The roar of the crowd blasted through the TV’s speakers, filling the room. “The Crossfell City Kings have done it again!” the narrator screamed, fighting to be heard over the deafening cheers of the hometown crowd. “Let’s cut to the rink and hear what the captain of the team, Kalon Rathbone, has to say!”
But I fixed my gaze on Tobias and on what he’d just said. “What the fuck do you mean, abducted?”
Lazarus turned, grabbed the remote from the desk behind him, and switched it off, instantly ending the ruckus.
“Just what he said.” Nick stepped around his hotheaded younger brother. “The bastards came for us, destroyed everything we’d built for the last six fucking months, and took us hostage.”
I narrowed in on how big they were now, with lean, hard muscles and careful stares full of disdain. It looked like life in the mountains had suited them, until now.
“Including everything we had for the baby,” Tobias snarled.
Jesus, he was fucking pissed.
Ryth hadn’t said a word the entire time, just stood there, dwarfed by the three men around her. Her dark, sunken eyes looked shell-shocked, adding even more shadows to her gaunt cheeks. Thin fingers peeked out from the sleeves of her oversized sweater and rested on her massive bump. While her brothers seemed to have grown in size, she seemed to have shrunk. The baby seemed to have taken more than it should have out of her. No wonder they were so protective.
That could’ve been Vivienne. That thought only made me feel…dangerous.
I turned to Benjamin. “Do we have a bead on those Cerberus bastards?”
“I’ll do you one better,” he growled, shifting his focus to the doorway behind me.
Heavy steps sounded like deep claps of thunder echoing through the warehouse behind me. I turned slowly, my focus instantly moving to the two Sigs strapped across my chest as a mountain filled the doorway. At six foot seven, the towering male ducked his head to step inside, but once he was in, his focus was directed fully on me.
Nick and Caleb moved as one, taking a protective step in front of Ryth. But it was Tobias that lunged forward, rushing the massive male, until he was stopped by Lazarus’ hand on his chest.
“Easy,” the Mafia son urged.
“London St. James,” Ben muttered, his frosty glare tilting up at the big bastard. “Let me introduce Alvarez Cross, one of the three Cerberus brothers.”
Jesus fucking Christ. The man was a walking felony. His thick shoulders were barely contained in a black open-collared shirt which was crisscrossed by the thick webbing of his shoulder holster, one that had to have been custom made. You couldn’t buy them that big.
“Mr. St. James,” the deep voice rumbled as he stepped closer, offering a massive paw. “Been waiting a long time for this moment. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
I arched a brow, glancing at Ben for a moment before returning my eyes to Alvarez. Rossi was walking a fine line putting the Bankses they’d kidnapped in front of them. The tic in Tobias’ jaw, and the way Lazarus angled himself between the two of them, spoke volumes about just how fine the line was. Frankly, I was surprised the hotheaded Banks brother was restraining himself so successfully, he was well-known for his violent impulsiveness. But he was far from the level of violence my own family would go to.
“I wish I could say the same.” I stared at the hand. “Now what the fuck do you want?”
He flinched at my coldness.
I had no time to deal with extortion, which this obviously was.
“I was told you weren’t one to bullshit,” he muttered.
“Understatement of the fucking year.”
A careful smile tugged the corners of his mouth.
“It’s not what you think.” Benjamin took a step forward. “Alvarez here wants to do business.”
“Diamond business,” the hitman added with the hint of a smile. “The expensive kind.”
I stiffened. “The Lawlors are some of my oldest friends. What makes you think I’ll even allow you in the same goddamn room as them?”
The brute just turned his head, those unflinching eyes fixed on Ryth and her brothers. “I can think of four already.”
Goddamn bastard.
My fingers twitched, fighting the need to pull my gun right now and put a bullet through his thick fucking skull. If there was just him, I might’ve done it. I might’ve blown a neat hole right through his forehead, then hunted down whoever had paid him to attack a pregnant woman and exacted revenge from them. But there wasn’t just one of him, was there? There were three. Three fucking hitmen to hunt down and take out. As if we didn’t have enough to fucking contend with right now.
“I want us to go into business together,” Cross smiled.
I glanced at Ben. “You’ve got to be fucking joking,” I snapped, glancing at Ryth, hidden behind her glowering, protective males. But the Mafia bastard was no help. His jaw clenched with seething anger. “He doesn’t want my money. He wants connections, I kind I can’t help with.”
I sucked in a hard breath, my mind racing. The Lawlors were dangerous in their own right. There was no way they’d let some two-bit fucking thug muscle in on them. Not a hope in hell.
“Fine, you want an introduction? I’ll get you an introduction. But that’s all.” I turned to the walking steroid. “But I want assurances you are who you say you are before I’ll even make a call.” I took a step toward the bastard, narrowing in on that gleam of hunger in his stare. “I want details of your fucking brothers, your wives, your family all the way back to your fucking great-great-grandparents, for that matter. If I suspect you’ve lied to me, the deal’s dead. If I suspect you’ve threatened the lives of Ryth, the Bankses, my family, or anyone else in this room, the deal’s dead. The Rossis included.” I met Benjamin’s widening stare. “Because if there’s a deal to be done, they’re in this as well.”
The head of the Rossi family just gave a shrug, then jerked his head toward his son. “This is all Laz now. I’m retiring.”
Retiring my ass.
The Stidda prince never flinched as I fixed my gaze on him. “Well, Lazarus, looks like we’re in bed together.”
“Fucking perfect,” he muttered.
“You want the information?” the towering hitman muttered. “Then it’s yours.”
