Reign (The Italian Cartel Book 3)

by Shandi Boyes

  Even without my hand creeping across the bedding that’s clinging to my sweat-beaded skin, I’m confident I am bleeding. Not only did my brief movement waft a coppery scent into the air, there’s also a knot in my stomach that won’t come undone no matter how long I strive to avoid the obvious.

  After carefully dabbing my fingers over the dampness coating my thighs, I snap my eyes shut, then raise my shaky hand to my face. I’m not a religious person, but I pray for a miracle on repeat before I gingerly open my eyes to inspect the sticky goop on my fingertips.

  No, I inwardly scream when I noticed the blood coating my fingers. It’s red, bright, and spread from the apex of my thighs to the back of my knees.

  As I scoot up the mattress, needing distance from the product ripping my heart to shreds, I suck in air, forcing down the sob bubbling in my chest. Nothing can fix the tears in my eyes, though. They stream down my cheeks unchecked before they’re absorbed by the nightwear drenched with cups of blood.

  I’d give anything to go back to yesterday, to feel the same numbness I felt when I was aided out of the stranger’s room of horrors because the pain tearing through me now is worse than anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s so bad, a bullet could pierce through me, and I wouldn’t feel it. It hurts so much. It truly feels as if I’m dying, like more than my baby is being absorbed by a dirty set of sheets. My heart is there too.

  I’ve barely brought my gut-wrenching sobs down to a whimper when the door to my room shoots open. With how brutal he was hit late yesterday afternoon, the last person I anticipate to walk into my room is my original captor.

  Even with him being struck hours ago, his walk is staggered. Audrey’s hit hurt him. I shouldn’t smile at the thought, but I do. He’s a murderer, he doesn’t deserve my sympathy. I hope he rots in hell but not before Dimitri slowly drives him there. He didn’t just hurt me when he killed my baby, he took something from Dimitri he can never return, and it will cost him more than his life.

  When I say that to the goon, he has the hide to smile. “I’ve always believed in an heir and a spare.” He rubs his hands together like he isn’t wearing a thick coat, jeans, and boots. “Unfortunately for you, royals don’t like tainting the bloodline with bastard children. You should ask Dimitri about it the next time you see him. If you ever see him again.”

  “Oh, I’ll see him,” I snap out before I can stop myself. “You can place money on it. Just like I can guarantee you’re on your last breaths.”

  His words are like a knife to my chest when he mutters, “At least I had the chance to breathe. It’s more than your bastard child will ever get.”

  The amount of blood I lost overnight should make me weak. It should render me incapable of moving, much less retaliating. However, now Audrey’s bewildering recovery makes sense. There’s nothing more frightening than a momma bear defending her cub. I only knew of my child’s existence for a little over twenty-four hours, but that doesn’t lessen their significance to me. He or she meant something. They still do.

  I drag my nails down the goon’s face while he attempts to silence my campaign by shoving the barrel of a gun under my ribs. The fact he needs a weapon to defend himself humors me. He is double my weight, my head only reaches his shoulders, yet he’s still scared of me.

  Good. He should be scared because hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

  While grunting through the pain of my palm ramming into his sternum, the goon slams his boot into my right foot, then twists. Pain shreds through me, but I keep my howl on the down-low, refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing he hurt me again.

  Once he has me wrapped up in a bear hug I can’t loosen, he lowers his lips to my ear. “I couldn’t work out why you had them so worried. Yeah, you’re pretty, you’ve got a nice set of tits, an ass you could bounce a quarter off, and a tight cunt I don’t see letting up for years to come, but so do a million other American women.” He lowers his arm from the top of my chest to the curves of my breasts. “But now I get it. Oh, how I have seen the light. You’ve got spunk, charisma…” He gropes my breast for each word he speaks. “All the things his wife doesn’t have.” I think he’s creeping his hand down my stomach to defile me some more. I have no clue he’s stabbing a final nail into my heart. “It’s a pity you don’t have his kid anymore. You might have given her a run for her money if you had.” I fall to my knees when he unexpectedly releases me. “Get yourself cleaned up. Wouldn’t want you scaring the kids.”

