Antonio Miles (Kiss of Death MC 17)

A Bones MC Romance

Marteeka Karland

All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2026 Marteeka Karland

BIN: 011950-03895
Formats Available:
Adobe PDF, Epub

Publisher:
Changeling Press LLC
315 N. Centre St.
Martinsburg, WV 25404
www.ChangelingPress.com

Editor: Jean Cooper
Cover Artist: Marteeka Karland

Adult Sexual Content

This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. Changeling Press E-Books are for sale to adults, only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

Legal File Usage -- Your Rights

Payment of the download fee for this book grants the purchaser the right to download and read this file, and to maintain private backup copies of the file for the purchaser’s personal use only.

The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this or any copyrighted work is illegal. Authors are paid on a per-purchase basis. Any use of this file beyond the rights stated above constitutes theft of the author’s earnings. File sharing is an international crime, prosecuted by the United States Department of Justice, Division of Cyber Crimes in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security, and Interpol. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is punishable by seizure of computers, up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 per reported instance.

Table of Contents

Antonio Miles (Kiss of Death MC 17)

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Marteeka Karland

Bones MC Multiverse

Antonio Miles (Kiss of Death MC 17)

A Bones MC Romance

Marteeka Karland

Tessa’s mine now, and I will put anyone who tries to hurt her six feet under.

Tessa – When Antonio Miles and his enforcers from Kiss of Death MC rescue me from a human  trafficking ring out of Nashville, Tennessee, I know it’s only a matter of time before Iron comes after me. I’ve seen too much. Know too much. Nothing but my death will ensure my silence. Antonio knows, as well. He takes me to his home in the Great Smoky Mountains, where every door answers to him. He calls it protection. I know captivity when I see it, but Antonio’s control feels dangerously good, and the closer we come to destroying our enemies, the more I want things I can never have – like Antonia. Forever.

Antonio – I swore I’d never love again, but the moment Iron and his men come for Tessa, the protection I promised becomes possession. So I take her where no enemy can reach us. Home. My home in the Great Smoky Mountains. She challenges me, demands to know my plans, and refuses to hide while I fight her war. Every act of defiance only makes me want her more.

The only way to keep Tessa safe is to put Iron and his hired guns out of business. Permanently. No one touches my woman, and make no mistake, Tessa’s mine.

Prologue

Antonio Miles

The Miles family estate sat thirty miles outside of Nashville, a sprawling colonial with white columns and black shutters that had been in my father’s family since before the Civil War. The private room where we brought Judge Isaiah Marlin had no recording equipment and no witnesses beyond the two of us. My father had designed this room to be a space where business could be conducted without fear of electronic surveillance or prying eyes. Soundproof walls, a single tinted window reinforced with bulletproof glass, and the door locked with a key that existed only in Seth’s pocket and the safe in my office.

The room itself was spare and deliberate. A large, polished table sat in the center, its surface gleaming. Two chairs faced each other across its width. A bulletproof briefcase lay open on the surface. The contents fanned out in neat rows was the only disruption to the room’s careful geometry.

Marlin sat in one chair, his posture rigid despite the exhaustion evident in the lines around his mouth. His cuff links were gone, his collar open at the throat. A bruise yellowed along his jaw where one of my men had caught him with an elbow during the estate raid. He’d stopped asking for his lawyer an hour ago.

My father stood near the window, hands clasped behind his back, saying nothing. Even in his sixties, he carried himself with the easy confidence of a man who knew his word was law and that law was absolute. His salt-and-pepper beard was trimmed close to his jaw, his eyes calm as he watched the afternoon light slant across the hardwood floor. He’d let me take the lead on this one. As a rule, we worked together as an almost symbiotic unit. My father might be a caring person, but Seth Miles was ruthless and demanded obedience and perfection. From everyone, but most especially his son. I might be in my prime, but Seth was more than my match in any situation. I wasn’t too proud to admit he could take me.

I sat across from Marlin, my posture relaxed but alert. “The Vossberg account shows six deposits over the last eight months.” I slid a document across the table. “All matching special handling purchases from Iron’s network.”

Marlin’s gaze dropped to the paper but he didn’t touch it. “As I’ve explained, I never purchased anyone. I provided a location for transactions. A neutral ground.”

“A neutral ground,” I repeated, keeping my voice bland like I could give a damn when I really wanted to skin the guy alive just to hear him fucking squeal. “With six-figure deposits into an account under your daughter’s name.” I placed another document beside the first. “An account your ex-wife knows nothing about.”

Marlin’s jaw tightened. “Those are business investments. Nothing to do with --”

“The trust that owns the property on Lake Radnor,” I cut in, placing a third document on the table. “Where you kept the girls between transactions.”

A flush crept up Marlin’s neck. “That’s not -- you can’t prove --”

“The coded buyer logs,” I continued, sliding another page forward. “The transport manifests. The payment records.” Each document landed with a soft whisper of paper against wood. “The security footage from the club where the Garrison girl was processed.”

Marlin’s face slackened with each new page, the color draining from his cheeks. “This is circumstantial at best. A judge would never --”

“You’re not in court.” My voice remained even. “You’re in the house of Seth Miles. And in this house, we make the laws.” I tapped the edge of the closest document. “These are decidedly not inside our laws.”

Marlin leaned forward, his voice dropping to a cajoling whine. “Look, I understand you have a business to protect. I can help with that. I have connections, favors I can call in. The district attorney’s office owes me --”

I lifted my hand to silence him. “You already gave my father what he needed,” I said. “This conversation is about what you owe the women in these ledgers.”

Marlin went quiet, his eyes darting between me and Seth’s impassive back. For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the tick of the antique grandfather clock my father liked in here. Since no electronic equipment was allowed -- other than what Seth and I kept on our persons -- he thought the rather loud ticking of the majestic piece of furniture was intimidating in certain situations. Judging by the way Marlin kept glancing nervously at the thing, I thought my father had been right.

Seth turned from the window just long enough to look at Marlin. Not a word passed between them, but something in the older man’s gaze made Marlin shrink back in his chair. Then Seth turned away again, his attention returning to the view beyond the glass.

I closed the briefcase with a soft click. “The district attorney will be receiving an anonymous tip about your extracurricular activities tomorrow morning. Along with copies of these documents.” I stood, adjusting the cuff of my sleeve. “I’d recommend leaving the country before then. I understand extradition treaties can be quite… complicated for men in your position.” I turned to glance at my father. Without a word, Seth pulled a key from his pocket and handed it to me.

Marlin’s face had gone ashen. “You can’t just --”

“I can,” I said simply. “And I have.” I nodded to the door. “My father’s driver will take you wherever you need to go. I’d suggest packing light.” I shrugged. “Or you could turn yourself in.”

“You know as well as I do I’m dead the second I see the inside of a holding cell.”

I nodded. “True. Some of the people we’ve identified would be… decidedly unhappy to be caught up in this kind of scandal.”

Marlin remained seated, his hands flat on the table as if anchoring himself to the spot. “What about Iron? He’s the one who --”

“Iron,” I said, “is for me to worry about. Not you.” I moved to the door, unlocking it with the key my father had just handed to me. “The car leaves in ten minutes. With or without you.”

For a moment, Marlin didn’t move. Then he pushed back from the table and stood. His steps were measured as he crossed to the door, pausing at the threshold to look back at Seth’s unmoving form. “I have a family,” he said, the words barely audible.

Seth didn’t turn. “So did they.”

Marlin left without another word, his footsteps fading down the hallway. I closed the door behind him, then turned to my father. “It’s done.”

Seth nodded once, still gazing out the window. “Make sure he’s on the plane.”

“Yes, sir.” I moved to stand beside my father, both of us looking out at the grounds beyond the glass. “The network?”

“Yours to dismantle,” Seth said. “But carefully. We don’t want collateral damage.”

“Knuckles has the compound secured. The women are safe.”

“Good.” Seth’s hand came to rest on my shoulder, a brief pressure. “Then we’re done here.”

The trafficking network that had operated under Iron’s protection was finished. By morning, every player would know exactly what happened to men who crossed the Miles family. Then the hunt would begin. Neither I nor my father would allow our city to be used in such a way. I didn’t care who the offenders were. If they had any part in this network, their lives as they knew it were now over.

Deeper in Nashville, a young woman named Tessa Garrison would sleep safely behind the walls of Haven, her sister at her side, her personal nightmare finally over, but her journey to recovery only beginning. I’d watch over her. Make sure she got the care she needed. She would want for nothing for the rest of her life… and then, I’d put her completely out of my mind.

Chapter One

Tessa

I awoke gasping, trying to get my breath. The sheets were twisted around my legs. My heart pounded and sweat dampened my skin and my pillow. I couldn’t remember the dream, but I thought there’d been some kind of explosion…

Then the sound came again. This time, I was decidedly awake. The building shuddered hard enough to jostle me as I lay in bed. Another heavy thud sounded like something slamming into the lower level of Haven with significant force. My apartment was on the third floor and sat directly over the front entrance to Haven. I’d requested the room when I’d found it because I wanted to see shit coming at me before it got me.

My water glass rattled off the nightstand and shattered on the hardwood. The chime of the alarm kicked in a half-second later. Safety lights flooded the doorways.

I bolted from the bed, trying to get my bearings… and promptly tripped on my shoes and fell to the floor with a jarring thud.

After taking a deep breath and shaking my head to clear it of sleep, I shoved my feet into my shoes, snagged a sweater to go over my pajamas, and ran for the door. The security lights lining the hallway gave off a soft glow. I looked down the hall as another door opened and a woman stepped out.

“What is that?” she asked. “What’s happening?” I saw the same fear in her eyes I felt in my chest.

Before I could answer, heavy boots pounded up the stairwell from the other end of the hall. Three men from Kiss of Death hurried in our direction. The one in front, a guy named Tiny, who was built like a refrigerator with a shaved head and a beard that reached his chest, beckoned us in his direction.

“Safe room,” he barked. “Now. Everyone to the safe room.”

Two more doors opened. Another woman with a baby clutched to her chest and a teenage girl who’d come alone to Haven. We all stood frozen for a moment, still slightly stunned.

The building shuddered again. Somewhere below us, metal screamed against metal, the impact worse this time…

Silence…

The world exploded in a deafening boom and a shower of glass and debris. The concussion tossed me down the hall and knocked the breath out of me. My ears rang and everything seemed to come from deep inside a well.

“Move!” Tiny picked up a kid in each arm as he yelled. Each man with Tiny helped one of the women. Through the smoke and dust, I didn’t recognize the man who came to help me, but I waved him off anyway.

“Help the children. I’m good. I’m good.”

I rolled onto my side and pushed myself up on one elbow. My head swam. Something warm trickled down my temple. When I wiped at it, my fingers came away red. The cut was shallow, but blood had already matted my hair above my ear. The hallway was thick with dust and a sharp, acrid, biting scent.

The teenage girl from down the hall appeared through the dust cloud, her face streaked with tears. She grabbed my arm. “Which way?”

I pointed down the hall. “That way. Follow Tiny.”

She didn’t move. “I can’t -- I don’t --”

“Go,” I said, giving her a gentle shove. “Tiny will keep you safe. Run. Now.”

She nodded, then turned and obeyed. The woman with the baby was already gone, carried by one of the MC guys. The third woman from my floor was nowhere in sight but the one thing I knew about these guys was they’d make sure everyone got to safety.

The building groaned. Not an explosion, but another impact from below sent a vibration through the floor that I felt in my teeth. More glass shattered somewhere.

I’d made it to the first floor and moved toward the safe room but paused when I heard terrified sobbing. I stopped, listening for the sound again. It was hard to get a direction because of the ringing in my ears from the blast. The farther toward the common room I went, the louder the crying. My shoes crunched on the broken glass in the hallway with each step as I made my way to the back of the room.

The furniture had been tossed around like toys and debris littered the area with dust still floating in the air. The large window at the far end was now a jagged hole letting in the gray light of morning.

A woman sat on the floor beside the overturned couch and table, her back against the wall, knees drawn to her chest. She was older than me, maybe thirty, with dark hair pulled into a messy ponytail. She wore flannel pajamas and no shoes. Her face was buried in her hands, and her shoulders shook with each sob.

I crossed the room and knelt beside her. Up close, I could see a dark bruise forming along her jawline, fresh enough that the skin was still swelling.

“Hey,” I said softly. “Where else are you hurt?”

She didn’t look up. Her fingers dug into her hair. “I can’t,” she whispered. “He’s coming. He’ll find me here.”

“No one’s coming in,” I said. “The club’s got the building locked down. We’ll be safe in the special room they built for us. Remember?”

She shook her head. “You don’t know him. He said he’d find me. He said he’d kill me if I ran.”

I reached for her hand, gently prying her fingers from her hair. Her skin was ice-cold. “What’s your name?”

She looked up then. Her eyes were red and swollen, the left one nearly shut from the bruising. “M-Melanie.”

“I’m Tessa. Melanie. You know these guys will stand between you and anyone trying to get you here. Right?” I thought I might do well to take my own advice.

Another impact shook the building. Melanie flinched hard and curled tighter into herself. “He’s here,” she whispered. “Oh God, he’s here.”

I put my arm around her shoulders. “Then let’s not be here when he arrives. Let’s put some very strong, locked doors between us and him. Yeah?”

Down the hall, something heavy hit the floor. A door, maybe, or a piece of furniture. Then a man’s voice, shouting orders I couldn’t make out. Boots on hardwood, moving fast.

Melanie’s breathing stopped. Her eyes fixed on the doorway.

I tightened my grip on her shoulder. “Melanie. Look at me.”

She didn’t.

“Melanie.” I put my hand on her cheek, turning her face toward mine. Her skin was clammy. “Whatever happens, you’re not alone. I’m right here. I’m not leaving you. But we need to move. Now.”

The boots were closer. Two sets, maybe three. Moving with purpose. I didn’t know if those were men from Kiss of Death or with whoever attacked Haven from outside, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

Melanie’s eyes found mine. She took a shuddering breath, weighing the shitty options before her. Then she nodded her head. “OK,” she whispered. “OK.”

I helped her to her feet. She swayed, unsteady, and leaned her slight weight against me. I put my arm around her waist and guided her toward the door, away from the sound of approaching boots, toward the safe room at the far end of the hall. We didn’t make it far before another deafening blast knocked us to the floor.

The world went white and my ears -- which still rang slightly -- took another beating and I had the inane thought that I’d never be able to hear properly again. Something hot grazed my arm. What was left of a service door on the outer wall now hung from twisted hinges, a jagged hole where the lock had been. The frame around it had buckled inward, taking chunks of drywall with it.

Smoke poured through the opening. Thick, chemical, nothing like fire smoke. Tear gas, maybe, or some kind of flash-bang residue. It burned my eyes and throat instantly. I coughed hard and my vision blurred with tears from the irritation.

Melanie was under me. I’d landed half on top of her when the blast hit. She wasn’t moving. I shook her shoulder as panic hit me in full force. The calm I’d tried so hard to surround myself with shattered. I knew if she didn’t open her eyes, I’d lose my Goddamned mind.

“Melanie! Melanie, come on!”

Her eyes fluttered open. She stared at me without recognition for a second, then panic flooded back into her expression. She started to scramble away from me, toward the overturned couch.

I grabbed her ankle. “No. Stay down.”

The gunfire started before I finished the sentence. Three rapid shots from somewhere beyond the ruined door, so close the sound was physical. Something hit the wall above our heads and plaster dust rained down. Then return fire. Deeper, heavier reports from multiple weapons. The Kiss of Death guys, engaging to protect their territory and us. I hoped.

Through the smoke, I could see hazy shapes moving in the open. Dark figures pushing through the doorway, met immediately by return fire. One figure dropped. Another retreated. The third kept coming, firing wildly into the room.

I pressed Melanie flat against the floor behind the overturned couch and put one hand on the back of her head. “Don’t move,” I whispered. “Don’t make a sound.”

She was trembling so hard I could feel it through my other palm where it rested heavily on her back.

The gunfire continued in short, controlled bursts. Then sudden, erratic sprays. Bullets punched through drywall, thudded into furniture. A lamp exploded. Melanie and I both whimpered but managed to bite back screams as we covered our heads.

I risked a look around the side edge of the couch. The common area had become a killing field. Smoke hung in drifting layers, lit from beneath by muzzle flashes. I had no idea who was who. I just didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire.

I looked back behind us and saw Pippa with several more women and children headed to the safe room. They’d come from a different direction and the only way for them to get inside the safe room put them directly in the line of fire.

A massive shape barreled through the smoke from the right. Gunnar charged between the women and the fighting, planting himself between Pippa and the doorway. He raised his weapon and fired twice into the smoke, then turned, reaching for Pippa with his free hand.

“Get inside --” he started.

The doorway exploded again.

This time, it wasn’t a blast that caused the damage. The entire frame of the building gave way with a shriek of twisted metal and shattered concrete.

I coughed and tried to brush the grit and grime from my eyes enough to see what new threat I faced. From what I could tell, it looked like something large and heavy had hit the outer wall like a battering ram. When the wall gave way, a large chunk of the steel door frame caught Gunnar across the chest. The impact knocked him backward, his left leg pinned at an angle that made my stomach turn. Blood sprayed from his mouth as the impact drove him to one knee.

He didn’t cry out, but his face contorted into something between a snarl and a grimace, his bloody teeth bared, his eyes fixed on Pippa. His arm was still extended toward her, fingers spread, as if he could reach her through the smoke and the chaos.

Pippa screamed. A raw, animal sound that cut through everything. She lunged forward, dropping to her knees beside him, her hands going immediately to the spreading blood stain on his shirt. “Gunnar! Gunnar!”

Her palms pressed hard against his chest. Blood welled between her fingers. Gunnar’s eyes found hers. His mouth moved. I couldn’t hear what he said.

Two Kiss of Death members closed ranks around them. They moved with military efficiency. One of them dropped to a knee beside Gunnar, checking his pulse, barking an order to someone else. The other man positioned himself between the pair and the doorway, firing occasionally into the smoke. A third member joined them, and then they were a wall, shoulder to shoulder, creating a pocket of relative safety around Gunnar and Pippa.

The child Pippa had been protecting was wailing now, a high, thin sound. The older woman had scooped her up and was pressing her against the wall, one hand over the girl’s eyes.

I looked down at Melanie. She was curled into a ball, her face hidden against her knees, rocking slightly. Unhurt, as far as I could tell. Shocked, but physically intact.

The gunfire had mostly stopped. There was the occasional pop for the next several minutes. I tried to block that out because I knew those sounds were the Kiss of Death men executing an intruder. Which probably should have horrified me. Instead, knowing they were willing to risk getting caught and going to prison -- or the lethal injection chamber -- to keep everyone in this place safe made me feel better than I had in a very long time. I appreciated that sense of security more than anyone here could ever realize. Even my sister.

When I finally managed to talk myself into looking around the couch again, I saw men in dark suits moving through the smoke. When one of them calmly shot a man as he walked by, I realized the men in the suits were the ones doing the executing.

After a while, one of the men spoke into a small radio. “All clear, boss.”

Seconds later, Antonio Miles came through the opening. I recognized him from his regular visits to Haven. Tall, muscular, and imposing, he wore power and grace like an elegantly combined cloak. His dark chestnut hair was cleanly cut, his short beard neatly trimmed, both with a smattering of silver throughout. His charcoal suit looked like it cost more than everything I owned, and it was immaculate despite the dust and the early hour. His expression was composed, almost clinical, as he surveyed the common area.

Antonio’s men fanned out through the building. Two remained with him, flanking slightly behind. Antonio’s gaze swept the room. It paused on Gunnar. Anger and sorrow flickered across his face before he continued to take in the whole scene around him.

Until he saw me.

I still crouched beside Melanie who sat with her back against the wall, knees drawn up, watching everything with hollow eyes.

Antonio crossed to me with focused strides. He knelt, bringing himself to my eye level. He rested one arm on his bent knee as he leaned in to study me. Close up, I could see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, the subtle tension in his jaw. He smelled like expensive cologne with traces of gunpowder. And, God help me, it was an intoxicating combination on a man like him.

“Are you hurt?” His voice was level, but I sensed the tension in his voice. My answer mattered to him very much.

I shook my head, needing to speak but unable to. For multiple reasons. He held my gaze for long moments. When finally satisfied, he straightened in one fluid, effortless movement.

He turned to one of his men. “Did you get everyone?”

“Yes, sir. Three of the bastards are dead. One escaped through the lower service corridor but he won’t get off the property.”

“Make sure he doesn’t.” Antonio’s tone didn’t change. “The building?”

“Secure, but we’re going to have to move everyone. Housing women in high-risk situations always comes with violence.” The guy looked angry as he spoke to Tonio. “As great a thing as this is, talk to Knuckles about moving it deeper inside this maze of warehouses. Being adjacent to the compound isn’t going to cut it for Haven anymore.”

“Knuckles and I already have something in the works. Is help on the way?”

“Yes, sir. We have people coming to take the injured to your private wing at Vandy. They’ll have the best care in the state.”

It should have surprised me that the Miles family had a private hospital wing, but it really didn’t. I was beginning to think the man was richer than God. Which hit a little too close to home. I’d been sold to another man who’d been richer than God. The pattern wasn’t a comfortable one.

“Is someone coming for Gunnar?” I could see the devastation on Pippa’s face.

“Yeah, honey.” Knuckles, Pippa’s father and the president of Kiss of Death, knelt with his daughter to gently keep her out of the way while Pain and Nadine worked on Gunnar. He’d yet to speak but had nodded or shaken his head at questions Pain asked him.

“Gunnar. Please. Please look at me.”

Pippa’s worry and desperation hit me like a physical thing. Raw, stripped of everything except need. Gunnar had gone still again, his eyes closed, but his chest still rose and fell regularly, if a bit shallow. Men had somehow managed to get the beam off Gunnar and pulled him clear, but it was obvious he wasn’t out of danger.

Antonio knelt next to Gunnar on the opposite side from Pippa. “I’ve got a surgeon waiting on him,” Antonio said quietly. “I have a private ambulance on the way to take him to Vanderbilt. They will take him straight to surgery.” Pippa nodded without seeming to hear him.

Melanie reached out and rested her hand on mine, diverting my attention. She seemed to have pulled herself out of her panic. I knew how she felt. If I hadn’t had her to focus on, I doubt I’d have made it as far as I had without crawling into a tiny space to hide for a week.

“The children,” she said. Her voice was thin but steady. “Are the children safe?”

“They’re upstairs,” I told her. “In the other safe room. I saw them go in with Tiny and the men with him.”

She closed her eyes. “Good. That’s good.”

As she spoke, an ambulance crew hurried in, flanked by several of Nashville’s finest out of uniform. I recognized most of them as belonging to Antonio.

As I watched in silence, Tonio stood in the shadows out of the way and unobtrusive. But I felt his gaze focused directly on me. We stared at each other, neither willing to look away first.

The medics worked fast, sliding a board under Gunnar and strapping him down while Pippa clung to his hand. I saw Gunnar squeeze her hand and open his eyes once. He said something to her before the medics raised the stretcher to take him outside. Knuckles had to pry her fingers loose so they could leave with him, and she made that low and broken sound like a pained animal.

They hurried Gunnar through the ruined doorway into the night. Pippa stumbled after them. Knuckles went with her, his arm around her shoulders.

Melanie’s hand tightened on mine. I helped her up, and one of the suited men appeared at my elbow. He spoke softly to Melanie and reached out a hand for her to take. Surprisingly, she did. I watched him lead her toward the front, to whatever transport waited, and I should have followed. I knew I should have followed. But I couldn’t move with Antonio still looking at me.

He crossed the distance between us again. He stopped close enough that I had to tilt my head to hold his gaze, even after I stood.

“You went toward the fighting,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“I had to make sure anyone downstairs was safe. There are always people down here.”

“There were.” His expression was unreadable. “That cut at your hairline needs attention.”

“It’s just a scratch.”

“I didn’t ask how deep it was.” He lifted his hand and touched two fingers just below the matted blood at my temple. “I told you to let someone look at it.”

“You came for me,” I said. “Not Haven or anyone else here. Me. I saw it on your men’s faces when they found Melanie and me. I want to know why.”

For a long moment he said nothing. Then he opened his mouth as if to speak but didn’t. Finally, he lifted his chin. He should have looked arrogant, but the gesture came across as stubborn. When he spoke next, his answer wasn’t at all reassuring.

“When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”

Chapter Two

Antonio

The smoke had thinned enough to see the extent of the damage. I stood with Tessa’s question still hanging between us, and I did what I always did in the wake of violence. I surveyed the damage and planned for the future.

The common room was gutted. The couch lay on its side, stuffing bleeding through a rip in the leather. The coffee table had split down the middle. Glass dusted every surface, catching the light from the emergency lamps my men had rigged along the walls. Blood streaked the hardwood in a long smear, and I thought it might be Gunnar’s.

My men worked with the quiet efficiency of people who had done this before. Two carried a body wrapped in a black tarp between them, boots crunching through debris.

Across the room, Knuckles hovered near his daughter. Pippa had slid to the floor, her back against the wall, knees drawn to her chest. Her face was buried in her knees as she sobbed. Knuckles laid one hand on her shoulder. The other hung at his side in a fist so tight the skin of his hand blanched white. He watched the room, and the stillness in him was worse than any rage I had ever seen.

It wasn’t long before someone came for Pippa, and several of them left, presumably to go to the hospital. Gunnar had been loaded into the private ambulance fifteen minutes ago. The medics had worked fast. They’d stabilized him enough to move. Enough to give him a chance.

I turned away and walked the perimeter of the room. The structural damage was worse than I’d first thought. The outer wall had buckled inward. Steel reinforcements bent at odd angles, and concrete dust still sifted from the ceiling. The building was compromised. We’d known Haven was vulnerable, but nothing like this. Well. We’d already discussed moving the women’s shelter deeper into the property. Now, it seemed the discussion was over.

My head of security, Kass, fell into step beside me. He didn’t look at me and he kept his voice low. “Four hostiles. Three dead. One got out through the service corridor but not off the property. We found him two blocks east. Got him in the trunk.”

I nodded. “And the hit?”

He paused. “Guy said they were after a woman.” He handed me a picture but he didn’t have to tell me who they’d come for. Tessa knew way more about people who would do anything to keep their secrets than those people could afford.

I looked back at her. She had moved to the other side of the room, helping with the cleanup. Her shirt was torn at the shoulder. The cut above her temple had stopped bleeding, but the dried blood made a lock of hair stick to her forehead.

The woman she’d helped earlier, Melanie, sat nearby, wrapped in a blanket, staring at the wall. Tessa checked on her every few minutes. I watched Tessa’s face when she thought no one was looking. The guilt she felt was plain as daylight, even though she’d had no control over any of this.

The longer I observed her, the more intrigued I became. And I was already fucking intrigued. I wanted her behind my walls. Tonight. Not only would it be safer for the residents of Haven, but Tessa would be safer with my security. Plus, I’d get the added bonus of being able to study her. To figure out what made her tick.

“One more thing, Tonio.” Kass’s normally unflappable expression turned dark.

I looked at my head of security, narrowing my gaze. Kass was… pissed. “Why do I have the feeling I’m not going to like what you have to say next.”

“Because you’re not. Iron’s gone. Guys are still working out how, but he killed two guards and almost killed a third.”

“When?” I ground my teeth.

“Best we can tell, ten minutes after the attack here started.”

“This day just keeps getting better,” I mumbled, scrubbing a hand over my face. “I want her moved. Tonight. Take her to the property in the Smokies.”

Kass nodded and moved away to make the call. My father took Kastiel in when we were both boys, so I’d grown up with him. Other than my father, I trusted Kass the most of any person in my life.

I didn’t want to examine the thing in my chest. I didn’t need to. I knew what it was because I had the same fucking feeling for the people in my life who mattered. My father. My sister’s child, Carrie. Darby, my daughter, though God knew I’d tried to bury it all deep enough it wouldn’t surface. But it was the same feeling. The same certainty that Tessa would not be harmed on my watch.

I watched her a moment longer. Then I moved toward her, knowing I’d started making arrangements she didn’t know she needed and might not be too happy about.

The distinctive growl of a Harley cut off, then boots hit the gravel outside, moving quickly in our direction.

“Goddamn it. We missed the whole fucking party.” Darby came through the shattered doorway. My daughter had never needed an invitation to enter anywhere. She wore a leather property vest over a threadbare T-shirt, her dark hair pulled back in that messy braid that never quite contained all the pieces.

Sully followed three steps behind her, attempting to hold her back but failing miserably. As usual. He finally gave up trying to corral her and put his time to better use sweeping the room for any threats still in play.

The familiar tangle of pride, sharp and decidedly inconvenient, mixed with exasperation too closely related to fondness. I couldn’t fucking tell anymore. And beneath that, the thing I still didn’t want to make peace with, which was the sight of my daughter with a man twice her age who had prison in his past and a stillness in him that reminded me too much of men like myself.

Darby’s gaze found me across the room. She raised an eyebrow. “You could’ve called sooner.”

“You were on the road.”

“We were forty minutes out! We could’ve been here sooner!”

“You’re here now.” I kept my voice level. It was an old dance. She pushed, I held the line, and somewhere in the middle we found the place where we could stand without drawing blood. Now, anyway. It had been touch-and-go for a while.

She snorted and turned away, taking in the room with the quick, assessing look she’d had since she figured out which exits would get her clear fastest from my heavily fortified, heavily secured estate. Her gaze landed on Pippa, still huddled against the wall, and something in Darby’s face shifted. Hardened.

“What happened?” Darby was all business now, her voice soft as she questioned me.

“Gunnar’s hurt. Bad.”

Darby sucked in a breath. “Oh, no.” She looked back at Pippa where Hannah had moved to her side and held her while she cried. Knuckles still stood beside her, eyeing me. Yeah. I got it. He wanted blood, and I was right there with him.

Then Darby’s gaze caught when she skimmed over the room as she saw Tessa kneeling beside a woman with the bandaged arm, speaking quietly. The guilt shown on Tessa’s face, plain as day, telling me she’d come to the same conclusion we had.

Darby crossed the room without hesitation. She didn’t slow down when she reached them. She just dropped into a crouch beside Tessa and fixed her with a look that forced obedience.

“Stop it, Tessa,” Darby said.

Tessa blinked, and the woman beside her went quiet. “Stop what?” Tessa’s voice was careful.

“Whatever bullshit you’re telling yourself right now.” Darby gestured at the ruined room. “These assholes didn’t break down that wall because of you. They did it because they’re assholes. That’s it. That’s the whole story. You’re not taking blame on yourself for their shitty choices.”

Tessa stared at her. For a long moment, she didn’t speak. The set of her shoulders relaxed and she sighed. “They came for me,” Tessa said. Her voice was quiet. Matter of fact.

“Maybe.” Darby shrugged. “Doesn’t matter why they came. Matters that they chose to. That’s on them. Not you.” She pulled Tessa into a warm but gentle embrace. “You want to help, help. But this isn’t on you and I won’t let you believe it is.”

Tessa returned the hug. When Darby pulled back, she framed Tessa’s face in her hands and said something that made Tessa smile before Darby touched her forehead to Tessa, then went to Pippa.

I watched Tessa watch her go. The guilt hadn’t disappeared, but something had eased a bit of the tension in her expression. She turned back to the woman beside her and resumed whatever she’d been saying.

Sharp, unwelcome irritation rose inside me. My reckless, impossible daughter had just walked into the room and done in one sentence what I had been circling around for the past hour. To be fair, I hadn’t had to consider a woman’s feelings before. Not like this. She’d reached Tessa in a way I hadn’t managed to, and the worst part was she hadn’t even been trying. Christ, I didn’t need this. Feeling something for a woman not my blood. I’d learned that lesson with Jen and paid for it with not having Darby in my life for twenty-three years.

Sully had moved to the edge of the room. He stood with his back to the wall, one hand resting lightly on Darby’s shoulder as she crouched beside Pippa. His gaze still moved over the room in that slow, methodical way of his.

I forced myself to turn away. I needed to make sure Kass had everything I needed to secure Tessa away from here. While no one blamed her for any of this, I was bastard enough to use her guilt to encourage her to do what I wanted. Like I should have done with Jen and my father over two decades ago.

Securing arrangements and coordinating the cleanup ate away most of the day. By the time I finished, the promised rain had blown through, and I found Tessa in the kitchen. She leaned over the counter with her head down, looking like the weight of the world had settled firmly on her shoulders. She looked up when I approached. When her gaze locked on mine, I knew she’d leave when I told her to without argument.

“You’re leaving,” I told her.

She straightened slowly. “I hadn’t decided yet.”

“I have. You’re going to a property in the Smokies. Now. My driver’s outside waiting.”

She stared at me. The cut above her temple had started to bleed again, a thin line tracking toward her eyebrow, but she didn’t wipe it away.

“Your driver,” she repeated. Her voice had gone very quiet. “You’ve decided to send me somewhere. Just like that.”

“Yes.”

“No discussion? No asking what I want?” I could see the temper rising in her eyes. She definitely didn’t like being dictated to.

“The building is compromised, and I think you suspect you were the target. Discussion is a luxury you don’t have right now.”

Anger flashed in her eyes, bright and sudden. She opened her mouth to respond, but Knuckles stepped between us before she could speak. He inserted himself into the conversation with easy authority.

“She stays.” His voice was flat. “Haven protects its own. We don’t hand our people to the Miles family, alliance or not.”

I held his gaze. Knuckles was a head taller than me and built solid as a tank. The only bigger man in the club was Tiny, and I had my doubts that man was even human, he was so big.

“The alliance,” I said, “includes the understanding that when one of us identifies a security risk, we address it. Like it or not, Tessa was the target of this attack. I will be taking her somewhere secure until the threat to her is… addressed.”

“Then she goes somewhere secure on Kiss of Death property. Not yours.” Knuckles crossed his arms over his chest. I probably should have been intimidated but couldn’t be bothered. It wasn’t like Knuckles thought he would win this argument. He argued for argument’s sake sometimes. At least, that’s what I figured, because I always got what I wanted.

“The property in the Smokies has better security. Electronic countermeasures. Reinforced construction. And the only way in or out is by helicopter or ATV. Or possibly a horse, though some of the terrain would be difficult for even the most experienced rider. No one gets in or out of that property without me knowing it.”

Behind Knuckles, Griffin stood with his arms crossed. He hadn’t moved from his position near the wall where he watched over his woman, Veda. He stood, quiet and immovable, his green eyes watching the exchange with careful attention.

Veda stepped beside Tessa, putting her arm around her sister. Veda Garrison was lean and angular, her dark hair pulled back in a practical ponytail. She fixed me with a look that could have cut diamonds.

“If she goes anywhere,” Veda said, “I go with her.” The fear in her voice was sharp, and I knew she only wanted her sister safe and trusted her man’s club more than she trusted me.

“She goes to my safehouse,” I said. “Both of you, if that’s what it takes. But the decision stands. She moves tonight.”

