I pulled her down into the black hole. It swallowed us up and ate us whole.
Our light was gone.
She orgasmed in my bar’s bathroom with one lone tear streaming down her face as I took her heart and soul.
I pumped my cock into her almost violently two more times before I buried my seed in her. Our breaths were labored, struggling for life after reaching something way beyond it. I hadn’t come like that with another woman ever.
I backed away from her and took in her bruised lips, her wrinkled clothing, her mussed hair, and knew if I couldn’t keep away from her, we were doomed. With her, I only had tunnel vision. I couldn’t see past her blinding light to real threats to the family, couldn’t keep a clear head, and definitely couldn’t put the family first.
I’d marked her neck, and the beast in me wanted to do it again and again, to lay by her side and snarl at anyone who looked at her. It didn’t care about anything else.
And that was the problem.
I was the monster. I had to keep it together. I had to let her go and get her out of this mess of a family instead of pulling her further in.
I told her to leave. I yelled at her to stop fucking with me, and then I punched the wall numerous times when she did just that.
A few days later, I got the call that Katalina wanted to go dress shopping for the and swore fluently at Bastian over the phone.
What the fuck were they thinking?
I drove there enraged that we were taking no precautions, that we were pandering to the whim of a pretty little girl who thought she needed to try on dresses while rival mobs who worked with the government wanted her dead.
I got there and kicked a chair over to sit in.
“Seems like you’re in a great mood,” Cade grumbled, not looking up from his phone.
“Shut the fuck up.” I snatched his phone and threw it on the floor just to piss him off.
He glared at me. “Pick it up.”
I laughed at his command. He knew I wouldn’t do that shit if he held a gun to me.
Bastian walked over and picked it up for him. “Stop being children,” he mumbled as he handed the phone to his brother.
I huffed and crossed my arms over my chest.
Then the damn woman who haunted my every thought came out of the dressing room, and all my muscles tensed. “That dress is unacceptable.” The throbbing pain at the base of my skull intensified. She had the uncanny ability to give me migraines, to make me hurt in places I’d never hurt before.
I needed to keep my distance, and yet today, I couldn’t risk her safety even to save my sanity.
“I’m sorry.” Her frosty gray eyes narrowed. “What are you even doing here?”
Bastian chuckled from one of the black leather chairs near me as the saleswoman fluttered about. “He’s here because he’s family.”
Katalina stood before me in a black couture gown with delicate beading strung in swirls over a mesh fabric. Everyone would wonder if they could catch a glimpse of her tits in that gown. I wondered too as she swished back and forth and her eyes jumped to Bastian, then Cade, then Mario.
“Mario, you’re family,” she said. “Cade’s family too. Maybe soon to be my brother-in-law.” She smirked at her dumbass joke. I didn’t find that shit funny in the least. “But Rome’s your cousin and the muscle. Dressing the girlfriend for a party where we introduce ourselves as a couple doesn’t need muscle.”
“When the girlfriend is just the bait, it does,” I shot out, even though she wasn’t looking at me. “You need eyes on your asses because this is tempting fate. It’s being idiotic when you could have just been sent a dress.”
She glared at me. This was probably all her idea. The woman was obsessed with finding some sort of perfect outfit for every occasion. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to look deadly and completely fuckable all the time or— Then again, that was probably exactly what she was doing.
The messing with my head had to stop.
I growled and surveyed the store. The windows at the front of the building were wide open to onlookers, but we had two watchmen who would alert me via a ping to our watches if something was off.
Everything was fine. We just needed to get this over with.
“Not that dress, Katalina.” I turned to the saleswoman. “Find her another one.”
“Actually . . .” She bent her arm behind her and pulled the zipper down. I took a step in her direction just as she let the dress drop to her feet.
Fuck, that woman.
All-black lingerie and heels contrasted with her smooth skin.
Bastian jumped out of his chair and strode to her side, beat me to her. “Katie, not okay.”
The smirk she donned pissed me off and made my dick twitch at the same time.
“You’re playing with fire, Kate-Bait,” I said over Bastian’s back.
She had the audacity to flip me off and then put her hands to Bastian’s lapels. “It’s fine, Bast. It’s not like you haven’t all seen a woman before. In particular, you’ve both seen me.”
Bastian whipped around to glare at me just as I cut my glare to him. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Bastian?” I spat at him.
Bastian’s nostrils flared, and I knew he was pissed at Katie or himself. Maybe at the both of them for indulging.
None of it mattered.
