“Looks like you had a good night. Or a very bad one. Let’s see your neck,” Nolan teases, eyeing the claw marks on my cheeks. Everybody’s got a fucking smirk for me today.
“Drop it,” I growl. But my fingers instinctively reach for the fading red lines. Elisa’s fire still burns through them. Some, fucking princess. She’s turning into a savage quicker than I had expected. I hide my smile, but the thought turns me on something fierce. Ciro didn’t raise her to fight back. I’m changing that demur little flower. Corrupting her. Just like I wanted.
“Come on, you’ve got to drop some of the goods!” Nolan might have let sleeping beasts lie, but Shane rarely does. He turns away from the viewing glass window, letting the strippers drop from his sight for more juicy details. We’ve all gathered at Nolan’s club. “What’s it like to lay a virgin princess? You lucky bastard. The fabled D’Ignoti princess. When do I get to meet her?”
“You better hope I let you live long enough to ever meet anyone again.” Shane is used to my boyhood threats, but I have something more serious in the bag for him. “And by the way, you need to watch your fucking mouth. I don’t care if you trust Tara, telling her about the fire and Ciro’s escape was over the line.”
The ashamed look on Shane’s sunglass covered face tells me I’m right. He told her. It’s enough to shut him up. He doesn’t want to get Tara into any more trouble than she’s already in.
But I have two brothers, and Nolan takes Shane’s silence as a tag to snoop some more. “You’ve got to at least tell us if she’s as good as you were expecting!”
“How do you know what I was expecting?”
That draws an eye roll from my younger brother. He’s twisting a Cuban cigar between his fingers, but puts it down to prod me some more.
“Oh, come on. Ever since you saw those covert pictures that my spies took of Elisa D’Ignoti, you’ve been obsessed. Don’t think I didn’t see it, brother. I’m not like Shane, I’m not wearing blinders.”
“Hey!” Shane interrupts, ripping his dark shades off. “I can see just fine with these things on, thank you very much!”
It’s like we’re kids again, and it makes me worried about the future of our business. Are we ready for the responsibility Dad has bestowed on us, on me? If we can’t act like adults when something of this magnitude is happening, what chance do we have of succeeding at all?
It hardly matters that Nolan is right. That I have been obsessed with the idea of the D’Ignoti princess since he and his surveillance team spotted her completely by chance during a separate mission. There had been rumours that Ciro had a stunningly beautiful daughter locked away in his mansion. Every once in a while, word would get out that he had brought her to one of his exclusive benefits just to show her off. My family was never invited, obviously, but it was at one of those events that Nolan got the first pictures of my elusive Elisa.
She was perfect. In every way. More beautiful than any woman I had ever seen before, and ripe for the taking.
Ciro was never known to have a wife, and there are rumors that he’s fathered countless bastard children through innumerable whores from here to California. But something made this one special. Why choose this bastard child to show off?
For me, it seemed obvious. Because she’s gorgeous. Breathtakingly beautiful and innocent enough to perfume his stink of corruption.
Elisa’s scratch marks burn on my cheek and the taste of her arousal tingles on my tongue. My chest rumbles for her. I want her again. I want all of her…
Before I can get too lost in thoughts of the princess that I have locked up back in my tower, I slam my hand into the pool table. It sends everything and everyone plummeting back down to earth. “Enough of this shit! We need to focus. We need to get down to fucking business. Nolan, you said you had info on the fire?”
Nolan looks past me, towards the office door. “I thought we’d wait for Dad.”
“Dad isn’t coming,” I say. “He’s retired, remember? I’m boss now, and you’re my advisors. We don’t wait for anybody. We don’t rely on anyone but each other. Now, what have you found?”
The truth is, I wanted Dad to be here, but he insisted that we tackle this problem on our own. He’s always been a firm believer in throwing his kids into the deep end to teach them how to swim. I agreed, but now I’m sort of wishing he was here to put us all in line.
Instead, it’s up to me. No one said being king was easy.
Nolan throws a manila envelope onto the pool table and I rip it open.
Bile hits the back of my throat when I see what’s inside. “Fuck.”
On top of the pile of photographs is a charred ring. Its silver is half melted and the crest it contains is deformed almost beyond recognition. Almost.
“The Black Delphi.” The words swirl around the office like a frigid gust.
“The fucking Russians burned down our warehouse?” Shane spits out. He’s pissed. So am I. But I also know enough to be worried. Very worried.
“Are you sure?” I ask Nolan.
“Check the photos underneath. We weren’t able to recover much. But some images survived, if only barely. Those aren’t Italian men sneaking into our warehouse. Those are Russians. Bratva. The Black Delphi.”
