Reign (The Italian Cartel Book 3)

by Shandi Boyes

“Fien?” Audrey’s words are as weak as the bounce of her eyes. She appears truly stunned. “You named her Fien?”

  “Yeah.” I almost laugh at the crack of my one word. I hated the name Audrey had chosen, but now I couldn’t imagine calling her anything else. “It wasn’t my first choice, but you loved it, and so did your mother.”

  I thought my confession would lessen Audrey’s sobs, not double them.

  Shows how much I have to learn about women.

  “Do you want me to call your parents? Tell them your safe?”

  I can’t believe I didn’t do that instead of twiddling my thumbs the past five hours. It wouldn’t have taken long to advise them their daughter is alive but organizing their flights and accommodation would have gobbled up some time.

  I halt searching for my phone in my pocket when Audrey shakes her head. With how many drugs Ollie is pumping into her, it should be a weak, pathetic shake. It’s nothing close to that. It was as determined as the clutch she has on my shirt and as resolute as the glint in her eyes. “I’ll call them later. Once this all settles down.”

  The way she says ‘this’ has me suspicious she isn’t solely referencing Fien, herself, and me. She was pretty out of it during our drive from Rimi’s compound to here, but as Roxanne has said previously, the dead could feel the electricity brewing between us, so I’m confident a near unconscious woman would have.

  Audrey will never call me out on it, though. I could go down on Roxanne in front of her, and she’d act as if I were doing something as innocent as eating breakfast.

  I’m about to ask Audrey how much interaction she had with Roxanne the past three days, but the briefest tap on a window stops me. That gut-tingling sensation I mentioned missing earlier smacks into me full-pelt when my eyes stray to the noise. India is on the other side of the glass. She isn’t responsible for the buzz surging my pulse with adrenaline more potent than a bloodbath. It is my daughter, who’s being held in her arms.

  Unlike when she was nuzzled in Roxanne’s chest, Fien is wide awake, peering my way. Her eyes are more cobalt blue than I realized. Her photos failed to show the almost purple ring around her dark blue eyes. They make her eyes unique, as one of a kind as she will forever be.

  When I gesture for India to join us in Audrey’s room, Audrey’s hand shoots out to snatch my wrist. Once she has my focus, she adds a head shake to her firm clutch. “I don’t want her to see me like this. It might scare her.”

  I curse under my breath, frustrated I hadn’t thought about that. Fien witnessed enough bloodshed today to last her a lifetime. I don’t want more horrific images added to the vault.

  Relief engulfs Audrey’s features when I say, “All right. Once you’re set up in your room, I’ll organize for someone to bring Fien to see you.”

  Audrey smiles. It isn’t the blinding one she used to give when she felt Fien kick her hand. It’s more subdued than happy. “Thank you.”

  She loosens her grip on my wrist for barely a second before she tightens it again. When she locks her eyes with mine, an unusual spark in them reveals the words she wants to speak, her mouth simply refuses to relinquish them. I don’t mind. I’ve only heard those words from one woman before, and I’m more than happy to keep it that way.

  “Get some rest. The sooner you’re back on your feet, the better it will be for all involved.”

  I press my lips to Audrey’s temple before exiting the room, my heart racing more with every step I take. I’ve waited for this day for months, but instead of it happening in front of the people responsible for its occurrence, it’s being witnessed by two women who have always felt more like strangers to me instead of family.

  “It’s okay,” India coos to Fien when I hold out my hands, hopeful a demure approach won’t see her releasing the tears damming in her eyes. It will break my heart if she cries when I hold her for the first time. I saw how badly her tears affected Roxanne. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to endure the same torture. “It’s Dada, Fien. Do you want to go to your dada?”

  Months of torment, years of carnage, and a lifetime of injustices are undone when my daughter reaches out for me as I’m reaching for her. It’s all forgotten in an instant, but I will never forget the people responsible for this moment. No matter which side they were on, they will stay with me forever—Roxanne included.

  25

  Roxanne

  I wake up startled and confused. My foreign location isn’t the sole cause of my bewilderment. My aching backside is responsible for the majority of it. My tailbone is screaming more than my foot. Serves me right for falling asleep on a tiled floor.