Not one single thing carried any weight other than what she’d just revealed. For the first time, real jealousy throttled through me.
Katie was always this wild thing I couldn’t tame, this sort of chemical I knew was too unstable to handle. And I knew that every man that had her wasn’t really going to keep her. No one could stabilize that. No one could control the uncontrollable.
Staring at Sebastian Armanelli, I suddenly wondered if he’d be stupid enough to try.
The idea heated my blood, tightened the muscles in me that I used to kill, and my hand itched to grab a weapon. He may have been family, but Katie was, or had just become, my untouchable.
“Your crazy is showing.” Bastian nodded toward my hand like he knew I was about to grab my gun.
And while we stood there measuring one another up, the host of all our problems practically skipped back into her dressing room.
“Fuck, man.” Bastian sighed and closed his eyes as if trying to rid himself of the frustration she caused. “She’s intoxicating. It was one time and it didn’t go further than kissing. It probably shouldn’t have—”
I lost it. My fist connected with his jaw so fast I swore in surprise.
Cade grumbled that he wasn’t dealing with us, not that he ever did. He’d been on his phone since we got here. Still, he stalked off to the other end of the boutique.
Mario groaned and pulled at the collar of his shirt while Bastian rubbed his jaw. “Rome—” Mario started.
Bastian cut his gaze to his father. His jaw worked more than it had a moment before. “It’s not your place to handle the situation here anymore.”
“It’s always my place.”
“You’re not the boss anymore. You gave that up, right?” His question was laced with acid because Bastian had never really wanted to be the heir to the throne. He took his place out of obligation, not desire.
Mario nodded solemnly. “Doesn’t mean I ever gave up being your father, though, son. And that goes for both of you. You’re brothers. Remember that.” He stalked off, his loafers clicking on the white tile.
“You’re here to protect and control our surroundings, not inflict harm on me.” Bastian stuck his hands in his pockets, surrendering to any fight.
I shook my head at him. “I answered to your father.”
“And now you answer to me.”
I restrained my immediate refusal. I didn’t belong to a family where Mario wasn’t boss, and Bastian had just crossed a line I knew Mario would never have crossed. “I work with you. I don’t answer to you. Never have. Never will.”
“The family doesn’t work that way.”
“The family doesn’t work any way without Mario at the head of it. You’re going to have to build it from the ground up.”
Bastian nodded. “So I’ve told my father.”
I curbed my retort and turned away from him to school my expression as I realized he agreed with me. “Then, as you build, you should know I take lives. No one ever takes mine, physically or metaphorically. I don’t answer to you. You’re only as strong as your right-hand man, and if I’m going to be that for you, well, you don’t fuck with what’s mine.”
“Meaning Katie is yours?”
I sucked on my teeth. “I’m not sure yet.”
“Be sure, Rome. She sleeps under the same roof as me. She’s either untouchable or not.”
“She’s untouchable in one way or another.”
“Now, that I can agree with. Just not sure if I’ll be able to follow through on the damn request you aren’t even making. Draw a line, Rome. And make it as clean as you slitting a throat. A request for an untouchable should always be that way.”
He made sense. Bastian always made sense. He was the immaculate, controlled head of the new mob. New in that they wielded their power with reason, built allies instead of enemies, and ran a flawless business. It was a new reign, and for the first time I saw the appeal. A smart man cloaked his request with a compliment and befriended the man he knew could leave him open to be murdered.
I wanted to gut him for it. I wanted to hug the fucker too.
“She does all this shit on purpose, I swear,” I grumbled and ran a hand through my hair. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was pulling all our strings. What the hell are we doing here picking out a damn dress?”
Cade chose that moment to amble back over. He didn’t glance away from the phone in his hand as he typed, but he did manage to add, “I sent her a list of designers she could choose from. She said she had to try everything on and refused to have it all delivered because it was a waste of money.”
Mario and the saleslady had also returned, both laughing at something Mario had told the woman. His Italian accent, his gray hair and bright smile, and his strong posture always charmed women, even if they were half his age. “What are you talking about, Cade? Waste of money? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Katie said it. Not me,” Cade replied almost robotically.
“Said what?” The woman of the hour popped her head out from behind the dressing room’s sleek black door. “I need help with my dress.”
Bastian searched her face, like he was reading whether or not she wanted him to be the one to offer.
“Oh, yes! It has a very intricate back.” The saleswoman jumped at the chance to play mother hen. I tried not to smirk.
Katie looked like a deer caught in the headlights. “Well, actually . . .” She cleared her throat and then wide-eyed all of us.