I met that calculating stare. “Just be aware that the information will be kept by me and if at any time I feel you have contributed—” I glanced toward Ryth, “in an attack on those who I consider blood, then not only will the deal be dead.” I turned back to him. “You and your entire family will be, as well.”
There was a twitch in the corner of his eye. I was sure the Cerberus brothers weren’t used to such a direct threat. But then that twitch settled, and he gave a slow nod. “Understood.”
I followed with a dip of my own head. “Then we’re on the same page.”
But it was Ryth who drew my focus as she pushed Nick aside and stepped around them. Tobias moved at the same time she did, driving himself forward to not only match her stride, but push ahead until he was between her and Alvarez Cross.
Hate raged in his stare, which never moved from the big bastard in front of him. One glance at the two of these men and you knew blood was going to be spilled. But Ryth never once looked at the hitman.
Instead, her focus was directed at me. “Now that your business is done,” she started, her voice husky as she directed those big blue-green eyes on me. “I want you to do something for me.”
Surprise filled me. I glanced at Tobias and the fucking tic in his jaw that felt too much like the countdown of a timebomb and turned back to her. “Whatever you need.”
“Good,” she whispered. “Then I’d like you to arrange something for me. I’d like to finally see my sister.”
PANICKED THOUGHTS FILLED my head as I drove back home. They were about Ryth mostly. Ryth and her tiny fucking body and swollen belly. Ryth and her haunted fucking eyes that stared right through you.
Ryth and her desire to meet the woman I loved.
That fear boomed like thunder in my head. The two women Haelstrom Hale wanted more than anything in the same damn place?
It wasn’t just a bad idea.
It was suicide.
The Bankses were now more dangerous than ever. That, I didn’t goddamn need. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Ryth, Vivienne…would Helene come to the meeting, as well?
Vivienne didn’t trust her.
Ryth didn’t even know her. I wasn’t sure she even knew of her.
All three of King’s blood right there for the taking.
If I was Hale, that’s when I’d strike.
Take them all…
Hold them for ransom.
I clenched my grip around the wheel.
Over my fucking dead body.
None of this should’ve happened. Ryth and her damn stepbrothers were supposed to stay hidden while I ripped apart the goddamn Order, unearthing the sick bastards behind the sickening trafficking ring. The moment I found they’d stolen King’s DNA was the moment I knew this started as a way to control him.
Who would want to bring one of the world’s richest and most powerful men to his knees? Haelstrom Hale, that’s who.
What better way than his own blood?
Breed from his bloodline, use them to take apart his legacy.
At the very least, draw King out into the open…which is exactly what I’d tried to do.
By using Vivienne…
I swallowed hard. But that was before. Before the pain in the ass spitfire clawed her way inside my fucking heart. Now she didn’t just howl and scream within those soft, bleeding walls…she fucking belonged there.
Christ, this was a goddamn mess.
I hadn’t meant to love her, hadn’t meant to want the fucking wildcat. Now we all did. Now she belonged with us. Now she was ours. Red and blue lights flickered in the rear-view mirror far behind me. I left them, shifting my thoughts back to the woman who carried King’s DNA.
The moment I found the records of her lineage, I was stunned, then riveted. Hale had always told me there was a purpose to The Order, for him at least. A desperate, obsessive, controlling purpose to unearth the man known as King. Once I found out how he planned to do that, I had to control it.
Only, when I found Vivienne, that all changed.
Now I just wanted to control her.
My pulse sped, narrowing in on her. The way she smelled. The way she touched. The way she moaned underneath me. I wanted it all…now that she was pregnant with our baby. Just like Ryth was with the Bankses’.
The red and blue hues grew brighter as I turned onto the off-ramp.
I focused on the flashing lights that came again. Two cop cars this time.
King and his bloodline faded into the background as the two police sedans raced around me, turning up ahead onto a familiar street.
“What the fuck?” I slowed, glancing at the road in front of me. My house was not far in the distance. I tapped the brakes, slowing the Audi to a crawl.
The two cop cars parked behind the two EMT vans parked in the driveway of the towering mansion. If it was anyone else’s place, I would’ve kept driving. But it wasn’t, was it?
It was the Areses’.
In the washed out red and blue hues, a man stood on the front lawn talking to a paramedic as they wheeled not one covered body on a stretcher, but two. I stared hard, recognizing Silas Ares as he turned his head toward me as he stood on the lawn.
I eased my foot off the brake and lett the car roll past, before I grabbed my phone and sped up. One swipe of my thumb and the number on the other end of the line rang.
“Yeah?” Harper’s voice was heavy with sleep.
“Two bodies are being wheeled out of the Ares house as we speak. Any idea what’s going on there?”
“Two?”
“Two.”
“Jesus.” Sounds of the bedding shifting under him came in the background.
I turned onto my street, my house blissfully darkened. “Find out what you can,” I muttered as I pulled into the driveway.
“Will do,” he acknowledged, and ended the call.
This looked bad, real fucking bad. I parked the car, then climbed out and made my way into the house in a hurry. My fingers could barely punch the numbers in fast enough before I yanked the door open and flew inside. I raced past the study as my phone rang. I swiped the screen as I strode into the private wing of our house and growled, “Talk to me.”
“Two bodies; one male, age forty-two, deceased. One female, age forty, deceased,” Harper murmured as I stared at the closed bedroom doors of my family.
I stopped outside Vivienne’s bedroom door, listening. Emptiness came from inside her room. I glanced at the bedroom doors belonging to my sons. She was in one of them, wrapped up in powerful arms, sleeping. I turned away, heading toward the study. “Find out what you can. I need to know if this is going to touch us.”
“I’m already digging. London…”
“Yeah?”
“This looks bad.”
I winced, pushed open the study door, and flicked on the light. “I know.”