  I truly didn’t think I’d be left alone for hours on end, so I didn’t put much thought into the location of my sob-fest. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the privacy, but sometimes it’s nice to have a shoulder to cry on.

  Dimitri’s was the first one I used. It was weird to be comforted by a man who had threatened to kill me only hours earlier. However, it displayed there was more to him than his dark and dangerous outer shell. He has a heart, a big one, and now that he has his daughter back, he has the chance to show it off.

  Regretfully, it seems as if I’ve been shunted from the festivities again.

  While grumbling about the pathetic woman I’m portraying, I clamber to my feet. Dimitri has been waiting for this moment for almost two years, so why am I annoyed he wants to relish it? I’d be mortified if he didn’t at least ensure Fien settled in for the night.

  Once I’m on my feet, I sway like a leaf in a summer’s breeze, and white spots dance in front of my eyes. The dizziness bombarding me makes the removal of the nightgown Rocco handed me hours ago a little tedious. The one I was wearing when they rescued us was grubby and dotted with Maestro’s blood, so I was more than eager to change into something fresh.

  After peeling down the panties with a waistband that goes past my bellybutton, I suck in a fast breath before glancing down at the monstrous pad that should have offered more cushioning during my nap than it did.

  My sigh is filled with both relief and devastation when I discover the pad is empty. I’m glad that stage of my life occurred quickly, but it will take more than a lifetime for tears not to prick my eyes when I remember the ebbs and flows of the past week.

  I take a few moments drinking in my naked form in the vanity mirror. Usually, this is as uncomfortable as it gets for me. I’m not experiencing the same bother today. I look like a mess. My hair is knotted, my skin is mottled with marks, and my eyes are sunken from how much I cried, but I also look mature, strong, and undogged.

  I fought, and although my victory can be accredited to the many men in Dimitri’s crew, some of the credit also belongs to me. If I hadn’t reached Maestro when I did, he might have left with Fien before the balaclava-clad men stormed the basement. He was mere feet from the exit. I stopped him from going through it.

  That makes me proud.

  That makes me strong.

  And it has my chin rising instead of balancing on my chest as it has the past seven hours.

  After giving my thanks to the warrior glancing back at me in the mirror, I enter the shower stall, twist on the tap until steam floats around me, then step into the heavenly hot stream of water.

  I’ve barely drowned half the heaviness plaguing me when the heavenly gruff voice of Dimitri sends my head into a tailspin. “Eyes to the wall.”

  Certain I’m dreaming, I don’t defy him this time around. I snap my eyes shut so fast, the scent my head is fabricating almost causes a tear to roll down my cheek. He smells so good. Dark and twisted, but oh so comforting.

  My knees curve inward when the brisk scrub of a hand over a bristly chin is quickly chased by a second hand sliding around my waist. Even being afraid he might disappear won’t stop me from leaning into his embrace. I’m dying to feel the heat of his skin against mine, and I am willing to risk falling out of the shower like a drunken fool to get it.

  After setting my skin on fire with the briefest flutters
of his fingertips over my midsection, Dimitri asks, “What did Ollie say about your foot?”

  “Who?” I ask, purring. My mind is so wondrous, I don’t just hear and smell Dimitri, I feel him thick and heavy behind me. He’s hard like the only thing we lost the past three days was time. Our connection is as bristling as it’s always been.

  Dimitri peers down at me, smirking when he spots my groggy expression. “If I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn you raided the liquor cabinet after dinner instead of sipping on the Sprite Rocco was adamant you must have.”

  I’ve barely gotten over the shock he’s been spying on me when he stuns me for the second time. He doesn’t just spin me around to face him head-on, he adds a heap of sexy words to the lusty glint in his eyes.

  “Hook your sore foot around my waist. I don’t want to hurt you, but I need your cunt to squeeze my cock like I squeezed the light from Rimi’s eyes an hour ago.”

  His confession that he just killed a man should weaken the intensity brewing between us. It doesn’t. Not in the slightest. He knows as well as I do that men like Rimi Castro don’t stop what they’re doing with a warning. They must face whatever penalty Dimitri sees fit, and whether gutted, maimed, or killed, it will occur with haste.

