“What the fuck do you mean you’re on the way to my new place?” Why did I yell questions at my brother every time he was on the phone?
“I want to do a security sweep of the place and make sure the cameras are all doing what I need them to.”
“You can’t do that from Chicago?” I pointed to my driver and mouthed home. He was quick to steer in that direction. I probably would have gotten a smart comment from Dante but he’d gone to handle a job across the country.
“Well, no.” There was a pause. “Plus, we used a little bit of muscle for this Morina girl. I’m coming to meet her and, well, I’m babysitting.”
“You’re what?”
“I have our niece with me.” He grumbled, like he knew that omission would send me into a rage.
“Don’t tell me you have my niece on the jet right now.” I ground out. “Her parents will kill you. Please tell me you called Katie.”
“Well, no. They left me with her for half the day. What did they expect?”
“You’re fucking asking to die. I swear to you, Katie is a damn bratva queen.” I lowered my voice, used to talking in secret when it came to how our family used to operate. “She’s married to our enforcer. Do you understand the concept of babysitting for them?”
Rome and Katie had met when we were all just kids. As we’d taken our rightful places in powerful positions, their love had grown enough that they’d brought a child into the world. That four-year-old was our pride and joy, but also the thing we were most protective of.
“Ivy asked to go to an amusement park. They have one down there with characters and shit. We’ll go for a few hours.”
“You have to plan for a trip there, Cade. They book the damn park out!” I fisted my hand, trying to wrangle the fury I had with my brother’s flippant behavior. He was the youngest. He didn’t know responsibility like I did and he had a knack for doing things before he thought about them.
“Well, I hacked part of the system while we were flying.”
“Of course you did.” I sighed. “You can’t go today. Ivy is going to be too tired. And you better have my niece’s seat belt on.”
“Technically, she’s not your niece. Rome’s our cousin, you know.”
“Of course she’s our niece. We’re Armanellis. She’s famiglia, you idiot. Did you say that shit in front of her?”
“No. She’s squealing to go to the bathroom. I’m just trying to piss you off more, see if you’ll explode before I get there.”
He was making me go back to that damn penthouse and under these conditions. An explosion was warranted. “When’s the plane landing?”
“About 30 minutes. I intend to be there in an hour and we’re going to be hungry.”
“I’m not within an hour’s distance. Go eat somewhere first. I got Morina there and I haven’t…”
“You haven’t what?”
“I’m not really there.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. I didn’t need Cade questioning how I was handling this situation.
“You serious? You gotta play hubby and wifey and you aren’t even getting to know her? That’s not like you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means normally you can find common ground. You have a knack for making alliances, obviously. Is she that bad?”
“She’s not bad at all.” I defended her immediately and then tried to backtrack on that statement: “She’s just in my space.”
“Kind of what a wife does.”
“You know this is a legal marriage, that’s it, right?”
“Well, sort of. You have to fake it enough for it to look real. If someone believes she’s not an untouchable, that puts her in harm’s way again, right?”
I punched the backseat of the Rolls Royce. The pressure of this damn will shouldn’t have been on me. “I’m so sick of carrying Mario’s shit on my back.”
“Dad was great at building shitty partnerships.”
I cleared my throat. “Morina doesn’t know he was importing illegal shipments, okay? I need that kept out of the equation. I’m working on showing her that we’re here to shift Tropical Oil to clean energy and that it will help her city thrive. We’ll clean up the other shit quietly. Got it?”
“Why not? We ended the drug imports years ago when dad died. She should be thankful.”
“Maribel didn’t trust us enough to sell those stocks to me for that very reason. You think her granddaughter is going to want to sell them to me if she knows our father lied to her grandmother?”
“Right.” Cade sighed. “I’ll wipe it from as many places as I can. The dark web might have some mention of the drugs that were coming in.”
“See that you do. I don’t want any more complications. This marriage is a big enough blip on our radar.”
“It’s for damn sure not something I was expecting.” After a beat, Cade cracked up. “I never would have thought you would be the one getting married now.”
“Why?”
