oh, no. I had anger. Gallons and gallons of it.

  But strangely, I just couldn’t seem to channel it all into one place in that moment. So many things had happened over the last several months, my thoughts were bouncing around all over the place. Those emotions were coming from too places to be able to direct them at one target.

  “You ever just feel lost sometimes?” I asked Gia without even thinking.

  Gia threw her arm around my shoulders. “Honey, I’m a twenty-two-year-old still living with her parents, who think I’m still in law school, even though I dropped out a month ago. I’m spending my days going to auditions and my nights playing rinky dink bar gigs where I barely make enough to cover my phone bill. I can’t move out of my parents’ place because I haven’t saved up enough money for my own yet. And I can’t tell them I even want to be a musician because they’ll probably die of disappointment. I’m as lost as lost could get.”

  All of that brand new information bombarded my brain so fast, it was likely to short circuit.

  “Then how do you always seem so confident and sure of yourself?”

  She looked up at the ceiling, thinking, before meeting my gaze again. “By reminding myself that I’m the only one who gets to live my life. And since we only get one of them, why the hell would I want to live it for anyone but myself?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She took the sledgehammer from me and ran her hand down the wooden handle. “Sometimes we base too many of our decisions on other people. Our parents, siblings, friends, society in general, boyfriends…” She trailed off on the last word, making me wonder if she knew more than she let on. “There comes a point where you have to figure out who’s really calling the shots.” The weapon swung from her hand like a pendulum. “You…or them? Because if you give them the power to
make all your decisions for you, then you’re putting your fate in their hands. Your happiness too. And ninety-nine percent of the time, they’re going to make the wrong call.”

  “So, you’re saying…?”

  She handed back the sledgehammer. “I’m saying take back your ability to decide. You’re the playmaker, you’re the shot taker, you’re the goddamn queen of your own life, Kitty Cat. Make sure that everyone else damn well knows that. And in the meantime, it doesn’t hurt to break some shit.”

  My mouth tugged up at the corners. “Does that work for you?”

  “It’s a good way to blow off steam. Another option is to blow off a ma—”

  I swung the sledgehammer around, missing her by centimeters. “Thanks, I’m good!”

  “Ew, yeah, I just realized what I said. You’re doing the dirty with my brother. Seriously, why are all my friends doing the dirty with my brothers? For once, I’d like to have a normal conversation about sex without it getting weird.”

  “Oh, shut up and smash something!” Roxy yelled from across the room.

  Gia and I shared a smile before she ventured off to find a weapon of her own.

  Okay, I can do this.

  I was in charge of my own life. I was strong. I was resilient. I was unbreakable, dammit.

  A whooshing sound assailed my ears as the sledgehammer arced downward and crashed into the mirror, sending shards clattering to the floor. The room broke out in catcalls and applause while a triumphant smile overtook my entire face.

  I was powerful.

  “That was for growing up with holes in my shoes,” I whispered to myself.

  My grip on the handle tightened. Pulling the weapon back, I braced myself for impact and hauled the metal headpiece into the mirror a second time.

  “That was for not being able to go to college.”

  I tuned out the rest of the room as I reared back and brought my battle axe down on my enemies with a mighty blow.

  “That was for every man who’s ever touched me without permission.”

  Another swing. Another blow. Another enemy defeated.

  “That was for my sister,” I said louder.

  I was in my own world.

  I was taking back my own world.

  “That was for the man who thinks he can own me. Who thinks he can have what will never belong to him. Who thinks he can steal everything away from me and do it with a fucking smile on his face.”

  My hair had fallen out of its ponytail, but I didn’t care. My breathing was out of control, but the exhilaration felt so damn good. I wasn’t seeing anything but my demons, and I was happily sending them back to Hell where they could rot.

  Another swing.

  Another.

  Another.

  “And that’s for every single fucking time in my life that I’ve been afraid! That I’ve lost control of everything around me! That I’ve felt like I’m about to lose my goddamn mind!”

  Swing.

  Swing.

  Swi—

  Nothing shattered on that last swing because all the glass on the mirror had already broken. My shoes were covered with the mangled pieces. The floor surrounding me wasn’t even visible beneath my carnage. My arms burned from my efforts, but in the best way. Only then did it dawn on me how quiet the room had gotten.

  I was almost scared to turn around.

  But I had just turned a corner. I felt oddly refreshed, rejuvenated even. Gia was right. Something about wreaking destruction gave you a high like no other. I suddenly had a deeper insight into the way Luka felt about fighting. The addiction. The cleansing. I understood now why he took all of his problems to the gym and poured them into the ring or rained them down on a punching bag.

  I was going to buck up and face this group of women I had just broken down in front of, hoping they weren’t about to judge me, but reminding myself it wouldn’t change anything I just experienced if they did.

  They were smiling.

  They looked…impressed?

  Then they all dropped their weapons to the floor and broke into applause.

  “‘Atta girl, Cat!”

  “Luka’s really rubbed off on you.”

  “Damn, I think you could have a career as a hitwoman!”