Tessa stood wordlessly between us, her sister gripping her arm. Knuckles looked at her. Then at me. Then back at her. “This isn’t our call,” he said finally. His voice had changed. Something in it had gentled, which from Knuckles was more unsettling than any threat. “It’s hers. Always has been.”

Tessa looked at Knuckles. Then at me. Then at the ruined common room, the women huddled in the doorway, the blood on the floor where Gunnar had gone down. She took a breath, then let it go. “I’ll go,” she said softly. “But not because you decided.” She turned to me, her gaze level. Steady in a way that made something in my chest tighten. “I’m going because whoever came through that wall came for me, and I will not stand here and watch this place get torn apart any more while someone else gets hurt protecting me.” Her voice shook with emotion. I could see tears glistening in her eyes.

She raised her chin, though, and held back her tears. “Haven is supposed to be safe. These women came here because they needed somewhere no one would find them. They deserve to feel safe.” Her voice didn’t waver. “So yes. I’ll go to your safehouse. But I’m going because it’s the right thing to do for them. Not because Antonio Miles told me to.”

Holding back my triumphant smile took every ounce of my self-control. I’d achieved exactly what I’d come for. Tessa Garrison would be behind my walls tonight. In my care in a place where I controlled the variables. I’d won. But her show of defiance almost made me double over in pain. Because my cock shot hard and aching like she’d flipped on a light switch.

I’d expected her fear. I had not expected her quiet, unwavering determination to keep the others safe, even at the expense of her own comfort.

“I’ll bring you back,” I said. “The moment you ask. No conditions. No questions. You say the word, and you’ll leave my cabin within the hour and be back here straight away.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “That’s acceptable.”

Knuckles stepped forward. He didn’t look at Tessa. He looked at me, his eyes cold. “Griffin, get Knight to give Tessa a sat phone. Tessa, you keep that phone on you and charged. We’ll check in with you every day. And, Antonio? You break that promise…” Knuckles took a menacing step closer to me “… and Kiss of Death comes for you. Family or not. Alliance or not. You understand me?”

I held his gaze. The threat in it was real. Knuckles did not make threats he wasn’t prepared to carry out. I had seen what happened to men who’d crossed him. I also happened to know Knuckles was making a point. Not to me, but to Tessa. He had her back. The whole club did.

“I do,” I said. And I meant it.

He held my gaze for a long moment. Then he nodded, once, and turned away.

I needed some air. I stepped outside through what was left of the front entrance. The air hit cool and clean after the smoke inside.

Darby found me anyway. She always did. We had built a relationship of sorts since she’d come to be with Sully. She didn’t treat me as a father figure but more as an equal. I couldn’t deny she’d become a close friend. I trusted her and, by extension, Sully.

She came out through the same ruined doorway, pulling her jacket tighter against the chill. No Sully this time. She stopped beside me but didn’t acknowledge me at first. My driver now waited with the engine running for me and Tessa to leave for the airport.

“Don’t smother her,” she said.

“Tessa?” I made it a question when we both knew it wasn’t. Darby had me figured out better than anyone in my life except, possibly, my father.

She rolled her eyes. “No, Tonio,” she snapped. “The Goddamned Tooth Fairy. Yes, Tessa! She’s stronger than she first looked. The hell she went through might have bent her a bit, but she’s not broken. Don’t treat her like she is.”

“Darby,” I said. Her name came out rough. I had nothing after it.

“Just saying. She’ll surprise you if you let her. And if you don’t, you’ll be missing out on something truly special.” She held my gaze for a long moment. Then she shook her head once and walked back inside.

I stood in the cold air. She was right. From the moment I met Darby, she’d been able to see through me. Seth too. She’d inherited that from her mother.

I went back inside to see if Tessa was ready. She had changed into clothes that weren’t torn or bloodstained. Her hair was pulled back, the cut above her temple cleaned and bandaged. She stood with a small bag at her feet, talking quietly to her sister.

Veda looked up when I approached. The distrust in her eyes was palpable but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she gave me the stink eye. Yeah. I got it. No one was happy with me taking Tessa away from them, but they also knew I made sense.

“I’m ready,” Tessa said.

I picked up her bag, and we walked toward the front entrance together. Outside, my driver had the car door open. The interior light cast a warm glow across the gravel.

Tessa paused and looked back at Haven and her sister. Then she turned and walked to the car. I followed and got in beside her. The door closed with a soft, expensive click. My driver pulled away from the curb, Haven receding in the rear window.

Tessa sat beside me, her hands in her lap, her gaze fixed out the window. She was quiet and composed. I wanted to reach for her hand. I didn’t. I wanted to tell her she was safe now. That nothing would touch her behind my walls. That I would stand between her and any threat that came for her, and that threat would not survive the encounter. I didn’t say that either.

The car moved through the wet streets toward the airport and my waiting helicopter. I would keep my promise. I would bring her back the moment she asked. But if I played my cards right, she might want to stay with me. For a while.

The car turned into the private drive to my hanger, the helicopter ready and waiting for us. Kass stood just outside ready to open our door. I had what I wanted.

Somehow, in the getting of what I wanted, I’d lost every illusion I’d ever had about why I wanted this girl. No matter what I told myself -- or anyone else -- I didn’t just want to keep Tessa safe. I wanted her for my own.

Chapter Three

Tessa

The car rolled onto the tarmac, cutting through puddles from the afternoon rain. A helicopter sat waiting, its rotors in motion and three men in dark jackets standing by. I could feel the thump of the blades before I even stepped out. My legs wobbled a little, but I made myself walk to the open door and climb in without looking at Antonio. My duffle landed on the seat next to me, the only thing that belonged to me in this entire production.

Antonio climbed in next. The guy named Kass followed, sitting across from us and closing the hatch behind him. Once we all were safely buckled in, the pilot gave a thumbs-up through the plexiglass, and we lifted off, straight up, a tight, sickening lurch in my stomach. I braced my palm against the seat to keep my hand from shaking.

The city shrank under us, the skyscrapers of downtown looking like haunted castles as the clouds closed in on the still moonlit skyline. No one spoke the entire hour-long flight. My head swam with all the things I should have asked earlier before I agreed to leave with Antonio.

A red light inside the cabin snapped on and the engine’s pitch changed. The helicopter started to drop. I looked out the window and saw a well-lit flat patch of concrete on top of a rocky shoulder, lined with lights and a windsock. We touched down in one smooth maneuver then stayed seated while the rotors powered down.

A set of heavy steel doors stood at the edge of the pad. They opened to a tunnel, sloping gently down into the rock. I quickly grabbed up my bag. Antonio helped me out of the cabin, steadied me while my legs adjusted to being back on land, then led me toward the tunnel. The air inside was cool and dry, almost with a sterile feel about it. Security cameras nestled in the corners and a touch panel glowed softly in the dim lighting. Kass followed at my back, which meant I couldn’t run even if I wanted to.

The tunnel opened into a space that was half mountain lodge, half Bond villain bunker. Someone had spent some serious fucking money making it look accidental. The walls were wood, but the seams were perfect. The furniture was obviously expensive but understated and vintage-looking. I saw a fireplace built of black stone and a glass coffee table the size of a raft.

A spiral staircase led upstairs to a hallway stretching off to the left to what I assumed were the living areas. If I had to describe the look of the place, I’d put it at modern rustic with state-of-the-art luxuries.

Antonio stopped at the center of the room and let me catch up. He didn’t look at me when he spoke. “You’ll have the top floor. The stairwell is alarmed and there’s a secure phone in your suite. You can use it to call Kass or anyone else on staff. Kitchen’s always stocked. There’s a med room on the first floor. A doctor comes by every other day unless I call him.” He said it like he was reciting a list of guest amenities, but I heard the part he didn’t say. Every layer of this place was designed to keep someone inside and comfortable for a very long time.

Kass peeled off down the hallway, leaving us alone. Antonio waited for me to say something, but my mouth was dry and every muscle in my body buzzed with adrenaline.

“Thanks,” I said, because it was the only thing I could think to say.

He turned to face me. His expression didn’t give anything away. “You’re safe here,” he said. “I’ll protect you with my life, Tessa.”

“I didn’t ask for that. I don’t want anyone’s life in my hands like that.”

“No, you didn’t ask. I’m giving you my protection. That’s not something I give to anyone but family.”

That surprised me, but I didn’t know what to say or what questions to ask yet. I needed some space to think. He watched me a second longer, then walked to the base of the spiral stairs and gestured for me to precede him which I did. On the third step, my foot slipped. He caught my elbow with one hand while his other arm went around my back, holding me against his body to keep me from falling. I stiffened but didn’t push him away. He held me for a second before loosening the embrace slightly, then letting go.

Christ, I was so fucked. So fucking fucked. Being in Antonio’s arms felt better than anything I could have ever possibly imagined. I had no idea if this man meant it when he said he’d keep me safe, but the way I felt with his arms around me made a believer out of me.

I shook off the emotional response. The only way I’d survive this was to keep my wits about me. I couldn’t afford to fall under the spell of Antonio Miles.

At the top of the stairs, a hallway branched off into several doors. He opened the first one and stepped aside so I could enter. The suite inside was bigger than any apartment I’d ever lived in. As he showed me where everything was, I got the general layout. There was a reading nook next to a huge picture window overlooking the valley, a bathroom with a soaking tub, and two bedrooms. Windows on the other side looked straight out at the mountains, the sun sinking behind them in the distance.

“The windows are bulletproof. It’s perfectly safe to enjoy the view.”

“Is this a safehouse, or a prison?” I asked.

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he came into the room and stood by the window, gazing out at the trees. “It’s a bit of both,” he said, finally. “But it’s yours. For now.” At least he didn’t lie to me. I could deal with honesty. That way, I could prepare for the immediate future.

Once he left, I unpacked my bag. There were fresh clothes in the closet. My favorite shampoo was already in the shower. Someone had put several bottles of my brand of water in the fridge. I opened one and drank half in one go, then paced the length of the suite until my heartbeat slowed.

The sun set fast behind the ridge. I watched the sky go dark, the stars push through the black. I waited for the fear to settle, but it didn’t.

After a while, I stopped pacing and lay down on the bed. The sheets smelled fresh and clean and the cool pillow felt soothing against my cheek. I closed my eyes and decided I’d figure it all out after some rest. Surprisingly, I drifted off easily.

* * *

The next morning, a woman with a headset and a tablet knocked on my door. She looked younger than I but had the bearing of someone who’d been at this a while. She told me her name was Mae, and led me through the main part of the house to the great room.

Antonio sat at the head of a long dining table, scrolling his phone with a cup of coffee in front of him. He looked up and watched me cross the room, his gaze taking me in. I kept my chin up, because I knew I absolutely could not show weakness to this man.

Seth Miles entered from the kitchen. He wore charcoal gray slacks and a black silk shirt open at the throat. He’d rolled up his sleeves, displaying tanned, muscular forearms. A tattoo snaked around one arm to the top of his hand. He stood as tall as his son but wasn’t as broad-shouldered. His movements were graceful and full of controlled power. It was easy to see the resemblance between the two men.

He fixed his gaze on me and, try as I might, I couldn’t keep from looking away.

“Miss Garrison,” he said. “I’m pleased you made the journey safely.” I could tell he meant what he said. His voice was warm, but not soft, but this wasn’t a man you crossed. Ever. He sat across from me. Antonio seemed to ignore us as Seth studied me for a few seconds. “I trust my son has made you comfortable.”

“I should thank you for your hospitality,” I said. “Though, I confess, I didn’t expect this.” I waved my hand to indicate the opulent surroundings.

Seth’s mouth ticked up at the corner. “You’re very welcome, my dear.” He poured coffee into a second cup and slid it across the table to me. “But I suspect you have questions.”

I looked at Antonio. He maintained his poker face, but his knuckles had gone white around the coffee mug. I was supposed to make this easy for them, to say thank you, accept the food, shelter, and the security, and go along with whatever they decided to do with me. Unfortunately for everyone involved, that wasn’t going to work for me. “Who tried to hit Haven?” I asked. “And why do they want me?”

Seth didn’t blink. “You come to the point quickly. Good.” He looked at Antonio, then back at me. “The first answer is Iron. The second answer is less clear. By simply surviving, you’ve made some powerful enemies. I believe Iron is acting on behalf of someone else, but my men are still mapping out the network.”

I took the cup but didn’t drink. “Is there a third answer?”

“Yes,” he said. “You’re a convenient leverage against my son.” He said it with zero judgment. “There is no shortage of people who would like to test the Miles family. Some think the best way is through those we have an interest in.”

I could feel Antonio’s stare, but I didn’t look at him. “I’m of no interest to Antonio.”

Seth actually chuckled as he shook his head… almost like he thought I was too cute for words. “He disagrees, I think,” he said, nodding at Antonio with a grin so much like a wolf in a fable my stomach turned over. “My son doesn’t make a habit of bringing home women he doesn’t care about. Not for any reason.”

I risked a glance. He kept his jaw locked and didn’t confirm or deny. I set the coffee mug down. “That’s not my concern. I need to know how long I’m a target.”

Seth sat back in his chair and considered me. “Realistically? Until we put Iron in the ground. Or until whoever’s paying him stops caring about you. Which could be never.” That was about what I expected, but confirmation did not make it better.

“I want to see the files,” I said, abruptly changing the subject.

Seth raised an eyebrow, glancing at Antonio again. “What files are you referring to?”

“The stuff my sister got. I want to know who was coming for me that night, and what they’re willing to pay. And then, I want to know what happens to the women who don’t make it to Haven and who bought them.”

He drummed his fingers once, then stopped. “You don’t trust us to protect you?”

I shrugged. “I want to know what’s coming. If you can show me, do it. If you can’t, then don’t pretend I’m safer here than anywhere else because I’m telling you right now, knowledge is power, and I’m through being weak.”

A long, thick silence followed. Seth’s gaze sharpened. “You remind me of someone.” He didn’t elaborate. Instead, he leaned back and turned his attention to Antonio.

“If she wants this, I’m not going to deny her,” he said. “Have Kass see to it.”

Antonio gave me a curious look, like he couldn’t quite figure me out. “Do you want the raw data or the summary my team created with clear ties to each individual we’ve currently identified?” That surprised me. I didn’t expect either of them to give in this easily.

Seth rose from the table. “Antonio, we’ll talk after you get Miss Garrison settled.”

Antonio didn’t speak until the sound of his father’s footsteps faded. “You blindsided him,” he said.

“I won’t be a pawn,” I said. “Never again. I don’t like surprises.”

He actually smiled. “Neither does he.”

“Will you really let me see what you have?” I asked. “Because I want the actual names.”

“It’s already on the way,” he said. “Your sister had a lot of really good information. So far, we’ve verified everything she collected.”

I drank the coffee, black and hot, and watched him over the rim of the cup. For the first time since I’d been taken from Enclave Éclipse, I felt the momentum swing solidly in my direction. I might not know much about the men in this house, but I knew both were powerful and got what they wanted. If anyone could do something about this whole fucked-up mess, I guess it would be the Miles family.

I finished my coffee and stood to leave the table. Antonio moved to my side and guided me out of the kitchen with a hand at the small of my back. He walked me to the suite he and Seth had assigned me. The hallway was wide enough for us to walk side by side.

The wood floors were old but had been expensively refinished and preserved for durability. The walls carried framed sketches and paintings. A few small sculptures sat in various nooks or shelves.

Halfway down, I saw a painting that didn’t fit. It showed a sunrise, all oranges and wet blue, the paint laid in beautiful, textured lines accenting the color gradients and swirling clouds. It hadn’t been framed, but rather the stretched canvas leaned on the floor against the open door of what looked like a small study.

I slowed to look, but Antonio kept moving. He must have realized I wasn’t with him because he slowed, turning to look for me. “You like it?” he said, when he realized what caught my attention.

“Who did it?” I asked.

He didn’t answer immediately, just turned to me, his jaw tensed for a second. “Darby’s mother. I thought Darby should have it.”

“Why are you just now giving it to her?” I looked up at him.

“I only recently found out about Darby. When I did, Darby was resistant to my protection.” He gestured to the painting. “Darby is very much like her mother in many ways. From what Darby has told me, the woman I knew and the woman who raised my daughter were two very different people. I wanted Darby to know the woman I fell in love with.”

“She was good,” I whispered. For some reason, his admission of love for his daughter’s mother hurt me in multiple ways. I ached for the man who’d lost someone he obviously cared about, but I also felt a stab of uncomfortable jealousy. For no fucking reason!

He nodded, but his face held strain and grief even now. “This way.”

When we came to my door, I punched in my code to unlock it. “Did Mae show you the comm panel?”

“Yes. She said if I need anything to use this.” I pointed to the panel by the door. “And they’d take care of anything I needed immediately.”

“We’re generally on our own out here, but we get resupplied as often as we need. If we don’t request anything, someone comes on Thursday afternoon.”

“I’m not going to run,” I said, again, throwing out a different topic of conversation. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No. I’m more worried you’ll decide to burn the whole place down around me and my father.”

“Is that what she did? Darby’s mother?” I had no idea why I asked the question. It was a low blow to a man who’d been nothing but kind. If a bit pushy.

He held my gaze for a long, hard second. Then he shook his head, once, and left, closing the door between us without acknowledging my question.

I took a breath and sighed. Seemed like I’d royally screwed that up. Scrubbing a hand over my face, I explored my suite. It was huge, and I could see myself living here comfortably for several weeks. Or months, even.

The main room was dominated by the windows, a wall of glass that looked out over the ridgeline. A stone fireplace was on one wall, wood stacked carefully beside it. A slate-gray sofa, oversized and deep, faced the windows, with a rug underfoot so plush my feet sank in. A small kitchen sat to the right, with rustic charm but modern efficiency.

Two bedrooms branched off the main space, both with more of those windows and beds that were nests of down and expensive linen. The master bath had a shower the size of a walk-in closet, and a tub big enough to drown in. Everything was monochrome stone, metal, or wood, with no clutter or anything personal.

I paced every inch of the place, running my hand along surfaces while looking for anything to indicate I was being watched or monitored. Like I’d know if I was. This place was more high-tech than anything I’d ever been around. The second bedroom looked like it had been converted to an office, so I set up my laptop in it. Once I had the information I’d asked for, I’d start going through everything. After that, I’d make my list of people who needed to die.

After a while, I knew I needed to get out of this room. Though I had plenty of room in this spacious suite, I still felt confined. I opened my door and padded down the hallway. I descended the stairs and rounded the corner. Though this fortress had thick walls, as I got closer to the kitchen area, voices still carried somewhat. I picked out a woman’s voice first, then a man answering. Two people stood at the kitchen island. The woman was tall, my age or a little older, with dark hair pulled back. She wore jeans and a black thermal. The man had the build of a wrestler, with scars along his forearms and a ready smile.

Antonio sat at the end of the island. He acknowledged me with a tilt of his head. “Come in, Tessa. You should meet our guests.” Of course he knew I was here. I’d forgotten the stairs had an alarm. Hadn’t Antonio told me himself?

I stepped into the kitchen and got the full impact of the woman’s gaze. She sized me up in a single pass, head to toe, but I didn’t feel like she found me lacking or anything. In fact, I thought she might be judging me to see how big of a physical threat I represented. Given the fact her features softened before she gave me a genuine smile, I figured she either didn’t consider me a threat or considered me a threat she could easily contain.

“This is Carrie Miles,” Antonio said. “And Hawk. Carrie is my niece. Her mother was my sister.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t meet you at Haven,” she said. Her accent was hard to place. “Veda said you wanted privacy for a while. We all chipped in with the care packages, though.”

I straightened, my eyes going wide. “Oh, my God. Carrie. You’re the one who sent me the DVDs of both versions of the movie Carrie.” I couldn’t help the grin. “Please say the story Hannah told me about how you and Chains met was true.”

“Oh, it’s definitely true.” Hawk gave me a big smile, which softened as he looked fondly down at the woman beside him.

“So, if you’re Antonio’s niece, you’re Seth’s granddaughter?”

“Suppose I am. Didn’t grow up with any of them, but they claim me now.”

She looked at Antonio, then at me, then back again. “He’s protective of you,” she said, nodding at Antonio. “You know that, right?”

“I know he convinced Knuckles and Hannah to let him bring me here, though the reason why I’m actually in one of his family’s homes is still something I’m trying to figure out.” I tried to be careful how I worded my explanation because I didn’t want to alienate this woman. Also, it was easy to see Carrie was different from the others. Even from Hannah, and I knew firsthand how dangerous Hannah could be. Carrie seemed somehow more so.

“Fair enough.” Carrie let her smile fade, showing me the woman beneath. “I’m here to keep you safe,” she said. “That’s the deal.” Hawk said nothing, just kept watch. If Carrie wanted to go outside and start a fight, he’d follow without asking why. It was the first time I’d ever seen a man let a woman call the shots. I got the feeling Carrie was as much Hawk’s equal as Hannah was Knuckles’. “But let me make one thing perfectly clear. I’m just getting to know Tonio and Seth. But they’re family. Tonio, even if he can be a colossal pain in the ass, is still my family.”

“I hear you,” I said, holding up a hand as I interrupted her. “I’m not here to fuck anyone over. Antonio has been kind to me.” I sighed. “Even if I don’t want to admit it, I needed him when he found me. So, while I can’t say I’m thrilled at the circumstances or the situation as a whole, as long as he doesn’t fuck me over I won’t retaliate.”

Carrie tilted her head before nodding. “OK. I can respect that.” She grinned.

“Glad we got that straight.” I turned to see Darby strolling into the room with a big grin on her face. “Though I’ll support putting Superglue in his shampoo if you want.” Of course, Darby made no effort to hide that she’d been eavesdropping.

Antonio watched, one corner of his mouth twitching. “Glad you’re all getting along,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “We’re just one big happy family.”

Carrie looked at me again, and this time there was a flicker of calculated interest in her gaze. “Want to get a drink?” she asked.

I looked at Darby, who was already headed to the kitchen’s liquor shelf. “Of course, we do,” she muttered. “What kind of question is that?”

Darby poured us all a round of Crown before holding up her glass. “To getting shitfaced in a Miles luxury safehouse.”

We all giggled as we clinked glasses and drank. For the first time since arriving, I didn’t feel like prey. I could feel pieces to my goals clicking into place. I had the feeling these people truly were allies and would help me bring my abusers to justice. I knew the stakes were high, and there was most definitely no guarantee of success. But I knew I had more hope than I’d had an hour ago.

That night, I lay in the dark, replaying everything I’d gone through in the last twenty-four hours. Too much. Too much had been thrown at me and I had to fight to keep down the fear and anger threatening to overwhelm me again.

Later. I’d deal with everything later. For now, I closed my eyes and smiled. I now had a fighting chance, and that was all I needed.

Chapter Four

Tessa

Antonio waited until the sun was high before calling me down to the study. I’d spent the morning with my laptop, digging through my first pass of Knight’s summary, but what Antonio had was the full unfiltered dump, the raw documents my sister had gathered. I just needed to see with my own eyes exactly who, what, when, and why. I had no illusion I could do anything about any of it, but I wanted to have the chance to look these men and women in the eyes and tell them I knew exactly what they’d done. Might never happen, but I still wanted to know.

His study was cozy, dressed in dark wood throughout, but it was understated without looking or feeling pretentious. The view out over the deep valley was simply breathtaking. In the middle of the room, a large rectangular table held several stacks of papers and printouts. I took a seat and folded my hands on the table.

Antonio slid Knight’s packet of the raw evidence to me, unfiltered and unredacted. I’d never seen anything like the scale of the viper’s den I’d become a part of. Names, shell corporations, LLCs built for short periods of time and then dissolved, bank accounts that didn’t even pretend to be legal. Photos, too. Not the kind you put on social media, but candids, surveillance pulls, group shots at parties with people I recognized as being some of the most powerful in this part of the country.

“Knight built this in forty-eight hours,” Antonio said. “He worked off what you and your sister put together, then took apart every phone and laptop we grabbed from the attackers at Haven.”

The first few names and faces meant nothing. Most of them looked like men in their forties, wearing expensive-looking suits and flashing big watches and pinky rings. Yeah. No stereotypes there. A few women appeared, too. The shell company stuff went over my head, though the money amounts were substantial. Then I saw a face I recognized. Not from real life, but from the news. “That’s the judge,” I said. “The one from the news last month.”

Antonio nodded. “He’s on a plane to Belize right now. He’ll never set foot in Nashville again.”

“He brokered sales for a human trafficking ring, one I got forced into, and he gets to live a life of luxury? Is that your version of justice?”

“No one said anything about him living in luxury. I only sent him to Belize because that’s one of the places we found this network passed through. He has a surprise waiting for him when he gets there.”

I tilted my head. “Surprise?”

“Yes.” He met my gaze straight on. “Turns out, there’s a significant market for middle-aged, entitled, rich assholes. My understanding is that the very small population of female billionaires in Belize have some pretty significant anger management issues when it comes to the aforementioned middle-aged, entitled, rich assholes.”

I had to replay that in my head before I believed he’d actually said that, but then I nodded. “I can see how that might not work out so well for him.”

“No. Especially since I gave a heads-up to someone in the know.”

“I mean, I respect the deviousness. I should probably put you in the same category as the assholes who took me, but I’m not stupid enough to not see the difference.”

“I did what I needed to get Judge Marlin out of the country and away from prying eyes. For all intents and purposes, he’s disappeared. Never to be seen again.”

I flipped through the pages, trying to quickly skim as much as I could. One was flagged red. “Dominic Denton.” I stopped and looked up at Antonio. My throat tightened.

“Do you know him?”

“No,” I said, but it was a lie. “Maybe. I don’t know.” I forced myself to keep looking. The file on Denton was thick. The photos showed a suited man with silver at the temples. The file also contained receipts for cash, for international wire transfers, for luxury vehicles, and for security details that cost more per week than I’d ever made in a year.

I tried to remember where I’d seen the name before. Nothing came. I scrolled farther, hands shaking now. There were more photos. One looked recent. Denton at some black-tie event. Arm around a woman who looked bored out of her skull. The background was blurred, but I recognized the pattern on the wall as belonging to Enclave Éclipse.

I slammed the picture on the desk before shoving myself away from the table. I spun around and paced away. “He was there,” I said. “At Éclipse. The night I was taken.” The memory came up all at once, so hard it left me dizzy. “He talked to Iron. I was in the back. I didn’t want to be, but… I think I was supposed to serve drinks for the man’s party. He never looked at me. But I remember his voice. I remember him telling Iron he wanted the next shipment to be cleaner.”

“Cleaner?” Antonio’s voice was soft. “What does that mean?”

“He didn’t want the girls looking ‘used.’ Said it hurt resale.” The memory hit me so hard I broke out in a sweat. I hugged myself tightly, trying to catch my breath. “I didn’t know what he meant then, but I found out later.”

Antonio didn’t move, but the way his hands curled on the table told me everything. “Do you need a break?”

I shook my head and returned to the table to sit. Then I plowed on. Every line in the file felt worse than the last. Denton had enough money to make people disappear. There were receipts for hundreds of thousands spent on “charity.” Then a line item for “consulting,” paid out to a firm in Miami that Knight had already flagged as a cover for a private security and investigative company.

“You see this?” Antonio pointed to the payment record. “This is the firm that did the last surveillance run on Haven. They knew the layout, knew where the cameras were. They paid top dollar to get the information they needed to hit Haven.”

I wanted to vomit. Instead, I kept going deeper into the file. Knight had a whole section labeled “Narrative Management.” I opened it, expecting more payments. Instead, I got a list of media contacts, local reporters, PR agencies, and something called Lattice Partners.

Antonio leaned in. “That’s a crisis management firm. Denton owns it, through two layers of shell companies.”

It hit me what that meant. “He writes the story before the news happens.”

“Exactly. Knight found three separate drafts for the Haven attack. They were going to call it a drug raid gone wrong and blame the women while painting Kiss of Death as armed thugs.”

I looked at the booklet again. “So even if we died, it would have been our fault.”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he watched me. I forced myself to keep reading. The next few files were technical, too dense for me to follow. Then there was a folder of emails. I opened the most recent. It was from Denton to someone called “Crandall.” The tone was businesslike, but final. “Complete the job, then lose the asset.” The date was three days ago.

I read it three times. “He wants me dead,” I said.

Antonio didn’t argue. “He wants any loose ends gone. The only reason you’re still here is because you fought, and because the men in Kiss of Death aren’t exactly what they seem.”

I looked back at the photo of Denton at Éclipse and the biggest wave of hate and disgust washed through me. It felt like an oily slime coating my skin from the inside out.

A crash from the hallway made me jump. The door banged open, and Darby walked in like she owned the place. “Did you find it?” she asked. She wore ripped jeans and a black thermal, with her braid over one shoulder. She went right to the minifridge, pulled out a can of something, and popped the tab.

“We found a name,” I said. “Dominic Denton.”

Darby’s eyes went sharp. “That fucker.” She dropped into a chair and leaned back, putting her booted feet on the table, even though it made Antonio twitch.

“You know him?” I asked.

She nodded. “He’s been in the club scene forever. He runs parties, buys out whole clubs for ‘events.’ Always brings his own security. I kind of figured he was sketchy, but not this level of evil.”

Antonio studied Darby. “You ever work for him?”

She snorted. “He doesn’t hire people like me. He finds compliant, timid people.” She narrowed her gaze at me. “Which is surprising because you don’t seem like the blindly compliant sort of person.” She pointed at the file. “I recognized another name, too. Rourke. Cade Rourke.”

The file there listed him as a party broker. He ran a fleet of black SUVs for VIPs. His last payment had been logged two days ago.

“Cade’s not as slick as Denton,” Darby said. “He’s a heavy drinker and frequents several bars in the local area. More importantly, he talks. If you want to get at Denton, Cade’s the way in.”

Antonio absorbed that, slow and deliberate. “Is he reliable?”

Darby shrugged. “Motivated’s better than reliable. He’s greedy, and he hates Denton. He’ll talk if you squeeze him right.”

Antonio picked up his own phone and tapped a few times. Then he looked at the man standing in the doorway. “Find Rourke. You know where to take him. Keep Kass informed.” The man nodded and vanished.

Darby whistled. “Someone’s not fucking around.”

Antonio ignored her, turning back to me. “You did good, Tessa. Most people would have quit halfway down that file.”

“I don’t have the luxury,” I said. “Not if I want to live.”

“Is this helping clear some of the haze around your memory?” he asked. He looked closely at me and waited for an answer.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s helping a lot. It was all there before, but the pictures of these guys… The ones I recognize have varying creep factors, but this is the evilest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

He nodded once. “Then keep going. As long as it takes. As long as you need to.”

He stood, walked around the table, and stopped behind my chair. He rested his hand on my shoulder for one second, then let it drop.

I watched him leave, then looked at Darby. She had her feet back on the table, grinning at me. “You’re not what I expected,” she said.

“Neither are you.”

Darby grinned wider. “I think you’re starting to get it. Just remember reputation can only give you part of the picture.”

I looked back at the files spread out over the table. Denton’s face stared back at me. I wanted to remember it forever.

Darby drained her can and belched. “Well, shit,” she said. “Guess it’s time to ruin some lives.”

I smiled at that. For the first time in a long time, it felt real.

I took the whole mess back to my suite and spent the rest of the day reading through the documents Knight had put together. By the end of it, I needed to take a shower. I felt filthy by association, reading everything Veda had found on these guys, as well as new stuff Knight had found. It brought my whole ordeal back to the surface. I would never again be as helpless as I’d been while I’d been held captive. Never again.

An hour before dusk, I heard voices from the lower level. The cadence was sharp, then punctuated by a single short bark from Antonio, cutting everything off. I waited a count of ten, then opened the door at the end of the hall and made my way downstairs.

At the back of the living room, a door leading down a flight of stairs had been left open. The voices were quieter now, which made me think things had been rather rowdy when I’d first heard the commotion.

I went down the stairs which opened up into a large room, like the observers’ side of an interrogation room. A closed door separated one side from the other and what I assumed was one-way glass -- like in the movies -- showed the inhabitant of the other side of the room.

In the center of the smaller, separate room, a single chair sat bolted to the floor with what looked like a drain underneath.

Antonio stood in front of the glass. He didn’t acknowledge me, but I saw him in the reflection because he met my gaze and held it for a long moment. I glanced past him to see the person on the other side of the glass. The guy zip-tied to the chair was likely the man captured when Haven had been attacked. Kass stood against the wall next to Antonio, arms folded and face blank like he was supremely bored.

When Antonio finally spoke, he didn’t turn around. “You’re not getting any closer, Tessa,” he said. “You can watch from here, but you’re not going in that room.”

“Why?” The question popped out before I could censor it, but I refused to apologize. I wanted to know everything Antonio did. I had a right to because of the blood I’d paid.

Antonio didn’t bother to answer. Behind us, Kass’s voice came low and toneless. “He doesn’t want you to see what happens to men who cross him.” Kass kept his gaze on the man in the chair.

I ignored the warning. “He tried to kill me,” I said. “I don’t care what you do to him, but I want to hear what he says.”

Antonio didn’t move for a second. Then he made a small gesture at Kass, who opened the door to the cell. He and Antonio went inside, leaving me firmly on the wrong side of the door.

The man in the chair was in his late thirties, short hair shaved to stubble, athletic build gone to flab. His face was a mess -- both eyes purpled and swollen, nose broken or near enough, his lip split and bleeding. He wore tactical pants and a gray shirt, a logo on the pocket I couldn’t place. He looked up when Antonio entered, but there was nothing in his face except exhaustion and burning hatred.

Antonio took his time. He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, sat on the edge of the table, and looked the man over. Kass watched, motionless. I realized the small speaker beside the window allowed the viewer to hear the conversation on the other side of the window.

“What’s your name?” Antonio asked, his voice slightly tinny coming through the speaker.

The man didn’t answer.

Antonio nodded at Kass. Kass reached into a crate in the corner of the room and withdrew a steel mallet. He set it on the table without a word.

The man in the chair stared at the mallet for a long moment. His mouth worked as he shook his head. “Quinn,” he said finally.

“Quinn what?”

“Jernigan.”

“Who sent you?”

“Job came in from Nashville. We get them occasionally and never communicate with the contact. Whoever it is contacts us.” Quinn still gave Antonio a look of hatred. I had no doubt Antonio could be in real trouble if he slipped the zip ties. The thought made my stomach knot, and I didn’t like the sensation one fucking bit.

“Who’s your handler?”

The man hesitated. “Goes by Pine.”

Antonio repeated it back. “Pine.” He looked at Kass, then at me through the glass. “Knight?”

“Already running the alias,” Kass answered.

Antonio leaned in. “What was your primary objective?”

Quinn blinked, slow. His tongue came out, and he licked a drop of blood from his lip. “Depended on who we found.”

“Be more specific.”

He didn’t answer.