  My brain tells me to stay down, but my heart demands the opposite. If Audrey is here, that means Fien is most likely here as well. My heart is breaking for both Dimitri and myself, but Fien’s cute little chubby cheeks and eyes identical to her father’s in every way could very well be the cure to my heartache.

  With my back facing the coldblooded stranger, I peel my blood-soaked nightie off my body before replacing it with a fresh one folded at the end of my bed. My legs shudder when I slip them into the openings of a pair of panties only my nanna would think were fashionable. I’m not scared the man is watching me like a hawk. I’m horrified about the gigantic pad someone preloaded into my underwear.

  Although I hate being reminded about what I’ve lost, the products surrounding me make sense of the cold, sterile room I awoke in. My baby wasn’t the only one delivered here. The stack of maternity pads in the partially cracked-open closet is indicating enough, let alone the pediatric medical crib just outside the door.

  “How many children have these women birthed?” I ask the man when he guides me out of the room with a firm grip on my arm.

  He grunts, then continues shoving me toward the stairs.

  My nanna always said my mouth would get me in trouble. If it’s the good kind of trouble, I don’t mind. “Are you not allowed to touch the women because your blood isn’t royal? Are you a bastard like the rest of us?”

  That stops him in his tracks. “My blood is more regal than any of the men here.”

  “Yet, here you are, nothing more than a paid goon.”

  His slap is brutal, but it doesn’t weaken my smile. Only scared men act out with violence. Take Eddie’s response to my ‘betrayal,’ for example. Real men prove otherwise.

  “There’s still time, you know?”

  The grunting, red-faced goon drags me up the stairs like he has no interest in anything I’m saying. It’s unfortunate for him, silence is a battle only the bravest can conjure.

  “For what?” he asks with his hand resting on the door that leads to the room the women are in.

  I crank my neck so I can peer into his eyes. “To save yourself. Tell Dimitri where I am, and I promise he will spare your life.” I curse at my inability to lie when my eyes rapidly blink during the last half of my statement.

  If Dimitri doesn’t kill this man for what he did to me, I’ll do it myself.

  “Nice try,” the stranger pushes out with a huff. “If you truly think he’ll come all the way out here for you, you’ve got rocks in your head. He will never come here for you, he will never go anywhere for you because there’s only one person Dimitri Petretti cares about, and that is himself. If you don’t believe me, ask her.” He throws open the door, nudges his head to Audrey in the corner of the jam-packed room, then tosses me into the quiet space. “She chipped away at his arrogance for months. She barely made an indent, so what chance would you fare since you were barely in his realm for weeks.”

  His smirk gets cocky when my attempt to shut down the worry on my face is two seconds too late. “What’s the matter, girlie? Did you think we were only watching you the past couple of weeks?” He lowers the volume of his mocking tone to ensure his next set of words are only for my ears. “I would have gotten you off in the alleyway before running you over. Would have been more fun that way.”

  On that note, he shoves me into the room, slams the door shut, and twists a key into the lock, leaving me as defenseless as I am shocked.

  16

  Dimitri

  I slap my cheeks when Rocc
o walks into my office, waking myself up. I have a bag for Roxanne packed and sitting by the door, my guns loaded and ready to go, but I have no fucking clue which direction I should head. My intuition is leaning toward New York. That’s where the gala is being held, and a tower just outside of New York was in Smith’s report on the thirty-second footage we were sent of Roxanne, indicating it was triangulated in his search, but the last time Rimi made a move, he did it in my backyard. Who’s to say he won’t try and fuck with my head again this time around too?

  “Did you sleep at all last night?”

  I shake my head at Rocco’s question. “You?” The weakness of his shake is more telling than the worry in his eyes. “How’s Alice?”

  He doesn’t twist his chair around to straddle it backward like he usually does. He sinks onto it with a sigh before rolling his head around like his neck is giving him agony. “Docs say she will make a full recovery. Word is still out on Luce. She’s giving her grandmother hell.”