“Man. I don’t know. You’re the head of our family. It’s enough work as it is. You have to right all dad’s wrongs and you take it way more seriously than you should.” There was rustling. “Ivy’s back. We’re going to eat a snack. A little advice, bro. I’d start letting your fiancé know a bit more about what’s coming up. You have a damn charity gala to attend for the oil ports in a week. Does she know?”
“There’s nothing to know. She’ll get dressed and go. We can announce our engagement publicly and put together a small ceremony a week later.”
“You’re planning all this without your bride like it’s going to go over so well.” He chuckled into the phone. “I’m excited to see how it all crumbles.”
“You’re a sick fuck most days, Cade.”
“Proud of it too.” He mumbled something to Ivy and then said to me, “Be a pal and let Katie know we’re safe and sound if she calls you.”
Then he hung up.
Not twenty minutes later, Katie’s number popped up on my screen.
There was a time way back when I thought she and I could be more than what we were. She was this powerful girl who didn’t bend to anyone. We found out she had ties to the bratva and slowly she chipped away at all their businesses and ours. She’d become one of the most powerful people in the world and I loved that we had a great relationship, the type between colleagues, but also like a family. We all worked together to make sure our businesses ran smoothly, that our families stepped in line.
“Yes, Katie?” I answered on the fifth ring and eyed the tall building that my penthouse was located in. We still had another 30 minutes of traffic to navigate before I arrived.
“So, your brother says his fucking flight just landed with my child.” Her voice was filled with venom.
“I had nothing to do with this.”
“I don’t know if I believe that. Except that you’re probably hiding from your soon to be fiancé and so that may just be the case. Either way, you now have everything to do with it. Ivy can’t stay up all night flying back on a plane. So, she’s staying with you and Morina. Take her to the park, feed her well, and watch her like a hawk. Those parks have got to be crowded. Cade needs to get a team together if it’s to be safe.” She paused. “I can’t get there fast enough, Bastian.”
The concern at the end of her commands put out all the fight in me. “I got her, Katie. She’s fine. We’ll have fun, huh?”
“Oh, you won’t have fun. It’s going to be absolute hell. If she comes back unhappy, though, I’ll break all the bones in your body before I skin Cade alive.”
She was the second person to hang up on me that day.
I didn’t flinch at her words. I’d been threatened enough times. I knew she meant what she said. I also knew that I would die before anything happened to the little monster that was about to tornado through my penthouse.
I told the driver to speed the rest of the way, but we still didn’t get there in time to intercept my family. Instead, I’d have to face the woman I’d been avoiding for days with my brother and niece there to witness the awkwardness.
As the elevator ascended to my door, I swear I could smell her scent already. She wore something spicy enough that it had lingered in my jet for days. I’d thought I’d be happy when it started to fade but instead I remember contemplating asking someone what the smell was.
Now, I’d get to smell it for six months.
That had to be some sort of rude karma that she probably believed in.
I shut my eyes, frustrated with myself for being irritated with her. Her grandmother’s will wasn’t her fault. The fact we’d slept together and I couldn’t stop thinking about her bent over naked as fuck wasn’t her fault either.
I didn’t dislike the girl’s company. I just thought I’d never have to see her again. She was young and shot off at the mouth and wasn’t at all what I needed for this venture. It was my last one. The last loose tie my father had left for me. And he’d left a lot over the years.
This was the one thing I needed to right to give the family a new, fresh slate. It meant I was doing this clean as hell. No hiccups.
No loopholes.
If Maribel had willed that she wanted a marriage for me to prove I was going to make this company thrive, that’s what she would get. Morina would see I meant business.
And no pleasure, even if I’d watched her hand drag across that mosaic tile and wanted it to be my dick instead. The way her bracelets jangled as she did it and her clean nails grazed each piece with a delicate touch, she was enticing.
And infuriating. I didn’t need the complication of wanting her. So I stayed away.
Now, my brother was forcing a damn intervention even if he didn’t know it.
When I exited the elevators, Ivy was running around my waterfall island with all the near dead plants directly in the middle. They were a complete eyesore. And the salt lamp was on as if it provided some sort of natural element to the space.
It didn’t.
Morina believed in hocus pocus. None of it made sense to me, but instead of being completely fine with her bringing it into the penthouse, I’d lashed out immediately.