Antonio nodded again. Kass moved behind the man and in one swift motion wrenched his left shoulder back, hard. The sound was sickening. Quinn grunted but didn’t scream. He breathed through his nose for a full five seconds, then said, “You want the objective? Fine. Grab the Garrison bitch. Kill anyone who gets in the way.”

There was a pause.

I didn’t move or react. Antonio’s posture didn’t change. “Who else?”

“We were told we’d get extra if we hurt someone in Kiss of Death and made it stick.”

“Who planned the breach?”

Quinn snorted. “Nobody plans shit, man. We get told where and when. We get a big payout if shit goes right. We get dead if it goes wrong.”

Antonio reached into his jacket and pulled a phone. He slid it across the table. “Code.”

Quinn hesitated. Kass wrenched the shoulder again, and this time Quinn screamed. He coughed and spat, then rattled off a six-digit code.

Antonio pressed in the code. I watched over his shoulder through the glass as he opened the messages and scrolled, then handed it to Kass. “Get this to Knight. Have him see what he can find and touch base with me afterward.” Kass left through a separate door in the corner I’d been unable to see easily. He did so without a word.

Antonio waited another few seconds, letting the silence fill the space. I watched as the two men stared at each other. Rather, Quinn tried to stare. His eyes were so swollen I didn’t think he could see much.

Quinn’s mouth worked again. “Look. We don’t know names. We only get calls. There’s a guy -- he drops cash, he picks up gear. Uses a white van. Always parks behind the Food Barn on Greer. That’s all I know.”

Antonio looked at him. “That’s not all you know.”

Quinn shook his head. His voice was almost a whimper now. “Look, man, I’ve got kids. I just needed the money. They said it was some rich girl who got herself in trouble, and nobody would miss her --”

Antonio pulled out a gun and shot him, a single round to the forehead. I jumped at the noise but managed not to cry out myself. The body slumped back in the chair, blood, brain, and bone splattered against the wall behind Quinn, and the room fell silent.

Antonio stood and holstered the weapon. He took slow, measured breaths, then turned and walked out the same door Kass had.

I didn’t move. My hand was still pressed to the glass. I saw my face reflected in the surface and barely recognized myself. I didn’t feel anything for the dead man. Not pity, not relief, not even satisfaction.

Soon after, Antonio moved up behind me. He must have come from the hallway leading deeper into this floor. He stood silently, waiting for me. I didn’t speak or acknowledge him in any way other than to meet his gaze in the glass.

Finally, he broke the silence. “Did you get what you came for?” I nodded, unable to speak. “Good,” he said. “Get some air.” He turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing down the hall instead of going back upstairs to the main floor.

I stayed at the glass for a long time, watching the body, watching the blood pool. When I finally started to turn away, I saw my hand had left a perfect print on the glass. I walked up the stairs, the sound of the shot still ringing in my ears.

Chapter Five

Antonio

I didn’t go up after Tessa. That was the first mistake, and I made it knowing better. Quinn’s body cooled in the box where I’d shot him with most of his last thought sprayed across the wall behind him. I didn’t kill often, but when it had to be done, I took care of business myself, or Kass did. The other man knew what lived inside me and the very last thing I wanted Tessa to see was the monster.

So I didn’t climb the stairs to find Tessa. I stood at the wash basin instead and ran scalding water over my hands, watching only clear water flow down the drain. The blood on my hands could never be washed off, and I didn’t want it to. I did what I did for a critical reason. But for Tessa… I might wish I felt otherwise.

I’d never regretted what I did for my father or my family. I didn’t care what I had to do to get what Seth wanted or needed to keep his stranglehold on the city. He was my father, and I understood the importance of what he did for Nashville. His rule was never about power but the delicate balance that allowed Music City to thrive while keeping the various clandestine operations away from the general public. The different factions running the underground had to be kept in their own territories. Any deviation from the norm risked violence spilling over into greater Nashville. That sort of violence would bring more firepower than Seth could safely manage without help. Asking for help could signal weakness and we might have a problem containing the fallout later, so he tried to avoid going outside the family as much as possible.

I told myself Tessa wanted what any sane person would want after witnessing an execution. Fresh air and distance. A few hours in a room where I wasn’t. I managed to give her twenty minutes. Then I went looking for her anyway, because staying away from her turned out to be the one thing I wasn’t disciplined enough to make myself do.

I checked her suite first. She’d left the door open but wasn’t there. In fact, she was nowhere upstairs that I could find. I knew she had to be on the property because not only were there guards all around the property, but she hadn’t broken the electronic fencing or I’d have been alerted. I walked the main hallway.

The sun had dipped below the ridge and the windows threw blue-gray shadows against the wood. I walked the length of the house and stopped when I saw a line of amber light bleeding under the last door on the east corridor. I pushed the door open to look inside.

The sunroom ran the full length of the west wall with floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides. My father had built this place around the sunroom, insisting he wanted a place to watch the sunset paint the evening sky. So I’d ordered the glass be bulletproofed. There were also controlled tint windows to black them out if necessary, as well as blast doors to lock down the room tight so the whole room doubled as a safe room. Overkill? Not when your family is the most powerful underlord in the southern United States.

Hanging plants crowded every surface, a tangle of trailing vines, thick ferns, and a bright pink hibiscus that took up half the corner. The terracotta pot was cracked and held together with wire. My father had refused to replace it, nor would he tell me why, but he seemed to favor that plant when nothing else much caught his interest. Other than the sunsets. In fact, I was surprised he wasn’t in here now.

Instead, Tessa sat in the rattan chair by the window, knees tucked against her chest with a mug cooling on the side table. She stared out the glass at the valley and the sky. The last of the light went gold across her face, and her hair caught a copper ray. She looked like she hadn’t moved in hours.

I stood in the doorway and waited, not wanting to intrude on her peace. Honestly, I had no idea how to approach her. I would have stayed there forever if she hadn’t spoken.

“You do that a lot?” she asked. Her voice sounded kind of flat. I thought she might have got more than she bargained for when she insisted on watching. I also knew she’d likely rather chew off her own arm than admit it.

“Often enough,” I said. “When necessary.”

She made a noise in her throat. “Does it bother you?”

“The only person it wouldn’t bother would be a true monster. So, yes. But I also realize the only way to keep peace in the city is through fear. Our enemies quickly become allies, neutral, or they die.” I don’t know why I explained that to her. The why of it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I’d killed on multiple occasions and would do so again.

She didn’t look at me, but took a sip from the cup. “Would you do anything to keep the peace?”

“That’s a trap if ever I heard one,” I muttered, but I got it. “No, honey. I absolutely will not hurt innocents. I’ll be the first to admit collateral damage happens. But I never sacrifice innocents.”

I left the threshold and crossed the room, keeping to the edge. She didn’t turn her head, but I saw her gaze flicker to mine in the glass as I passed behind her. I took the chair opposite hers as I shrugged.

She set her chin on her knees. “I’m not sure why, but I believe you.”

“I thought you’d be upset,” I said.

She didn’t look away. “I was. Just… not about that.” She set the mug down and sat up, stretching her legs out, then stood. She crossed the brief distance to kneel in front of me.

Everything inside me stilled. “Tessa?”

She reached up, put her palm against my jaw, her thumb tracing the line of my cheekbone. Her skin was warm and soft. I wanted to close my eyes and lean into her touch. Which had never happened in my entire life. Not like this.

I gripped the armrest, trying to keep myself from pulling her up onto my lap and kissing her until we both got the relief we obviously needed.

“If I ask you a question, will you tell me the truth?”

I considered her question. “It’s not a matter of will I, but can I. I won’t tell you anything about the family. That’s not for anyone but family.”

“I understand. But if it concerns me. Will you tell me the truth where it concerns me?”

“Yes. That I can do.”

“Good.” She placed her other hand on my face, framing it in both of her small hands. “Why did you bring me here? And I want more than ‘because I needed protection.’ We both know Kiss of Death could keep me safe.”

I wanted to lie, just to keep her hands there. I didn’t, though. I didn’t have it in me to break the trust she was banking on. Not with her touch as gentle as this and her eyes looking through me with more faith than I deserved. “I wanted you here because I wanted you here. I can’t protect you if I’m not near you. And I…” The truth stuck in my throat like a bone. “You… unsettle me, Tessa. More than anyone has in a long Goddamn time.”

Her eyes widened, but she didn’t flinch or draw back. “Is that bad?”

“No.” I realized this was the first time I’d admitted, even to myself, how much I felt for this girl. “Not bad. Just not easy.”

She searched my face, her gaze skipping from my eyes to my mouth and back. “You know I’m not scared of you. Right?”

“You should be.”

Her smile was sharp and hard. In her eyes, I saw a woman every bit my equal in will. I could rule her, but in doing so, would I break her spirit? Somehow, I didn’t think so. I thought maybe, if I took my time and broke her the right way, she’d be mine for life. “I’m not scared of you, Tonio.” She leaned in and kissed me.

The second Tessa’s lips met mine, every rational cell in my body flared up in protest, shouting warnings and rules and all the reasons I shouldn’t do this. Her hands trembled where they framed my jaw, but her mouth was steady, and when I breathed her in, it hit so hard I almost forgot how to breathe out.

Her kiss came without hesitation, hot and wet as I thrust my tongue into her mouth on instinct. She kept her hand on my jaw, holding me in place while she set the terms and I let her. Needed her to, so I didn’t hate myself later. My pulse hammered. I’d never let anyone do this to me before, to take without permission. Also, I was insecure enough to want her to need me the way I suspected I might need her because she was attracted to me. Not as the aftermath of violence or as a way to take back a piece of her soul taken from her when she’d been trafficked.

She drew back, keeping her eyes on mine, licking her lips as if to capture my taste. “You’re allowed to want this too,” she said. She said it like a dare.

I let myself really look at her. The way her pupils blew wide, the flush high on her cheeks, the stubborn set of her jaw. I wanted her so badly it made my teeth hurt. “I’m aware of that,” I said.

She didn’t blink. “Then stop holding your breath.”

So I did and Tessa pulled me in again, her mouth on mine, and I let go of the armrest and caught her around the waist. I stood, tugging her to her feet with me and held her tightly against my chest. She gave a little hop and I caught her with my hands under her ass as she wrapped her legs around my waist. I let her lead, let her take everything she needed. I would have given her anything if it meant she kept doing that thing with her tongue!

Tessa’s kiss was a punch straight to the balls. Her lust was simply that. Lust. She lacked the coyness and artifice of women who sought the power or the danger that went along with fucking Antonio Miles. She used her teeth. She sucked my lower lip until I swore under my breath.

She bit down on my lower lip just enough to make my cock jump against her pussy where she ground herself over my erection. I growled into her mouth and she answered with a hungry noise that made me need to take what she so aggressively offered. Lord knew I wanted to.

Her tongue swept against mine, hot and demanding, and I let her take whatever she wanted because the alternative was taking control and I didn’t trust myself with that right now. Not with the aftermath of killing still fresh in my mind and body.

I walked her backward until her spine met the glass wall, never breaking the kiss. The sunset bled orange and red behind her head, turning her hair into molten copper, like an angelic halo around her head. I pressed her there, one hand still under her ass, the other braced against the window beside her head. The glass was cool through my sleeve.

When Tessa broke away to breathe, her chest heaved, and I watched her mouth. Swollen. Wet. Mine. The word landed in my chest like a blade. She pulled back just enough to look into my eyes before pressing my forehead to hers. “Say my name,” she whispered.

With any other woman, that simple order would have ended the encounter. First, no one ordered me to do anything, no matter how softly worded. Second, anything in my life that felt like a compulsion I cut out with ruthlessness. Doing as she commanded felt too much like surrendering and I did not, by God, surrender.

I opened my mouth to tell her exactly that, but the only thing that emerged was, “Tessa.” I sounded as wrecked as I felt. For the first time in my life, and possibly not the best timing, I felt my loyalties… not shifting exactly but expanding. And right now, they included this woman as much as my father.

She smiled against my mouth and kissed me again, slower this time, her hands sliding from my jaw down to my shoulders. She held on like she was afraid I’d disappear, and I realized I was holding her the same way. Like she might slip through my fingers if I loosened my grip.

“Tonio.” My name came out roughly, and I wanted to hear how rough it could sound after I’d made her scream my name for hours on end. Hearing her now, I realized we shared the same boat. We might well drown, but it looked like we were headed toward the wave swell and in a Goddamned hurry.

Tessa was heat and defiance and purpose as she kissed me again, and I’d never wanted anyone more in my life. She was the light to my darkness. The angel to my demon, but so much more. I had no words for what she meant to me.

When she broke the kiss, she pressed her forehead to mine once again. We both breathed hard, mouths open. “You’re not going to break me, you know,” she said.

“No,” I said. “But I’m beginning to think I want to.”

She grinned, teeth white and sharp. “Then stop being careful.”

She didn’t have to ask twice. Without letting her go, I found the hem of my shirt and yanked it up and over my head. I placed my forearms on the glass while I leaned in to kiss her again simply because, now that I’d had a taste, I couldn’t get enough.

She wiggled, shimmying out of her shirt and bra before latching on to my shoulders. Her nails bit into my skin as she pulled me against her to mash my chest against her breasts.

I let out a breath and caught her jaw in my hand. Her mouth was red, parted. She didn’t flinch. I continued kissing her, biting her lower lip until she gasped. She arched against me, eyes wide.

I cupped the back of her head and held her steady while I kissed her throat. The intoxicating taste of her clean sweat and delicious woman nearly brought me to my knees. She made a small noise, so quiet I might have missed it if I hadn’t already known I couldn’t fuck her tonight. Not like this. I’d give her what she needed, then see what happened.

Instead of needing me to back off, she only wanted to reach between our bodies. Finding my belt, she tugged it open almost before I realized what she was doing. I caught her hands again and made her wait.

“Not yet,” I said.

She groaned, the sound raw and honest.

I looked down at her breasts. Her chest heaved, nipples drawn tight, the air in the room cold enough to spread gooseflesh over every inch of her I could see. I bent and closed my teeth around one ripe peak, giving the tight bud a sharp nip. She yelped this time before giving what almost sounded like a defeated groan.

She ripped my belt loose and shoved at my pants until they dropped. My cock slapped against her belly, hard and leaking. She reached for it, but I caught her by the wrist and pinned her again.

“Not yet, honey.”

“But --”

I leaned in to kiss her, hard and demanding, needing to divert her attention. When her body relaxed and I knew she’d do what I wanted, I pulled back.

Before she had the chance to protest more, I shoved her shorts and panties down her hips to pool at her feet, then gripped her ass in both hands and hefted her up the window so her back rested high on the glass and her legs ended up over my shoulders. She barely had time to squeal before I buried my face between her legs and sucked her pussy like my life depended on getting every drop of essence from her sweet little cunt I could. And, oh, my God, her pussy was delicious.

She shuddered and grabbed my hair, grinding against my tongue. She was hot, slick, so ready for me, it hurt knowing I couldn’t fuck her.

There was nothing gentle about the way I ate her out. I dragged my tongue through her folds until she whimpered, then sucked her clit between my lips and rolled it hard. Her thighs clamped against my ears. Her heels dug into my back and she ground her pussy against my mouth. The sounds she made came out broken, desperate, holding nothing back about what she needed from me. Her cries went straight to my cock, which throbbed in a hard, insistent ache.

“Tonio -- fuck --” Her voice cracked on my name and I nearly came right there. I didn’t let up, sucking her clit again. I slid two fingers inside her and curled them up, finding that spot that made her jolt, then scream. Then she arched her back and her pussy quivered against my mouth as I milked her for every ounce of orgasm she had to give me.

After she collapsed against me, I slid her down the glass, urging her legs back around my waist. I circled my arms tightly around her, holding her like I never wanted to let her go. And maybe I didn’t, which was the whole Goddamned problem.

I carried her to the plush rug in front of the fireplace. Though the staff hadn’t lit a fire, the place was still cozy and romantic. God knew this girl deserved both. I reached behind us to the couch where a soft, thick blanket rested. I sat with my back to the couch and pulled her into my lap. She tucked her head under my chin and didn’t say anything.

We stayed like that for a long time. I stroked her back, up and down, holding her like she was precious to me.

She spoke first. “That painting in the hall. The sunrise. It’s beautiful.”

I went rigid. It hurt more than I thought it would. “Yes,” was all I managed.

She didn’t ask anything further, and I knew I’d missed a golden opportunity to connect with her. The pain was still too sharp, though. I needed to really think about what to tell Tessa. Or if I even wanted to.

She drifted off soon after, curled in my lap, her body gone soft and trusting against mine. I watched her sleep and thought about what it meant to lose control of a room.

I’d spent my whole life making sure nothing ever owned me. I didn’t know what to do with the feelings inside of me, all of them centered directly around the slight young woman in my arms.

It scared the fucking hell out of me.

Chapter Six

Antonio

Once she’d slept peacefully for a good fifteen minutes, I carried Tessa to her bedroom and laid her across the mattress. She settled with only a sigh as I tucked the heavy blanket around her. Then I sat in the corner and watched her sleep like a fucking creeper.

She hadn’t moved since I tucked her in two hours before. I liked knowing I controlled her safety. As long as she stayed where I put her, I could make sure nothing could get to her.

I left her suite. No one in my employ would dare harm her, but to make sure Tessa felt safe, I locked her suite as I left. I wanted her to know her suite was her space and she controlled who entered.

Outside, the only light was the landing beacon at the edge of the helipad. I liked the isolation of the mountain property. No one could approach without being seen, and the only people with access to the helipad were mine. The helicopter waited with the blades winding slowly, muffled by the trees and the high walls forming a wide circumference around the pad. Kass’s crew stood at the ready, heads down, voices low. I liked that about Kass and his people. They didn’t posture. They just did the job they were paid to do and were loyal to me and my father because we were loyal to them.

Kass met me at the foot of the stairs. He handed me a black, legal-sized envelope. “Knight’s last brief,” he said. “He updates every hour or so, but this one’s fresh.”

“Anything new on the Pine alias?”

“Knight has two plausible candidates,” Kass said. “One was an insurance adjuster but he’s dead. The other, more likely, is a mercenary. Ran an operation in Africa for years before coming stateside. Uses the Pine alias on contract kills and skip traces.”

“The white van?”

Kass’s expression went blank, which meant he was withholding judgment. “We have it on camera at the Food Barn on Greer. Once at one a.m., another at three. Both times, the driver stays inside. The courier drops the package on the back seat, then leaves.”

“Knight’s running plates?”

“He’s already traced it to another shell, but the van’s a rental from a franchise upstate. Returned this morning. Already picked up for a different job, but we’re tracking it.”

I walked to the helicopter, feeling the ground vibrate under my feet as the rotors picked up speed. “And Rourke?”

Kass didn’t smile, but I saw the edge of it. “He’s in the city. My men picked him up on his morning run, no fuss.”

“He talkative?”

“He hasn’t shut up since we put him in the car.” Kass shrugged. “He wants to deal. Says he’ll give up Denton and Iron and half the city’s dirty secrets if we guarantee his safety.”

I got into the back of the helicopter and settled into my seat. Kass followed, taking the one across from me. I opened the envelope, scanning the summary. The alias of Pine matched with a series of burner phones, all routed through a data center in Montreal. The same network carried anonymous threats to judges, lawyers, and cops. I flipped to the next sheet. The courier was still in play, but his last drop matched the payout window on Quinn’s job. No face, but a habit of wearing blue nitrile gloves and never speaking above a whisper. The drop point was always the same. The Food Barn west service entrance, never more than five minutes. More than once the van left with no cargo, so five minutes appeared to be a hard limit.

The last note was about Rourke. Knight had done his usual deep dive. The man drank at three regular bars, had five ex-wives, and a gambling debt that would make a hedge fund manager sweat. Knight flagged Rourke’s biggest weakness as “fears Denton most.”

The helicopter banked south, and I watched the city come up through the break in the trees. The sun was just rising, but the city never really slept. I liked seeing it from above. It made the city feel manageable.

We landed on the roof of an empty office building on the edge of the West End. Kass and two men walked me through a steel door and down to the secure suite where Rourke waited.

He was handcuffed to the chair but otherwise looked unmarked. His wrists were red, his clothes rumpled, and he stank of sweat and whatever cheap cologne he’d drowned himself in that morning. He looked up when I entered, eyes bright with calculation.

“You’re not Iron,” Rourke said. “I asked for Iron.”

“You get me,” I said, keeping my expression a practiced combination of angry and annoyed. “Talk, or you never see the sun again.”

He flashed a practiced smile. “I’m an open book. Ask me anything.”

Kass took a position behind him, arms crossed. I stayed standing. I wanted Rourke to look up, to sweat.

“You know why you’re here?” I asked.

He nodded. “Your father wants Denton. He wants Iron, too, but he wants Denton more. I can help with that.”

“Denton would feed you to the wolves if it bought him five minutes of freedom,” I said. “The only thing keeping you alive is what you give me.”

Rourke nodded, lips pressed together. He tried to hide the tremor in his hands but failed. “You want his records. Where he keeps them. Who he pays off. I can tell you that. But I want a deal.”

I laughed, and I let him see I meant it. “Your last deal was with Denton. Now you’re here. Doesn’t say much for your negotiating skills.”

He swallowed. “I can get you in the building. He trusts me. I handled all the party logistics. Every room, every security sweep, every detail for the rich boys’ club.” He tried to give me a cocky grin, but I saw the sweat trickle down his temple.

“Enclave Éclipse?”

His eyes widened, obviously surprised I knew that part of the secret. “Yeah. That place is his fortress. You’ll need me to get in.”

“Start with the last event,” I said. “Everything. And don’t waste my time with drama or you’ll die hard.”

Rourke swallowed, sweating harder, apparently realizing I might know more than he originally thought and that I couldn’t be bluffed. “Last time, Denton brought in a crew from out of state. We set up three rooms for a buyer out of Miami, but there was only one actual target. A girl from a place called Haven. I don’t usually get the details, but the buyer was particular. Didn’t want damaged goods. That’s Denton’s phrase, not mine.

“He brought in Pine as the closer. He uses a handler, never meeting face-to-face. Pays in cash, always through the same courier.”

“And?” I asked.

Rourke licked his lips. “The next run is scheduled for two days from now. Same location. But this time, the buyer’s coming in person. Not a handler. The real deal. Denton wants to impress, so he’s upped the security. I saw the list. They’re bringing in weapons, chemical restraints, and two snatch vans. One of them is ex-military. Guy’s a freak. They call him Rainman, but I think he’s your Pine alias. I’ve never seen him, only heard the voice once, and it was --” He shuddered. “Cold. Like a fucking robot.” He gave a weak laugh. “No offense.”

When I didn’t speak, Rourke cleared his throat. “Denton’s got everything locked up at his downtown condo. The safe is in his guest bedroom, the combination is his daughter’s birthday.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

He hesitated. “Witness protection, or whatever. A new ID. Some cash to get out of the state. Denton’s guys will kill me if they think I talked.”

I nodded at Kass.

“Is he worth it?” Kass said, eyes never leaving Rourke.

“We’ll see,” I said. “You get us into the safe. You help us take down Pine, Denton, and Iron. If you do that, you get your wish.” Rourke slumped in relief, like a kid told the punishment would be less than expected. “Where is Denton now?”

Rourke looked at the floor. “He sleeps in his condo, but during the day he’s always at Éclipse. He doesn’t trust anyone else to run the place. If you go there during business hours, he’ll be in the manager’s office, watching cameras.”

I tapped the armrest. “You’ll take us to the condo. You’ll walk us in, get us to the safe, and open it. You do this right, and maybe you walk out with your life.” I walked to the door. “We go in an hour. Don’t make me regret this.”

Rourke sagged in his chair, sweat dripping down his face. Kass gave me a quick, tight nod as we left the room.

Outside, I took a breath and let the morning air cut through the stink of the interrogation room. I could see the city below, streets already in motion. For the first time in weeks, I saw the outline of an answer to at least one of my problems. I’d been running the same circuit for years, keeping the city under control, keeping the damage off my father’s doorstep. Now it felt different. Every move I made was for Tessa. I didn’t care if I had to burn the whole city down to keep her safe and avenge her trauma. The part that scared me most was how right protecting Tessa felt.

We drove the thirty miles to Denton’s condo. We parked three blocks from the building. Rourke sat in the back seat between Kass and a man named Finch. Rourke’s hands shook so badly he couldn’t light his cigarette. I watched the flame gutter and die twice before Kass took the lighter and flicked it for him.

“For fuck’s sake,” Kass muttered.

Rourke sucked down half the cigarette in two pulls, then coughed several times. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing sweat and ash down his chin. “He’s got security on the front and the rear. The lobby’s got cameras all over, but the stairwell is just out of line-of-sight. If we go in the back, we can get in unnoticed.”

Kass checked his watch. “Timing?”

Rourke thought a moment. “If we go in now, nobody’ll be at the desk. The security guy always does his rounds at the top of the hour and takes a smoke break.”

Normally, I didn’t like going in without extensive planning, but we had Rourke with us and he wouldn’t sacrifice himself. If there was danger and Rourke knew, we’d know.

We made our way from the car on foot. The street was empty except for a dog walker and a pair of kids on bikes, not paying attention to anything but each other. Rourke led us in through the side entrance. The lock buzzed and we were inside.

I watched Rourke the entire way up the stairs while Kass led the way with Finch covering our back.

When we reached Denton’s floor, Rourke hesitated at the door, then opened it with a second keycard. Again, Kass took point inside the apartment, checking the place carefully before giving us the all clear. Finch stayed behind Rourke, gripping his upper arm like a vise.

The condo was expensive but impersonal. No family photos or anything to say I live here. The master bedroom in the back overlooked the river. Just as Rourke promised, we found the safe behind a fake panel in the closet.

Rourke knelt and spun the dial several times, fingers steady now that he was doing something mechanical. When he yanked the handle, the safe opened with a soft click. Inside, we found bundles of cash, two pistols, and a stack of passports with different names and faces, all Denton’s. More interesting was a steel lockbox, small and heavy. Rourke pulled it out and set it on the bed.

“Open it,” I said.

“I don’t know the code.” Rourke picked the box up and studied the keypad.

“Guess.”

He shot me an annoyed look. “I can try, but I’m not a lock pick.” Still, he studied the keypad. “Though…” He squinted before finally punching in a code. The lock opened and Rourke snorted out a derisive laugh. “Should have known. Fucker uses the same code for everything. Has as long as I’ve known him.”

We bagged everything, then I scanned the area one more time. “Is this everything?” I asked.

Rourke nodded, eager. “Every time Denton made a deal, it went in there. That’s his whole business. And before you make the observation, yes. He’s stupid enough to use the same passcode or pin number for literally everything. Even something this important.”

I turned to Kass. “If we’re attacked before we get out of here, Rourke dies first, no matter how big or small the attack. If any of this isn’t accurate, and I even suspect he misled us on purpose, he dies then, too.”

“Understood.” Kass gave Rourke a hard look.

We left the condo and walked back to the car. I called Knight.

“You got something for me?” Knight’s voice was neutral, but I heard the fatigue in it. He’d given his all in this, helping more than his fair share. Knight was an invaluable part of my team and Kiss of Death.

“That’s what I want you to determine. I hope I have what is a comprehensive record of Denton’s trades.”

There was a brief silence. “Say that again?”

“You heard me, Knight. I’ll send a couple of my men to you with this.”

“Make a copy of everything you can,” he interrupted.

“Already on it. I’ve taken pictures I’ll send to you while you wait. Kass is dealing with the thumb drive, but you’ll have it in a couple of hours.”

“I’ll keep in touch with Kass.”

“I appreciate your help, Knight. Please give my love to Brynn and Lavender.”

“Brynn got the gaming chair you sent a couple weeks ago.”

I smiled. “Kid’s got more heart than most men I know. She did her post-op rehab like a boss. She also sent me an email thanking me.”

“You catch this son of a bitch, Tonio. He’s preying on women in this city.”

“Oh, I’ll catch him. When I do, there’ll be a reckoning.”

It took the rest of the day and the better part of the night to clean up from our activities. I was fucking tired, but I still had some loose ends to tie up. By the time I got back to the house, it was four in the morning. The lights inside the living area were all off except the one over the stove. The kitchen glowed with weak yellow light, but the rest of the house sat dark and silent.

I walked through the kitchen to the bar and poured myself a scotch. I needed to shower, but I thought I might need the alcohol worse at the moment. The pull to check on Tessa was almost a compulsion but I resisted.

Taking half an hour, I forced myself to my own suite for that shower. There was no reason to rush to the woman. Tessa was likely asleep anyway.

Once I dried and dressed, I padded barefoot down the hallway to Tessa’s room. I started to just open the door, but I didn’t want to do that unless she gave me permission. So I raised my hand to knock. To my surprise, the door opened before I could.

She started, obviously not expecting me to be on the other side of the door. I thought I saw the briefest flash of hurt before her expression blanked. “You’re back.”

I looked up and nodded. “Just got in.”

She looked away from me, crossing to the sink and filling a glass of water. I waited while she took a healthy drink before dumping the rest in the sink. The tension running through her was nearly palpable. “Did you get him?” she asked.

“We’ll see, but I think we got what we needed.”

“Good.” She nodded, jaw tight as she looked away. “I thought you’d leave a note or something.” I paused, the comment catching me by surprise. She must have taken my silence as censure because she tried to smile and wave off her comment. “I didn’t really expect you to do that. I misspoke.” I knew I’d hurt her, but she’d never admit it.

“You’re right,” I said. “I should have left a note.”

She turned back to me, surprise flickering across her face before she could mask it. “It’s fine. Really.”

“No.” I moved closer, keeping my movements slow. “It’s not fine. You needed my reassurance after what we shared, and I should have realized you’d want to know.”

She shrugged, but her gaze dropped to the floor. “We don’t exactly have a relationship, Antonio. You don’t owe me explanations.”

The words stung more than they should have. I wanted to tell her that we did have something, but the exhaustion of the night and the weight of feelings I didn’t fully understand made the words stick in my throat. Instead, I reached for her, my fingers brushing against her cheek. She didn’t pull away, but her eyes remained downcast.

“Look at me, Tessa.” She lifted her gaze, and I saw everything she’d been trying to hide. The hurt. The fear of being forgotten. The way she’d convinced herself she didn’t matter enough to warrant a Goddamn Post-it note. What I saw in her expression now was so far removed from the spitfire I knew her to be it nearly broke my heart. I never wanted Tessa to feel like she was less than the beautiful, brave warrior she was. She should know how important she was and how much she deserved to have everything that made her happy. “You matter,” I said. “To me. You matter.” The words came out rougher than I intended, but I meant every syllable. “I should have told you where I was going. That’s on me.” I stared at her for a long moment, letting her see I meant what I said. “That’s not a mistake I’ll make again.”

She swallowed hard, her throat working around whatever she wanted to say but couldn’t. Her eyes glistened, and I watched her fight back the tears back.

“Don’t do that,” I said, my thumb tracing the line of her jaw. “Don’t swallow your feelings. For any reason.”

“I’m not --” she started, then stopped. Her lips pressed together, and a single tear escaped, tracking down her cheek before she could catch it.

I caught it instead, wiping it away with my thumb. “You are. And it’s bullshit.” She lifted her gaze, and the vulnerability in those copper eyes nearly gutted me. “I don’t know what this is between us,” I said, my voice rougher than I intended. “But I know it’s not nothing.” I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “Go back to bed. I can stay with you if you like, or I’ll see you in the morning.”

She shook her head. “No. I’m good.” She really wasn’t and we both knew it. She paused at her bedroom door before looking at me over her shoulder. “You know, I’m not afraid of you, Antonio Miles. I know I’ve said it before, but I think it bears repeating.”

“I know you’re not. Did you ever stop to consider that maybe I’m afraid of you?”

That seemed to catch her off guard. She jerked, a shocked look on her face. Then she stiffened and turned, retreating to her bedroom. I knew I needed to send her back to her sister once this was all taken care of. But she didn’t want me to. Not really. Tessa didn’t want the power or the money that came with being my woman. And that was the problem. She saw beyond any glitz and glamour and knew exactly what I was. More, I thought Tessa might prefer my ruthless side to any billionaire playboy persona I pretended to have in public. Tess saw the real me in a way no one ever had other than my father.

I knew I had to come to terms with the fact I couldn’t keep Tessa at arm’s length when she kept closing the gap between us herself. As I stood there, the shut door to her bedroom between us, I understood I had no strategy for a woman who simply refused to be managed. And that not having a plan should have terrified me a great deal more than it did.

Chapter Seven

Tessa

The weight woke me first. Something solid and warm across my waist, a body pressed against my back. My pulse spiked hard, my hands went flat against the mattress, and I was two seconds from rolling off the edge before my brain caught up with my nose.

Cedar. Gunpowder. A trace of expensive soap. Antonio.

I lay still and made myself breathe. I had to smile. I’d left my door unlocked just to see if he’d take the invitation I offered. I knew I could keep him out. He’d made a point that I had control over who entered my suite. Even him.

His breathing came slow and even against the back of my neck. Fully clothed. On top of the covers. How was this guy even real? His arm lay heavy across my waist, his body heat soaking through the blanket between us.

I think part of me had convinced myself Antonio wouldn’t come after me. I still wasn’t sure what to make of his last statement. How could he possibly be afraid of me? But he had come. He’d stayed with me even though I’d told him not to. I recognized Antonio had control issues, but I also knew his need for control stemmed from the need to keep his family safe.

Emotion formed a tight band around my chest and I hated it. If I let myself fall for this man, I’d be so in over my head I’d never find my way up. Actually, I might already be in over my head. I was more than half in love with the man, and I wasn’t really even sure I liked him. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t make myself push him away. Most of all, I hated that it mattered so much to me that he’d come back to me. Tonio had waited until I fell asleep, so I wouldn’t try to put on a brave face and deny I wanted him with me when I was completely terrified for him to leave. I wanted him to see me as a strong woman, one worthy of a man like him. Not as the weak link in his family. A liability.

I stared at the window where the silvery early morning sun tried to burn through the fog from the river. Behind me, Tonio shifted. His arm tightened before he stilled again, and his breathing stayed even. I turned my head, so I could look back at him over my shoulder until I could see his face in the darkened room.

The tension he carried when he was awake seemed to have melted away in his sleep. I had a moment to wonder if he’d intended to stay with me all night or if he’d thought to leave before I woke.

“I can hear you thinking,” Tonio rumbled softly next to my ear. I felt him press his lips to the skin behind my ear and move down my neck. I was in so much trouble here. I didn’t mind admitting Antonio was way the fuck out of my league, but I also didn’t have enough willpower to resist him. “Sleep. We both need it.”

“You’re the one who’s awake,” I said. My voice came out rough, sleep clinging around the edges, but I still smiled. “And you’re the one kissing my neck.”

His lips curved against my skin. I felt the smile more than saw it. “Seemed like someone needed to do it.”