Shane takes the twisted ring from me to inspect and I flip through the corrupted photos underneath it. Zoomed in, it becomes clear that Nolan is right. I even recognize one of the motherfuckers. The ragged scar that cuts through his lower lip is unmistakable.
Dmitry Gazin.
The assassin is one of the most feared men in the underworld. He works like a shadow, stealing souls and then disappearing without a trace. It’s a miracle we even managed to get a photo of him. Really, it’s a testament to Nolan’s growing technical skills. First, he found Elisa, now he was able to find Dmitry.
But there’s no time to be impressed. “They have to be working with Ciro, right? The timing is just too suspicious to be coincidental.’
“Has to be. Have you talked to anyone from The Family yet?” Nolan’s question makes my gut tie into a knot.
“I haven’t,” I admit, suddenly furious at myself. I’ve been too distracted by Elisa. Fucking hell. What am I doing? When I got home last night, the first thing I should have done was reach out to The Family to see where they stood in all of this. Instead, I went straight to Elisa’s room. I told myself it was to ‘interrogate’ her on her father’s whereabouts, but that was just an excuse. She wouldn’t know where he was. Why would she? I just needed to taste her again. Dominate her a little more.
Pathetic.
I’m fucking up. My brother actually found something useful, what have I done but scare my captive and test her fragile boundaries?
Enough furious adrenaline is pumping through my veins that, when I hear the office door open, my first reaction is to reach for my gun. But it’s only Shane. He’s heading out.
“Where the fuck are you going?” I growl.
My youngest brother’s eyebrows are tented. Now that his shades are off, I see that his eyes are bloodshot again. This kid needs to get his shit together. But then again, so do I.
“I’ll be right back. I think I might know where to find some information.” Never one to wait for my blessings, he hurries off, slamming the door shut behind him.
“That kid,” I mumble, turning my attention back to Nolan. “This is serious shit. If Ciro has somehow gotten into league with the Russians, especially with the Black Delphi, then we don’t have any leverage. Men like Dmitry Gazin don’t care about our business connections. Every single partner he has is too crooked to ever untangle. Our legitimate assets are of no use to him or his kin.”
“We’re going to have to get our hands dirty with this one,” Nolan says, his voice somber.
At least we’re on the same page. Fuck. Going completely legitimate is going to have to wait a little while longer. Fucking Ciro. Would any of this be happening if I had just killed him?
Right now, it’s impossible to say. There’s no time to second guess myself. Kings are supposed to be constantly moving forward. Never look back.
“The brat…” I look up to see Nolan staring out of the viewing window. “Some useful information he’ll find down there.:”
I step up to his side and see what he’s looking out at. Down on the floor below, Shane is seated at the VIP table, surrounded by strippers.
“That fucker.”
“I’ll go get him,” Nolan says, but I stop him.
“No. I’ll get him.”
Nolan stays behind to organize the new info and I storm downstairs to confront my lollygagging brother. When I burst through the door, I’m greeted with a smile.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I growl.
“A little digging,” he smirks. Everybody’s smirking today. All while the empire we’ve inherited threatens to crumble around us.
“Get back upstairs.”
Before I can get to him, Shane smacks the stripper nearest to him on the ass. “Savannah, tell my brother who you serviced last night.”
The shapely young blond woman looks scared to talk. I don’t blame her. I’m furious, but suddenly, I understand what my youngest brother is getting at. “What do you know, darling?” I ask.
“There was a party last night. Lots of Russians. Guys I’d never seen around here before.”
“Get any names?”
The blonde hesitates, but her friend isn’t so shy. The red-headed bombshell next to her steps forward, confident as any stripper ever has been. “I was there too,” she offers. Her greedy eyes wander over my body like I’m a cut of steak. Nolan may be the owner of this club, but all of these girls know who I am. Hell, I’ll admit it, I use to frequent this joint in my younger years, but it’s been a while. Still, I know when a woman is eye-fucking me, and this woman is doing exactly that.
“And?”
“I’m having trouble remembering,” she teases, her gaze darting back and forth between me and the private booth next to the VIP table. Not exactly subtle.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Ginger.”
“And your name?” I point back to the shy blonde.”
“Candi.”
“Who else here was at the Russian party?”
Two more girls raise their hands. Besides Ginger, they all look scared. Good. I’ll use their fear to get the information I need out of them. With Ginger, I’ll use something else.
“You four, in.” I lead the girls to the private booth, giving one last look to Shane before I close the door behind me. “Keep digging,” I tell him.
“Yes, boss.”
It’s been a while since I’ve had four girls at the same time, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Maybe I’ll even tell Elisa. Make her just as jealous as I was when she blurted out that fuckstick’s name in my bed.
Felix.
That reminds me.
Before I start my interrogation, I text Nolan.
Find Elisa’s old body guard. Felix. Bring him to me. Alive.