  Gia whistled loudly, smiling at me with a knowing gleam in her eye. “Hot damn, is this where we welcome you to the family?”

  The bud that had sprouted in my chest just burst open in full bloom. It was probably silly to say that everything suddenly changed with a broken mirror and a sledgehammer, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel like exactly that. My old confidence I thought had long since been abandoned in the Mexican desert, lost amidst years of sand and dirt, rose from its unmarked grave.

  When I moved on to my next victim, I delivered the first crushing blow with a deafening roar.

  I was right.

  This was the stupidest fucking plan anyone had ever come up with in the history of the world.

  There was a damn good reason why I’d been infuriated to see Cat in The Slaughterhouse the night I fought Kamikaze. A lone woman down here was either claimed or was up for grabs. Free pussy, basically. The ones who were here willingly knew that. If they weren’t prostitutes, they were just out for a thrill and were ready to fuck anyone who approached them. If a woman refused, it usually didn’t go down well. If you were down here and you had tits, you’d better be ready to spread your legs whenever a stranger hauled you off to a dark corner.

  This was far from the cream of society.

  These weren’t law-abiding men. Decency was a foreign concept to them. They made their own rules as they went along, and they never asked for fucking permission.

  And here I was, placing Cat directly in the middle of all that depravity.

  With a goddamn collar around her neck.

  The one and only rule that everyone respected down here—unless, of course, they had a death wish—was that a woman wearing a collar was untouchable. A lot of men at these fights were into displaying their property and treating their women like pets. Some were into the BDSM scene, some just liked the dominant and submissive roles. Some were sadistic fucks that should never be allowed to even touch a woman. But some of these women got off on shit like that. They wore that collar willingly.

  Some were not willing.

  Some wearing collars could have been among the trafficked. It was an aspect of our investigation that we hoped would provide a new lead. Hence, Cat’s presence. After she’d adamantly refused to be left behind—even though I’d said hell no to her going back down to The Slaughterhouse—Rome had come up with a brilliantly moronic idea of using her to try and make contact with either the women being trafficked, or the men trafficking them.

  I’d told her there was no way in hell she was ever stepping foot inside The Dungeon of Death again.

  We’d argued.

  She’d tried to persuade me with makeup sex.

  It worked.

  The only way I could truly protect her down here…was to collar her.

  And I fucking hated it.

  A collar ensured that every other man knew she belonged to someone, and that someone would have every right to kill you on the spot if you so much as laid a finger on his property. In short, Cat was untouchable with that thing on. At least I could fight with that small comfort in the back of my mind.

  But I still fucking hated it.

  This was one direction where my sexual kinks didn’t run. If she wanted me to dominate her in bed, I had no fucking problem with that. She wanted to reverse the roles, I welcomed it freely and with open arms. But collaring was all about submission, and I never wanted Cat subdued around me. Following my commands? Hell, yeah. Just like I followed her commands whenever she was in charge.

  Hovering over her with that goddamn metal ring wrapped around her slim neck made me feel like a monster.

  She’d agreed to it. But it didn’t make it any easier to see her like that. To accept it. I had to constantly remind myself that if she wa
sn’t wearing it and Rome or I looked away for five seconds, some guy could drag her off into the shadows to do God knows what. Then we’d have a murder to clean up.

  Because I’d slaughter any man who touched my woman.

  And I wouldn’t stop once I got him on the ground. I wouldn’t keep my fury leashed. I’d attack and maul until his blood soaked my hands. Until I stole his final breath. Thinking about what could have happened to her last time she’d been down here infiltrated my thoughts on an hourly basis, making me itch to go fucking apeshit.

  Nothing happened then. Nothing’s going to happen to her now.

  Or ever.

  “I’m going to be fine,” she murmured to me as we entered Hell. “Don’t worry.”

  “When I’m in the cage, you stay glued to Rome’s side.” He already had his orders to never step more than two inches away from her whenever I wasn’t around. “Don’t go anywhere without him. You have to go to the bathroom, you take him and he’ll stand guard right outside the door.”

  Goddammit.

  I couldn’t stand the idea of having her out of my sight for even a second. I trusted Rome with my life, but Cat’s life was a whole different story. I knew he’d keep her safe, but she was my responsibility now. That wasn’t me being a controlling asshole like her ex. It was a statement of fact that her protection was in my hands. The job of keeping her safe belonged to me.

  Whatever happened from here on out was on me and me alone.

  And what she was wearing sure as hell wasn’t going to ease my anxiety.

  She just had to look like sin personified. Literally. All those tales from the Greeks and the Romans about men being tempted to the point of insanity by a woman? That certain women were so irresistible, their wiles had the power to level whole kingdoms? That was Cat tonight. Her short, thin dress wrapped around her body, hugging her figure in the most glorious ways. The material was gold and shimmery, complementing her caramel skin tone. Her sky-high heels were gold and icepick thin. Half of her hair was twisted at the back of her head in a messy way that made it appear as if she’d just been fucked on her back and hadn’t bothered to fix it afterward. Black lined her eyes, gold specks sparkled on her cheeks.