“And you nominated yourself?” I shifted, turning onto my back so I could look at him properly. The room was still dim, even with the large windows. The early morning fog outside made everything soft and gray, but I could see his face well enough. The beard. The dark lashes. The way his mouth looked softer when he wasn’t holding it in that tight line he used on everyone else. “You don’t do anything by accident, Antonio Miles.”

He didn’t deny it. His arm stayed across my waist, heavy and warm, and he studied me with those dark eyes that missed absolutely nothing. “You left your door unlocked.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

I held his gaze and made myself not look away. “Don’t you know?”

“Yes. But I want you to say it so we understand each other.”

I could have played coy or pretended like I’d left the lock disengaged on accident, but why? Why not just tell him the truth? Before I could change my mind, I laid it out there for him. “Because I wanted you here.”

He started slightly. “I didn’t expect you to tell the truth.”

“I think maybe I’ve just been insulted.”

He chuckled. “I like this side of you.”

“What? Sleepy?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do believe you’re not the least bit afraid of me. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I make you feel safe. You know I’ll fight your demons.”

“I don’t need anyone fighting my demons, Tonio. I can do that myself.”

“I know you can,” he said. “Doesn’t mean you have to.”

My throat tightened. I hated that. Hated how easily he could find the soft spots I worked so hard to armor over. I turned my head away, staring at the ceiling. “You should go. I’m fine. I’m sure you’ve got things to do.”

His arm didn’t move. “You’re not fine.”

“I’m not your problem.”

“You’re not a problem at all.” His voice dropped, and I felt the vibration of it through his chest where it pressed against my side. “You’re the only thing that’s made sense to me in months, Tessa. Maybe Goddamn years.”

I closed my eyes because looking at him was too much. Admitting how much I needed Tonio right now, about how I felt safe with him when I knew he was a dangerous man, would be blood in the water to a man like him. But I was drowning in Tonio’s presence.

“You can’t say things like that,” I whispered.

“Why?”

“Because I’ll believe them.” The second the words left my mouth I knew I’d given him more leverage than I could afford, but I couldn’t take it back. Not and make him believe me.

He didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then he raised his hand to gently stroke my cheek with the pad of his thumb.

“Then believe them,” he said.

I sucked in a breath to say… something, but he found my mouth with his before I could think of a single clever thing to say back. His kiss was soft at first, almost careful, like he was giving me every chance to pull away. Instead, I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him closer, and he made a sound low in his throat that went straight to my clit.

He kissed me like he had all the time in the world, which I knew for a fact he didn’t. Neither of us did. But when his tongue swept against mine, I melted for him. His hand slid from my jaw into my hair, and he threaded his fingers through the tangled strands. He tilted my head just so, deepening the kiss until my toes curled against the sheets.

I kissed him back like I’d been starving for him, because I had. Because every time Antonio Miles touched me, something inside me that had been cold and locked up for months flash heated to a raging inferno.

Antonio pulled back first. He ended the kiss slowly and tenderly, and I felt the loss of him like a physical ache. He rested his forehead against mine and our breaths mingled.

“Don’t stop,” I whispered.

He closed his eyes. His jaw worked. “If I don’t stop now, I won’t.”

“I just said I didn’t want you to stop.” My frustration made me sound whiny, and I cringed, muttering, “Sorry.”

He rubbed his nose against mine and gave a resigned sigh. “You’ve got nothing to apologize about. The very last thing I want to do is stop, but we’ve got to go see Knight. I tried to give you as long as I could before waking you up, but you got me first.” He gave me a tender smile that melted my heart.

“He’s got something?”

“I think so. It’s easier for us to go to him, so, much as I hate to, we need to get up.” He pressed one last kiss to my throat. “Don’t worry, baby. We’re not done. Not by a long shot.”

I let out a groan that was entirely too dramatic and flopped back against the pillow. “You’re telling me we have to get up now?”

His lips twitched, amusement evident in his expression. “‘Fraid so, honey. But don’t worry. When we get back home, we’re going to come to an understanding.”

“Yeah?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “What kind of understanding?”

“We’re going to come to an understanding about how you’re mine now.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Sounds like an awfully one-sided conversation.”

“Yes. I’m Antonio Miles and I get what I want.” I got the feeling he was only half joking.

Thirty minutes later, we lifted off, headed back to a private airport near the Kiss of Death compound but away from the docks. A car waited to take us to the compound and ten minutes later we walked into Knight’s office.

“Coffee?” Knight gestured to a table with a large pot of freshly brewed coffee.

“I’m good,” I said, but Antonio grunted and Knight poured two cups anyway, passing them across the desk like communion.

Knight started without preamble, gesturing to the computer on his desk. “This is the primary. Most of his buyers and sellers work through intermediaries, but this one… this one’s direct. They want Raines.”

Antonio sipped his coffee and said nothing.

“Raines?” I didn’t recognize the name.

“Mercy Raines,” Knight said. He clicked a photo, and a woman’s face filled the screen. She was maybe twenty, with hard, haunted eyes and a buzzed scalp. There was a line of stitches across her left temple and bruises layered purple over her jaw. “She went missing a month ago but I think she’s been gone longer. Only reason anyone realized she was missing was because her brother insisted on a welfare check.”

“And she’s at Éclipse?” Tonio leaned over Knight’s desk, looking at images and other printouts lying scattered over the surface.

“Yes. Or she was as of six hours ago. I got a facial match off the building’s loading bay security. She’s alive.”

A cold rage threatened to build inside me. “Then we’ll get her out.”

“That’s the plan,” Knight said, like it was the easiest thing in the world. “But the timeline’s tight. You’re running against a clock.”

Antonio leaned forward. “How high up does it climb? Who’s on top?”

Knight’s mouth twisted. “I traced the money up through Iron. It should have jumped to a holding corp, but there’s nothing. It just… stops. No records, no comms, nothing after the transfer. It’s a clean cut.”

Antonio frowned. “That’s not possible. Everything leaves a trail.”

“I agree.” Knight rotated his monitor toward us. “I built a shadow trace using the payment gateway, but after Iron, it’s like the money got vacuumed into a black hole. No shell companies, no kickbacks, not even a personal account. I’ve never seen a laundering job this good.”

“Can you break it?” I said, maybe too hopeful.

Knight looked at me for a long second, then shrugged. “Give me twelve hours and I’ll have a name. But it’s going to cost you some favors, and I’ll have to burn a couple bridges.”

“Do it,” Antonio said. The fact he didn’t hesitate chipped away a little bit more at any defense I had left against him.

Knight went back to his keyboard. “In the meantime, you need to focus on the next run two days from now at Enclave Éclipse. Same location, same security. Difference is, the buyer’s coming in person this time. Not an intermediary.”

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Don’t know. The guy’s never been photographed, never uses a real name. He's Denton's closer. Goes by Rainman, and he’s already in the city.” He pointed at a text chain with the name “Rainman” attached. “He basically takes an order and places the buy, delivering the package to whoever paid him. He’s definitely got a skill set outside the norm, so be ready for anything if you actually confront him.”

Antonio straightened in his chair, his jaw tight. “You said two days?”

“Forty-two hours, if the itinerary holds. If they move up the timetable, I have measures in place to know immediately, but for now, assume it’s a hard clock.”

I looked at the image of Mercy Raines, at the numbers and files rolling past. “I’m going, too,” I said.

Knight stopped typing and finally smiled. “Would have been surprised if you didn’t.”

Antonio was less thrilled. “No.”

I stared at him. “If I can help, I’m not sitting this out. You don’t get to make that decision for me.”

He set his coffee down with a soft, deliberate thunk. “I do if I’m afraid it could get you killed.”

“Then you better keep me alive,” I shot back.

The silence was a challenge. I held his gaze, refusing to look away, and he relented first. “You stay with me every second,” he said.

“Deal.”

Knight coughed into his hand, covering a smile. “Family drama isn’t my favorite thing, but it’s top ten. I’ll pull together anything you need, Tonio. Just promise you’ll try not to get shot on my watch. For some reason, Brynn likes you.”

“Is she still doing well?” Antonio asked.

“Yeah,” Knight said, his face easing into something almost tender. “She’s nearly back to normal. Lavender’s good with her. Brynn asks about you all the time.”

Antonio gave Knight a warm smile. “I promise I’ll visit her as soon as this is over.”

Knight nodded, then cleared his throat and brought up a new file. “Last thing before you go. They’ll know you’re coming. Denton’s already spun up new security. If you want in, you’ll need an inside badge and a biometric. Rourke’s old badge will get you through the first two doors, but for the main vault, you’ll need Denton’s thumb or his iris.”

Antonio almost smiled. “I think I can manage.”

They talked for a while longer, going over a few things I needed to pay attention to, but I kept losing focus as I watched Antonio in his element.

After half an hour, we had a plan and a timeline but still sat in Knight’s office studying everything Knight had presented. Knight left us to it, and I waited until the door closed before looking at Antonio. He stared at the monitor, his jaw tense.

“You OK?” I asked.

“Denton’s too careful. This feels like a trap.”

“It probably is,” I said. “But we don’t have a choice.”

He took one hand off the table and turned it palm up, inviting me to slip my hand into his. It would take a stronger woman than me to resist taking that connection.

“You really want to do this?” he asked. “I can handle it with my men. We’ll be careful with her.”

I looked at him, at the lines around his eyes, at the raw exhaustion in his voice. “I’m in,” I said. “You can’t scare me off, Antonio. Not with this. If I’m going to be your woman, I need to feel like I’m part of your team.”

He held my gaze, then stood and pulled me out of the chair and into his arms. For a moment, I thought he’d try to talk me out of it again, but he just held me there, breathing in the space at my throat.

“We go in together,” he said. “We come out together.”

“Deal,” I said, and meant it.

Chapter Eight

Tessa

Antonio kept his hand firmly in mine the whole way home in the helicopter. And when had I started thinking of this luxury mountain compound as home? Once we landed, he helped me down, then snagged my hand and tugged to lead me up the stairs back to my suite. He stayed silent, but not in a cold or unfeeling way. In fact, he hadn’t let go of me since leaving Knight’s office. I enjoyed the possessive/protective gesture a little too much for my peace of mind.

I half expected him to say something. To tell me what the plan was, or to ask if I was OK, or to start in about Knight’s report, which he’d read twice on the flight home and once more in the car. Instead, when we reached the bedroom and he closed the door behind us, he simply stood silently, looking at me like he wanted to eat me up. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t turn me on.

He had the same look he’d had in the sunroom, that raw, undisguised hunger. Not just for my body, but for the feeling that I was his to keep safe and to fuck in equal measure. I knew he needed to control me, just not in the way I’d first thought. I didn’t know exactly what game he played, but I knew I could figure it out. And beat him at it.

Antonio stepped in close to me and bracketed my face in his hands. He kissed me, hard. Hungrily. His beard abraded my skin as he took what he wanted. He slid his tongue against mine and I gave his lip a sharp nip, just to see if he’d let me. He did, shifting his grip and angling my head to kiss me deeper.

He dragged me against his chest, and I curled my fingers around the back of his neck and held on. The heat went straight down my spine and pooled between my thighs to settle with a throbbing ache in my clit.

He let go first, his breathing as labored as my own. He set his forehead against mine and didn’t say a word.

I licked my lips, tasting him. “I thought you said we needed to come to an understanding.”

His mouth quirked at the edge. “I’m a man of my word.”

“You said you wanted me to understand I’m yours.”

“I believe you’re right.” He rubbed his nose against mine affectionately, but the bastard likely knew how much the small gesture turned me on.

“If I’m yours, you have to be mine as well.”

“Fair enough.”

I lifted my chin. “Well? Show me.” I let go of his neck and dragged my nails down the front of his shirt, undoing the buttons. The shirt fell open, baring his chest. I traced a couple old scars with my fingertips as I explored the masculine perfection beneath my touch. Thick, heavy muscle rippled with every move he made and the sight was completely mouthwatering. He caught my hand and brought it to his mouth, sucked my knuckle, then bit down sharply making me suck in a breath. Marking his territory.

“You want this?” I expected him to ask at some point, though most men wouldn’t given my eagerness.

“Yeah,” I said. “I want this.”

He shucked the shirt off, then backed me up until my knees hit the bed. I didn’t even try to hide my grin, because why the hell should I? Antonio needed to know what I was made of right from the start. More importantly, he needed to know I did exactly as wanted and never did anything I didn’t want to do. The second I hit the edge of the mattress I started undoing the button on my jeans, staring up at him like I was daring him to stop me.

“Gonna make me beg, Antonio?” I dragged it out, sweet as sin, just to see what he’d do.

He didn’t even blink. The man just hooked his thumbs in my waistband, yanked my jeans down with zero hesitation, and made short work of my panties too. I half-laughed, half-gasped, because the air hit my skin and the man wasn’t shy about looking his fill. His palms skimmed up my thighs, rough and hot and perfect, and he shoved my shirt up over my head without so much as a warning. Moments later, he undid the front clasp and tossed my bra aside.

He slid his hands up my sides to cup my breasts, his hands hot and rough and not the least bit gentle. The look in his eyes felt like he burned a hole straight to my soul. He stood there, shirtless, his chest beautifully muscled and scarred. I swear the man looked like he wanted to eat me alive.

“Christ, baby,” he growled, eyes glued to my tits. “You’re fucking perfect.”

“You gonna stand there and watch,” I taunted, “or you gonna do something about this ‘understanding’ you wanted?”

“Goddamned straight I am.” He dropped to his knees and, just as I opened my mouth to give him a sassy comeback, Antonio fastened his mouth on my pussy. He nipped and sucked until I forgot every smart-ass thing I’d meant to say.

I swear to God, Antonio was fucking magic with his mouth. Two seconds after he sucked my clit between his lips and flicked it with his tongue, I went supernova. He ate me out like he’d been starving for me. His short beard scraped my thighs, and he used his tongue to slowly, methodically, and completely drive me out of my fucking mind. My whole body jolted, and I fisted my hands in his hair, trying to anchor myself in the roiling sea he’d tossed me into.

I tried to twist my hips out of his grasp, but he just growled and kept me pinned with one big hand locking my hip while the other slid up to squeeze one of my tits hard enough to make me gasp. I was losing my Goddamn mind! The harder I gasped and cried out, the harder he kept up the relentless assault on my cunt. He knew exactly what he was doing and every single twist of his head, every pull and flick of his lips and tongue, was designed to break me in the best possible way.

I came for him. Loud and filthy, not giving a shit he’d wrung it out of me in under a minute. Fuck. Yes!

My whole body shook and my cunt throbbed, but I still wanted more. I yanked him up by the hair, glaring at him when he had the balls to smirk at me with my cum on his chin, glistening in his beard.

I grinned at him, sassy as hell, but Tonio wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and just fucking stared at me. Like he wanted to devour me whole. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t turned on by that look. I’d never had a man look at me this way unless it was to hurt me. It might make me all kinds of a fool, but I knew in my very soul Antonio would never hurt me sexually. Whether or not I left this relationship with my heart intact was another matter altogether.

He grabbed my knees and shoved them wide. “You’re mine, Tessa. Say it.”

Oh, hell. His voice was gravel and lightning, a combination of rough and electric I didn’t have the strength not to obey. I couldn’t have looked away if my life depended on it.

My chest heaved. “Yours,” I said. No point pretending. The bastard would see through me anyway.

“Good girl.” He shoved off his pants before he climbed up over me, bracing on one arm, dragging the head of his cock up between my folds, smearing my wetness all over his dick. “Open for me, Tessa. Reach down with your hands and spread your pussy for me and invite me inside.”

Goddamn, motherfuck. If it were possible to spontaneously combust, I’d be up in flames. Might still happen. I knew I needed to resist Antonio, to not give in to what he wanted so easily. Before I realized what I was doing, I lowered my arms to reach around the cheeks of my ass to part my pussy lips. The look on his face said he was as surprised as I was I’d done as he’d ordered. The difference was that I scowled while he just looked smug.

He pushed his bare cock inside my pussy, slow and easy. I felt every thick, perfect inch of his cock as he glided inside me, aided by what I knew was a copious amount of natural lubrication. God, he was huge. He didn’t move until I whimpered. “You want this cock, baby? You want me to fuck you until you can’t remember your own name?”

“Yep,” I gasped, going for sassy, but the word came just a tad bit too breathy and needy to pull off the tone.

“I’m inside that tight little pussy bare, Tessa. Right now, I’m in control. You want me to fuck you, I’ll fuck you. But, if I do, I’m going to put my cum inside you. And you’re going to let me.”

Just his crass, graphic demand made my pussy give an involuntary gush of moisture and the combination of his cock pulsing inside me, his dirty talk, and the graphic, erotic image his words conjured nearly made me come again. I wanted to make him beg, not the other way around! I wanted to rip that control right out of his hands and fuck him so hard he’d never forget the feel of me, or the fucking madness we created together. But I wanted his cum more.

“You want to own me, Tonio?”

“I already own you.” The husky growl of his voice nearly made me come again, this time while his cock pulsed and throbbed inside my cunt.

“Then mark me,” I bit out in a harsh whisper. “Fill me up with your cum, so I leak you out of my pussy for fucking days.”

“Bloody hell,” he muttered before slamming into me, every inch of him filling me to the hilt, and I screamed when he bottomed out, but not in pain. The sensation consumed me so Goddamn desperate and hot I almost started crying on the spot. There was nothing gentle about the way he fucked me. Just thick cock, ruthless thrusts, and the way he locked gazes with me, daring me to not look away from him.

“Mine,” he growled. “Fucking mine!”

“Yours,” I cried. “But you’re fucking mine, Antonio. Don’t you fucking forget it.”

He fucked me harder. Brutal. Perfect. I wanted every fucking second of it. He slammed into me so deep I swore I felt it in my Goddamn throat. Every time I screamed, he grunted back at me as he fucked me like he owned me. Maybe he did.

“Take it, Tessa. Take every inch of my cock. You want it, you’ll fucking beg for it.”

“Fuck, yes! Harder, Tonio! Please! Don’t you dare stop!”

He bared his teeth, eyes dark and mean. Then he stopped… fucking moving!

I let out an angry screech. “What the fuck, Tonio?”

Despite all my efforts to get him to move, Tonio remained stubbornly seated as deeply inside me as he could get. He waited until I stilled, glaring up at him, before he spoke. “I want you to pay attention to what I’m about to say, Tessa. Really hear me.” When I stilled and stared up at him wide-eyed, he leaned in and kissed me tenderly. The contrast was so at odds with the way things had escalated earlier, I knew he had something important to tell me. I had a moment to dread what might happen next but knew I’d take it with a smile and a fucking princess wave if the man would just let me come.

“What is it?” I tried to sound more demanding and not breathless but didn’t think I succeeded.

“This is really happening. This isn’t the heat of the moment or something I’m doing to heighten both our pleasures. You’re mine. This is me claiming you as my woman. We’ll discuss what that means later, but for now, all you need to know is that you belong to me.” When I opened my mouth to protest, he leaned down to capture my lips in a searing kiss. For good measure, he gave a long slow out and in thrust of his cock, flexing and rolling his hips in a sensual glide. I gasped into his mouth, opening my own to take his tongue when he licked at my lips. “That’s it.” He spoke against my lips, continuing to kiss me while he rocked side to side. I had no idea if he meant to put friction on my clit, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the bastard knew exactly what he did to me. “You’re listening to me now, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

He stopped kissing me to rub my nose with his again. Then corrected me gently. “Yes, Tonio.”

Reflexively, I responded. “Yes, Tonio.”

“Good. Now. You belong to me, but I also belong to you. You will have the full protection of my name and every luxury that comes with it. But you must trust I have your best interests at heart and obey me. I will never put you in harm’s way, and I will never, ever hurt you, Tessa.”

“I can get on board with most of that. But I will always make my own decisions, Tonio.” I gripped his shoulders tighter as I spoke. Maybe it was symbolic of how much I really didn’t want to let him go, even if he did try to control me, but I knew I absolutely would if he tried to take away my choices.

He rocked farther inside me, making me gasp as the uncomfortable sensation of being too full blunted the pleasure somewhat. “I can concede that.” His tone said he didn’t really, but he hoped I’d believe otherwise. “OK, so I concede to a point. We can talk about that later. But one thing I want absolutely clear. You’re mine. I’m yours. There is no one else for either of us.” He let that land there between us for a long moment, holding my gaze.

“For either of us. You won’t have other women.”

“I won’t have other men or women, and neither will you. And… there will never be anything between us. Physically or metaphorically. Do you understand?”

I shook my head, confusion warring with lust and need and the overwhelming and complete satisfaction his words conjured. “You’re serious,” I finally managed to get out. “You’re really going to come in me.”

“You act surprised. Didn’t you tell me to do that very thing?”

“Well, yeah. And I meant it right back. But I didn’t think you really did.” I know I sounded lame, but this wasn’t how I thought this day would end.

“Oh, I mean it all right. So, this is your one and only chance to take your pleasure and walk away. You say that’s what you want, I’ll glove up and give you the ride of your fucking life.”

“And if I take what you’re offering?”

“Then I still give you the ride of your life, but we never explore this again.”

“You’d let me go?” Somehow, I doubted that.

He didn’t hesitate. “Oh, I’d try, Tessa. I’d do my damnedest to leave you alone. But I wouldn’t. So, I’m trying to make myself feel better about keeping you. Are you going to let me, or will you fight me?”

“Fuck,” I muttered. “That’s so fucking hot.”

“Christ, woman.” Then Tonio started to move.

He fucked me just like he said he would. Hard, rough, all those thick, hungry thrusts driving his cock deeper and deeper until I couldn’t think straight. My pussy stretched wide around him, slick and soaking. He slammed into me, grinding his pelvis down against my clit, so every time our bodies met I saw stars. I’d never been so fucking full.

“Yeah, that’s it, baby. You’re gonna take every drop of my cum like a good girl, aren’t you?”

“Fuck, yes, Tonio! More! Don’t fucking stop!” My thighs clamped around his hips, locking him right where I needed him most.

Sweat ran down his chest as Tonio fucked me harder. He pinned my wrists to the mattress above my head. Over and over he surged into me, fucking me with almost brutal force. When his breath sped up and his muscles tensed around me, growled his command in a voice I knew better than to disobey. “Come for me, Tessa. Come right fucking now!”

I shattered. My pussy clenched around his cock, squeezing him tight while I screamed his name and let go. My whole body bowed up off the bed, as I dug my fingernails into his shoulders. He drove into me harder, absolutely relentless, and I thought for sure I’d come apart. Every nerve in my body was on fire. It was brutal. It was perfect.

Tonio’s grip on my wrists got even tighter. He cursed, sweat dripping off his jaw as his own pleasure built and built. I felt every inch, every Goddamn pulse of his cock as he lost the last of his control.

“That’s it,” he growled, voice gone rough and wild. “Take it. Take all of my cum, honey.” He snapped his hips one more time, buried deep, and groaned loudly. I felt him pulse inside me as he filled me with hot, sticky cum. It was so fucking hot, a fucking endless fountain erupting into my cunt. I swear I could feel his cum leaking out around him to dribble down the cheeks of my ass the second he stopped moving.

He stayed there, holding himself deep inside me, both of us breathing hard and sweating. For a long time, neither of us spoke. He finally let go of my wrists, bracing above me. Cupping the side of my face gently, he leaned in to kiss me, praising me without words.

“You’re beautiful, Tessa. And so fucking brave.”

I couldn’t even move. I just lay there, feeling what I thought might actually be happiness.

“You OK, baby?”

I thought about it, wanting to be as honest with Tonio as I could. “Yeah. I’m better than OK.” The truth surprised me. I felt more like myself than I had in months. Maybe years.

He smiled, slow and tired. “Good. You’re not scared of me?” Did he sound vulnerable? “I mean, you know who and what I am.”

I kissed his chest where I rested my head. “I do, Tonio. I know exactly who and what you are. All I can say is, you’re lucky you’re cute, but I still want to be with you because you’re a good man. Besides, reputations are rarely true to character.”

He laughed, low and soft. “Not my usual feedback.”

“Don’t get cocky,” I said. But I smiled against his skin.

He tipped my chin up so I had to look him in the eyes. “You can have anything I have. Anything you want. All you have to do is take it.”

He meant it. I saw that in the way he looked at me, the way he held me without trying to change or break me.

I swallowed. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

He tucked my hair behind my ear. “I’ve never broken one yet. I won’t start with you.” For some strange reason, I believed him. Antonio Miles, heir to the Miles Family throne. “Just give me a chance, Tessa. You try with me as hard as you want me to try with you. I promise everything will work out between us.”

I didn’t know if I truly believed everything would work out, but I knew I wanted to try. I sighed and closed my eyes, drifting to sleep in his arms as I listened to the steady beat of his heart.

The world would come for us soon enough. We had work to do tomorrow, but for now, I was his, and he was mine, and I would make sure we were both ready for whatever came next.

Chapter Nine

Antonio

I woke before Tessa. I’d gone to sleep with her in my arms, her soft little body curled against me like she belonged there. I was wired to never sleep more than a couple of hours at a time. So, I lay there, staring at the ceiling, the smell of sex and sweat thick in the sheets, and I let myself just… drift. For the first time in more years than I cared to dwell on.

The funny thing about this mess was that I’d spent my whole Goddamn life refusing to get attached to anything or anyone. Even my old man. I’d always kept my distance, even when I put my life on the line for them. I had all the power and none of the bullshit feelings. Even once I found Darby and Carrie. Though Darby eventually got through some of my defenses, the woman was a force of nature and could take care of herself. Carrie as well. Not to mention, both women had men of their own more than capable of protecting them.

But none of that bullshit applied with Tessa. She didn’t just get under my skin, she got into my fucking bones. Last night should have been a good time, stress relief. Instead, it was like I’d found something inside myself I had no idea existed, and now I wasn’t sure I could ever lose. I wasn’t even mad about it. That was the really twisted shit.

I gazed down at her now and knew I’d never find a woman more perfect for me. And she for Goddamned sure was the most beautiful, courageous, holy terror I’d ever met.

I left Tessa warm in our bed, still asleep. The sun had barely risen, staining the edge of the mountain with golden light. I needed my head clear before I took on the task ahead of me.

Even with the scarce amount of staff, the house was already alive when I arrived on the lower level. Kass had two men at the back door while Finch checked in with the guards on the perimeter. Hawk and Sully had arrived earlier, along with a few other men from Kiss of Death. The only activity in the kitchen, however, took place at the coffee pot where the rich, dark liquid happily brewed on the counter.

I poured a mug of coffee and stalked through the corridor to the west wing. Kass had set up a war room of sorts the night before. We needed a place to keep all our information where we could find it at a glance. This seemed to be the best way for everyone to have access. Also, we could meet where we could see the information in front of us.

Seth had already arrived inside, standing with his back to the windows, arms crossed. Griffin and Hawk flanked him. Sully sat at the end of the table, his laptop open, tapping notes. Darby perched on a stool in the corner, booted feet propped on a side chair. She grinned when I entered.

Kass and Finch followed soon after. Knight’s image was up on the wall screen in a video call with us. If Knight was tired after pulling so many hours straight through, he didn’t show it.

I took the seat at the head. The mug burned in my hand, but the pain grounded me. “Let’s get to it.”

Seth nodded, cool as always. “Knight. Tell us what you have.”

Knight wasted no time. “Enclave Éclipse runs two floors above the import business. Entry’s on the front, biometric lock plus key card. Rourke’s badge gets you past the first two doors, but for the vault room you need a valid biometric, and there are no workarounds. Denton uses his thumb or his iris, and he does not have a backup code.”

I nodded. “Physical access?”

“Loading bay in the back. The security camera is above the roll-up door. Unmarked delivery vans twice a week according to the schedule. I’m still confirming that, but so far everything’s checked out. No regular foot traffic. That’s where Denton keeps pay-to-play records. All his client lists and buyer info. Everything.”

Griffin leaned forward, arms folded. “What about alarms?”

“Every door has an electronic tripwire. Bad swipe or failed print triggers a silent call to a private response team who’s not the police. The team gets there in under ten minutes.”

“The buyer comes in person this time,” I said. “Not a proxy.”

Knight’s mouth thinned. “Confirmed. The guy’s pure ghost. The closer’s alias is Rainman. He’s ex-military so he fits the stereotype. Rourke called him a freak, and I’ve got nothing to contradict.”

Darby snorted. “What kind of freak? Creeper, or just more psycho than average?” And, yes. My daughter sat in the middle of the badasses and played with the big boys.

“Well, for starters, he doesn’t talk except to give his order.” Knight’s eyes flicked up. “He’s a buyer, not the collector.”

Kass spoke up. “How many inside once the event starts?”

“Ten staff. Three security. All armed. Denton’s men rotate, but they bring in two off-duty cops for every event. The rest are the girls. There will be five held in rotation, with two active for the party at all times. The rest are kept locked in the back.”

I drummed my fingers. “They know we’re coming.”

“Denton’s tripled security since the last run. New cameras, new guards. He’s not running. He’s daring us to make the first move.” Knight’s voice was flat, but there was an edge to it. “He wants to make a show of it.”

Seth grunted. “He wants the city to see us fail.”

“Or he wants to fuck us up so bad we don’t get up again.” Darby’s voice was dry.

Hawk gave a tight nod. “If it was me, I’d rig the outer rooms and funnel you into a kill box.”

Finch rolled his shoulders. “We can deal with that. Layout?”

Knight’s face tightened. “That’s the problem. We have the ground floor and the second floor. After the loading bay, we lose the thread. The interior cameras don’t have a wireless access point. Everything’s hardwired. All the digital footprints stop at the threshold.”

Sully flicked through a set of images on his screen. “You’re saying, we’re in blind?”

Knight shook his head. “Not completely. We know the outer offices. The main lounge, the bar, the manager’s office. After that, there’s a corridor that runs behind the bar. All the doors are badge-only access. Then, nothing. The vault is somewhere at the heart, but nobody’s gotten footage of it.”

I tried not to let my frustration show. “There’s got to be blueprints on file somewhere. It’s in a zoned area.”

“Denton gutted the place before opening. All renovations were managed by a shell company. The city holds plans for the old layout, but it’s useless. No permits, no paper trail, nothing. He paid cash for the work, and the contractors are either dead or not stateside.”

I looked at Kass. “Options?”

“Have to treat every door like it’s the last. Assume overlap fields for the cameras, motion sensors, voiceless alarms. Assume every corridor is a choke point.”

Griffin added, “And the clock’s working against us. Rainman lands twelve hours before the event. If we don’t move before then, we get nothing.”

Knight cut in. “You could go in early, but you risk burning the play. If you wait, you go up against Denton, Rainman, and Iron’s muscle. None of which is ideal.”

Seth was silent but watching me. Waiting on my instructions. We’d gone into worse, but not blind. That’s the part I hated. I looked up at Knight’s image on the monitor. “What have you found out about where the trail above Iron leads?”

Knight’s tone went flat. “Still dead. I built a shadow trace off the payment, but there’s nothing. It should jump to a holding corp or a high-net-worth account, but the money just… vanishes.”

Sully frowned. “That’s not possible. Someone always takes a cut.”

“Not this time. Either it’s laundering on a level I’ve never seen, or the endpoint is something we’re not thinking of.”

“Or he’s got a handler with black budget access,” Kass muttered.

Knight’s jaw ticked. “I need more time. Give me a little more time and I’ll have a name. But if you want to hit Éclipse, you need a way to see the inside.”

Darby pulled a boot off the table and straightened. “No way to send in a scout? Fake a delivery or something, maybe?”

Knight shrugged. “Every new face is flagged. Only staff get access. They frisk everyone, even the regulars. If you’re not on the interior list, you’re not getting inside.”

Finch looked at me. “We could go heavy, but we’d lose the element of surprise. And Kass is right. One wrong step and we get boxed in.”

I knew Finch and Kass were right. Denton had built that place to have every security advantage. He had everything covered.

Knight’s eyes narrowed. “We need someone who’s seen that fuckin’ place from the inside.”

I refused to take the clue Knight handed me. If he’d done it on purpose than I’d failed miserably because no fucking way was I asking Tessa about this. Why? Because I couldn’t stand the thought of her having to relive even one Goddamned second of her time in that hell hole if I could prevent it.

I pushed back from the table. “Keep working the money trail. If Denton’s got a secret, I want it. See if you can get me the guest lists for every party. Focus on the ones where the buyer came in person.”

“On it,” Knight nodded at me from the monitor.

I stood and braced my hands on the edge of the table, letting the frustration dig into my palms. “Every good plan needs a spine. Right now, we don’t have it. Not until we solve the inside.”

Knight nodded, the flicker of a smile at the edge of his mouth. “I’ll keep working on that, too.”

The meeting broke, and I left the room, not wanting to stop and talk with my father. Seth could likely see right through me. He knew my interest in Tessa would cloud my judgment -- which was accurate -- and would demand to know everything. I didn’t care if Seth knew I planned on making Tessa my wife. Seth might be a bastard, but he wanted his family happy. Me included. I just didn’t want to share her with anyone yet.

I took the main hall all the way to the main kitchen, smelling fresh coffee, drawing me like a beacon. I needed a hit of both. For a minute, all I could think about was the last time I’d held Tessa, the way her body molded to mine, her pulse skipping fast under my hand. The smell of her, the grit and fire and the way she didn’t compromise with what she wanted.

The door opened and Tessa entered the kitchen, bare feet slapping the hardwood floor as she padded into the kitchen. She glanced at me, then averted her gaze. I wanted to grab her and pull her against my chest but didn’t know how she’d take the move.

She poured a mug and faced me across the kitchen island. “That was a lot of angry men in one room.”

I snorted. “You could feel it from upstairs?”

“Kinda hard to miss.” She glanced at the window, then back at me, eyes hard but clear. “You hit a wall?”

I wanted to lie. Wanted to with every fiber of my being, but I knew that, if she found out, I’d lose her trust forever. “The inside. There’s no accurate architectural designs, and we can’t see inside.”

She sipped coffee, absorbing. Then she set the mug down, carefully, nodding like she’d known this was coming. “I can do it. They held me inside. For three days. I was moved twice, but I remember every room, every corridor, every fucking sound.” She stared at the wall behind me, not blinking. “If you give me paper, I’ll draw it. You’ll have your map. I’m sure you’ll need more, but something’s better than nothing. Yes?” She met my gaze boldly and with determination.

The hit landed hard. Not enough to stagger me physically, but the taste of it cut deep and metallic on my tongue. I didn’t want her anywhere near that place. Not again. Not even in her memory. And when she kept talking, I stopped her. Just not for the reasons I imagined.

“Wait. Stop.” When she gave me an exasperated huff, I shook my head. “I mean, just hang on. You’re going to need to tell all this to Knight so you only have to do it once.” I sighed and stared at her for a long time. “You’ve got some pretty detailed descriptions there, Tessa. Zig-zagging corridors, heavy steel doors. How do you know about the one-way glass?”