Bastian folded, bastard that he was. He cracked his neck and waved the lady off before he grumbled to me, “Draw the line, Rome, or you’ll end up lying in a pool of your own regret.”
I stared at that door like I stared at victims I was about to put a bullet through. I contemplated the repercussions of banging it down and telling them both to stop fucking around with my emotions.
But Bastian was right. I hadn’t claimed her as an untouchable, and that was something that never changed within the family. We didn’t have many ties to the outside world. Our men were supposed to be loners. Family was family, and that was it. Except for the women we loved. Except for the kids we had.
Untouchables.
It was a list that wasn’t taken lightly. Mario had swiftly ended men’s lives when they harmed or got into bed with another man’s untouchable. It made for trust between us, and it made for a hard line too.
But Katie was something different, a part of all of us already.
As if to solidify my thoughts, our watchman texted and said the area was still clear, that he was stopping in. Two seconds later, the boutique’s bell jingled to signal Dante walking in. My eyes had stayed on that door long enough to know we weren’t in any danger, but the bell still put me on high alert.
“Where’s our Cinderella? I haven’t seen that girl in a minute.” Dante’s white smile popped as his bright greenish eyes searched the store. He regularly made trips in and out of town and had only been gone about a week this last time. I knew they worked out together, though.
I didn’t ask a lot of questions, because I was sure the answers were a lot like the ones I gave when I was interrogated.
“Dressing room,” Cade grumbled with a wave over his shoulder.
“Bastian?” Dante asked, eyes going wide.
“Dressing room,” Cade answered in the same monotone voice.
Dante’s gaze cut to me.
“What the fuck are you looking at like that?” I shot at him.
“You.” He smiled, and I considered punching him.
“What for?” I crossed my arms over my chest. I didn’t know why I was asking. It seemed everyone was privy to the fact that Katie and I had issues.
He just shook his head. “She an untouchable yet?”
“Fuck off,” I grumbled.
“Jesus.” Cade sighed. “You need a drink, man. I need a drink just being near you.”
“Would you stop talking to me about shit happening in the room when your head is buried in that phone?”
“I’m working.” He finally dropped it to his side and smirked at me. “You need my full attention?”
“Stop smiling. You look like a lunatic.”
“He is one.” Dante laughed and lifted his chin at Mario, who now seemed to be shopping for someone other than Katie.
“Why are you here instead of scoping the area?” I asked.
“We got it handled. The crews need training, and we already know the area is secure.”
Dante was a mixed bag, a distant relative of Mario’s first wife and about the same age as me. I didn’t know much about him, because he went into the military right at eighteen, then came back the same and also completely different.
“Plus, I knew I didn’t want to miss this.” He walked forward in his combat boots and rapped his knuckles on the dressing room door. “Katie, Bastian. Let’s see the damn thing before Rome’s patience wears out.”
“Dante?” Katie squealed like she could exude actual happiness and excitement about something. The door swung open, and she flew at him. “My hero’s home from war!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I grumbled. The woman hugged, slept with, or made some connection with every man she encountered. Why any of them wanted to be around her more than a minute was beyond me.
Except I was the one contemplating her status within the mob. I was the one on the edge of claiming her as mine.
As Dante set her down, he placed his hands on her bare shoulders and mumbled, “Let me have a look at this dress.”
She smirked and shrugged. “It’s mostly for show. Gotta draw them in, right?”
He nodded, but his eyes devoured her like every man’s in the damn store at the moment.
Sure, Katie was a sort of family to them, but she was also what we knew her to be.
Bait. And damn good bait too.
I stared at her as Dante spun her around in the boutique and wondered if they were all a little in love with her. This black dress sparkled with her movements, the beading a dark, shimmery reflection that drew the eye. It hugged her like a second skin and was sheer in the waist and near her thighs. Black feathers along the sweetheart neckline hugged her tits, made them look good enough to eat, serving them up on a fucking platter.
Although the dress reached the floor, the combination of the open back crisscrossed by a black ribbon, the bare shoulders, and her ample cleavage made this dress worse than the one before.
Dante whistled, and Mario clapped as he walked over.
Bastian leaned on the doorframe of the dressing room and nodded slowly. “It’ll bring any man to his knees.”
Katie smiled at him. “Thanks, babe.” She was in rare form. I felt it the moment I’d walked in and when she finally made eye contact with me, she didn’t disappoint. “And can you imagine me in it on my knees?”
Bait.
I was pretty sure I wasn’t okay with her being that any longer.