  Furthermore, I love how fearless he is when it comes to protecting his family. The knowledge he’d go to the ends of the earth to keep his daughter safe is the ultimate turn-on. It sees me kissing him with everything I have—teeth, tongue, hands—they all get in on the act. It’s a possessive kiss, both claiming and owning. It tells him everything I’m afraid to say but would give anything to change—that I am his as long as he wants me.

  My head lolls to the side with a moan when Dimitri cranks my neck a couple of minutes later so he can trail his nose down the throb in my throat. Even without his growl, I’m aware my scent has changed since the last time he smelled me. It isn’t tarnished with the disaster of the past thirty-six hours, it’s harmonized with hope, fortified with determination, and it has the faintest hint of his daughter’s shampoo.

  A shudder rolls up the length of my spine when he swipes the head of his cock across my clit. I’m buzzed all over and more than ready for the next stage of our exchange to occur.

  Dimitri will never let that happen, though. He needs me wet enough to take him without pain because, for some reason, even loving the knowledge he’s ruined me for any other man, he doesn’t want to hurt me.

  He hoists me up the shower like he did in the bathroom of my childhood home, inhales deeply, then growls when the scent of my aching sex teems into his nostrils. “You have no idea how much your smell brings me back from the brink. It can be so fucking dark, so fucking devastating, but your intoxicating scent is like a light at the end of the tunnel, forever encouraging me to find my way home.”

  Home? I almost choke on the word. It’s the simplest phrase, but it has the biggest impact on my heart. I thought it had shattered beyond repair hours ago. Now it feels as if it is bigger than it was when it dawned on me that Dimitri had found us.

  “Lean back, Roxanne. I’m about ready for a second helping of dessert.”

  After gripping my ass with his big hands, Dimitri buries his face between my legs and goes to town. He sucks my clit into his mouth, drags his tongue through the folds of my sex, and repeatedly pokes it inside of me.

  He eats me for the next several minutes, his pace only slowing when the shudder wreaking havoc with my body requires him to resecure his grip on my backside.

  “You better get a whole heap louder than that if you want to come, Roxie. I ain’t taking no prisoners today.”

  He shoots his eyes to mine briefly before his head once again delves back between my legs. I call out, the sensation of him expertly eating me almost too much to bear. I was crazy to think things would ever be over between us. Our connection is too explosive to harness, too dynamic. If we tried to ignore something as destructive as the tension that forever bristles between us, it would be a catastrophe. I wouldn’t be its only victim. The entire race would become extinct.

  “Yes, Roxanne,” Dimitri growls into my pussy when I’m blindsided by a ferocious orgasm.

  His name falls from my lips over and over again as my tugs on his drenched hair turn violent. I’m screaming, shuddering, and on the verge of waking up the entire neighborhood with my begs for him not to stop.

  With how crazy he makes me feel, I should be doing the exact opposite. I should beg for him to stop before getting on my knees and returning the favor, but for the life of me, I can’t. The controls of my body are no longer mine to command. They’ve been relinquished, handed over. They’re at the complete control of Dimitri, who takes what he wants, offers nothing in return, but continues to defy the dark, dangerous man he was raised to be.

  He ravishes me until my orgasm stretches from one to two. It is a beautifully brutal few minutes, enhanced by the connection of our eyes when he makes his way from my throbbing, drenched sex to my face.

  He licks my peaked nipples during his trek, but the hankering in my eyes exposes how badly I need his lips on mine. I want to kiss him. Possess him. Make him as wild as he makes me.

  The crash of our lips is brutal. It blazes heat through me, making me grateful the water has switched from scalding to lukewarm. We kiss for several long minutes. It’s an almost frantic, somewhat rough, and very much wild exchange. Hands go everywhere, and before I know it, one is guiding the head of Dimitri’s impressive cock to the opening of my pussy.

  “Look at me.” I’m reminded just how tall he is when my elevated position means I don’t have to crank my neck to look at him. Even with my head almost reaching the top of the tiles, he’s right in front of me as dark and dangerous as ever.