“Because I knew my life could hinge on being able to find my way out of that place and being able to stay hidden along the way.” She tapped at her temple. “I already had a really good eye for detail. I taught myself to get better. That way, even when they drugged me, I could remember details.”

“How do you know you’re not misremembering? You were drugged and beaten pretty badly.”

“There were times I wasn’t drugged. And even beaten, I still had my wits. The only memories I don’t trust are when I was drugged. I learned quickly to comply as much as I could, so I didn’t get drugged. For that very reason. I needed to know where I was and what the dangers were.”

I put my hand flat on the kitchen counter. “You can brief the team, but you don’t go inside. You will stay here where I know you’re safe.”

She cocked her head. “Why?”

“I know what it takes to survive a place like that.” My hand curled, white-knuckled. “You don’t need to bleed for us twice.”

She let out a slow breath. “That’s not your decision, Tonio.”

Before I could answer, another voice cut in -- softly but carrying. Carrie entered from the side door, hair pulled back, sleeves shoved to her elbows. She didn’t look at me. She spoke to Tessa, but the words were for me.

“They always say it’s for our own good,” Carrie said. “That we’re too valuable to risk. Too fragile. Too broken. But what it really means is, they can’t handle watching you get hurt and not being able to stop it.” She smiled. “They know how strong we are. They don’t really believe all the bullshit they tell themselves. It’s just their justification for pissing us off.” Carrie set her hands on the table, leaning in. “You want her out because you care, Antonio.” Her voice dropped, growing colder as she went on. “She survived Éclipse. You can’t take this away from her if she wants to help. Doesn’t matter if it wrecks you to watch her do it again. It’s not your call.”

I wanted to argue. The words died on my tongue. It wasn’t shame or any kind of guilt, though I still felt murderous thinking how she’d been hurt under my fucking nose. This wound was deeper and older than any woman in this room. Her memory cut deep and had been left to rot. Now it burned like a fresh wound.

Fuck.

I stood there, wrestling the fury back down where it belonged. Then I straightened, rolling my shoulders, squaring off the decision. “I’ll have Kass call Knight back. Tell him what you know, and he’ll pin down as many specifics as he can.” I stepped closer to Tessa, looking down at her with every ounce of mafia boss I had in me. “But when this is ready to go, we will do whatever we have to do. And you, Tessa, will stay here. You absolutely will not go back to that place. I don’t care what information you give Knight or if he says you’re the only person on the whole Goddamned planet who can get us in and out safely. You will stay here.” I raised an eyebrow. “Understand?”

“Tonio. You said that we go in together, we come out together. That’s what you said.”

I didn’t hesitate a second in the rebuttal. “I changed my fucking mind.”

“Tonio --”

“No, Tessa!” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I can’t… No.”

“Christ, Tonio. Use your words, for fuck’s sake.”

“Look. I can’t risk your life. Not for those women. Not for anyone. I thought I could, but I can’t. If it makes me a bastard for breaking my word to you, well. I’ve been called worse. And for a lot worse reasons.”

She met my gaze for a long moment, steady as stone. “Fine.”

When this all started, I’d wanted my whole family with me until we were done. It wouldn’t take long for Iron -- or anyone else -- to realize the Miles family was involved. If they did, uncovering Darby would be easy. No one knew about Tessa yet and Carrie was basically a ghost, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I’d brought both women and Veda, along with their men, to the compound here. There was more than enough room and I wanted my whole Goddamned family safe. So did Seth. I’d only wanted them safe, but I hadn’t realized the women might need to keep Tessa safe from me. I hoped they knew I’d never physically hurt Tessa and would do my best to never cause her emotional harm. But both my daughter and my niece recognized the protectiveness in me that could very well smother Tessa if I wasn’t careful.

I reached across the table and closed my hand over hers. I wasn’t backing down. Not ever. When she looked away, I knew that, maybe, I could bend for her. Not much, but I could let her help as much as I could and keep her physically safe. “You matter, Tessa,” I said softly. “To everyone at Haven. To the men and women of Kiss of Death.” I waited until she met my gaze once more. “To me.” I took a breath and squeezed her hand. “You matter to me.”

A heartbeat passed. Then I pulled my hand back and turned to Kass. “Get this going. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it now.”

Kass moved, Finch on his heels. Griffin and Hawk reappeared in the doorway, and Sully followed, tapping at his phone. Seth, who I hadn’t been aware of until that moment, took it all in, cool and silent, but there was a satisfaction in the tilt of his head.

I looked back at Tessa, then to Seth. He lifted one corner of his lips. Yeah. My old man knew. Somehow, he always knew when major things happened in my life. Right now, looking at the expression on Seth’s face, I knew I was finally doing the right thing. Jen’s ghost might haunt me forever, but what I’d started with Tessa was inevitable. And probably the best thing to happen to me in a very, very long while. Tessa was mine. But I was hers, too.

The world could burn around us, but I wouldn’t let her down. Not even for myself.

Chapter Ten

Tessa

In retrospect, this might not have been my brightest idea. The staging van reeked of gun oil and whatever onion laced sandwich the last person in here had chowed down on. I was already inside, my back against the wall, when Kass yanked the door open. I’d been surprised when no one had been in the van when I hid, but they’d all ridden in a different vehicle and parked a couple blocks away, if the chatter I’d heard from the driver and his passenger was any indication.

Kass paused when he saw me and just gaped for a second. I stared right back, refusing to move. Then Antonio rounded the back bumper, and his face went through a wild shuffle of emotions starting with furious. After that, I kind of quit keeping track. When he spoke to me, it was almost a growl.

“Tessa.” There might have been a warning to his growl but I didn’t let his displeasure sway me.

“Yep.”

“You told me you’d stay put.”

I didn’t look away. “Got me what I wanted.”

The tension in the van felt viscous. Behind him, Finch had gone statue-still. No doubt, he knew better than to weigh in. Hawk leaned against the wall, arms folded, gaze sliding anywhere but at us. Sully pretended real hard to focus on his phone.

“You gave me your word,” he said.

“I gave you what you needed to hear so you’d move.” I kept my voice even. “I meant to keep it. Then I thought about Mercy Raines and I knew I couldn’t.”

His jaw was tight enough to shatter. “If something happens to you in there --”

“Then something happens to me.” I met his eyes and didn’t flinch. “But you have a much better chance of success if I’m with you. Knight and I went over everything, but the possibility I missed something or misremembered something, I’ll know the second I see where we are.” I paused, then added, “You know I’m right.”

He looked at me for a long time. Long enough that Kass cleared his throat once, quietly. The muscle in Tonio’s jaw moved. He stepped back from the van door. “She stays with me. Every Goddamned step.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

“Oh, make no mistake, little girl. I could give a good Goddamn if you agree to that or not. If you try to take off on me, I will pull the Goddamned plug. I don’t care how many people I have to sacrifice, you will not be harmed in any way. Not even a Goddamned scratch.” He turned to Kass.

Nobody else said anything else about me being there. Knight’s voice came through the earpiece Kass had given me a minute later, steady and low. “Good to go, guys. Rourke’s badge is active. First door will accept it for the next forty minutes before the system cycles. After that, we’re relying on the biometric.”

Rourke sat in the front passenger seat, sweating through his shirt. Two of Antonio’s men flanked him as he climbed out of the van. I had no doubt both men could and would take out the other man if Tonio gave the word. I wanted to spit in the guy’s face. Or slash his eyeballs.

Without further comment we all went out on foot, keeping to the shadow side of the block. The building ahead was dark at street level, the import business shuttered for the night, but I could see the amber glow leaking under the upstairs windows. Same as it always had.

Antonio walked at my right shoulder and slightly ahead of me the whole way. It was a protective gesture I recognized he did occasionally. He put himself in the best position to intercept anything coming at me. I kind of felt bad about defying him, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew I had to be here. I gave them an advantage more than I hindered.

Rourke’s hands shook when he pulled the badge. He pressed it to the reader and the light went green and the lock clicked open, and for a half second none of us moved.

I pushed the door open and walked back into the place that had nearly broken me, except this time I walked in with a small army at my back, and I walked in by choice. What I hadn’t prepared myself for was the visceral reaction I’d have to the scent of the place. Cedar and the smell of new paper money made my stomach churn hard. I had to swallow several times to keep from vomiting while I kept moving.

The zig-zagging corridor opened up past the second door and I paused. I smelled something, underneath the cedar and the recirculated air. Antiseptic and something sweet I couldn’t name but knew didn’t belong. My body knew it before my brain caught up. Then I moved, because stopping was not an option I’d given myself.

“Hard left past the third door,” I said quietly.

Finch nodded once and led the way. It wasn’t like he didn’t know where he was going or that he needed my approval. I’d spoken mostly to myself. I needed to make sure the directions felt right in the actual setting. I trusted my memory, but the fact remained that I’d been drugged some of the time. While I prided myself on my near photographic memory, I wasn’t too proud to admit I could have made a mistake. Thankfully, Finch seemed to realize my need for confirmation.

We hit the T-intersection and I turned toward the observation room. The one-way glass was set into the wall at eye level, dark on our side, and I knew what was behind it. I pressed close to the wall and looked through.

The main room was lit the way I remembered it. The low amber light hid the bruises when they'd roughed us up to keep the merchandise looking unspoiled for the buyers. Denton was still using the trick. Dark walnut furniture, the bar against the far wall, the dark partitions between the booths. Two women waited in the room, both on their knees with their legs spread and their palms resting on their thighs. Both of them had their heads down but I could see their slight quivering as they waited for whatever fresh hell came for them. Again, I had to fight back a wave of nausea.

Denton stood near the center of the room. He gestured toward the women like they were his property. Which, since they were physically unable to leave on their own, I supposed they were. Across from him, a thickset buyer with the casual confidence of someone who never gets denied, glass of amber liquid in hand. They were talking deals.

At the edge of the room, another man watched everything. Broad-shouldered, dressed expensively but understated. He stood stoic, military posture, graying close-cropped hair giving him some season. The menace coming off him had nothing to do with his size or his clothes. He had the same hard look some of the men in Kiss of Death had. And Tonio. Without moving or speaking, he was easy to peg as the most dangerous man in the room.

"That's Rainman," Tonio whispered softly. "He's the one who set up the meet." The coldness radiating from Tonio was unmistakable.

“I don’t like this,” Kass muttered. “To have such wide-open rooms, this place feels claustrophobic. There’s too much going on at once.”

I knew how he felt. Much as I needed to be here, to help Mercy and all the other women and girls in this house of horrors, I wanted to be anywhere but this fucking club.

“Keep going,” I said softly. “There are more rooms just like this and the women aren’t always in as good a shape.”

“Christ.” Antonio swore, snagging my hand as we advanced behind Kass down the corridor. “We’re not leaving anyone in this place, Kass. The women go back to Haven until we know they have safe places to go. Everyone else dies.”

“You don’t have to fuckin’ tell me twice,” Kass growled. That surprised me. I’d never heard Kass offer an opinion on anything. Tonio or Seth gave an order, and Kass carried it out. These men weren’t bad. They might not operate on the right side of the law, but they weren’t the monsters they’d been painted as. At least, not to anyone who didn’t deserve the monsters.

We continued down the corridor, turning left, then right before we came to the last heavy steel door in the hallway. Kass used some kind of gizmo to double-check the combination of the electronic lock against the numbers Rourke had given us. The numbers must have checked out because Kass punched in the code and opened the door.

I blocked Antonio reflexively, one arm out, because three women in the room all pulled in on themselves but didn’t make a sound as we entered.

“It’s OK,” I said, holding my arms out to my sides. “We just want to help.”

Antonio signaled Kass and Finch, who stepped closer to the door to keep an eye on the corridor. Hawk and Sully poked their heads into the open doorway, but remained outside, likely conferring with Knight while they freed the other women we’d come across.

One woman lay on a cot. Her eyes were wide and fixed on me, not on the men behind me. The other two women were younger. One lay curled on a second cot, her knees to her chest. The third sat on the floor with her back against the wall, her wrists zip-tied to a grate in the floor. All of them had a hollow, stripped look.

I kept my voice low. “My name is Tessa. We’re here to get you out.” Her mouth opened. Nothing came out. “We’re taking you to Haven. It’s safe there.” I moved closer, slow, and knelt by the cot. “Can you walk?”

She nodded once. Her throat worked nervously.

“We need to hurry,” Finch told Antonio. He kept his voice low, but I knew he intended to remind me we didn’t have a lot of time.

Finch stepped forward slowly with a knife and cut the zip ties on the woman by the wall. The woman on the second cot hadn’t moved. I glanced at her, then back at the woman.

“What are your names?” I asked.

“She’s Casey. She won’t… They gave her something.”

“And you?” I wanted her to know her name mattered to us. She wasn’t just a number.

She blinked up at me. “Grace.”

I looked at Antonio. He was already on it, pulling a small vial he held to Casey’s nose and sprayed as she inhaled. It didn’t take long for her eyes to flash open. She gasped and came up swinging.

“It’s OK,” I said, trying to push past Tonio, but he refused to let me. “Concentrate on my voice.” She turned her head my way with a small cry. “Good. That’s good. Keep looking at me.” She held my gaze long enough for me to know she had at least some of her wits intact, but it wasn’t long before her eyelids drooped once again and she fell back into unconsciousness.

Finch said, looking from Tonio to Casey and back. “If they’ve got her heavily drugged and she’s not normally used to opioids, she’s not gonna last long even with the Narcan.”

“I got her,” Kass said, lifting Casey carefully, cradling her against his chest.

Then Grace stood on shaky legs, her gaze darting between all of us. I reached for her hand and we all moved back into the corridor.

“The next room should be behind that door.” I pointed to a heavy steel door with a keypad. “Two women,” I said. “Sometimes three.”

Antonio nodded at Finch, who punched in the code Rourke had provided. The lock clicked. Finch pushed the door open and stepped through. The room was stripped and empty except for a small cot, a sink, and a drain in the floor. The place smelled of bleach so no doubt they’d already sold whoever had been here.

“They’ve been moved,” Kass said, his voice flat and cold. “Good bet Denton knows we’re here.”

Knight’s voice came through the earpiece, tight. “Uh, guys? Security just cycled unexpectedly. There’s a new rotation inbound from the service stairwell. Two men are armed, heading for your position. You’ve got about ninety seconds to get ready.”

“Shit,” Hawk muttered.

“Back the way we came,” Antonio said. “Now.”

Grace moved between Finch and me, her steps unsteady as she stumbled forward. The third woman -- I still didn’t know her name – grabbed Sully’s arm when she stumbled and nearly went down. No doubt, she hadn’t been on her feet in a good long time. Kass carried Casey, with little effort despite her extra weight. Antonio stayed at my back, his hand never leaving my upper arm.

The corridor opened into a wider hallway. Amber light bled from under a door at the far end. The main room to Denton’s party.

“We can’t go back through the front,” I said. “The loading bay would be the better choice.”

“She’s right,” Knight said. “Go down the service corridor and take a left.”

Just as we turned to go, I caught sight of Denton. I almost cried out but Tonio stopped me with a hand over my mouth. I could practically feel his frustration and knew this was the moment he’d feared would happen. Denton would get away now because Tonio would not risk my safety for any reason whatsoever if he could prevent it. By choosing not to take on Denton and the armed security team currently surrounding him, he protected me despite his wants and needs. I knew in my heart the desire Tonio had to kill Denton was more than simple want. This is who Tonio was. A hunter. The wrath of his father and now, my wrath as well. But he protected those close to him with the same ferocity as he dispensed justice. This was the man I’d signed on with. I’d have to really think about this later.

Then, Denton did a double take. Tonio stared him down, not looking away but not raising his weapon either. Surprisingly, Denton didn’t have the two armed guards with him meet the threat I knew Tonio presented. No way Denton didn’t know it either. That thought was confirmed when Denton smirked at Antonio, giving him a chin lift in greeting. Antonio said nothing but held the man’s gaze until Denton had to look away or sic his guards on us. I found it interesting he chose the former rather than the latter.

As we left and moved deeper into the structure things changed. In this area at the back of the building, the walls were bare concrete, the flooring industrial tile, so the smell changed from exotic cedar to concrete dust and mildew. Finally, we reached a set of concrete stairs and hurried down them.

Knight’s voice cut in. “Movement in the main room. Denton’s pulling security. They’re mobilizing.”

“They’ve got us,” Antonio said, his voice calm as he drew his weapon. So did everyone else except Kass, who still held Casey.

The first shot came from behind us. A sharp crack that echoed off the concrete. I ducked instinctively, Grace beside me doing the same. Neither of us made any noise other than the occasional frightened whimper. Antonio shoved me hard against the wall, his body between me and the corridor we’d just left.

“Go,” he barked at Finch. “Get them out.”

Finch didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Grace’s arm and hauled her toward the open bay. Sully followed, the nameless woman behind him. Kass went last, Casey still cradled against his chest. Despite the desperateness of the situation, Kass acted like none of it fazed him.

Antonio stayed with me, his back to the wall and his weapon up. Hawk had already dropped to one knee at the junction, covering our back. Another shot pinged off the concrete near my head and I ducked.

“Stay down,” Antonio snapped.

I reached for the pistol at Antonio’s other hip. He looked at me and nodded. I’d never fired a gun before, but I figured I could aim and pull the trigger. Surely. I mean, I knew enough to turn off the safety and to keep my finger away from the trigger unless I intended to shoot. Which… I really hoped it didn’t happen.

The corridor behind us filled with the sound of boots, heavy and fast. Antonio glanced at me once, his expression unreadable, then pushed off the wall and stepped into the junction.

The room seemed to explode around us. Gunfire erupted. Antonio’s weapon barked out twice, then twice more. Someone shouted and a body hit the floor. More of Tonio’s men fired at the advancing forms and I tried my level best to keep my head down and just stay out of everyone’s way.

Boots pounded from the direction of the main room. Likely Denton’s hired security, or the off-duty cops Knight had warned us about. Didn’t really matter who they were, only that they were coming. They were armed, and they knew the building better than we did, and that gave them a distinct advantage.

I pressed flat against the wall and inched along it, keeping low. A man in a dark jacket rounded the corner ahead of Hawk. Hawk dropped him with two shots to the chest as I crouched watching and taking in the whole scene. The man crumpled and didn’t move.

Another appeared behind the first. He fired wild and panicked, not taking time to assess his situation, and it cost him. Hawk took cover behind a service cabinet. The guard’s shot went wide, pinging off the steel door of the loading bay, but Hawk’s was dead on the mark and the guy dropped like a stone.

Antonio moved now, working his way down the corridor toward the junction. He fired twice and another body hit the floor. The air stank of cordite and the copper tang of blood.

I reached the junction and crouched beside Hawk. He didn’t look at me, his focus never wavering from the corridor ahead.

“Talk to me, guys,” Antonio barked into his comm.

“All clear on my end,” Kass’s voice came back.

“Finch?”

“With me, and the girl,” Kass answered. “Sully’s got the rear.”

Antonio nodded once. He reloaded, ejected the magazine, slammed in a fresh one with the heel of his hand, the motion was fluid and practiced. Yeah, this wasn’t Tonio’s first rodeo, so to speak. Tonio glanced at Hawk and me before continuing on.

I moved with him, always sat at his back with my hand in his back pocket as he and Hawk worked the corridor. Two more shots brought another body down.

We were about to round another corner when a man in a black tactical vest circled into view from behind a service panel. He moved silently, his weapon raised as he pointed it at Antonio’s back. Tonio was focused on the junction, on the firefight ahead, and he didn’t see the man coming at us from an angle.

“Tonio!” I cried out as I raised my gun. My finger found the trigger and I squeezed.

The recoil snapped my arms up slightly, but the man jolted. His weapon discharged into the ceiling as he pulled his shot in surprise. Plaster dust rained down. He staggered, turned, and I saw his face. He was young and clean-shaven. The surprised look on his face gave me a pang of regret I tried to quickly squash. This guy was on the wrong side of humanity today and needed no sympathy from me. If it hadn’t been for Seth and the men and women from Kiss of Death, that young man would have been the one preventing me from fleeing on my own. Then the guy crumpled, going down hard. The pistol clattered across the tile.

Antonio spun. His weapon came around, then stopped when he saw the body. He looked at me. I was still holding the gun in both hands. The body on the floor didn’t move.

Antonio whirled around, his hand closed over mine, lowering the gun as he studied my face hard. “Tessa? You good?”

“I’m fine,” I said. My voice sounded strange in my own ears. Flat. Too fucking calm. “He was going to shoot you.”

“I know.” His thumb brushed over my knuckles. “I also know you’re not fine, but thank you for not letting me die.”

I looked down at the body. The man was maybe thirty. He had a wedding band. His eyes were open, fixed on the ceiling. I’d taken his life and my hands weren’t even shaking. I think that scared me more than the killing itself.

The fight wasn’t over, but all I heard was a roaring in my ears as my breath came too fast. I knew I was in shock and needed to pull myself together, but it seemed an impossible task.

Antonio checked the corridor, then holstered his weapon and took my face in his hands. “Listen to me. You did what you had to do. You did nothing wrong, Tessa. I promise we’ll talk about it later. Right now, I need you present. With me. Can you do that for me, honey?” I nodded. My throat was tight. “Good.” He kissed my forehead, hard, then released me. “We need to move. Denton’s pulling back. Rainman with him.”

I handed Tonio back his gun, then thought better of it. I did thumb on the safety. He met my gaze with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m good. Really. Just shaken up.”

“You sure? I don’t want to take the gun since you obviously decided to keep it, but I’d like to not get shot either.”

I shut my eyes and took a steadying breath. When I opened them, I focused on Antonio and him alone. “I can do this. I’m good.”

He leaned in and gave me one more brief, hard kiss. “That’s my girl.”

I’d killed a man to save the man I loved, and I knew I’d do it again if I had to. What did that make me?

We moved deeper. The corridors narrowed, the amber lighting gave way to harsh fluorescents in the service areas at the back end of the operation. Left at the junction, right at the dead-end that wasn’t really a dead-end, a disguised door led to a short stairwell down.

“Well, Billie be frigged,” Kass muttered. “Don’t see that every day.”

The vault door sat at the bottom of the stairs on the far wall. The biometric panel beside it glowed amber. Denton’s thumbprint or his iris was the only thing that would open the thing.

“He’s gone,” Antonio said as he pressed his palm flat against the steel. “Rainman with him. And the buyer.” I wondered why Antonio hadn’t said anything about Denton before. Probably because there wasn’t anything we could do about Denton and because there was still hope of some kind that Knight could help us.

“Knight,” Tonio said into his radio. “Is there any other way into this vault?”

“Sorry, boss.” Knight’s voice was tight. “That’s a hard biometric. If you don’t have Denton, the thing stays shut.”

Antonio turned away from the vault. His jaw was set. “Fuck!” Finally, he scrubbed a hand over his face. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

We retraced our path. The corridors were quieter now, the bodies lay where they’d fallen. I didn’t look at any of them. I couldn’t.

Hawk was bleeding. A graze along his left arm, dark and wet against his sleeve. He’d tied a bandana around it himself and hadn’t mentioned it.

“You’re hit,” I said.

He shrugged. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.” I reached for his arm. He let me check it. The bullet had torn a furrow through the meat of his bicep but didn’t seem to have done much else. “I should clean that for you.”

“It’s fine, little sister.” He gently pulled his arm free. “I promise I’ll get Pain to look at it when we get back.” He smiled down at me before patting my shoulder and moving on.

When we reached the loading bay, the roll-up door was still open, night air pouring in. Kass waited by a black SUV, Casey still unconscious as he settled her inside in the back seat and fastened her seat belt. Finch stood guard, scanning the alleyway. Sully had the nameless woman and Grace in the second vehicle. Grace sat upright now, mostly alert, her gaze taking in everything.

We loaded into the vehicles. I climbed in beside Antonio and Hawk took the front passenger seat, already on the phone with someone, Carrie, most likely. His voice was low, reassuring. Telling her he got “kissed by a bullet” but was fine.

The SUV pulled away from the loading bay. I watched Éclipse recede in the side mirror, the building dark except for the amber glow from the windows. Denton was in the wind and so was Rainman and their mysterious buyer. Worse, Mercy Raines was still being held captive. Tonio still deserved my anger over breaking his word, no matter how noble the cause, but I still felt bad about going back on mine. Especially since my reason for lying to him no longer applied. I still hadn’t saved Mercy.

We’d saved three women, and I’d made my first kill. I shivered at the thought, my mind not wanting to go there. Antonio’s hand found mine in the dark. His fingers were warm as they laced with mine.

Though we’d gotten the most important objective -- rescuing any women we found -- we hadn’t accomplished shutting down this fucking place. Hopefully, we’d scared them enough they’d be afraid to do anything for a few days until they figured out who’d hit them. By then, I knew Antonio’s men would be better prepared. This whole thing had happened faster than I knew Tonio had been comfortable with.

The SUV wound through backstreets, avoiding main roads, back to the private airport. We reached the safe house an hour later. Kass carried a still unconscious Casey inside while Grace followed. No help for her but to watch her and make sure she kept breathing. Finch helped Hawk while Sully stayed with the vehicles, running cleanup.

Antonio and I stood on the paved drive. He looked down at me, studying whatever he found in my expression.

“How are you holding up?” I could see the concern in his gaze. I also knew he was still pissed at me for being there in the first place.

I shrugged. “I’m fine.” I looked away. “Need a shower.”

“You know, all this will hit you later.” He pulled me into his arms then, holding me close.

“Figured.” I tried not to melt into his warmth because I knew the numbness I’d tried to surround myself in would soon burn off. I really wanted to not be where anyone could see me when it did.

He continued to hold me against his chest, locking his arms tightly around me. I buried my face in the hollow of his throat and breathed him in, his masculine scent, despite sweat and grime the earlier battle, steadying me and keeping the memories at bay, if only for a short time.

The job we’d set out to do was half done, but I knew we’d be back. One thing I’d learned about Antonio Miles was that he wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice. His hand had been forced by the unexpected timeline, but he’d made his point. Antonio Miles was not a man to be fucked with. Now that Denton had Antonio’s full attention, I had no doubt the bastard’s days were numbered.

Chapter Eleven

Tessa

The water ran cold before I noticed. I was still scrubbing at my hands, nails digging into my palms hard enough to leave marks. There was nothing on them. No blood or grime, nothing the water hadn’t already carried down the drain three times over. I kept scrubbing anyway. My skin had gone pink, then raw at the knuckles, and I only stopped when the cold finally registered, needling into my shoulders and the back of my neck until I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

I stood there another minute under the freezing spray, arms wrapped around myself, staring at the drain. The water ran clear. It had always run clear, but I couldn’t shake the sensation of sticky blood.

My hands hadn’t shaken when I’d killed that man. Not once. I turned them over under the cold water and watched them, steady as anything, like they belonged to someone else.

I shut off the water. The cold followed me out of the shower and settled into my bones while I stood dripping on the bathmat. Down the hall somewhere, I could hear low voices. Casey was in one of the guest rooms, still sleeping off whatever they’d pumped into her while someone watched over her in case she needed medical care. Grace had been given a room of her own, and I didn’t know if she was sleeping or staring at the ceiling the way I probably would be in an hour. Hawk had gone to get his arm looked at, brushing off Pain’s worry the same way he’d brushed off mine. And we still hadn’t heard a solid word on how Gunnar was doing. I think that last one worried me more than anything, other than not finding Mercy.

I dried off, but my movements were more than a little clumsy. Sweatpants and a soft T-shirt I suspected might be Tonio’s, assuming the man owned something other than expensive dress shirts, rested on the vanity. Hadn’t he worn a black button-up to the freaking raid? I put them on because I needed to be covered in something that wasn’t damp and cold. And because I needed Tonio’s arms around me. Since I couldn’t bring myself to go to him in such a state, I had to settle for his shirt. The material was a poor substitute, but all I could bring myself to take just now.

When I came out of the bathroom, Antonio was sitting on the edge of the bed with two mugs on the nightstand. “I made you chamomile tea,” he said. “I don’t actually know how you take it.”

I looked at the mugs -- the bags were still in both of them. He’d clearly boiled the water, dunked the bags, and had no idea what happened after that. In any other situation, under any other circumstance, I’d have smiled. Maybe I would later.

“Thank you,” I said, and sat across from him in the chair instead of next to him on the bed, because I needed the distance and didn’t know how to ask for it any other way. I honestly didn’t think I wanted to be near him simply because I realized how big a pussy I really was. The woman of Antonio Miles couldn’t be a pussy.

He watched me pulling away from him and I could tell he didn’t like it but didn’t know exactly how to fix the situation. I didn’t either. He rubbed a hand along his jaw, the same gesture he made when he was building a list in his head and needed somewhere to put his hands while he did it. “I can have food up here in ten minutes. Anything you want. Or Pain can look you over, make sure you’re not hurt anywhere you’re not telling me about.”

“I’m not hurt, Tonio.”

“I know. I’m just saying the option’s there.” He kept going, like if he found the right combination of things to offer, one of them would land. “Knight wants a debrief eventually, but that can wait until tomorrow, or the day after, whenever you’re ready. There’s no rush on that.”

“There really is, and we both know it.” The words came out soft and nearly broken, but I knew I had to hold it together. If I lost it, Tonio would never respect me again.

“Or if you want to talk about tonight, I’m here. If you don’t, I understand that too. I just don’t want you sitting up here thinking you have to be alone with it.” He scrubbed the back of his neck, like he was supremely uncomfortable. “I need to help you, Tessa. With every fiber of my being.”

I understood what he was doing. He needed a task as much as I needed to get my shit together. He needed a next step, because that was how Antonio Miles operated in the world, identifying the problem and solving it before it had the chance to fester.

I didn’t want a next step just yet. I wanted to sit in the chair and not have anyone look at me like I might come apart at any second, but I didn’t know how to tell him that without it sounding like I was pushing him away. Some small, tired part of me still cared what that would look like to him. The fact was, I really cared about Tonio. Might even be growing to love him. Him seeing me at my worst somehow felt more personal than it had the night we’d met when he’d pulled me out of hell.

“I don’t know what I want,” I said instead, which was only half true. “Maybe… to sit for a minute.”

“OK.” He nodded, slow. “We can just sit.” I hated he was so careful of me now though I recognized I needed the care. He didn’t move to touch me. Instead, he stayed where he was on the edge of the bed, mug of tea neither of us was going to drink cooling on the nightstand between us.

I looked at my hands. Still steady. I hated that they were steady, and I hated that I couldn’t say why, and most of all I hated that I couldn’t make myself explain any of it to the one person in the room who wanted so badly to fix it. Instead, neither of us said anything for a long time.

“I’m going to get you something to eat, honey,” he said, standing. “You don’t have to eat it, but I want it here in case you do.”

“Thank you, Tonio,” I said. “I’m sorry. But I want you to know I appreciate you taking care of me.”

I didn’t have anything else to give him yet, and I think he understood that too, because he didn’t wait for me to say anything else. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. Just… let me look after you when I come back? Please?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but he did kneel in front of me for a long time, searching my face for what he didn’t understand. Finally, he leaned in and gave me a tender, loving kiss on the lips that nearly had me breaking down in front of him. He paused at the door, looking back at me once. Then he left.

At least, that’s what I thought at first, then I heard him talking just outside the door in a hushed tone. He hadn’t closed the door all the way, and I could hear his side of the conversation so I assumed he was on a phone call.

“…yeah. No, she’s fine, physically.” A pause. “First one’s always the hardest. I will never put her in the situation for there to be a second.” He sounded hurt, almost like the wounded animal I felt like. Another pause, longer this time, and when he spoke again his voice had gone rougher at the edges, less careful than it had been with me. “I don’t know what she needs right now. I only know it isn’t me.” A short silence. “Yeah. Whatever you’ve got. Quick as you can.”

The quiet that followed felt different. Without Tonio it was much, much worse. I stood and crossed to the window, because somehow staying in the chair made the room feel like it was folding in around me. I looked out at the dark tree line and the single security light at the edge of the helipad, blinking steadily against the darkness of the night sky.

I thought about the young man I’d killed. Or, more accurately, his wedding band. I’d widowed someone somewhere. Had I orphaned someone too? I made myself stop thinking about it and counted the blinks of the light at the helipad. At least, I tried to.

It took maybe five minutes before I heard a soft knock. I knew the visitor would be my sister. Frankly, I was surprised she’d lasted this long. The door open, though I didn’t turn around. Heard Antonio’s voice, low, only a handful of words, pitched too quiet for me to catch. Whatever he said, it wasn’t long. There was a pause, and I imagined Veda looking at him like he’d kicked a puppy. That was my sister. As fierce as she was, though, I didn’t know if even she could help me see the good I’d done.

“Hey,” Veda said.

I turned to look at her over my shoulder, giving her as convincing a smile as I could.

She stood just inside the door in sweatpants and one of Griffin’s old shirts, hair still damp, like she’d come straight from the shower and had barely stopped long enough to throw on something decent before she came to my rescue again. She didn’t ask if I was OK. Instead, she crossed the room, dropped down onto the floor with her back against the frame of the bed, and patted the space beside her without looking up, like she already knew I’d come. Which I did and sat next to her.

Neither of us said anything for a while. The floor was hard through my sweatpants, and the frame of the bed dug into my spine, but I didn’t move, and neither did she.

“You know, the first time I killed was up close and personal,” Veda said finally, staring straight down at her own hands much like I had. “I trembled like a fucking leaf but, even though I thought so at the time, it wasn’t because I’d killed someone. It was that I might not have killed that fucker and Griffin might have been hurt. Or worse.” She shook her head. “Every time I think about that kill, all I can think about is what might have happened if I hadn’t been there.”

“I don’t feel like myself,” I admitted in a reluctant whisper.

“Like someone else crawled inside your skin and took over?”

I whipped my head in her direction to make sure she wasn’t fucking with me. “That’s exactly it,” I said. My voice came out almost a squeak, I was so shocked. “I didn’t expect you to feel like that, Veda. You’ve always been so… I don’t know… put together. Nothing ever bothers you.”

“Oh, Tessa. That’s where you’re wrong. You and Griffin have the power to bring me to my knees. The thought of something happening to either of you puts me into a panic I have trouble not spiraling into, and it’s all because of that kill. Because, like I said, what if Griffin had gotten killed?”

“Exactly like that. Only I’m worried I was so calm. What if I’m like that all the time, Veda? What if I can kill without remorse?”

“Honey, that’s not what you did at all!” She turned to tuck one leg under her while she faced me. “You’re remorseful right now! And that guy you killed? You know good and well if you’d been one of those girls, he’d be the one ensuring you didn’t leave. At least not alive. You know it as well as I do.”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I kind of thought the same thing myself. But he had a wife. Or a husband.” I shook my head helplessly, not able to get the words out. “He had a wedding band. What if I orphaned his kids?”

“And what if he’d been a decent human being and helped all of you rather than protecting those scumbags? I’d say he was more to blame than you for his demise.”