  He drops his chin to his chest when I ask, “Anything I can do?”

  After taking a moment to ponder my offer, he reluctantly shakes his head. “Might hold you to it once Fien and Roxie are back, though.”

  “So tonight?”

  He smiles a grin I haven’t seen on his face in years. “You’re finally clicking on, D.” Don’t misconstrue. He isn’t asking a question, he is stating a fact. “What’s the plan?”

  “Other than a merciless bloodbath, my head is telling me to stay put.”

  He twists his lips like he understands where I’m coming from. “And your gut?”

  I drag my teeth over my lower lip to hide my ill-timed smile. I’m not smirking about the situation we’re in, I am appreciating that Rocco trusts his intuition more than anything. It has gotten us out of some hairy situations in the past. I can only hope it will have the same effect this time around. “It was on a flight to New York five hours ago.”

  Rocco’s grin doubles as he holds his hands out palm side up. “Then, what are we doing here?”

  “I don’t know,” I reply, speaking the truth for the first time in forever, shocked enough about the rarity to laugh.

  After chuckling along with me for the next thirty or so seconds, Rocco asks, “Can you feel her here?”

  “Who?”

  He gives me a look that says he knows I’m acting ignorant before he adds words into the mix. “Your girl.”

  He doesn’t need to say Roxanne’s name for me to know who he’s referencing. I’ve never seen Fien in the flesh, so I’ve never experienced that stomach-tingling, nauseating, and somewhat infuriating sensation that hits me low in the stomach anytime Roxanne is in my vicinity. I’m sure it will be there once we meet, but for now, it’s an experience I’ve only ever felt with Roxanne.

  “No, I don’t feel her here,” I reply, finally at the stage where I can stop denying Roxanne is my girl. She walked through Hell’s gates for me. She has more than proven she’s on my side, and now I will forever be on hers.

  Rocco leaps up from his chair as if he isn’t exhausted beyond belief. “Then, what are we doing here, D? Let’s go to New York and get your girls. We play to play—”

  “We kill to kill…” we say at the same time, “… and we take down any fucker stupid enough to get in our way.”

  After whacking me in the chest with the back of his hand, reminding me I’m not as old as my body feels, he scoops up my keys from my desk, then moves for Roxanne’s bag by the door. His race down the hallway almost takes out Smith, who’s coming in the opposite direction. He’s balancing a laptop on his hand, the shadowing of gray under his eyes exposing his sleep was as lackluster as mine.

  “You’ll want to see this,” Smith says after popping his head up from the screen of his first-of-its-kind laptop. When he spots Roxanne’s bag in Dimitri’s hand, his brows pinch. “Are we going somewhere?”

  I jerk up my chin. “Can you tell me on the way?”

  Nodding, he races back to his computer hub to grab chargers, another three laptops, and a gun. Rocco quirks his brow when he leans over a sleeping Ellie with his lips puckered. He almost kisses the tiny section of her forehead not covered by locks of shiny blonde hair but pulls back with barely a second to spare.

  Instead of farewelling her as if the last two years never happened, Smith jots down a message on the notepad Ellie’s cheek is squashed against before spinning around to face Rocco and me.

  “What?” he asks, frustrated by our silence. “Old habits are hard to give up.”

  “It’s been over two years, Smitty,” Rocco says with a laugh.

  Smith’s eyes snap to Rocco. “Yeah, and your point?”

  Rocco steps back with his hands in the air, acting as if the words cracked out of Smith’s mouth were bullets. “I’m not sayin’ nuffin.”

  I don’t follow his lead. “She can come with us if you want?”

  We don’t know what we’re walking toward. For all we know, having a female on our team could come with great benefits. I’m a father, but I am still clueless when it comes to things like pregnancy and birth, not to mention kids. As far as I’m aware, Ellie doesn’t have any children, but with her little brother having the mind of a child, she understands them.

  Smith takes a moment to consider my reply before shaking his head. “If this goes as deep as I’m thinking, I’d rather Ellie’s career not be tainted by it.”

