Rome idled in the background as Bastian walked over to me while I took in the large space. Beyond the doors of this room, a club beyond my wildest dreams had been built with a dance floor, two floors of beautiful luxury, winding staircases, and an extravagant bar.
A bar at the sex club I hadn’t even known about.
That I’d just pulled a trigger in.
It’d been for show. Still, my heart had pounded and sweat trickled between my breasts before I did. No one holds a gun to someone’s head and pulls the trigger without the idea that they may kill them. But Rome had dropped enough hints.
I doubted anyone had bought the display. How could they when we’d entered together after driving around the block together for an hour?
Still, we’d got the job done. Most of the attendees had agreed or witnessed agreement to our alliance. Hopefully, that agreement would trickle down through the hierarchies. Some would accept me out of sheer loyalty to their families. In the case of the others, I hoped I’d earn their respect, but if not, I would have to fight for it or die.
Bastian straightened his black suit and combed a big hand through his full head of hair. Then, he leaned in to ask, “Want a drink at the bar?”
“You want me to drink with you at a new bar no one thought to mention to me? New Reign has a nice ring to it.”
“It’s Rome’s baby, not mine.”
I hummed at that assessment and glanced around the space. The large mahogany table with a crystal chandelier hanging above added a rich, luxurious feel. With the leather seating and the gold-framed portraits lining the walls of this room, you felt important just being in it. I understood the appeal.
I watched Ivan stand up and saw him already shaking his head in response to Bastian’s invitation. Yet I found myself agreeing. Not because of power, not because I wanted to build our connection, but because I missed Cade sitting near us on his phone and Dante throwing in some inspirational comment half way through the meeting and Rome’s heated stare.
That, I missed most. “I’ll stay for a soda.”
Ivan’s face scrunched like he didn’t have time or patience for any of it. “I’m tired.”
“You’re old,” I retorted and smiled thinly at him. “Go home. Or retire, huh? I’m stepping into your shoes whether you want me to or not.”
“Your mother was just like you,” he grumbled as he started to walk away. “Maksim will be at the entrance to take you home.”
Maksim had become a friend, a faithful bodyguard I’d hoped I could trust ever since he drove me to Ivan’s that very first night. He didn’t say much, but I didn’t need him to. I just needed him to keep me alive.
“Where precisely is home?” Rome’s murmur was deep behind me and had the hairs on the back of my neck rising immediately.
“You’d like to know that, wouldn’t you?” I kept facing forward, not giving in to the need to look at him, to touch him, to feel him again.
My gaze stayed on Bastian, who shrugged his shoulders and winked at me like I should throw Rome a bone.
I’d thrown him enough in the limo. I’d indulged way too much.
Bastian abandoned me and made his way to the bar. I sighed and closed my eyes, readying myself.
“Just give me your address, Katie.”
I knew that if I turned around I would be overwhelmed by the beauty of his dark features, lured in by the sheer size of him, and feel the gravity of his aura pulling me toward him. I tried to steel my nerves and my desires, but his stare still hit me like a jet going full speed when I faced him.
There was expectation in his eyes, and the way he stared at me like he knew me, like we could conquer everything together, made me weak at the knees, in my heart, and in my soul. “Probably not a good idea to be sharing addresses, Rome. Especially when you don’t even share with me things like the fact you own a sex club.”
“Oh, please. We don’t talk business.”
“Maybe we should,” I threw back at him. I was pushing his buttons because the sex club omission pushed mine and I was letting off steam, adrenaline. Fear, even. I hadn’t ever had to sit at the table where the decisions were made before. Now, I did. Now, I was one of them, and I wasn’t sure I knew what to do with it.
“I told you what there is to know already,” said Rome. “I bought in and agreed to manage the place. We’ll open in a few more weeks, but we’ve obviously got staff on site for meetings and for initial set up. It’ll be a lucrative venture, good for all parties involved. I’ll involve you however you want.”
I peered up at him. “As in, you’ll let me buy in?”