I hesitated, looking desperately for a way to punish myself. Just not for the reasons Veda and Antonio thought. “Coming up empty with an argument.”

My sister smiled at me. “Then maybe it’s time you stopped pussyfooting around this whole situation and tell me what’s really bothering you.”

I pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them, resting my cheek on top so I could look at my sister while I spoke. “Tonio needs a woman who can handle that shit. And I’m not sure I can.”

Veda smiled at me gently. “Tessa, honey. He knows that. He’s beating himself up for giving in to you and not taking away your choices. At the same time, he knows you had to make that decision on your own.”

“I thought I was stronger than this. The fact I didn’t feel anything at the time and seemed to have gone numb, I thought meant I could handle it.”

“You’re not built that way, Tessa. You became that woman to survive and to get vengeance for others.” She smiled at me and shook her head. “You’re first and foremost a nurturer. Always have been.”

“Tonio keeps trying to fix everything. Food, a doctor, a debrief. Like there’s a checklist and if he gets through it, I’ll be OK by morning. Thing is, I feel like maybe I should. I mean, I was. But then I worried about being so cold-blooded. I can’t have it both ways, Veda! What’s wrong with me?” I felt a tear drip from the corner of my eye and wiped it away angrily.

“He would think that.” Amused dryness crept into her voice. “Damned man solves problems by killing them or throwing money at them, since he’s richer than God. This doesn’t fall into either category, so he’s floundering.”

“I didn’t know what to tell him. I still don’t. I just needed him to stop looking at me like I might break.”

“You’re not going to break.” She said it without any weight behind it at all, like she was stating something true and boring. The sky is up. Water is wet. “You held it together in that hallway. You’re holding it together right now. Being wrecked by what you did and being weak aren’t the same thing, and if nobody’s told you that yet, I’m telling you now. Also,” she gave me a pointed look. “It’s OK to cry.”

I felt something loosen in my chest, some knot I hadn’t known I’d been carrying since the moment the man crumpled before me. I’d spent this whole ordeal terrified of becoming the thing everyone worried I already was, some fragile weight around Antonio’s neck, one more person he had to manage and protect and worry over. Sitting here on the floor with my sister, I didn’t feel like a liability.

“I didn’t want him to see me like this,” I said. “Like I might not be able to handle it.”

“He’ll see you a hundred different ways before this is over, and most of them won’t be pretty.” Veda knocked her shoulder against mine lightly. “That’s not a weakness in you. It’s just what happens to people who survive things. You’re allowed to not have your face together every second of every day. Even for him. And if he doesn’t agree, I will show him why he should.”

We stayed on the floor a long time after that, not talking, just breathing in the same quiet, and leaning on each other. For now, this was enough.

Chapter Twelve

Antonio

I came back to Tessa’s suite with the food I’d promised. Every step down the hall was harder than it should have been. The whole house had an unsettled hush blanketing it. At the door, I heard Tessa and Veda speaking softly to each other. Didn’t surprise me. I knew Tessa’s sister could help her see whatever it was Tessa needed to see. I paused, not to eavesdrop but because I didn’t want to step into something mid-breakdown. Mostly because I’d need to go kill someone and I knew she needed me here now more than she needed me to kill Denton.

The door opened and Veda slipped out, half turning before she saw me. Her eyes were red rimmed, but she didn’t look weak. She looked dangerous. She shut the door behind her with a soft click and faced me, arms folded.

“She’ll be OK,” Veda said, voice level. “Don’t make it worse. I almost like you, Tonio. Might even try to convince Darby to hang out with you more. But I won’t hesitate to kill you if you hurt Tessa. She’s not like us.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I wanted to get up in her face and show her she couldn’t talk to me like that but couldn’t seem to make that step toward her. Instead, I took a breath. “She shot a man tonight, Veda. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

Veda looked me up and down like she found me lacking. “She’s steadier than you think.” Veda stepped closer. “You’re the one who looks like you’re about to lose your shit.” She shook her head. “Look. I won’t say this more than once. Don’t fuck this up, Tonio. She’s a nurturer. A protector only when she has to be. You should be thanking your lucky stars she felt she needed to be with you. Do you understand what that means?”

I think I finally realized I might have a chance at this because I knew exactly what it meant that Tessa protected me. “She feels more for me than simple friendship.”

She looked at the tray I carried with the food I’d brought for Tessa, then back at me. “And bring her the dinner first. She needs to eat if she can stomach it.”

Veda slid past, shoulder brushing mine. I stood there a moment longer, collecting myself. Then I went inside.

Tessa stood at the window staring out past the trees to the ridge. She turned when I came in, and I saw at once that Veda had been right. The color was back in her face. She still looked fragile but not like she might shatter at any moment.

The relief that hit nearly drove me to my knees. Tessa wasn’t broken. Like her sister said. She was a nurturer and she’d forced herself into the protector role for multiple reasons. But she’d killed to save me. I had to remember that. I owed her my life, and I knew I’d give it willingly.

I set the tray on the table. “Are you hungry?”

She shrugged. “I could eat.”

I uncovered the food, setting plates on the table. Pad Thai, two spring rolls, some soup. One thing I loved about this place, whenever we had to be here, Seth brought a versatile chef with us. When Tessa sat down, I poured her a glass of water.

We ate in silence. I watched her as she chewed one slow bite at a time, obviously thinking over carefully what she wanted to say. When she finished a few bites, she pushed her hair behind her ear and looked at me straight on.

“So, is this when you read me the riot act?” she said. “Or are you saving it for after dessert?”

I set my fork down, careful not to bang it on the table. “You want to go first, or should I?”

“By all means,” she said. “Unload.”

“You lied to me,” I said. “You said you’d stay back, and you hid in the van. After everything that happened, you still --”

“I lied,” she said, cutting me off. “You’re mad I lied, or mad I was right?”

“Both,” I snapped. “You put yourself at risk for nothing. If something happened to you --”

“If something happened to me, it would have been my call. Not yours.”

“You’re not hearing me, Tessa.”

“No,” she said, standing up. “Besides, you lied to me first. You went back on your word. You said I’d be with you every step of the way. The way I see it, I was just following through with what you’d already promised.”

I stood as well. We faced off across the table, both of us tense and spoiling for a fight. Also, I thought she needed the expulsion of emotion in some way that wouldn’t make her cry. Because I would absolutely burn the world down if she fucking cried.

“You don’t get to throw yourself into danger just because you think you’re expendable,” I said. “That’s not how this works.”

She laughed. “Says the man who said, ‘We go in together, we come out together.’“

“That was before I realized you didn’t value your own life.”

She stepped around the table, squaring off. “You know what’s funny, Tonio? You broke your word first. You said you’d never put me at risk, and you did. You said you’d never lie to me, and you did. So don’t get up on a high horse about broken promises.”

I clenched my jaw. “I broke my word to keep you alive. Which I will not apologize for!”

“Then admit it. Don’t act like this is all on me.”

The room was bright, the table between us. And I knew like Goddamned fury she didn’t believe I thought any of this was her fault. She needed a way to lash out and I’d give her everything she needed. If that meant I took her wrath, so be it. I felt my pulse in my throat, tight and pounding. She was breathing fast, eyes locked on mine.

“You want the truth?” I said. “The sight of you holding that gun --”

“What? Made you proud? Made you angry? What do you want from me, Tonio?”

“I want you alive,” I said. “That’s all I want. I want you alive and here with me. Not… not another fucking ghost to haunt me.” My voice cracked, just a fraction. This hit me too fucking close to home and way out of nowhere.

She moved nearly close enough to touch. “Stop treating me like a tragedy you have to manage, Tonio. I’m not another thing you need to fix.”

“You’re not a thing to me, Tessa. You’re the only Goddamn person in this house who isn’t broken.”

She stepped in. “So let me make my own mistakes. Let me fight for you the way you fight for everyone else.”

“You want to die a martyr?”

“I want to live,” she said. “But not if it means being benched for the rest of my life.”

We were nearly chest to chest now. She stared up at me, unblinking, daring me to look away first.

“Tessa,” I said, “you’re driving me fucking insane.”

She bared her teeth. “Good.”

I grabbed her by the waist and pulled her in, not gentle. She didn’t resist, curling her fingers in my shirt, her fists tight. For a second I thought she’d take a swing at me. I wouldn’t have blamed her.

Instead, she yanked me down by the collar and bit my lower lip. I kissed her back just as hard, growling into her mouth as I flicked my tongue. All the while, she tried her best to get my shirt off.

With a screech, Tessa yanked my shirt open. Buttons went flying but she breathed a sigh of relief. Like getting my shirt off had been the most important task of her life. My racing heart gave an excited thump and I followed where she led. If this was what she needed, I’d provide. Then I’d reassure her and give her anything and everything she needed. Even if I had to burn the fucking world down to do it.

I pressed her against the wall and caged her there, both hands gripping her hips. She twisted, fighting to get closer, but I held her in place and took her mouth again, my tongue bruising hers in an erotic slide. She tasted of mint and anger. She bit my lip, and I grinned into it.

She shoved me backward, moving herself away from the wall, then stalked after, grabbing my face with both hands. The kiss was brutal and I let her have it. When I gripped her hips and pulled her closer to me, she scissored my thigh and rubbed her pussy over my leg to get the friction she needed. I grasped the curve of her ass, squeezing until she hissed.

“You want it rough?” I said, breath hot against her jaw.

She snorted. “I want you to stop acting like I’ll break.”

I picked her up. She locked her legs around my waist and buried her face in my neck, inhaling deep before fastening her mouth on the skin and sucking. Hard. I moved us to the bed, but she twisted out of my grip at the last second, landing on her feet. Her shirt was off before I could touch her again and she stripped off her bra, throwing it at my head, and grinned. The relief on her face nearly brought me to my knees. If she needed rough sex to make her feel better, by God I would give it to her.

“Move it, Miles. Or are you getting old?”

I yanked off my own shirt and stalked toward her, pushing her backward onto the mattress. I still had on my pants but it was only a matter of time. Besides, the second my dick touched her -- anywhere -- I knew I’d go off like a bottle rocket.

She laughed, a wild, sharp sound. As she stripped her pants and panties in one go, I took time to study her face. Yeah, she looked wild, and I knew she’d break down at some point -- and that was good, but I’d seen that look in my own eyes after an especially intense kill. She needed a way to rid her body of the excess negative adrenaline.

Her skin seemed to glow in the cold light. She reached for me, impatient, but I caught her wrists and pinned them to the mattress, covering her smaller body with my much bigger one.

She bucked, trying to throw me. I pressed down harder. She grinned up at me, daring me to keep her there. I slid my knee between hers and forced her legs apart. She growled, arching up, trying to get my cock against her, but I made her wait.

“You gonna keep me here all night?” she said, breathless, hips rocking upward, a mate looking to attract.

“Maybe.” I let go of her wrists. “Grip the bars at the head of the bed.” Surprisingly, she obeyed. The headboard was carved and ornate with thick polished, sturdy wood. I kissed between her breasts, stopping to take one nipple into my mouth and suck. She smelled like honeysuckle and clean sweat, and it went straight to my cock like a fucking freight train.

“Tonio --”

“Quiet.” I gripped her thighs and pushed them wide, holding her open. She didn’t fight me on that. In fact, she gripped the backs of her knees, holding herself open for me as she watched with those wrecked copper eyes, chest heaving, and I let myself look my fill before I put my mouth on her sweet pussy.

I licked her slow, from cunt to clit, relishing at her cries. Her hips jerked against my hold. But I swatted the back of her thigh before diving back in again, snarling against her wet flesh.

“Let it out, Tessa,” I said against her pussy. “Whatever’s left in you tonight, you’re going to give it to me.”

I didn’t wait for her answer. I pressed her thighs wide and covered her pussy with my mouth again. Tessa screamed, sharp and raw. Immediately, she let go of her thighs to tunnel her fingers through my hair and grip hard enough to sting. Good. I wanted her rough with me.

I groaned against her, the sting in my scalp only fueling me on. This woman had been mine the second I laid eyes on her in that cell. It might have taken me a bit to work it out for myself, but there was no way I would ever give her up. Tessa Garrison was mine. My woman. And I would make her my wife. Seth would just have to live with it.

I flattened my tongue and dragged it slowly over her clit, circling several times as her thighs trembled and her pussy quivered.

“Tonio --” Her voice cracked, high and desperate. “Don’t stop. Don’t you dare stop.”

As if. I continued to play with her clit, sucking and flicking it in turn. I wanted her mindless. I wanted every ounce of tonight -- Éclipse, the blood, the man she’d put down to save my life -- burned out of her by pleasure so intense she couldn’t think of anything else.

She rocked against my mouth, hips grinding hard, her thighs shaking against my hands. I held her open, relentless, chasing the sounds she made and doing my best to wring more from her. Her fingers tightened in my hair as she dragged me closer to her pussy so she could grind against me. Whatever pain she needed to work loose, I’d take it. All of it.

“That’s it,” I said against her, voice rough. “Give it all to me.”

She came on a shattered cry that made my chest swell in both pride and relief. Her back bowed off the mattress, thighs clamping around my head. I didn’t let up until the tremors rolling through her slowed, until her grip in my hair went slack and Tessa went boneless against the sheets.

I kissed my way up her body, over her stomach, between her breasts, along her throat, until I reached her mouth. She kissed me over and over, hungrily but also with affection and thanks. If there were tears on her cheeks, I wasn’t going to mention them. I wasn’t stupid.

She reached for my belt, fingers clumsy with need, and I stood to finish what she started. I shoved my pants and boxers down in one motion, kicking them aside along with my shoes and socks. Her gaze dropped to take me in like she needed to memorize every inch. I let her look as I gripped the base of my dick. Let her have whatever ground she needed to reclaim herself and tonight.

“Come fuck me, Tonio.” Her voice was a breathy, needy whisper. She was better, but she needed more and I thought this could be the breakthrough we both needed emotionally.

“Do you want a condom?” I raised an eyebrow, wanting her to make the choice.

She narrowed her gaze at me. “You said before there would never be anything between us. Have you changed your mind?”

“Not for one Goddamned second.”

“Then don’t ask me stupid questions,” she said, reaching for me again, and I let her pull me back down on top of her.

I settled between her thighs, braced on one forearm, and positioned myself against her pussy entrance. She was slick and swollen from my mouth, and when I pushed the head of my cock inside her, Tessa sighed like she was the most contented woman alive.

“Look at me,” I said.

She did, her copper gaze locking onto mine. I pushed inside her in a slow, wet glide, my cock thick and pulsing against her tight pussy walls. Tessa’s breath caught, her entire body tensing, hungry for the fucking I intended to give her. I watched her carefully just to make sure she didn’t shy away from what she’d just begged for. She didn’t. She fucking thrived on it.

Her nails dug into my arms, sharp enough to sting, and that just made me harder. I bottomed out, balls flattening against her ass, my groan mixing with her broken little whimper. Pure fucking heaven, right there.

“Jesus, Tonio,” she gasped, bringing her legs up to lock around my hips and pull me deeper. “Fuck!”

I braced over her on my forearm, my other hand gripping her thigh so tight I’d probably leave marks. Good. She’d need the reminder in the morning. I started to move, a slow grind meant to make her feel every inch of me.

“You feel that?” I rolled my hips, grinding hard at the end. “That’s you taking every fucking inch like a good girl.”

She arched up, chasing her orgasm. Her tits rubbed against my chest. Her whole body trembled beneath me and all I could do was hang on while she fucked me like a boss. With me on top of her. And I let her. I wanted every drop of that wild, angry energy out of her system and all over my cock. I put my hands on her hips and gave it to her the way she wanted it. Hard, deep, steady. I didn’t stop. I didn’t let up, not for a single Goddamned second.

I set a brutal rhythm and she took everything I gave her, never looking away from my eyes. I fucked her until my arms shook and sweat ran down my face. She wrapped her legs around me and held on, using her own leverage to fuck herself on my cock, greedy for me.

She was close, but fought it, either not wanting to come yet or defying me to see what I’d do. I honestly didn’t know nor did I care, because I’d reached the point where there was very little I could do to keep from coming, and there was no fucking way I was coming before she did. I lay flat on top of her, pinning her wrists again while I rode her.

She glared up at me, breath ragged. “Do it, you fucking coward,” she spat. “Come in my pussy! Come right fucking now!”

“Fucking bitch,” I bit out as I let go, coming inside her with a deep hard thrust. Tessa screamed like her whole world detonated. Her pussy squeezed my dick so hard I saw stars. Her whole body seized, nails biting deep into my shoulders. The sound drove me straight over the edge.

When she stilled, I collapsed on top of her, both of us panting and spent. She wrapped her arms around my neck and laughed softly.

“Fuck,” she said, dragging her hand down her face and urging me in for a soft, lingering kiss. “Fuck, I needed that.”

I grinned, kissing her again just because I could. “You’re not the only one.” I rolled us so we lay on our sides and that’s as much space as I could allow her at the moment.

She reached for my hand, interlacing our fingers. Then she pushed me to my back before climbing on top of me, straddling my hips. Her hair hung in her face, wild and tangled. She looked down at me, dark eyes searching.

“You done treating me like glass?” she said.

I slid my hands up her thighs, stopping at her hips. “Only if you stop lying to me.”

She snorted. “No promises.”

I smirked, running my hands up to her waist, feeling every bruise and scratch. “You’re a piece of work, Tessa.”

“Ditto.”

She leaned down, forehead pressed to mine. The anger was gone. All that was left was the exhaustion, the afterglow, and the certainty that neither of us would ever be the same. To be honest, I didn’t want to go back to the person I was before Tessa came into my life.

With the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen, Tessa sighed and draped herself over my body, her sex dripping my cum onto my lower belly where she lay. My cock gave an interested jump, but I wasn’t sure I could rebound that fast. And the emotional release had been as much for me as it was for her.

After that, we stayed tangled up on the bed for a long time. I could tell she was awake by the way her fingers traced slow, idle lines over my ribs. She found the thin white scar at the base of my sternum and followed it up to where it vanished into muscle.

“Darby’s mother’s name was Jennifer,” I said. “She was an artist. I met her when she was painting a sunrise at a nearby park in Nashville. She was brash and smart and absolutely relentless when she wanted something.”

Tessa stilled, listening.

“I was twenty-four. I thought I knew everything. She thought the opposite about me and she was right. We were together just shy of two years when she left.”

“I take it things didn’t work out?”

“I honestly couldn’t tell you, honey. Jen was the most independent person I’ve ever met. Man or woman. She chafed at my need to know where she was. Not to control her, and she didn’t really see it as me trying to control her. She just rebelled against authority.” I sighed, shaking my head slightly. “It wasn’t anything unusual for her to leave for days or weeks at a time. She would usually call or even leave a note telling me she’d be back in a little while.

“One day, she was gone.” I gave a little wave of my hand before dropping it back to my chest. “I didn’t think much about it at first. Like I said, she did that on occasion. But this time she was just… gone.”

“Did you ever find out what happened?”

“Only that she spiraled into heavy drug use and OD’d, leaving Darby on her own. After searching for her for several weeks, Seth finally told me to let her go. I don’t know what happened to make her run, but Darby paid the price for it.

“Before she left me, I got her pregnant with Darby, though I didn’t know,” I said. “Not until a couple of years ago. Darby was only seven when Jennifer died. The foster system and Darby… well, they didn’t mix.”

Tessa stroked my jaw in a gentle caress. Then she kissed my shoulder and settled her body close to me, snuggling contentedly. “That painting in the sunroom,” she said, “is hers.”

“Yeah. She painted it the week we met.”

“It belongs with you,” Tessa said, simple as a fact. “You loved her.”

I thought about that statement for a long moment, needing to think about my answer. “Yes. I think I did. Just not in the way I first thought.”

She raised up slightly, looking at me. “I don’t follow.”

“I loved the idea of Jen. She was every man’s dream woman. Well, most men’s. She couldn’t care less what I did or who I was with. I told her I’d never be with more than one woman at a time, but she waved me off. And no. I don’t think she had other lovers. I mean, I thought that maybe at first, but that wasn’t Jen. She’d have come out and said something. She definitely wouldn’t have moved in with me. Took me long enough as it was to get her to agree. It took me a really long time to figure that out about myself. That I was with Jen because I got the freedom I wanted with the commitment from her to be my woman. She never worried about where I was or what I did. My father said she wasn’t the woman for me, but I didn’t believe him.” I studied Tessa’s face, then reached up to stroke her cheek, brushing my thumb over her lower lip. She took it into her mouth and sucked, closing her eyes like she was in bliss. When she opened them again, I held her gaze. “But Seth was right. Jen wasn’t the woman for me. You are, Tessa. So, you be as badass as you want. Or you be as docile as a kitten. I don’t care. Just as long as you’re with me.”

If I lived to be a hundred, I’d never know if I said the wrong thing or not. But Tessa dissolved into tears. And she clung to me as she cried. For a very, very long time.

I tried to comfort her as much as I could, but she just buried her face in my chest and cried all the harder, hanging on to me like she’d never let me go. So I did the only thing I knew how to do. I wrapped my arms around her as tightly as I dared and let her cry it out.

It took a long time for her to wear herself out. But when she did, despite the red cheeks and nose or the puffy eyes, she looked more relaxed than I’d seen her since we met. She was completely passed out. Exhausted.

I watched her as she slept. Her hair spread over my arm and upper belly, twining us together. I made myself a promise, right then. I’d lost Jen for reasons I couldn’t imagine. But I would not lose Tessa. I’d hold her until she told me to stop.

And then I’d hold her anyway.

Chapter Thirteen

Tessa

Ten weeks later

It had been ten weeks since Denton and Rainman disappeared. I’d learned exactly where all my soft spots were by the third week and spent the other seven trying to ignore them.

Denton and Rainman had gone to ground the night of the raid and stayed there, as far as anyone could tell. Knight chased every wire transfer, every burner number, every shell company registered to a name that led to another name that led nowhere at all, and every single trail died clean and quiet, like somebody with real money and real patience had scrubbed the world behind them. Éclipse sat dark. The place had closed up shop with no commotion. It was like the whole of their clientele had gotten some group text telling them business was closed for a while.

Life at the mountain, in the meantime, had turned into something I hadn’t let myself believe I still got to have. Mornings where Antonio slept past dawn, his arm heavy and warm across my waist, were some of the most treasured memories of my life thus far. Coffee on the porch, Carrie teaching me how to braid a fishtail because she said I did it wrong and it drove her insane to watch, Darby swearing up a blue streak at a video game controller like the console had personally wronged her family, and all the smiles and laughs I’d collected from every person holed up in this luxury hide-away would forever live in my heart. Small, stupid, perfect things made me happier than I could ever remember being.

Underneath all of it, though, ran the one thread I couldn’t cut loose no matter how hard I yanked. Mercy Raines. She was still somewhere in the dark I’d only escaped by luck and with a small army. I knew that fixating on her wasn’t really about Mercy. It was about me. About surviving when other people hadn’t and needing somewhere to put that guilt so it didn’t sit on my own chest and crush me instead.

I also knew that the tired, sick feeling dogging me for weeks wasn’t really about her either, though I told myself it was. Some mornings I couldn’t look at eggs without my stomach lurching. Some afternoons I fell asleep sitting up, book still open in my lap, and woke an hour later disoriented and cotton-mouthed. I chalked it up to a low simmering depression I hadn’t had time to examine yet, plus a body that hadn’t kept anything resembling a reliable calendar since the night they’d taken me. Éclipse had knocked my whole life sideways on multiple fronts. Made sense my period would be part of the collateral damage.

It was Veda who finally said out loud what the rest of us had been circling for a week. We sat around the big kitchen table, the four of us, Carrie curled sideways in her chair with her knees drawn up, Darby flipping a butter knife end over end like she might play with a fidget spinner.

“We’re going back to the compound,” Veda said, and there wasn’t a question mark anywhere in her voice. “All of us. Together.”

Antonio looked up from his coffee slowly, like he already knew arguing wasn’t going to get him anywhere but wanted the record to show he’d considered it. “This a discussion?”

“Not at all,” Darby said cheerfully.

“We’ve been up here ten weeks,” Carrie said softly. “Denton’s gone quiet. Knight’s got nothing. We love you, Antonio, we do, but this isn’t a life. It’s a very expensive, very luxurious holding pattern. Not to mention the women we rescued need to find some kind of normal life. They can do that better if we take them back to Haven.”

I watched Antonio’s expression closely. He wanted to argue about safety and every reason he’d stacked up over the last two months for keeping us all exactly where we were. Then I watched him let it go instead. He kind of deflated but did it with a stubborn tilt to his chin. Kind of looked like he wanted to convince himself this was all his idea and Goddamn anyone who suggested otherwise.

“Fine,” he said, then gave me a pointed look. “But Pain checks you over the second we land. No arguments.”

I didn’t argue. Mostly because I was tired, and because some small, buried part of me was relieved somebody else wanted to make sure I was all right, even if I’d have sworn up and down there was nothing to find.

When we left the next morning, it was barely sunrise. I packed one little bag, knowing I had stuff at the compound and, no matter how much money Antonio and his father had, a helicopter was only so big if you wanted it to be practical, which meant limited space. Antonio said nothing, just kept his hand on the small of my back, steering me everywhere like I might run for it at any second. He also seemed a touch overly attentive. I chalked it up to the demand for a sudden change in environment. Antonio might be a badass mob boss, but he was also overly protective. And I thought I might be OK with that.

Once we arrived back at Kiss of Death, deep inside the place under all the camo netting and stuff to hide us, Sully waved from a garage bay. He’d come ahead with Finch to make sure there were no surprises. And yeah, Tonio had to be a show-off and have the pilot land us on top of one of the warehouses they’d had repurposed for this very thing. Might have been more practical than having an escort from the private airport, but I know he enjoyed helping me from the expensive ride like the mafia prince he was. Money and power went a long way.

Hawk’s arm had healed fine, the bandana long retired. And there, in the middle of the yard, propped on a cane with a physical therapist half his age trying to talk him through some range-of-motion exercise, stood Gunnar, cussing a blue streak that probably made Darby proud.

“I don’t give a good Goddamn what the fuckin’ chart says, I’m walkin’ to that fuckin’ grill without your Goddamned help,” he snarled, swatting away the therapist’s steadying hand. “Or a fucking walker! I survived a Goddamned building falling on me. I can survive a fuckin’ hamburger.”

Hannah and Pippa stood on the sideline, each with a beer in hand, and clinked bottle necks before taking healthy pulls.

“You tell the bastard, honey.” Pippa gave Gunnar a salute with her beer bottle before Hannah clinked bottle necks with her again.

“You got this, big brother!”

Gunnar turned and pointed at Hannah. “I have to take that from Pippa. She’s my woman. You on the other hand --”

“Am your little sister, and you will take anything I dish out because you love me.”

“You’re ten minutes younger than me!” The man really was a horrible patient.

“Which you used to your advantage every single time you wanted to pull rank on me our entire childhood.” She grinned at the big VP. “Suck it up, buttercup.”

Veda laughed and quit trying to pretend watching Gunnar grumble through physical therapy after he’d nearly died didn’t give her as big a relief as it did the rest of us. This was our family. All of us. Then Pippa jogged over to smack a kiss on his cheek before he could start another tirade.

I stood there in the yard a minute longer, soaking in all of it -- the noise, the family, the ordinary chaos of people who loved each other being loud about it -- and felt I belonged. I never wanted that feeling to leave.

Veda fell into step beside me as we headed for the main house, looping her arm through mine. “She’s exhausted,” she said to Nadine, who’d come out onto the porch to greet us. “Sleeping half the day some days.”

Nadine’s gaze slid to me, gave me a quick once over, then smiled warmly. “Come on, sweetheart,” she said, hooking her hand through my other elbow before I could protest. Tonio gave me a gentle shove in her direction, urging me onward as Nadine continued to speak. “Let’s get Pain to check you over. Just to be safe.”

The clinic had a light bleach smell underneath the scent of the lavender hand soap sitting by the sink Nadine used to wash her hands. I supposed, if I had to get bad news, I’d rather it come wrapped in lavender. All my problems weren’t over, but oh my God, I loved that scent. Not that I expected bad news. I was just exhausted. With everything that had happened, not to mention all the sex I’d been enjoying with Tonio, it was no wonder I felt tired.

Pain worked quietly, letting Nadine do most of the talking. They took two vials of blood, then handed me a plastic cup and Nadine led me to the little bathroom off the exam room. Nadine kept up a steady stream of light conversation while we waited on results, gossip about somebody’s cousin twice removed who’d married a man nobody liked, whether Gunnar was going to actually behead his physical therapist before the month was out, and whether Ellie’s cats had finally stopped giving Chains, Ellie’s man, the creeps from hell. Yeah. The man was terrified of black cats. All three cats were black. Jet black. And they all looked at Chains like they’d love to steal his soul. I couldn’t help but giggle at the mental image. It was easy, comfortable noise, the kind that let me breathe instead of spiral.

Then Nadine gave me a gentle smile as she continued asking me questions. “When was your last cycle, hon?”

I opened my mouth to answer and nothing came out, because I genuinely didn’t know. I sat there running back through weeks, then months, and came up with nothing solid to grab onto. “I don’t…” I frowned, actually working the math like it might change the answer. “Not since before Éclipse. Not since before they took me.”

Nadine paused, studying me carefully. She didn’t look alarmed, so I let it go. “OK,” she said, easy as ever. “That’s good. I think Pain’s running the blood test. Our machine is more basic than we could get at a hospital or doctor’s office, but it’s really all we need here. He’s checking your blood for anemia and the very basics.” She smiled. “Shouldn’t take long.”

Nadine stayed with me, chatting lightly as she offered me a cold bottle of water from the fridge and handed me a pill.

“What’s this?” I looked up at her questioningly.

“Just a multivitamin. I can tell by looking you’re at least slightly anemic.”

Pain came back into the room and I automatically checked his expression for a clue as to what he had to say. I had no expectation there was anything wrong with me other than stress. So why did I feel like I was missing a big piece to the puzzle?

He nodded to Nadine, and she reached for a small gadget with a little probe on it that kind looked like a fucking pocket rocket.

“Uh, Nadine?” I looked up at the other woman. “I really like you, but I don’t swing that way.”

Nadine barked out a laugh and Pain actually had to turn away and covered his mouth with his hand. He still chuckled.

“It’s a doppler. I just want to take a look at something, if you don’t mind?”

I probably had a blank look on my face. “No. Not at all, but what are you looking at?”

She gave me a faintly amused look before turning to grab a tube of KY Jelly and I really got worried. “Just raise your T-shirt up over your belly button and unzip your pants. I just need to get to your belly.”

I blinked up at her, not following exactly, but my whole body broke out in a sweat and my heart raced.

“Lie back. You got this.” Nadine smiled, gentle as she patted my shoulder, urging me to lay down on the exam table.

The gel on my belly was cool, but not unpleasant. Nadine moved the little probe over my tummy, right above my pubic bone…

From the tiny speaker in the device, there was some static as Nadine settled the tiny microphone firmly against my skin. There was some more static and squelch… Then a rapid thump thump thump of an unmistakable heartbeat. Inside my belly.

“Um, Nadine?”

She pursed her lips and I could tell she wanted to smile. I had the feeling it wasn’t at the situation but at my reaction. “Um?”

“My heart is beating awfully fast.”

“Well…” She shifted the probe again, not much but enough that it picked up another heartbeat. This one was still fast, but much slower than the first. “That’s your heartbeat. I’m picking that up from your abdominal aorta. This…” she shifted the probe back to the other spot and the faster heartbeat sounded again, “is not.”

My breath caught. I felt my face flush as the pieces finally clicked together. “Well, fuck me.”

She giggled. “Tessa, honey. You kinda already did. Yeah?”

I laughed. Or maybe I cried. I think it came out as some strange combination of both. I pressed my hand flat over my mouth like I could hold the sound in even as the tears overflowed. Joy hit first, bright and enormous, followed by pure, abject terror. A baby. Antonio’s baby. Growing inside me while men who wanted us both dead were still out there somewhere, licking their wounds and waiting for round two.

“Hey.” Nadine gripped my hand, smiling at me. “You know you’ve got a village here to help you, right? No matter what happens, you’re one of us now, Tessa.”

I gave her a watery smile. “Yeah. I see that. But I’ll be fine.” Looked from Nadine to Pain. “Thank you both so much.”

“Do you want me to get Antonio for you?” Pain spoke softly but smiled at me kindly. “Nadine wouldn’t mind staying with you.”

“What? No!” I shook my head. “No. I’m not afraid of Tonio or how he’ll react.” I waved them off. “If he doesn’t give me the answer I want, I’ll bust his balls.”

That got more laughs. Yes, I knew everything wasn’t magically going to be all sunshine and rainbows, but, given Tonio’s need to control his environment and everyone in it, maybe this was a chance to redirect some of that protective energy away from me. Well. Eventually.

Ten minutes later, I found Antonio in my apartment in the compound. He looked up from whatever he was reading when I came in. He sat up straighter and put his tablet down. As I approached, he stood and met me halfway.

“Tessa, honey. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong!” I smiled at him, but tears leaked steadily now from my eyes to roll down my cheeks. “Really. I’m fine.” I sniffled and swiped at my eyes, still with what was probably a really stupid look on my face.

“Clearly you’re not,” he snapped before scooping me up and sitting on the couch with me in his lap. “Did Pain find an injury? What do you need?” He shifted and pulled out his phone. “I’m calling that bastard,” he mumbled. “Knew I should have just gone with you. Whatever’s going on, I’ll take care of it, honey.”

“Tonio, I’m pregnant.”

For a second he didn’t move at all. Then, a slow smile spread across his lips. Watching the joy and what I could only describe as hope play across Tonio’s face was heartbreakingly beautiful. Wonder softened every hard line until he looked ten years younger than the man I’d first met. He reached up to stroke my cheek with a hand that shook.

“I didn’t get a chance to get to know Darby or to love her as a child.”

“You will with this one.” I smiled at him, leaning in to brush his lips with mine.

“I’d be lying if I said wasn’t expecting this.” He rubbed my nose with his continuing to hold me on his lap. God, I love being in this man’s arms. “I don’t want you to think I’m stifling you or trying to control you, but, Tessa, I need to get you back to my mountain. I can’t let these men get you.” He kissed me. “Nothing can happen to you.”

“I know,” I said, and I meant it. I put my hand flat over my stomach, over the place where that fierce little heartbeat lived. “I’ll go, Tonio. Not because you’re telling me to. Because I want this baby safe more than I want anything else in the world.”

He kissed my forehead, then my mouth, gently tasting and teasing lightly. Just because he could.

Instead of making love -- like I wanted -- Tonio ate me to orgasm. Three times. He insisted he wanted to talk to Pain before he did anything else but promised to make it up to me later.

He pampered me and cuddled me and treated me like a princess. For several hours, I pretended we were a normal couple.

Then things started happening.