  “Are you sure, Smith?” Rocco questions, jumping back into the conversation. “If she gets booted from the Bureau, you’ll have no reason not to be together.”

  His question is fair but only because he doesn’t know their breakup goes deeper than Ellie’s career choice.

  “I’m sure.” Smith’s short reply reveals he doesn’t want to go into details with Rocco right now. I doubt it’s a conversation he wants to have in the next decade, he just won’t have a choice. Rocco is like a bull in a China shop when it comes to any relationship he isn’t a part of. “Do I need to organize transport, or is this another road-tripping adventure?”

  The gargle the last half of his sentence arrived with reveals he’s praying we’re not taking the high road again. He’d rather hitchhike to where we’re going than be stuck in the back of his van with Rocco for another three hours.

  “Silas is on standby,” I answer, slackening the groove between Smith’s brows by a smidge. “Make sure he’s ready to have wheels up in an hour.” Before Rocco can grill me about the delay—the private airstrip we use is only ten minutes from here—I nudge my head to a recently approved court appearance date circled on a notepad brimming with handwritten notes. “We need to make a stopover first.”

  With his smile huge and his hands rubbing together like a crack dealer on payday, Rocco follows me out of the compound, aware who we’re visiting and more than happy to update Smith all about it.

  17

  Dimitri

  “Where is he?” I ask no one, frustrated as fuck Agent James isn’t upholding his side of our agreement.

  Brandon will have no chance in hell of convincing Isabelle to unknowingly do his ruse if he doesn’t support her during her arraignment for murder. It’s the people who stick by you during the bad times you protect the most. If Brandon doesn’t show up today, he’ll be struck off Isabelle’s friends’ list without delay.

  It would have been the same for Rocco and me when news of Fien’s unkosher arrival circulated through my inner circle. He rocked up only hours later, drenching wet, furious, and ready to kill. I honestly don’t know if I would have made it this far without him. Knowing your newborn daughter is being held captive by a madman is enough to make the most lucid man insane.

  Rocco and Smith watch me like a hawk when I tap out a message on my phone. If I can’t force Brandon to be at his ‘friend’s’ side, I’ll lose more than my cool. My agreement with Rico will be null and void as well.

  Dimitri: Should I follow your plan or make one of my own? If you’re not here in thirty, the decision will be out of your hands.


  I don’t mean minutes, I mean seconds. Brandon’s apartment is only one block over. He can run here if he has no other option.

  Once the screen of my phone advises my message has been read, I snap an image of the Ravenshoe Courthouse stairs then forward it to Brandon.

  It feels as if not even ten seconds ticks by when I spot him racing up the stairs. I must have woken him. His hair is a mess, his face is crinkled, and I’m reasonably sure he’s wearing the same suit he wore yesterday.

  I’m about to slide out of the back seat of my Range Rover when Rocco grabs my arm. “Hold up. This looks like it could get interesting.”

  When I stray my eyes in the direction he’s peering, I notice Brandon’s race up the courthouse stairs has been thwarted by a blond man with wide shoulders and an arrogant mask slipped over his face.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Agent Alex Rogers, Field Operations Supervisor for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Smith isn’t gloating. He sounds like he wants to rip off Alex’s head as badly as Alex wants to tear into Brandon. “He was Brandon’s supervisor.”

  “Was?” Rocco and I ask at the same time.

  Smith lifts his chin. “Agent James was demoted last night. The FBI’s golden boy isn’t as shiny as he wants us to believe. His rap sheet is almost as long as mine.”

  “So, sweet fuck all?” Rocco asks with a laugh. “Or are you talking about the rap sheet you got expunged for sleeping with the enemy?”

  Okay, perhaps he knows a little more than he let on.

  Our interrogation shifts from Smith to Brandon when the crack of a fist colliding with a jaw silences a town not known for its quiet. Alex didn’t hold anything back with his hit, and shockingly, Brandon takes it like a man. He gets up in Alex’s face and says a few words, but he keeps his hands balled at his sides.

  His response is nothing like mine would have been. I would have retaliated with more than my fists if I were in his predicament.