That wasn’t my nature, but with her, it was. Normally I would have agreed, set on us getting along.
She stirred some emotion in me that I couldn’t control and that only infuriated me more.
Cade winked at me when Ivy came running, her long curls everywhere. I was ready to catch her when she jumped right at me.
I might not have been a great person for Morina to live with but I was a good ass uncle. I caught Ivy before she was even halfway in the air. “My little poison Ivy. How did you get here?”
She squished my cheeks together and giggled. “On a plane, Uncle Bastian. You’re so silly.”
“Silly?” I lifted a brow in mock terror. “I’m not silly. I’m your very serious uncle.”
She thought about it for a second, looked back at Cade who wiggled his tattooed fingers at her, and then pulled me close. “You’re right. Cade’s sillier than you.”
I nodded solemnly. “Someone’s got to be the oldest.”
“That means you’re the boss too, right? Mommy always says she’s the boss but I think maybe daddy and you are bosses too.” Then she leaned in and pulled my ear out way too hard for it to be comfortable. I didn’t even wince because the little girl with her gray eyes and big dark curls had my whole soul, and I wasn’t wiping that smile off her face for even a second. “Cade’s not the boss though.”
“Careful, you little monster,” Cade said, even though he was looking into his phone now. “I hear everything. It’s my super power and it might just make me the biggest boss of all.”
She giggled and shook her head which turned to a full body shake in my arms.
The girl had infinite amounts of energy and I wasn’t sure we were all ready for it, but we had her for the day and would just have to deal. I threw her up in the air and she squealed in delight.
Then I plopped her on one of my hips. “What are you hungry for?”
“Your friend Morina fed me.” She pointed over to the woman I still hadn’t acknowledged.
I should have said hi or told her thank you, but we needed to have such a big conversation about what lay ahead that I decided we didn’t need one at all.
We could just follow my lead. She could step in line like most people.
Like Ivy said, I was the boss.
Or one of them.
“That was very nice of Morina,” I said softly to Ivy but was looking at the woman I hadn’t seen in days.
Her wavy hair was, as always, a mess that somehow worked around her face. She wore a tank top that was much too loose, with a picture of a hand making up a peace sign. She’d paired it with a blue sports bra that left little to the imagination. Her ripped jeans fit over her ass much better than I remembered and she glared at me with a face I found I was starting to really like.
I set Ivy down and motioned for her to go play with Cade. He swooped her up into his lap and they started playing a game on his phone.
“Sorry for the visitors today.” I slid my hands in my pockets, not sure how to approach this awkward phase we’d stumbled into.
“I like tiny visitors actually.” She smirked toward Ivy who looked up and wiggled her fingers at Morina, always half listening. “Ivy kept me company for a little bit while I made grilled cheese. The chef had the fridge stocked with lots of different cheeses, I’m guessing after they found out I eat that.”
“Right.” I cleared my throat. “We’re going to head over to the amusement park first thing in the morning. Run her around there and then she’ll be going back home.”
Cade’s head popped up. “Not today?”
“Cade, you can’t go to the park in the middle of the day. There are rides that take hours to get on and even if you hack every fast pass system, we still won’t see everything. You want to start your time at the park with a half-tired child and with the knowledge you won’t get to show her everything?”
Ivy nodded and looked at Cade with big puppy eyes. “I want to see everything, Uncle Cade.”
“Of course you do.” He hopped off the bar stool with her. “Guess we need to go mess up Uncle Bastian’s house then. We need to build a fort for our movie night.”
“Yay!” Ivy screamed, but instead of skipping over to me to give me a high five, she skipped over to Morina. “You’ll watch a movie with me, right?”
“Um…” She glanced at me and then back at Ivy. “Sure. I think. I just…” She wrung her hands together. “I have to go take care of some dogs first and then I’ll be back to watch whatever you want.”
I swear Ivy’s whole body, even her curls straightened at the mention of dogs. I shut my eyes in defeat and Cade slapped a palm to his head. Morina mouthed “What?” to us over Ivy’s head.
“I want to see the dogs you take care of,” Ivy announced.
Scratching the scuff of my five o’clock shadow, I waited to see how Morina would navigate this one.
She glanced at me like she was caught between a rock and a hard place.