Knight called with an update and, from Tonio’s side of the conversation, I knew they’d found someone. I listened as Tonio and everyone else made plans. I tried to pay attention, but it was all mostly white noise. I nodded in the appropriate places as I tried to come to terms with my life now and wanted it with everything in me. Tonio and the baby. And this crazy club.

“You look like hell,” Carrie said to me, cheerful as anything. “Good hell. Glowy hell.”

“Shut up,” I said, but I was smiling. I had grown to really like Carrie and Darby. Both women had a lot of Antonio in them. Carrie, I’d learned, was basically a trained assassin. Apparently, she had brothers in the shadows no one was supposed to know about. And yeah. That wasn’t terrifying at all.

She bumped my shoulder with hers and went back to looking out the window, relaxed but I could see the tension in her shoulders and the set of her jaw. Twenty minutes out from the compound, and we’d be at the private airport. Obviously, Carrie took her protection detail very seriously. We’d landed on the roof before, but Knight thought it might keep everyone guessing if we left Tonio’s helicopter here and took a different helicopter home. And there was so much to unpack in that statement alone.

Under protest, Tonio had gone ahead to the airstrip, readying yet another freaking helicopter to take me and Carrie back to the mountains. If I was the kind of woman to care about money, I’d probably have my head spinning with the amount of casual wealth the man had. But truthfully, I just wanted Tonio. OK, so, I wanted Tonio and his family. Because I’d never felt closer to anyone other than my sister than I did in the presence of all the men and women of Kiss of Death, but most especially Tonio’s large and ever-growing extended family. His absence was why Carrie was with me now. She said she’d do anything she had to, to keep Darby’s new stepmother and brother or sister safe. Carrie had said it with a straight face, but Darby had cracked up which led to a cascade of giggles before Carrie and I both hugged Darby goodbye and left.

I never saw the truck coming. Metal screamed into metal as something enormous slammed into the front quarter panel where Kass sat. The impact threw me hard into my belt, air punching out of my lungs in one ugly grunt. Glass sprayed across the seats like ice. Carrie’s arm came across my chest on instinct, bracing me back, and she was already shouting something I couldn’t process because my ears had gone to a high thin ring and everything else sounded like it came from a deep, deep well.

Gunfire erupted from both sides at once, flat cracks against the windows, and I ducked with a scream, covering my head instinctively. Smoke rolled in through the shattered window, gray and stinging. Finch shouted something. Kass had his door open and his weapon covering us while Finch assessed the situation.

“Tessa!” Carrie’s voice cut through the ringing, sharp and furious. She had her door open, was already half out of the vehicle, hauling me by the arm toward the gap. She must have undone my seat belt because I certainly hadn’t undone it.

A man in a black mask came around the back bumper and grabbed me. I screamed again, and Carrie pounced with a yell.

She got his knife from his belt and stabbed the guy in the neck four times. She hauled me toward the tree line, half guiding, half dragging, before a second man grabbed my other arm and jerked hard enough to make my shoulder scream.

“Let her go!” Carrie screamed. She slammed her bloodied palm flat against the side of the vehicle where they’d taken me. She wasn’t letting them take me without a fight and I helped her as best I could, struggling as hard as I could, kicking and scratching. For some reason, I focused on that bloody handprint. The smeared, bloody handprint was difficult to see on the dark paint, but it was there, streaked down the side of the van where Carrie dragged it across the surface.

I fought. I clawed at the hand on my arm, kicking out blindly and connecting with something because the man grunted close to my ear, but there were two of them, and they moved like this wasn’t the first time they’d done this. Both were calm and coordinated even with Carrie shrieking and Kass’s gun going off somewhere behind me. I know Carrie had dropped at least one more of the attackers and she was making enough noise to wake the dead.

Then something bit the side of my neck. Sharp, quick, and gone before I understood what it was.

The world went soft at the edges almost immediately. My legs stopped working the way they were supposed to. I heard Carrie’s voice, still screaming my name, and it sounded like it was coming from underwater, from very far away.

A hood came down over my head, and the world went from gray to black, and somebody’s gloved hands checked the zip ties at my wrists.

I don’t know how long the drive lasted before the drug thinned out enough to let me think again. Long enough that my wrists had gone numb against the plastic. Whatever was coming, I’d survive it. I’d survived worse with less reason to.

And whoever had sent these men had no idea the magnitude of shit storm about to rain down on them. As I covered my middle with my bound hands, I understood my assignment. Keep us both safe until Tonio came for me. Then God have mercy on anyone involved in this, because I knew Antonio Miles would not.

Chapter Fourteen

Antonio

The rotor wash battered me where I stood a distance from the waiting aircraft. Kerosene fumes mixed with wet tarmac smell created the backdrop. My heart pounded with equal parts fear and… elation. Tessa was pregnant with my child. As badly as I failed Darby, I didn’t think I deserved a second chance so while I was happy, that happiness wasn’t for me. Tessa was happy. I was happy she was happy. If the end result was I got a chance to be an actual father, I’d grab it with both hands and hang on as long as Tessa let me.

OK, that wasn’t true. I wanted this child. I wanted to love this child. Most of all, I wanted to protect the child and her mother like I hadn’t been able to with Darby and Jen.

And… I hated fucking waiting. They should be here any minute, but I had a bad feeling.

I climbed inside the waiting helicopter and one of the hanger crewmen shut the door after me. My phone vibrated with an incoming call. When I answered it, my world stopped.

“They hit us, boss.” Finch panted, his breaths coming in heavy even as I heard continued gun fire in the background.

“How bad?” I barked.

“Everyone is alive, but they took Tessa.”

I didn’t even hear what Finch said next. White static filled my head, drowning out everything. My knees buckled, and I punched the inside panel where I sat so hard my fist went numb and a line of blood welled up between my knuckles. Didn’t feel it. Didn’t care. All I could see was Tessa’s face, eyes shining, hand on her belly. My baby. My woman.

And someone had fucking taken her!

The pain hit so hard I almost puked. Instead, I dragged the agony inside and let it burn. Rage, ugly and bright, lit up my veins. Every failure I’d ever made blared in my ears. Jen’s eyes, Darby’s silent judgment, all the girls I couldn’t save. Every Goddamn one of them.

I would rip this mountain apart stone by stone. I’d stalk the bastards who took her to the ends of the earth and carve the Goddamn directions in their skin. I would not stop. Not this time. I’d kill every motherfucker who touched her.

“Location?”

He gave it. I left the chopper idling and hopped back in my car. My driver, Kellen, must have seen or heard unusual commotion because he slammed the gas down and skidded to a halt next to the aircraft before I’d climbed down to the tarmac. I gave him directions and he nailed the accelerator.

The world outside blurred past. I let Knuckles and my own men talk me into this, had understood their reasoning even, and now Denton had Tessa. I was supposed to be her protector. Instead, I was at a fucking air strip, twenty minutes up the road.

The wreck came into view. Kellen rolled over the glass at fifty and jammed the brakes, sliding sideways into the shoulder. I was out before the vehicle came to a stop.

The lead vehicle’s nose was caved in, front end scored deep and bleeding fluid all over the asphalt. The wrecked van had no markings or tags of any kind. My crew was still on their feet, though, given how violent the crash looked, their survival was no small miracle. That no one had been seriously hurt seemed impossible.

Finch had the perimeter. He worked the blacked-out lens of a small drone, scanning tree lines and ditches. Kass knelt by the open passenger side of the lead SUV. He held a rag to his upper arm, scarlet already soaking through. A gash dripped blood down his forehead and he pressed another cloth to it for a couple seconds before dropping it as he stood. His chin was set like he was still looking for a fight.

Carrie stood off to the side, hair in a messy rope, hands red to the wrist with blood and blood spatter. Her clothing was dark but the stains still showed. Her jaw flexed and her eyes held steady. She stared at the ground where the second man lay, his mask off, mouth open and full of blood bubbles, patches of red on his neck where he’d been stabbed to shit, likely by my niece.

Kass spoke first. “There was a team of assholes waiting. They caused the crash to stack us up. Finch took one in the chest, but the flak jacket stopped it. Carrie handled a couple of them, but she’s one woman, no matter how well trained. The rest of us were pinned down, which was how they planned it.”

I knelt beside the dead man, glad he was dead but wishing I could have made him suffer.

Carrie stepped closer. “He tried to take Tessa.” Her voice was gravel. “I took his knife and let the fucker have it. There’s another one farther down the road there, closer to where they had their van waiting. Kass shot another one through the teeth. There were more, but that’s three of the five man team they sent for her. Everyone else was the diversion, but I think they’re all dead.”

I looked. The first body lay by the open driver’s door. Entry wound was a star under his chin.

“Tessa fought,” Finch said. “Went for the eyes. Kicked one in the nuts. She didn’t make it easy.”

Carrie stalked up beside me, hands curled into claws. “They were calm. Like they knew exactly where we’d be and how many. I try to stay as far away from that life as I can, Tonio, but this wasn’t a normal crew. I’d bet my pinky toe these guys do snatch and grabs for a living.”

“Plates?” I asked.

“Nope. Even the VIN number on the one that hit us had been removed. It was a surgical hit. They were in and gone in under a minute.” She took a breath. “But…”

I narrowed my gaze. “But what?”

“The van that took her is dark, but it’s got that guy’s blood,” she hiked her thumb over her shoulder to indicate one of the men she’d stabbed, “all over the side. As much as I could get in one pass. If Knight knows what to look for…”

“He can track it with city traffic cams.”

Finch held his phone to his ear. “Knight’s already inside the traffic grid. He said to tell you this was where that new toy you bought him would save your girl’s life.”

I don’t think I realized until just that moment how thoroughly I trusted Knuckles and his men. If Knight said he could find Tessa, I believed him. The band around my chest eased slightly.

Hawk and Griffin came in on foot from farther down the road. Hawk’s pants were soaked at the hem, like he’d been running the ditch.

Sully rolled up shortly after in a battered pickup, fresh from the compound. He stepped out, blocking the scene with his frame before he approached. “We set?” he asked.

A black luxury car rolled in, tires crunching sharp on gravel. Seth Miles got out of the back seat. The man was in his late sixties, but you’d never know it. He might leave most of the heavy lifting to me now, but my father was still a formidable, physical presence.

He said nothing as he walked up to the scene, eyes colder than I’d ever seen. His gaze locked on me. He walked right past the bodies, stopped in front of me. For a half second, I thought he might swing. Instead, he put a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll get Tessa back, Tonio.”

“She’s carrying my child, Seth. I’m not letting her go, so don’t try to talk me out of going after her myself. Not this time.”

Seth’s hand didn’t move off my shoulder. “I wasn’t going to try.”

I really studied my father’s expression. My old man had lost as much in his lifetime as I had. More. He knew exactly what it cost to lose people who mattered, and he knew better than to stand between me and someone I cared about.

My phone buzzed, harsh in the hush.

Knight’s voice snapped over the line. “I got ‘em. Use the loading dock off Old Hickory near Éclipse.”

“Éclipse?” I shook my head, even though Knight couldn’t see me. “That building’s been a tomb for ten weeks.”

“No shit.” Knight's keys rattled hard. “I had the same thing, but I’m pulling archive against live thermal right now and the place is lit up like a Goddamned casino. Bodies, vehicles, the works. Somebody’s been looping me dead footage while they moved back in. That’s not Denton's kind of patience, boss. The fuckers are hardwired to that access road. You’ve got maybe forty minutes before they can vanish her and there’s not a Goddamned thing I can do. You want me live on the line for this?”

“I want you running the cams from where you have the best access. You pull everything you can from every source you have. This is where all that shit I bought you pays for itself. And Knight? Tell Knuckles I’ll cover anything he needs to protect his men from fallout bound to follow tonight. Nobody’s walking away from this.”

“Already on it, boss. I’ll keep you posted. You need a crash team?”

“You take the whole fucking club,” Seth interrupted. “And every Goddamned man Tonio has, Knight. We will bring my daughter-in-law and grandchild home.”

Knight grunted, satisfied. “Done. Go get those motherfuckers.”

Yeah. We were all done playing nice.

We all headed toward Éclipse hard, picking up several more of Kiss of Death as well as several black SUVs carrying my own men. Denton’s people thought they could take what belonged to me. They’d soon find out how wrong they were. We took the road to Éclipse with every intention of razing the place to the fucking ground.

By the time we reached the edge of Denton’s territory, the convoy had tripled in size. Kiss of Death bikes poured in from every side street, and my men were right in the middle of them. Either on their own bikes or in one of the armored SUVs in my fleet.

The first lead came in from Knight as we screamed up Hillsboro Pike. “Spotters in a silver Tacoma three blocks ahead. They flagged your tail as soon as you hit the city limits.”

“Show them what their disrespect is going to cost,” I said to Hawk.

He adjusted his neck, the joints cracking, with grim satisfaction. “That I can do.”

Hawk, Griffin, and Finch flanked the Tacoma with professional speed. Hawk boxed them at a red light and Griffin ripped the driver’s door open before the dumb bastard could reach for his phone. One sharp yank and the guy hit the pavement, chin first, out cold.

Finch took the passenger side. The occupant met him with a pistol, badly concealed. Finch drove his fist into the man’s throat. There was a wet snap and a gurgle before the guy toppled over the console, spasming where he lay.

Finch stripped him of his phone and wallet, handed them to Hawk as I stepped up. “Knight wants these,” he said.

The world tunneled to a point. I saw only the guy’s face, the way he trembled even as his airway collapsed. “Who owns this block?” I demanded.

The dying man tried to speak but managed only a sobbing gasp. Pathetic.

Finch shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. He’s a pawn. Denton rotates them weekly. The actual handler will be at the coffee shop across from the gas station on the next block. Knight’s got a face match.”

“I can work with that.” I took a moment to shove the bastard’s head back into the car and slammed the door. He didn’t move again. I got back in the car and Kellen got us on the road, leading the charge.

We worked fast, barreling through traffic. The next stop was a local handler, a grad-school pretty boy with a two-hundred-dollar haircut. I had no idea how Knight knew where to send us and didn’t have time to contemplate it. So far, he was spot on because when our target clocked us coming, he pulled a runner, trying to escape out the back. Griffin caught him in the alley and helped him face-first onto the pavement.

I knelt by his ear, knife already pressed under his jaw. “You want out of this without screaming, you give me the route Denton’s van is running.”

He pissed himself. Literally.

“Cameras on every intersection between the interstate and the river,” he babbled. “Denton’s guy calls them in as they pass, then the tapes are wiped. You can’t track her through the city cams unless you are slicing the feeds in real time.”

I pressed harder with the knife. “Are you the call-in?”

He nodded, face mashed on gritty concrete. “Yeah. I do the flag. Please, man --”

“Do what you’re supposed to. And before you think you can fuck me over, I’m keeping you alive until this all goes down. How hard you die after depends on what happens in the next few minutes.”

He nodded his head wildly, looking more like a bobblehead doll than a man. When I checked the phone, the outgoing message hit the chat in seconds. A green dot bounced back from an encrypted contact before a simple “OK.”

I turned the phone back to the guy. “Anything else you need to do next?”

“No. I have no further contact with him unless he says otherwise.”

“And this is the normal way he acknowledges you?”

“Yeah. I swear. That’s all he says unless he has further instructions.”

I stood and nodded to Griffin, who hauled him upright. “Put him in the trunk,” I said. “If this guy reaches out we may need him again.” I pocketed the phone and climbed back inside the vehicle before Kellen sped off again.

We hit the road, and the convoy hit the next traffic cam nest in under five minutes. If Denton or Rainman or fucking Iron were watching, they knew I was coming for them. Good. Let them get ready. It wouldn’t do them any good.

At the light, two more of Denton’s men pretended to argue over a hood popped on a busted Caprice. Probably thought they’d get the jump on us, or that we’d be more concerned with getting them to talk so they’d have time to take us out. Finch rolled up, stepped out, and flashed his piece. They turned to face us, a smirk firmly in place but Hawk simply shot one through the knee. The man dropped, howling. The second man froze, unsure what his best move would be since their whole plan had suddenly slid sideways.

I walked up, putting my gun to the wounded man’s cheek. He whimpered. “Route.”

He pointed downfield, voice tight. “Warehouse row off the river. They use unmarked commercial vans and all the access roads were pre-cleared for tonight.”

Finch kicked the second man behind the knee. He went down hard with a yelp. “Set up to funnel us in with Denton’s men surrounding us,” Finch said. He held my gaze for a long moment, his eyes just as hard as mine. “You want bodies, or you want answers?”

“Both.”

Finch nodded at the men. “Neither of these two know more than what’s in front of them, but you can make an example.”

“Fair enough.” I pulled my gun.

“What are you doing?” The guy looked from me to Finch and back again. “The fuck! No!”

I chambered a round, then shot him in the dick. “You think the women and girls you help these bastards move get to say no?” I shot him in the shoulder and his screaming turned into squeals. “Ah…” I sighed, grinning in satisfaction. “Music to my ears.” I raised my gun again, and he really started begging then. “You know, I bet if I kept you in constant acute pain, you’d have a stroke. Might be fun to watch you shit yourself while you looked up at me helplessly.” I gave him an evil smile as I knelt in front of him. “Maybe I’ll sell you to the same sadistic clientele. I’ll watch as they use your asshole as a cumbucket and relish your screams as they fuck the everloving shit out of you while you scream and beg. Might make a video and sell that so other sadistic clientele can watch to their heart’s content.” I let him sweat it out for a couple seconds longer just to give myself the satisfaction. Then I executed him. His partner had already pissed himself, shaking so bad his words stuttered.

“Back lot -- off the main entry -- loading bay’s where they take merchandise. She’ll go there first,” he gasped. I shoved him face-first into the curb. A couple of times.

Finch looked at me. “You want to stack up bodies, we can. Or we can just cut straight to the bay.”

“We keep going. Front and back both,” I said. “No survivors unless they put Tessa in my hands.”

Hawk’s mouth twisted. “Christ, Tonio.”

I glanced at the pool of blood and the twitching man. “You got a problem?”

Hawk shook his head. “I got your back, man. You know that.” No one else spoke, and we left it there, bodies on the concrete and the air stinking of copper and scorched propellant.

Next up was a cutout posted at a liquor store. Word must have gotten around because this guy had reinforcements. Not that it did him any good. We hit the edge of the lot while the liquor store spotters were still setting up. They’d pulled an old Crown Vic parallel to the side entrance, positioned for a quick getaway, but I clocked the guy in the passenger seat texting on a burner and the driver nodding along while his hands drummed at the wheel. Yeah. They were prepared all right. Likely not taking any perceived threat into consideration because they’d flown under my radar for a long Goddamned time. Well, they had my attention now.

Sully and Finch came in from opposite flanks so fast the man in the passenger seat never saw it coming -- Finch popped his door and dragged him out by the hair, while Sully smashed the driver’s face in the safety glass and held him there for me.

He spat in my face, so I snapped his wrist and shoved his gun barrel into his mouth.

“You’re going to tell me where Denton’s got his failover. Where he’s sending the girls now?” A demand, pure and simple.

The guy’s words were muffled around the gun barrel, but still understandable. “Listen, man, Denton will pay you if --”

I cocked the gun. “You think I give a shit what Denton pays when he’s dead? Where?” When he stuck up his chin all defiant like, I removed the gun from his mouth and shot off his earlobe. The screaming wasn’t subtle.

“Jesus, Tonio.” Sully scrubbed a hand over his face even as he put himself between me and the little pussy still screaming on the ground. “He’s already given up Rourke’s party house downtown. They’re setting up a fallback in case you get a visual at Éclipse. That’s what all these fucking cutouts are for, to make you chase your tail. Knight’s already stripped the cell for addresses. This guy’s dry.”

I shoved the gun back into the guy’s mouth, harder this time. Might have broken a couple of teeth.

“Tonio. There’s no more information here. All dead means is no confirmation from their end if we need it.”

I looked at Sully. He stared right back. He wasn’t going to back down. The edge of my control wanted to break free, but I held it and eased the gun back.

“Fine.”

Sully held my gaze for a long second. Then he dragged the man out of my grip, set him face down on the curb, and zip-tied his wrists.

I wiped the spit off my face and scanned the street. “Anybody in my way goes down,” I said. I let the fury coat every word. “Once I have Tessa, though, everyone dies.”

Sully nodded. “Understood.”

By the time we neared Éclipse, the city had gone stone silent. Anyone who saw us -- underground or not -- backed off after one look. Denton’s network, the one that had watched us for ten Goddamned weeks, was bleeding out on the curb. Seth must have been managing Nashville’s finest, because, without fail, every time I heard sirens headed in our direction, they were silenced and no one showed.

I took a breath, fished my phone, and called Knight. “What’s their status?”

He was all business. “They took her in a dark blue utility van with a stolen plate. The driver’s ex-military. They’re four minutes from the loading bay at Éclipse. I’m tracking them on traffic cameras all the way. Two cars following as tail sweepers. You want the route?”

“I want all three. You draw me a map, I’ll eliminate every backup.”

Knight sent the info in a text. “I’ll cover your approach with cams.”

“You probably already know, but they’re wiping camera feeds in real time.”

“Yep. Already worked around it. They are not nearly as thorough as they thought they were.”

I hung up and pointed at Kass. “We blitz the van, then take the tails. Everyone dies.”

Kass was bleeding from two places but didn’t seem to notice. “Copy.”

I nodded at his arm. “You good?”

Kass glanced down and shrugged. “Just a scratch. Got another on my outer thigh, but it’s just cosmetic.”

The next intersection held the first sweep car. Hawk and Griffin boxed them, yanked the two men out, and hustled them into the alley. One guy tried to beg for his life. He actually knelt with his fucking hands together like he was praying.

I crouched to meet his eyes. “Think you’re the first one begging tonight?”

He shook like a leaf and had no information. So, I put a bullet in his skull and moved to the next.

The second man tried to run. Griffin caught him with a short right and dropped him cold.

“Want him breathing?” Griffin asked.

“No.”

Griffin, to the fervent pleas of the man, just one in a chain of many enabling a sex trade full of unwilling and expendable women and girls, shot the motherfucker in the throat. I raised an eyebrow. Griffin just shrugged. “Might have wanted an open casket.”

“Nice,” I muttered wryly.

The actual loaded van was harder. The men inside were professionals, unlike the other men in this fucking chain. By the time we hit the loading dock, the van had rolled into the lot. Four men in masks, all armed, swept their area.

We formed a perimeter. Kass, Finch, and Sully moved tight, silent. I watched the driver. He was the one in charge.

I waited until the cargo door opened. I saw the smeared blood on the left panel. Carrie’s touch. My pulse spiked. I hit the driver hard. I yanked him out by the collar and cracked his head into the van frame. He slumped, out cold, blood pouring from the scalp wound.

The men piled out, guns up. Finch shot two. The fourth tried to knife Sully, but Sully caught the blade on his forearm, then ripped the gauge out of the guy’s ear with the crook of his finger. Again, the screams were some of the most satisfying I’d ever heard. I relished every Goddamned note.

I found myself on the last one. He tried to mouth off but before he could speak, I took him to the ground and broke his hand with a hard stomp. He screamed, so I put my gun to his eye and waited for the shudder of real terror.

“Where is she?” I said.

He spat. One tooth, bloody, hit my shoe. “Don’t know. They rotate the doors. But the boss, he wanted this one special.”

“Who gave you the order?”

“Look, I take a phone call, I do a job.”

Sully, behind me, called out. “Tonio. He’s done. You don’t want to lose this thread until Knight says it’s done.” I stood, breathing hard enough my vision went blurry. I did not want to let this kill go. She had been right here! And this was one of the fucks who’d taken her.

Sully studied me. “Boss. Let’s not make it personal with the help.”

I pointed my gun at the guy anyway. “This is what happens when people touch my family.” I fired, splattering his brains on the pavement. Then I knelt and checked his pockets for the phone he’d mentioned and pocketed it.

Knight’s voice came from someone’s phone on speaker. “You’re two minutes from the loading bay. Watch for a burnout camera on the south side, that’s their override. They’ll be inside by the time you hit the door.”

The run through the back lot was pure adrenaline. My hands shook, but not from fear. From the need to get Tessa back. She was so close I could almost feel her in my arms.

But something shoved into me, solid and unbreaking, a pit bull refusing to be ignored. Carrie stood there, blocking the way, eyes burning, her jaw clenched. Her hands were streaked red with blood, the stuff caked under her nails. She stood her ground and put a palm against my chest, pushing me back.

I stared down at her. “Move aside, Carrie. I mean it.”

She didn’t flinch. “No.”

“Carrie --”

She shoved harder, raw strength when she could look all too fragile when she needed to. “No. You’re wearing Flagg’s face, Antonio. You want to kill for Tessa, fine. I would load the gun myself.” Her eyes were hot, voice a scalpel. “But if you keep on like this, you’ll become the same monster. And before you get all pissy, I do understand the difference. But killing takes a piece of your soul, whether you want to admit it or not. Every. Goddamned. Time. Tessa deserves more from the father of her child.”

“What would you have me do?” I practically yelled at Carrie. I knew I’d regret it later, but I wasn’t following what she meant.

“You want to kill these guys? Fine. We’ll kill them. But not here. Take them back where it’s secure.”

“That might be where we don’t understand each other, Carrie. I’m doing this to make a statement as much as to satisfy my need for blood. I want every motherfucker in this city to know why they cross Antonio Miles at their own peril. That includes selling skin in my backyard right under my nose. For taking my woman, they get to die extra hard. That’s not Flagg, Carrie. That’s the underboss of the Miles family.” I stared at her a long time, letting her see the unyielding resolve hardwired into my being.

“I would never hurt Tessa, and seeing this side of me might hurt her in ways I could never fix. So I understand your concern.” If anyone other than Carrie had confronted me, I might have softened my tone or at least tried to suppress who I was. But Carrie had lived worse than I could ever be. Well, OK, so I was just as bad as that bastard, Flagg, who’d raised her and her brothers. He’d trained them all to kill, to be the leaders of his personal army or something. “But trust me when I tell you everything I’m doing now is to ensure Tessa and her child have any future they want. I have to maintain control in this city or the wolves will eat everyone in my family alive.”

“Fine.” She didn’t stop, just changed tactics. “I killed for her today, too. You want to keep hunting? Do it. But think about this. Tessa doesn’t need another monster at home. She needs you. The father of her child. She needs you, Tonio.”

She let her hand drop. Blood smudged my shirt, but she didn’t seem to notice she had it all over her. Kass stood behind Carrie now, eyes black. Even Veda came close to stand with Carrie. The whole crew, lined up at the mouth of the alley.

I turned to face them. Kicked the dead man’s body to the curb. “I swore to Tessa the night I pulled her from that sewer that I would kill every single fucker who put her there, or paid for it, or looked the other way.” My voice went rough. “I intend to scorch the earth and clear this filth from my city because I absolutely will not allow any more of our women or children to be at risk. As long as any of these bastards are alive, they will keep coming after us. Not just me, but Kiss of Death because of your ties to my family.”

Carrie nodded. “Good. Then be the man who made her that promise.”

I worked my jaw. Let the hate settle. Then I straightened my shoulders and gave the orders, voice clear and cold as anything Seth Miles ever taught me. “I have my head in the game, Carrie. I swear to you, much as I’m enjoying seeing these bastards fall, I’m doing this for the right reasons. Yes, I’m leaving a bloody trail, but it’s necessary.” I looked out over the gathering crowd. “Nobody takes Tessa from her family. Anyone between us and that girl goes down, hard. Denton dies. Rainman dies. Every buyer, every collector, every witness. We end it tonight. And we bring her home. Then the violence ends.”

My men all grunted in assent. Kass loaded a new mag. Finch racked his slide. Hawk squared to my left, a solid wall. Darby, her expression more than a little wild, gritted her teeth and shouldered up behind Carrie, like she’d fight beside me if I let her inside that place.

Carrie held my gaze just a second longer before stepping aside. She wiped her bloody hand on her jeans in a slow, steady drag. “OK. I see you, Antonio.” She gave me a steady look. “Let’s do this.”

I led the charge forward. The monster didn’t die or even go back inside its lair. It locked on a target. Denton had less than an hour to live. Then I was sending the bastard straight to hell.

Chapter Fifteen

Tessa

The floor was cold under my cheek before anything else came back to me. Then the scent of cedar, a sickly sweet, organic scent that nearly turned my stomach. My shoulder throbbed where some bastard had wrenched it. Then the room itself slid into focus and I whimpered. Amber light along the baseboards. The walnut paneling. The one-way glass set into the far wall at eye level. I’d stood on the other side of that glass with a small army at my back ten weeks ago. Now I was on the wrong side of it, wrists zip-tied behind me, cheek against industrial tile that smelled of bleach under the cedar.

I didn’t move yet, trying to keep my expression blank and vacant while taking stock of my body. My wrists were tied, but in front of me, the plastic biting sharply. Both my legs were free and I could wiggle my toes. I thought one knee might be scraped from the way it stung through my jeans. Small stinging bites ran over my skin on one cheek, my forearms, and one shoulder. My other shoulder hurt like a motherfucker.

Then the only inventory that actually mattered. I pressed my bound hands flat as I could get them against my stomach, fingers splayed, and held my breath and waited for some kind of answer my body couldn’t actually give me. Nothing hurt low. No cramping, no wetness, nothing wrong that I could feel.

I was back in the fucking intake room. Denton had stood in the doorway the first time they’d shoved me through it, that voice describing me to somebody on a phone like I was horseflesh. I turned my head and found the source of a small, steady scraping sound.

A woman knelt at the table leg, her wrists zip-tied same as mine, working the plastic against a burr in the metal edge with small, patient movements. When she looked at me, her eyes were flat and assessing, judging me the same way I judged her. The trick was to figure out if we could trust each other or if the other woman was a plant to get you to fuck up.

“Two doors,” she said, barely above a breath. “Main hall and the service corridor. Guard rotation runs every six minutes, then every four after dark. It’s after dark.” Her jaw tightened. “You’re new.”

“Not exactly.” I worked my own wrists against the tile, testing the give. “I’ve been here before.”

She snorted, looking away. “Everybody’s been here before.”

“How long you been back in this building?"

"Three days. They move us around. Warehouse, a house downtown, back here for tonight." Her jaw tightened. "Big night tonight. Apparently, there are buyers coming in person or something.” She kept working the tie. “I’m Mercy,” she said.

“M-Mercy Raines?” The name landed in my chest like a fist. Mercy Raines. The name I’d carried around for ten weeks like a stone in my shoe, the reason I couldn’t look at Casey or Grace without also seeing the woman we hadn’t found. Here she was, alive, kneeling on a bleached floor already having planned her escape.

“You know me?”

“You’re the reason we were coming back.” I know it sounded lame, but I was stunned to have found her by accident.

She tilted her head. “Why?”

“Because you matter,” I said, still stunned. I was rapidly reaching a saturation point and I knew I’d crash soon. “My sister’s man tore this city apart looking for you. We found three other women in the raid, but not you. I’ve thought about you every day since.”

Mercy’s hands stilled against the burr in the metal. For a second, something moved behind her flat eyes, some crack in the wall she’d built to survive this place. Then it was gone, tucked away again, because feelings were a luxury neither of us could afford right now.

“Sit up,” she said. “Slow. There are cameras in the corners, but the angle’s bad near the table. Blind spot.”

I pushed myself upright, biting back a groan when my shoulder screamed at me. My head swam for a second, the drug still working its way out of my system, and I breathed through it until the room stopped tilting.

“You said you’ve been here before,” Mercy said. “You got out?”

“Yeah. Now, we’re gonna get out again.”

The corner of her lips ticked up. “You keep saying ‘we’ like you’ve got a plan.”

“I’ve got half of one.” I turned my wrists toward the table leg she’d found, angling myself along the floor to reach it.

The door at the far end opened before either of us made real progress. A thin guard in a jacket too big in the shoulders, stood in the frame with a phone against his ear, nodding at something. He didn’t look at us like we were people. He looked at us like we were lab animals in a cage.

“Yeah,” he said into the phone. “Yeah, she’s here.” A pause. “He said to bring her up special. Not banged around, not sedated more than she already is. Boss wants her clean when she gets there.” Another pause, and his gaze slid to me for half a second, assessing, filing. “Yeah. Be there in fifteen.”

He hung up and left without another word, the door swinging shut behind him. The clock he’d just set ticked loud in my skull. Fifteen minutes to get me somewhere. Somewhere that wasn’t here, which meant somewhere worse, which meant I didn’t have fifteen minutes at all. I had way the fuck less.

“That was for you,” Mercy said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yep.” I went back to the tie, sawing it against the burred edge with more vigor, feeling more give in the plastic now.

Mercy’s own hands stilled. She was listening to something I couldn’t hear yet, head tilted toward the corridor. “Rotation’s off,” she whispered. “That guard should’ve had someone with him. He didn’t.”

Then I heard it too. A single flat crack, far off, muffled by walls and distance but unmistakable. Gunfire. Then another, and another, quick and overlapping, coming from somewhere toward the loading bay.

Boots. A lot of them, moving fast, farther down the building, away from us, toward the noise. Someone shouted something I couldn’t make out. The rotation Mercy had memorized down to the minute broke apart in real time while we listened from the confines of this shitty room. Heavy boots filed down the hall past us, men shouting the whole way with overlapping conversations. Whatever was happening at the loading bay mattered more to them right now than two women tied up in an intake room.

I gave a soft cry as I finally managed to get my wrists free. The tie gave with a small sharp snap, plastic biting one last groove into my skin before it let go.

The door opened again almost the second my hands came free. Same guard, gun still holstered because he hadn’t expected trouble from his “cargo,” moved fast toward Mercy first since she was closer to the door.

I didn’t think. I came up off the floor and drove my good shoulder into his back before he’d fully cleared the frame. Pain exploded through my other shoulder and I couldn’t stop the cry that exploded from me. Mercy was already moving, her own hands free, both of us on him before he could turn his weight into anything useful. Even though I couldn’t do much more than wrap my legs round his and tangle the bastard up, the fight was fast and ugly. Mercy kicked his head. When he flipped to his back to defend himself, she stomped his throat twice as hard as she could. He thrashed a couple seconds before he stilled, his windpipe crushed.

I pried the gun from his holster and stood there over him with the weight of it heavy and familiar in my hand.

Mercy gave me a crisp nod. “We doing this now?”

“I mean, what have we really got to lose?”

“You know the best way?”

“Left,” I said, already moving into the corridor. “This hall runs past three holding rooms before it leads toward the stairs and splits toward the main floor. I’ve been through it.”

“We’re on the same page.” She grinned at me, then we headed out. Mercy fell in behind me, quiet and quick, her bare feet silent on the tile where I still had shoes. Once we made it to the ground floor we moved toward the bigger bay area the exit. Gunfire kept rolling in from the direction of the loading bay, farther off now, punctuated by shouting that sounded like someone was getting an ass kicking.