“Do you want to?” he asked, like he didn’t care one way or the other. The thing about Rome was, he always put me on that pedestal, believed I should have been there all along. He’d offer me this like I deserved it.
“I guess I should consider it.” The fact that I could do that with the wealth I was inheriting turned my stomach with anxiety.
“It’s worth it. We can have the lawyers draw it up.”
I hummed and let the idea rest as I glanced around. “It’s big,” I said almost to myself as I took in the high ceilings, the shimmering poles that reached from them all the way down to the floor, the deep red ropes dangling throughout. Staircases flanked the open area and curved up to more seating and more private spaces. They met at a beautiful waterfall that cascaded down to the first floor behind the bar. A chandelier encircled that water. “The base of the waterfall a VIP area?”
“Of sorts.”
“Interesting,” I murmured, thinking of what this place would turn into when the doors opened to the exclusive clients on the list. It’d be a labyrinth of luxurious debauchery.
It’d be heaven and hell.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Rome commanded.
I didn’t exactly know. But a part of me wanted to find out. “I want to come to the opening.”
He looked me up and down. “I guess you can. What for? I’m not sure.”
I didn’t answer him but headed toward the bar and everyone else.
“If you’re coming, I can come get you once you give me your address.”
I sighed. “No, Rome.”
“Why?”
“Because we aren’t exactly great at practicing self-restraint.”
“I don’t see a reason why we have to.” He followed so close, I felt the heat of his body behind me.
“The bratva need to trust me. They can’t do that with you between my legs.”
“They need to respect you. And bow to you. Nothing else. Those men will never trust you because they don’t trust each other, probably don’t even trust themselves.”
“Well, we have to restructure, rebuild, and start anew.”
“And what’s the first step in that?”
I turned to him just before we reached Bastian, Cade, and Dante, who were drinking at the bar. “Probably the little stunt you just pulled. An empty chamber in your gun? Why?”
“I didn’t reload after the car ride.” The man took that moment to wink at me.
I bit my lip at his mentioning it, my core heating at his words, at his playful way of messing with me.
“Don’t think about it in a sex club, huh? I’ll have to take you over my knee.”
I ground my teeth at him catching me. “I’m guessing no one bought that. Not after us arriving together, anyway.”
I tried to play it off, tried not to think about him in all the ways I wanted to. Holding a gun to him had jarred the thought of losing him right to the top of my mind. Really losing him. It made me want to grab him and announce we were official and exclusive. And I wanted to cower at the same time.
Loving somebody, breathing in their air and realizing they are breathing with you: that’s a gift, it makes you want to hold on to them so tight that even God can’t take them away.
When death creeps into your life, it scares you into the arms of everyone who loves you and makes you wrap up those you love back. And you like to think your love is sacred, that you’d get a pass from turmoil.
But death is fickle. Death is mean and predatory. I swear it seeks those people out that you love and pulls them down into the darkness, rips them from your arms, and makes you choke on their loss.
Losing him, even the thought of it, I couldn’t handle.
Was it right to back away, to cut the tie in the hopes that it wouldn’t hurt as much when that end came? Or was that selfish?
For me, it didn’t matter. For me, the answer was much simpler.
“Either way, it bought you their attention,” he said. “If you won’t give me your location, give me your number.”
“No.” I gripped Cleopatra around my neck, trying to remain strong. I needed to stand on my own, show the bratva that I could, and maybe show myself too because Rome could be gone in an instant. We all could. Our lives were fragile objects surrounded by wrecking balls of destruction. “We need to break the link, Rome. We need to move on, at least for now.”
“You don’t break the link, woman. What for? Because you don’t trust me? Or because you’ve got something to prove?” He let out a deep sigh before he continued. “Mario was bound to be picked off anyway if that’s what this is about.”
The need to give in to him was so crippling my shoulders curled in from it. “It’s about us putting our families first, our self-preservation and our survival, instead of this thing between us.”