Yes, woman, you did this to yourself.
I looked away and ambled toward the fridge. She could figure out how to tell the cutest thing in the world no.
“Um… well, I think your uncles probably want you to stay with them.”
“Oh, they will come with. Uncle Bastian, you have a car to drive us right?” She turned those misty eyes toward me and I didn’t even hesitate.
“Of course I do, monster.”
Morina’s jaw dropped. “You…you can’t come.”
“Why can’t we all come, Morina?” I blinked real big like a little kid.
“I mean… I guess if you want to hang out, but you haven’t wanted to hang–”
“Yay!” Ivy cut her off and barreled into Morina’s thighs to hug her.
She patted the child’s back awkwardly and then side eyed me. “I’m just going to change. I guess we can get going in ten minutes if everyone’s ready. I have to do a quick sweep of the kennels. I’m not going to be there long.”
“But there’s going to be dogs for me to pet, right?” Ivy asked, a tiny little pointer finger up in the air as if she needed to be clear.
“Mmhmm.” Morina started down the hallway to her room. When Ivy followed, Cade glanced at me and I shrugged.
“Jesus Christ,” my brother mumbled, then called, “Ivy, we’re making a tent in Bastian’s room while Morina gets ready and talks to Uncle Bastian.”
The little girl shot off down the hall, and Cade ran after with a roar.
Just as he did, Morina turned into her bedroom even though she’d heard Cade announce that we would be talking.
I sighed and made my way to her door. With it being cracked and my being right behind her, I didn’t think to knock.
When I cleared my throat, she spun away from her closet. “Do you think you could knock next time?”
“Knock?”
“Yes. This is my room.” Her tone held anger and accusation.
It immediately put me on a defense I didn’t need. “This is our room. Just like this whole place is our place.”
“Wouldn’t know it from who is in it all the time.”
“Are you mad I haven’t been here?”
“Nope.” She said the word so loud it ping ponged off the walls.
“I work and I told you I wouldn’t be here much. I’m giving you space.” I crossed my arms.
“Great. I’m happy with it.” She didn’t sound happy at all.
“I come home after three days and you immediately are galivanting off to the humane society. So, that just proves the point that we don’t want to be around each other.”
“Yup, that proves the point.”
“Are you going to say anything you mean right now?”
“No!” She stomped her foot. She breathed fast, holding her fists tight at her sides. “I don’t want to talk to you right now.”
“Care to share why?”
“Because you’re annoying me!” She winced when the words flew out of her. “I don’t… I’m not comfortable here. And I have my crystals and oils, and I surf to stay comfortable. I live in comfort, Bastian. I don’t do luxury or chefs or white countertops well. I have to figure out the will because I can’t buy food processors for my foodtruck to make money so I can buy more ingredients to sell and make more money. And I can’t do any of that because I’m out of my depth.”
“Out of your depth?” I repeated, trying to catch up with all the words she’d just thrown at me faster than a peregrine falcon diving for food.
“And this stupid packet of a million words and pages is like a different language. And it’s boring, Bastian. Like really boring. And I know we don’t know each other except for some not boring sex on a plane, but I can’t do boring. I’m not… I don’t think I’m–”
“Stop.” Her eyes darted up to mine and she suddenly looked her age. At least ten years younger than me with big sapphire eyes that were scared and vulnerable. I always assumed she didn’t care or it was no big deal for her because she acted nonchalant and told me exactly how she wanted things. But…
I took a deep breath. “Jesus, you talk fast, huh?”
“I normally don’t.”
I squinted at her. “When’s the last time you were really nervous about something?”
“What type of question is that?” She wrung her hands like she had in the living room.
“Never mind.” I had a feeling we were both going to get to know ourselves a lot better in the next few months. “Let’s not do boring right now, huh? Let’s go see the dogs and then watch the movie and act like children at a theme park. Then, we’ll do boring.”
She peered over at the paperwork lying on the bed. “It’s really boring, Bastian,” she whispered.
For some reason, I cracked up with her omission and the lines on her forehead disappeared as she smiled big.
Brilliant. Beautiful.
And brutal.
That’s what that smile was.
She’d wreck my world if I wasn’t careful.