We hit the T-junction and a man came around the corner fast, reaching for Mercy’s arm before he’d even registered what he was grabbing. Mercy twisted into him instead of away and drove her elbow up under his jaw. I closed the gap and brought the butt of the gun down across the back of his skull. He dropped. I pointed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger, snarling as I did so.

Antonio came around the same corner that same instant. He had blood across his jaw and down the front of his shirt, dark and drying, and his eyes looked completely wild, like the most rabid dog ever and he’d slipped his leash. He didn’t stop moving until he was close enough to touch me, and then his hand came out toward the gun in my grip, the same motion I’d seen him make with Kass and Finch a hundred times. Take the weapon. Put himself between me and whatever came next.

“No,” I said.

One word. His hand stopped an inch from mine, hung there a second too long. Then he pulled the hand back and stepped sideways instead of forward, so he was at my shoulder instead of in front of it.

“Talk to me,” he said. “Give me the rundown.”

“Main floor’s straight through that door. Stairs up are past it, second corridor on the right.” I kept moving, and he kept pace beside me.

A man came out of a side room with a rifle half-raised and Antonio put two rounds in his chest almost before I registered the guy. Another appeared at the far end of the hall and Antonio fired again. The man folded against the wall and slid down it, leaving a dark smear behind him.

I looked behind us where Mercy followed. I stopped and looked from Tonio to Mercy and back. The other woman wasn’t hurt and she could obviously handle herself. “My shoulder’s shit,” I said to her. “Can you…”

She held out her hand and I gave her my weapon. Mercy ejected the clip to check the rounds, then reloaded and made sure there was a round in the chamber. “I’m good.” She addressed Tonio. “You have a team?”

“I do.” Tonio lifted his chin.

“Then you don’t need a wild card. I’ll have your back but won’t engage unless you tell me.”

Tonio narrowed his gaze. “You military?”

“Was.” She held his gaze, but I could see the defiance.

“Next hall bends right, then there’s a door that used to have a keypad,” I said. “Might not anymore, way it sounded earlier.”

“Let’s go,” he said.

We hit the stairwell at a dead run, Mercy still close behind, and found it blocked. A man stood two steps up, broad through the shoulders, gray hair cropped close to his skull. I recognized the fucking bastard too.

“Rainman,” I breathed out softly, my words quivering. The man who’d stood at the edge of the room the first time I ever saw Denton work a buyer, the most dangerous person in any room he occupied. He held a pistol steady in both hands.

Carrie hit him from the side stairwell landing, moving low and mean. Hawk came in from the other angle a half second later. Rainman got one round off that punched into the wall a foot from my head, plaster raining down, and then Carrie opened his forearm to the bone with her knife, and his gun clattered down the steps. Hawk finished it fast, two shots at close range to his head. Rainman went down against the railing, gray eyes open and fixed on nothing.

Carrie wiped her blade on her thigh, glanced at me, and gave me a short nod.

The stairwell stood open above us, empty now, amber light bleeding down from the landing where the next floor waited. “Top floor,” I said, looking at Antonio. “I’ll take you.”

We didn’t encounter anyone else on our way to the office. Once we reached the door, we stopped.

“Knight says the back stair’s sealed.” Hawk glanced at Tonio. “Sealed it an hour before we ever hit the loading bay. He’s got nowhere left to go but that door. And we know for a fact he didn’t make it out.”

Antonio shrugged. “Then in we go.” He kicked the door open, his gun up and at the ready, Hawk and Carrie followed leaving me and Mercy, who had my back as solidly as I had hers.

Denton stood behind a wide desk with both hands flat on the polished surface. He was smaller than I remembered. Ten weeks I’d carried that voice around in my skull, low and unbothered, describing me to a room like I was inventory, and here the body attached to it barely came up to Antonio’s chin, soft through the middle, sweat already darkening his collar. I felt something in my chest settle instead of spike. My nightmare was about to end.

“Antonio.” Denton’s voice came out steady, working hard to stay that way. “We can be reasonable men about this.”

“You’re not a man,” Antonio said.

Denton’s gaze cut to me, to Mercy, and something calculating moved behind them even now, even here. “I have names,” he said, fast, the words tumbling over each other. “Accounts. Every route this operation’s ever run through, banks in three countries, I’ll give you the buyer list from tonight, the whole client roster going back four years.” He reached slowly into his jacket and set a phone on the desk like an offering. “Everything’s on there. Passwords too. I’ll write them down myself.” Somehow, he managed to sound like a salesman offering a deal instead of a rat begging for his life.

“Who do you answer to?” Antonio asked.

“There’s a man above me who handles distribution out of Memphis. I’m not sure what his name is, but he contacts me here.” He tapped the phone he’d laid on the desk.

Antonio didn’t look at the phone. He looked at me. “The night I pulled you out of here,” he said, and his voice had gone quiet in a way I’d only heard once before, “I told you I’d kill every man responsible. Every buyer, every fucking bastard who ever looked the other way.” He didn’t move his gun off Denton while he said it. “None of this is revenge to me, Tessa. This is about me making you a promise and keeping it, no matter what. Do you see what I would do for you and our unborn child?”

“Tonio.” His name was no more than a breath on my lips. “I don’t want that. I don’t want you to kill for me.” I heard Denton sigh in relief. Like he thought he’d just gotten off the hook. “I can kill anyone who needs killing myself.” Denton opened his mouth to speak, but I held out my hand to Mercy and she handed me her gun. I demonstrated my statement by raising the weapon and shot Denton in the throat.

Antonio picked the phone up off the desk and pocketed it, along with a flash drive from an open drawer. Then he lifted his chin at Kass. “Take him down to the vault before anything burns. His thumb’ll still work if you hurry. Take everything to Knight tonight.” From there on out, for the next ten minutes at least, the operation was about cleanup. Seth still kept the heat off us, but he could only do that so long before he brought the wrong sort of attention.

Outside, the loading bay had gone quiet except for the low idle of vehicles and the murmur of women being walked out in twos and threes, wrapped in emergency blankets or long T-shirts unless they still had their own clothes. Darby helped get everyone settled while Veda went to get names and emergency contacts. Two of Knight’s people wheeled a steel server cage out through the roll-up door on a hand truck, headed for the vans. Mercy walked out under her own power, spine straight, and waved off every hand that reached for her elbow, including mine.

“I’ve got it,” she said, not unkindly, and kept walking toward the vehicles on her own two feet like she’d decided a long time ago she wasn’t going to be carried out of anywhere ever again.

Kass approached me, a grim look on his face. “Iron’s in the wind. Knight can’t even find when he was here.”

Antonio’s jaw worked once. “Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Kass said.

Antonio looked toward the building for a long moment. He didn’t say anything else about it. He turned to the men already moving cans of fuel through the first-floor entrance, and gave a short nod, and they got to work.

We walked out of Enclave Éclipse together as the first gray light came up over the roofline, Antonio’s hand found mine somewhere in the dark between the building and the car. Behind us the building caught fire fast, orange light climbing the frosted glass, smoke rolling black against the paling sky.

Inside the SUV as Kellen drove us back to the Kiss of Death compound, Tonio didn’t say anything. Neither did I. As he stared out the window, his hand drifted up to where my own hand rested over my flat lower stomach. I wrapped my other hand around his, and we both wrapped the growing life inside me in as much love as we did protection.

I didn’t know what my future held, but I knew, without a doubt, I wanted this man -- and his child -- in my life. If that meant I picked up a huge extended family along the way? So much the better.

Epilogue

Tonio

Three weeks later

Morning came into the room a slow, grayish gold through the blinds. Tessa’s hair spilled across my arm where she’d fallen asleep with my arms wrapped securely around her. I’d been awake an hour already, just watching her breathe, one hand resting lightly against the place where our child slept with her. Her eyes fluttered open, and she found mine with her gaze.

“Morning,” she said, voice rough with sleep, and stretched against me like a cat.

“Morning.” I brushed hair back from her face. “How’s my girl?”

“Which one?” She smiled, slow and sleepy, and pressed her palm flat over my hand where it rested on her belly. “We’re both good.”

I caught her gaze and scowled. “You could have at least gotten knocked up with a boy. I’ll have to run off every male over the age of ten in Nashville and that would be bad for tourism.”

She giggled and my heart soared. I gently rolled her to her back before leaning in to kiss her in unhurried slides of my tongue inside her mouth. She made a soft, pleasurable sound against my mouth and rolled us so she straddled my hips, still kissing me lazily. Contentedly. I wrapped my arms around her, holding her close as I dared. I’d been careful for three weeks now, like she was made of something breakable when we both knew she wasn’t. She let me have that small worry over her. Likely because she knew I needed to care for her more than she needed the care. But she’d suffer through it. She always let me have that, even when she rolled her eyes at me.

I slid my hand down her spine, over the curve of her ass, and she arched into my palm, sighing when I squeezed gently. She sat and braced her hands on my chest. I looked at her for a long moment in the silvery morning light. The small new swell of her stomach, the way her whole mindset had changed as she thought about being a mother. All the energy she’d put into fighting her way back to Enclave Éclipse, despite my wishes, she now put into readying herself for motherhood. And, I hoped, into being my wife.

“You’re staring,” she said.

“I like the view.” I grinned at her. “Very much indeed.”

She laughed, a low merry chuckle. With a sigh, she lay back on top of me as she found my cock with her clit so every stroke of her hips put friction on her clit and flooded her sweet pussy with moisture.

I kissed her throat, her collarbone. I rolled us slowly, taking my time to settle myself between her thighs. “Not too heavy?”

She gave me a startled look. “I cannot believe the shit that just came out of your mouth.”

I couldn’t help myself. I burst out laughing. “You’re gonna have to be more specific, honey.”

“You can seriously ask me that after what we did last night?” She grinned up at me. “I seem to remember you practically falling asleep still inside me.”

“Yeah. What do you expect, though? I’m an old man. You wore me out.”

Again, she laughed merrily. I caught her laughter with my kiss and savored every sweet stroke.

“Tonio.” She spoke my name so soft and full of want.

“I’m right here, baby. I’ll always be here. With you.” I slid inside her pussy in a long, slow glide. She gasped, her eyes widening slightly before settling into a contented, dreamy smile. “There’s my girl. You like it when I fuck you.” Deliberately, I spoke to her tenderly while saying filthy things to her. She loved it. So did I.

She rolled her hips to meet me, slow at first, her breath catching every time I slid in deep. I braced on one forearm to keep the rest of my weight off her and watched her face because I never got tired of watching her expressions when I was inside her.

“You’re doing that thing again,” she said, breathless, but she still smiled up at me.

“What thing?”

“Treating me like glass.”

“I’m treating you like the mother of my child.” I rolled my hips deep, slow, and she gasped, nails biting into my shoulders. “There’s a difference.”

“Feels the same to me.”

“Then let me show you the difference.” I picked up the pace, still controlled, still careful, but harder now, deep enough to make her cry out and grab a fistful of the sheet beside her head. Her pussy squeezed around me tight and wet, and I groaned low in my throat, buried my face against her neck.

She came apart quietly this morning, none of the desperate wildness of that first night after Éclipse. A low moan and her pussy shuddered and tightened around my cock.

I still moved deliberately slowly, my hips rolling with hers in perfect rhythm. She wrapped her legs around my waist and met every thrust with one of her own, her nails dragging lightly down my back, her breath hot against my ear.

“I love you,” I said against her throat, and felt her go still under me for half a second before her whole body answered, clenching around me, drawing a groan out of my chest I didn’t try to hide.

“I love you too,” she breathed. “Tonio --”

She came with a shudder and a soft cry into my shoulder, and I followed her a few thrusts later, buried deep, my forehead pressed to hers while I emptied my balls deep inside her greedy little pussy.

We stayed tangled like that a long while after, both of us dozing lightly. The city outside had stayed quiet these last three weeks. Some small cold part of me that never fully slept kept turning that fact over in my mind. I expected the biggest nest of vipers to swarm up from the ground and attack. So far, though, all looked and sounded quiet.

Knight swept every fallback site we’d flagged the night of the raid, Rourke’s party house downtown, the warehouse spurs off the river road, and every single one of them came up scrubbed clean, stripped of paper and product before our men ever cleared the doors. The handler I’d pulled out of that trunk had bought himself a hole in the head instead of a drawn-out death with the useless line about a Memphis contact, and Knight had filed it and moved on because there was nowhere else to take it. That man was now dead and would never be seen again.

Darby had the Éclipse women settled inside two weeks, moved through club channels and family money with no paper trail leading back to any of us. She made sure everyone had housing and names and new lives, if they’d wanted or needed it, like she’d been doing this very thing her whole career instead of three weeks. I watched her work a laptop at the kitchen table most mornings now, calling in favors, coordinating with Nadine on medical, and I saw something new in the way she looked up at me when I came into a room. She genuinely gave me welcoming smiles now. I thought maybe she’d needed to know I was killing for the right reasons and not just to salvage my honor so I didn’t show weakness or some shit. Once she knew my reasons and my head was in the game, she’d followed me to the bitter end. Darby wasn’t a follower.

My phone vibrated against the nightstand. Tessa stirred against my chest as I reached for it but settled easily enough. The combination of natural pregnancy hormones and several orgasms a day helped her sleep longer and more easily. Knight’s voice came through low and clipped, none of his usual ease in it. “I’m done with the records, boss. You need to come see this. In person.”

Ten minutes later, having managed to slip out of our room without waking Tessa, I walked into Knight’s office. Three monitors ran feeds and spreadsheets. Knuckles leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, watching the door. Seth already stood at Knight’s shoulder, which told me whatever waited on those screens was important enough that my father had gotten here before me.

“Sit down or don’t,” Knight said, not looking up from the keyboard. “This isn’t going to take long, and it isn’t going to feel good.”

I stayed on my feet. “Talk.”

He pulled up a spreadsheet, columns of numbers scrolling clean and organized. “Every account, every route, every name on the client roster going back four years. I traced every dollar, every shell company, every wire transfer that ever touched Éclipse.” He tapped the screen. “All of it terminates in Denton. Every thread. No path up from him to anybody bigger.”

“That’s not possible,” I said. “A man doesn’t run a network that size alone.”

“No, he doesn’t.” Knight finally looked at me. “I tore that server cage apart drive by drive. Four years of operations, every buyer, every route, every dollar, and all of it stops at Denton. The ledger that should’ve named all the names was missing from everywhere. Whoever curated that cage knew exactly what a raid would find, and he made sure the one document that mattered never sat inside it. That cage was a gift, Tonio. He wanted you to have every byte of it.”

“What about his Memphis contact?” I asked. “The number he gave up?”

“Burned an hour after we hit the building. Dead number, dead SIM, no tower ping since.” Knight pulled up another window, a timeline with two flagged entries running side by side. “Here’s the part that’s going to sit wrong with you, boss.”

He zoomed in on the timestamps. Two lines, both red, both stamped within the same sixty-second window.

“Denton’s upstream contact went dark right here.” He tapped the first line. “Same minute, same second window, the handler’s encrypted flag from the truck went dark too.” He looked up at me. “That’s the guy you had in the trunk on the drive to Éclipse. His line to Denton’s boss burned at the exact same moment as Denton’s own line on up the chain. Both, mid-assault. While you guys were still inside that building shooting. Before anybody on the outside could’ve known how the night was going to end.” The room went quiet enough I could hear the drives humming.

“Somebody inside that operation,” Knight said, “burned every bridge on his way out a side door, in real time, while the fighting was still live.”

I stood there a long moment, running it the way I ran everything, backward and forward, looking for the seam. Knuckles hadn’t moved from the wall. Seth watched me with deadly stillness. My father and I were rarely not on the same page, so I knew he thought the same as me.

“Walk me through the whole night again,” I said. “From the beginning. Slowly.”

Knight didn’t need convincing. He pulled feed after feed and laid it out. Rourke’s fallback house, the one that should’ve taken hours to crack, folding in under ten minutes once we hit the door, like the men inside had been told not to fight too hard. The passcode on the second safe that opened on the first try, no duress, or struggle, handed over by a man who should have died instead of giving it up. Denton’s own recorded order, pulled off the phone I’d taken off his desk. Then, of course, the looped feeds. That pissed me off. Ten weeks I watched that fucking place sit dark. I’d been watching a loop somebody built for me while they restocked the place and staged a buyer’s night. He didn’t just want Denton dead. He wanted him dead in front of an audience, holding the evidence.

“And him,” Knight said, pointing to an image on another screen. “I pulled every camera in a four-block radius. Every camera inside that building. I’ve got four years of footage to work with if I need it.” He shook his head slowly. “I cannot put him on a single frame. Not one. In a building he owned.”

Iron.

I understood it then, all at once. “I had it backward from the start,” I murmured. I thought Denton was the head of the thing, the mind behind Éclipse, and I’d spent three weeks feeling relief that we’d cut it off clean. Denton had never been the head, he was the liability. The name that could be sacrificed if shit got too hot. Iron hadn’t lost his network that night. He’d shed it. Aimed the whole Miles machine at exactly the target he wanted gone and stood back and let my own nature finish the job for him. “Touché,” I muttered.

“So it would seem,” Seth agreed.

The network hadn’t fallen. It shifted to another spoke in the same wheel. I felt the horror of it settle into my chest slow and cold, and the worst part, the part I’d never say out loud to anyone in this room, was that I couldn’t even hate the craftsmanship of it. Somebody had built a trail meant to end at exactly one corpse, and I had walked every step of it exactly the way he’d wanted, right down to the Goddamned bullet.

“Fucking Iron,” Seth bit out.

“Fucking Iron.” I growled. “He used us. Aimed us at Denton and let us do the rest while he walked.”

Knuckles growled but I could tell he thought the same way I did. You had to admire the beauty of the execution.

“Log it,” I told them both. “For the club, for the family. Everyone who needs to know his name knows it starting today. Get this file out to all our major intel sources. Knight, see if you can get Ice at Bones to suggest assistance.” Too late I remembered the man’s prickly personality. Before he could cut me off with a snide remark, I raised my hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll be getting help too. Whoever this guy is, he’s not a moron.” I looked at the screen a moment longer, at the dead timestamps, at the empty frame where a man should have been standing and wasn’t. “He knows us. Now we know him too.”

I left the room without looking back. Down the hall, past the noise of the kitchen, I could already hear Tessa’s laugh and Darby’s voice arguing with somebody over the last of the coffee, and I let all of it pull me forward, out of the cold of Knight’s revelation and back toward the warmth of love and life.

* * *

Tessa

Two weeks after that

I had my keys in my hand and my jacket zipped when Antonio walked into the kitchen. The man stood in the doorway a second, taking in the scene -- me dressed, keys dangling, coffee mug already empty in the sink.

“Tessa?”

“Appointment’s in an hour.” I held up the keys. “You showering, or you riding shotgun in what you slept in?”

He ran a hand over his jaw. “Knight found something.”

“I figured.” I handed him a travel mug of coffee I’d already poured. “And you can tell me in the car, because we’re not rescheduling. Not for Knight, not for Iron, not for God Himself if he showed up with a petition.”

Then his features relaxed into a genuine smile of affection. Leaning in to kiss me, he took the coffee I offered and headed for the bathroom. “Give me five.”

Kass and Finch were already outside. Kass had healed nicely from what he considered a scratch. Now he spoke low into his wrist mic. Pain and Nadine had recommended a doctor in the city. We drove in companionable silence. Antonio sat beside me, his hand on my knee, his thumb moving small strokes over the denim. He told me about Iron, and about Denton getting sacrificed by using Seth and myself as the executioners. I watched his profile against the window glass and understood the shape of the thing he’d carried out of Knight’s office.

“He used us,” I said.

Antonio nodded once. “I know. You have to admire the beauty of it. Even if it still sucks ass.” He snorted and squeezed my knee. “Even if you’d known you were being used, you’d still have killed the bastard.”

“Look,” I turned my head to face him. “It’s not like you’d have done anything differently. Denton’s been a dead man a long time.”

He slid me the side eye. “I’m not looking for logic. I want to fume awhile. Being played, no matter if I’d have taken the same action or not, is not something I’m proud of.”

“Well, suck it up, buttercup, because you don’t get to mope around today.”

Like I knew it would, his expression softened, and he gave me the most tender, loving smile I’ve ever seen on a man’s face. “Wouldn’t think of it, sweetheart.”

Of course, the doctor’s office we went to was nothing like the offices I’d been in before. This was more like a lounge. Except there were no other people inside currently.

We were greeted by the doctor. She stuck out her hand to me and I reached for it. “It’s good to meet you, Miss Garrison. I’m Dr. Simbillo, but you can call me Dr. Sim.”

“Miles.” Tonio said, sticking his chin out.

She didn’t look at Tonio as she continued speaking. “I’d call you Mrs. Miles, but it seems you’re missing a couple of key ingredients.” She glanced at my left hand. My unadorned left hand. “Hmm…” Then back at Tonio.

Tonio raised his eyebrows, but only said, “Noted.”

Dr. Sim still didn’t look at him. She was short, maybe five feet tall, if she wore some good, stout, tall heels. She had a heavy Filipino accent, but spoke slowly so I had no trouble understanding her, and mischief in her smile. “Come with me. It would be faster and more comfortable for you if I had my staff, but I was told, in no uncertain terms, the office and the whole building, really, needed to be evacuated and empty an hour before and an hour after your visit.” She gave a side eye to Tonio. “So, you will understand if things run slowly.”

Glancing up at Antonio, I really thought he’d look angry or, at the very least, annoyed. Instead, I thought I saw him fight a grin.

Once inside the spacious exam room, she gave me an oversized hospital gown, only it was fluffy terrycloth and looked more like a bathrobe with short sleeves. And she told me to put it on backward.

While she was gone, Tonio helped me undress. If his hands lingered in places they probably shouldn’t have, I didn’t object. He seemed to be fascinated with my breasts though they didn’t look any different today than they did since I’d sprouted them as a teenager.

“Can’t wait to see these perfect tits full with milk.” He leaned down and gave one a small suck. “Gonna have to get my share after the baby, too.”

“Tonio!” I laughed and pushed him away. “Stop talking like that!”

He grinned. “I’m big on communication.”

I’d just climbed onto the exam table and readied myself, Dr. Sim knocked, then came inside when I acknowledged her.

She rolled in an ultrasound machine before plugging it in next to me. “Are you ready?”

I smiled. “More than ready.”

She spread warmed gel over my lower abdomen. Antonio slid his hand to mine and I grasped it tightly. I wasn’t scared at all, but I loved knowing I had his support.

And the man had been the most supportive, attentive mate a woman in early pregnancy could ask for. He held me while I puked. Washed my hair when I didn’t get it all out of the way. He massaged my fucking feet, for fuck’s sake! I didn’t even have swollen ankles yet! But I loved him all the more for his careful attention.

Once in place, Dr. Sim continued talking while she found what she was looking for. The screen was angled where both me and Tonio could see as she started the exam. She moved the ultrasound wand over my lower belly until she had everything positioned where she wanted. Then, with a beaming smile she made one more adjustment…

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH

“That’s your baby,” Dr. Sim said, smiling.

She pointed to a fist curled tight and little feet kicking out. “See that flutter? That’s the heart.”

Antonio’s eyes never left the screen. I watched his face do things I’d never seen it do before, watched his jaw go slack and his eyes go wide and his hand tighten around mine. I think he clung to me harder than I clung to him. He looked at that grainy gray screen like it held the answer to a question he’d been asking his whole life.

“It’s a girl. Right?” Tonio swallowed. We both had started talking in terms of the child being a girl, but this was the first time we’d been able to do more than have Nadine check what she called fetal heart tones. This scan would be a good baseline and might tell us the gender, if we were lucky.

“Mmm…” was the doctor’s only comment as she continued to work. The pleasant, friendly smile never left her face as she moved the probe around my lower stomach. Then the image shifted. This one had the child turned upside down. The doctor’s smile widened.

“Uh…” Tonio’s eyes narrowed and he leaned forward. Squinting. “Why did she turn around?”

“He didn’t move. I did. So you could meet his sister. Congratulations.”

Tonio barked out a laugh. Two tears tracked from his eyes but he didn’t seem to notice. He laughed again, wet and rough, and brought my knuckles up to his mouth and kissed them hard, then he opened my palm and cradled his face with my hand. Then he leaned down and kissed my lips in a long, loving, lingering kiss. Tears tracked freely down both his cheeks into his short beard.

“Now. You’ll never know how much I appreciate all the state-of-the-art equipment and the office renovation and the rushed completion of the new Labor and Delivery house I’ve long wanted.” She beamed at him, while adding with the same disarming smile, “but from now on, you let me have my staff during Miss Garrison’s visits, or I cut your balls off and you have no more babies.”

Yeah. I was gonna like Dr. Simbillo.

* * *

A few hours later

The compound smelled like charred meat, barbecue. Surprisingly, the smell didn’t bother me. In fact, I was ravenous. Darby had Carrie backed against the porch railing, both of them red-faced and laughing, neither one giving an inch on whatever the hell they were fighting about. Veda and Griffin sat on the steps sharing a beer, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her waist. Sully leaned against the garage door with a bottle in his hand, watching the whole scene with dry amusement. Hawk drifted in with Kass and Finch right behind him.

Walking hand in hand with Antonio into the main clubhouse, the laughter mirrored the joy inside as well. The common room had been transformed. Candles flickered on every surface, their light catching on glass bowls of herbs and dried flowers. More than a dozen women sat in a circle on the floor, legs crossed, hands palm-up on their knees. Nadine was there, and Pippa, and Lavender, along with half a dozen old ladies whose faces I knew, but whose names I was still learning. At the center of the circle stood Ellie -- Elvira “Ellie” Blackheart, her long black hair in intricate braids, burgundy lips curved in concentration. She held a bundle of dried sage that smoked between her fingers. The only person I didn’t see was Tillie. I’d only met her once and she had a young child so maybe she was otherwise occupied.

As Antonio and I stopped at the threshold, Ellie’s voice rose and fell in a low rhythmic chant. All the women in the room swayed from side to side in their circle humming a soft monotone to go with Ellie’s chanting.

By moonlit root and river’s breath

Let barren earth awaken beneath.

Seed and womb, by warmth be stirred

Life now blooms by whispered word.

Ellie’s arms dropped. Her whole body went rigid. Her eyes flew open, wide and startled, and she clapped both hands over her own flat stomach with a gasp that sounded like she’d been gut-punched.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” she yelled, spinning to face us where we stood in the doorway. “Tessa! Why didn’t you tell me you were having twins before I did this fucking spell?”

The humming stopped. Every face in the circle turned to us. Antonio’s hand went slack in mine. I stared at Ellie.

“You’re what?” Nadine said.

Ellie threw up her hands, the sage bundle scattering ash. “Twins! There’s twins in the room and no one thought to mention it? Before I cast a fertility circle? Do you have any idea what that means?”

Carrie’s mouth was hanging open. “That means… holy shit, that means…”

“It means the spell just got amplified,” Ellie groaned. “Everyone in this room is gonna have multiples now. Everyone. I cast a fertility spell with a multiple pregnancy in the circle and the magic can’t tell the difference between one womb and another. That’s like… that’s like using a nuke to kill a gnat.”

The silence held for exactly three seconds before Pippa burst out laughing. The sound exploded out of her so hard she toppled backward onto the floor with a startled yelp, arms and legs kicking. Nadine covered her mouth with both hands but couldn’t hold it in. Carrie howled. Within seconds the whole room was roaring, women wiping tears and clutching each other and collapsing into helpless, wheezing fits. Everyone helped Pippa, of course, but by the end we were all laughing so hard tears rolled down our cheeks.

Antonio watched them with an amused smile. Sure, we still had problems to address, not the least of which was Iron’s gambit. But today wasn’t about death, but about light. And lots of it, if Ellie was any good at what she does.

“I guess that explains why Tillie isn’t here,” I said with a grin.

“Yeah,” Nadine. “She said once was enough for a while. I called her a party pooper, but I’m beginning to rethink that stance.”

I stepped into the center of the circle, tugging Antonio with me. The laughter faded to a low, expectant hum. All those eyes on me.

“Antonio Miles.” I turned to face him, squared my shoulders, and looked him right in the eye. “I’m keeping you. I want a ring on my finger, and I want the right to claw out the eyes of all the women looking your way and I want it now.”

For a heartbeat, he didn’t move. Then his mouth curved.

“All you had to do was say so.”

He dropped to one knee, right there in the center of Ellie’s smudged herbs and scattered ash. Then he put a ring on my finger. And it was unbelievably ostentatious.

The ring centered around a massive oval diamond that rose from the band, surrounded by a double halo of smaller stones. The band itself was platinum, thick and polished to a mirror shine, with pavé diamonds crawling down both sides in glittering rows. The matching wedding band curved around it fit perfectly, stacked with more diamonds and edged in delicate filigree. Together, the rings formed a blinding crown of ice and fire, extravagant, heavy, and impossible to ignore.

“Oh, wow,” I whispered. “That’s… a lot.”

“Well, I wanted to get your attention.” Tonio grinned. “Don’t worry. I’ve got you a plain band, but I wanted to make sure, when you go out, everyone will know you’re already permanently taken by an obscenely wealthy man who wants to keep you and buys you anything you want.” He smiled but I could tell he honestly thought money might be the best way to keep me and thought to start as he meant to begin. He’d shower me with gifts and every material thing he could. More than anything, I knew Tonio’s only wish was to make me happy.

“I’m sorry.” I tilted my head giving him a “so sorry for you” look. “Did you think you got to put your claim on me?”

He blinked up at me, standing slowly. “I don’t understand.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Antonio Miles. You can put your ring on my finger, but I’m the one claiming you.”

I pulled his hand to mine and slid his own wedding band onto his ring finger. The metal was warm, heavy, the same platinum as mine, the same filigree curling around the edges. I’d had Kass order it two weeks ago, the day I’d found the ring Tonio had bought. I’d been carrying it in my pocket ever since, waiting for the moment he proposed to me.

His eyes dropped to his hand. He stared at the ring like he didn’t recognize it, like it had fallen out of the sky. “You bought me a ring,” he said.

“Damn right I did.” I lifted my chin. “You think I’m gonna let you claim me without claiming you back?”

The women around us erupted. Several of the guys had poked their heads in and were now guffawing. Most had now stepped forward and clapped Antonio on the back as he looked down at the ring I’d put on his finger and back again. His throat worked. His eyes went glassy, and for a second I thought he might actually lose it right there in front of God and everybody, this man who’d held himself together through gunfire and blood and had proven he would always come for me. No matter what.

He pulled me into his arms and lifted me clean off my feet, spinning me around once while the whole place whooped with applause and laughter, and when he set me down he was laughing, open-mouthed and unguarded, the sound of him shaking the rafters.

From the doorway, Seth watched. He gave me a nod and a half grin before turning away and going back outside.

Antonio’s arms were still around my waist when Hawk bellowed from outside, “He said yes!” and then the whole compound erupted. They poured in through every door at once, men and women shouting, fists pumping the air, and Antonio lifted me again, higher this time, and the sound that came up from the group was loud as thunder.

I felt high as a kite on the sound of all the cheerful noise. This was raw, dirty, beautiful joy and it was mine. Ours. All of us. This club was out of their Goddamn minds. And I loved every single one of them.

The only thing missing from my happiness was Mercy. She’d sent a letter two days after she’d left. She was safe and appreciated our help, but she had other work to do. She’d left a phone number and told me not to worry, she had our numbers if she needed us. Yeah. Not cryptic at all.

Tonio didn’t let me down at first. He held me tight, pressed to his chest, his arms wrapped around me like he’d never let go. I didn’t want him to. The crowd swept around us, bodies jostling, men and women cheering.

All around us, everyone in my life who truly mattered partied and celebrated with me and Tonio. I looked around at the smiling faces and thanked my lucky stars I’d found Tonio.

And so the evening went. We ate too much. We danced too much. I personally ate way too many burnt marshmallows. But the best part about the whole affair? Spending time with Tonio when he actually looked like he had as much joy in his heart as I did.

“You’re beautiful. You’ll always be beautiful to me no matter what.” Antonio looked down at me and smiled as he started swaying with me when someone started up some music. “But I think we should set a date before you get too big to fit in the dress you want.”

I actually barked out a laugh. The audacity of the man! But it was rather funny. “Very romantic there, big guy.”

“Don’t care. I want you happy with the wedding and that means whatever dress you want. But I’m not waiting for this. I’ve already waited too long as it is.” He leaned down and brushed his lips over mine. “I’m not waiting to make you my wife. I love you,” Tonio said, his voice low and filled with emotion.

“I love you too,” I replied, feeling the weight of his words in my chest.

As the night wore on, the celebration continued in full swing. The air was filled with laughter, music, and the sweet scent of burning wood from the bonfire outside. Tonio and I found a quiet moment amidst the chaos, stealing away to a secluded spot where we could catch our breath.

He held me close, his gaze tender and filled with a depth of emotion that took my breath away. “I never thought I’d find someone like you, someone who understands me in ways I never knew possible,” Tonio whispered, his voice a gentle reassurance in the midst of the revelry.

I looked up at him, my heart swelling with love. “I feel the same way, Tonio. You’ve shown me a kind of love I never knew existed.”

In that moment, surrounded by the warmth of his embrace and the love of our friends, I knew that this was where I belonged. With Tonio, with the club, with all the misfits and outcasts who had become my family.

And as the night drew to a close, with the stars shining brightly overhead and the sounds of joy still echoing around us, I knew that this was just the beginning of our journey together. No matter what the future held, I was ready to face it with Tonio by my side. Our love was a fierce, unyielding force that could conquer anything that came our way.

With a final kiss shared under the moonlit sky, we rejoined the party, hand in hand, ready to embrace whatever adventures lay ahead. The night was ours, and the future was bright with promise. And as we danced into the night, surrounded by the love and laughter of our chosen family, I knew we were truly home.

Marteeka Karland

International bestselling author Marteeka Karland leads a double life as an action romance writer by evening and a semi-domesticated housewife by day. Known for her down and dirty MC romances, Marteeka takes pleasure in spinning tales of tenacious, protective heroes and spirited heroines. She staunchly advocates that every character deserves a blissful ending.

Marteeka finds joy in baking and gardening with her husband. Make sure to visit her website to stay updated with her most recent projects. Don’t forget to register for her newsletter which will pepper you with a potpourri of Teeka’s beloved recipes, book suggestions, autograph events, and a plethora of interesting tidbits.

Series reading order for Kiss of Death MC

More books by Marteeka Karland

Want more? Find Teeka’s Dark Erotica side here: Wanda Violet O.

Bones MC Multiverse

Contemporary MC and Crossovers

Bones MC

Shadow Demons

Salvation’s Bane MC

Black Reign MC

Iron Tzars MC

Grim Road MC

Bones MC Legends

Kiss of Death MC

Print and Audio

Bones MC Print Duets

Bones MC Audio

Salvation’s Bane MC Audio

Iron Tzars MC Audio

Grim Road MC Audio

Kiss of Death MC Audio