“Don’t you know, Cleo? I survive off you.”
He headed past me to the bar, leaving me standing there speechless. Over my shoulder, I watched the muscles in his back flex under his suit jacket. I found myself wanting to spin him around and own his mouth for saying what he did, for piercing my heart again and again. How could a man so ruthless, who took so many lives, say things like that to me?
How could I resist him?
I righted my footing and met him at the bar where Dante, Cade, and Bastian sat. A woman dressed in a sort of diamond, angel-wing suit breezed over and asked what we wanted.
Rome ordered a drink for me and a water for himself.
“I’m not drinking tonight,” I mumbled as she walked away. I hadn’t drunk at all since I’d been with the bratva. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I didn’t trust them for one second. I couldn’t risk being buzzed when more than one man wanted to kill me.
Rome ignored my comment and put his hand at the back of my bar stool. Instantly, I felt the heat of it and glared at him.
“How long do you think a partnership like this can last?” Bastian threw the question out there for any of us to answer as he stared off toward the bartender.
“I’m thinking it’s a better idea to ask: How would it last in the first place?” Rome volleyed back.
“It’ll last however long we want it to,” I answered for them both. “Because we’re all a part of each other in some twisted way and we’re going to make it work because that’s what we do.”
“I like your drive, today, Little One.” Dante’s lips curved into a smile and a dimple indented the side of his cheek.
If it weren’t for all the men sitting here with him, I’d have sworn he was a god. “I think we’d both like it more if I was kicking your ass at the gym.”
“After this meeting, I think we need to burn off some steam.” He cracked his knuckles, two black rings and a gold one drawing attention as he did. His style and his good looks had the waitress staring as she set glasses down in front of us. He held up his just as she sighed with hearts in her eyes and turned away. “To a successful first meeting today.”
Before I could grab my drink, Rome swapped his with mine and winked at me. Then he barely sipped on the alcoholic beverage in his hand, like he wanted his senses, like he needed them. At this point, I needed mine too. It was the reason for not drinking.
“And to a successful funeral, considering no one was killed in a drive-by,” Cade mumbled into his phone.
“What did you just say?” I nudged his shoulder so that he would look up from the damn device.
“We had a lot of visitors at that funeral,” he said. “The Polish, the Armenian and the Japanese drove by. Politicians were there; leaders were there. We had targets on our backs and were barely armed. I thought for sure Rome would take a bullet.”
“Your ass knows that no one is hitting me in a drive by.” Rome leaned back and slid his glass out of his hand.
“You’re not Neo from the Matrix. You can’t dodge a damn bullet.”
“I can anticipate. No one was hitting up that funeral. Too many witnesses.”
“We’ve got the cops under wraps.” Cade announced.
“Yeah, too many witnesses from other families. The Stonewoods. Another gang showed up.”
Cade narrowed his eyes and then ducked his head back down, typing away quickly to check things out. “I didn’t see that on the security footage—”
“Because the damn security footage won’t show you everything.” Rome pinched the bridge of his nose.
Dante laughed at their bickering, then clapped Cade on the shoulder. “They avoided street cameras. They’re an underground gang. We got them logged. Don’t worry about it.”
The list of enemies had my shoulders tensing, my back muscles coiling up with nerves. I’d been under scrutiny before, been held at gunpoint by a lover, been beaten and taken advantage of. It was always by one person at a time, though. It was mostly controlled too. I knew how to warp a man’s mind well enough to stay alive.
Yet I wasn’t sure I could mold and sculpt a whole unit. How would I handle a gang that I knew nothing about, a mob I’d never had to deal with directly? I was ill-equipped, green, and naïve.
Rome’s strong hand went to my neck and he massaged the muscles like he automatically knew where the knots were. I breathed out slow as his hand trailed down the sides of my spine, pushing pressure points and kneading out areas I didn’t know existed.
While everyone talked, he leaned in and whispered in my ear. “Relax, Cleo. We’ve got a long way to go before you can tense up on us.”