  It’s the fight of my life to hold back my excitement for the third time when the collision of our eyes causes cum to erupt out of Dimitri’s cock. He coats my pussy with his spawn, both inside and out, since he’s too impatient to wait until he finishes coming before notching his cock inside me.

  Once almost all his impressive shaft is stuffed inside of me, he darts his tongue between my lips, then kisses the living hell out of me. The pure possessiveness fueling his kiss doubles the wetness between my legs in an instant, and it has me on the brink of ecstasy even faster than that.

  “That’s better,” Dimitri grunts with a steady rock of his hips. “Wet, screaming, and fucking relentless. The only way you should ever be seen.”

  He thrusts into me faster, stronger, and deeper with every pump he does. Within minutes, a familiar sensation tightens my muscles all over again. The thought of how fast he makes me come undone hazes my mind as quickly as it speeds up the rocks of his hips.

  “I love the way your cunt tugs at my dick. Forever begging.” He locks his eyes with mine. They have the memorable glint I’ll never stop striving for. “Just like your eyes. So fucking greedy for more… but only from me. You don’t want anyone but me.”

  After adjusting the span of my thighs, he drives into me like a madman, getting lost in the same uncontrollable ruckus overwhelming every inch of me. I saw the strong, impenetrable man he is earlier tonight, but this is the sexier version. The control he exerts in the bedroom is unbelievable. He uses every muscle in his body to please me, and even when I’ve been brought to climax multiple times, he continues his relentless pursuit until my legs either give out or we collapse from exhaustion.

  I can see how tired he is, feel it in the weary muscles I cling to as he drives me to hysteria, but he doesn’t give in. He never tires. He gives it his all until I’m quivering and convulsing like the water turned cold hours ago.

  “Fuck, Roxie,” Dimitri moans on a groan, his rocks unwavering. “You’re so fucking beautiful when you come.”

  The volume of my moans jumps up a couple of decibels, inspired by his praise. I’ve been called cute, spunky, and sexy, but beautiful is new, and I fucking love it. It has another orgasm building inside of me. This feels more threatening than my earlier one. It
spreads warmth through me, thickening my veins with the adrenaline Dimitri is trying to dimmish by pounding the living hell out of me.

  He drives into me so deeply it feels as if his cock is poking more than my uterus. It’s painful but crazily exciting. So much so, I succumb to my next orgasm even faster than I did my first.

  As my nails dig into Dimitri’s shoulders, his name falls from my lips over and over again. My screams are as uncontrollable as the orgasm rolling through me. It’s almost too much, too overwhelming, too fucking good for me ever to believe this isn’t a dream. It won’t relent. No matter how loud I scream, it won’t free me from the madness. It holds on firmly, gripping me as well as Dimitri’s gaze spears my heart. He’s staring straight at me, increasing the shards of pleasure shredding through me so much, I have no chance of holding back the words floating over my tongue the past hour. “I love you, Dimi. I love you so fucking much.”

  “There it is,” he replies with a grunt, his pumps picking up like they had any more to give. “Now, let’s see if I can work it out of you without another set of back-to-back orgasms.”

  With my legs curled around his waist and his smirk increasing the likelihood he will accomplish his objective before we reach the main part of my room, Dimitri shuts down the faucet, throws open the shower door, then walks me toward the turned-down bed.

  His toss onto my mattress is playful this time around. It even arrives with a little giggle, which is pushed aside for a moan when he leans over to suck a budded nipple into his mouth.

  Since the cold shower water has given my skin a blue tinge, the mottling of bruises on my thighs and hips are barely noticeable when Dimitri directs his focus a couple of inches lower. I was fortunate to get good genes from my nanna. Even when it’s been put through the wringer, my skin heals rather decently.

  Take the scar on my forehead, for example. Since the chemical peel Dimitri organized the first night of our arrangement, I haven’t needed to cover it up with my bangs. I’m almost at a point I feel comfortable growing out my bangs. That might have more to do with how Dimitri lavishes every inch of me than anything, but it feels nice to have finally reached this stage.