He squinted at me before sighing, a long ribbon of air that brushed my cheek because we were still standing too close.
“Fine,” he finally said, the one word filled with resignation. “But you have to know, I’m not doing this because we’re cousins. I’m doing it because we’re friends. I don’t want you to get hurt and if I can do something to stop that happening, I will.”
His words washed over me like warm spring rain even in the cold winter night. I pulled him into a hug and held him so tightly, I could feel the bones creak in his spine.
“You know, my whole life that’s all I ever wanted,” I whispered as I pressed my nose into his neck. “Someone to fight for me. With me.”
“Well, you’ve got your wish. Let’s see what we can do about making some of the others come true.”
6
TIERNAN
It was five in the morning and I hadn’t slept.
How could I?
Everything in my world was wrong like some interloper had entered my home and put everything askew.
Bianca was with Caroline.
Bryant was too quiet, licking his wounds while he no doubt planned his revenge.
And I had the key to the Constantine’s ruin and the Belcante’s fortune in my possession with no idea where the locked treasure even lay.
It was a peculiarly lonely exercise to watch your life fall apart and know you were responsible for the destruction.
I wasn’t used to such chaos and it ravaged my insides, dredging up emotion and inner reflection, both of which I hadn’t practiced in years. Since the day Grace took her own life and that of our child.
My fist hit the black bag with a solid series of thwacks that vibrated up my arm into my shoulders. I went easy with my left hand because of the wound to my shoulder, just tapping the bag with my knuckles, but I overcompensated with my right. It was a painful exercise, but it grounded me. After a lifetime of being beaten physically and emotionally, I found comfort in the ache and sting.
Ezra held the bulk for me so it didn’t swing back into my body as I let loose, arms swinging in a flurry of punches that made my knuckle aches. Sweat poured off my face and naked torso in rivulets, soaking my bandage, the wraps on my hands and the waistband of my black athletic shorts, but I didn’t pause even to wipe the stinging wet from my eyes.
There was a devil inside me I needed to purge before I dared pause to draw breath.
Because I’d taken Bianca just hours before, had her sweet body beneath mine, those soft, velvet blue eyes looking up at me like I was half-devil and half-deity, the taste of her in my mouth and stuck like a burr in my mind, and walking away from her had taken everything inside me. I hadn’t been joking when I told her I wanted to drag her back to Lion Court by the hair.
I was dangerously close to doing just that.
Oh, I wanted to own her and control. That desire was born in me and would never die. But that was our sexual dynamic and I found I didn’t want the same power discrepancy in our relationship.
I was already older, wealthier, more experienced. Legally and sexually in control of her actions. If I took away her ability to make decisions, I was no worse than Bryant. Nothing short of a tyrant.
So, I left her there in the viper’s den.
It was the right decision, maybe, but it set my teeth on edge in a way I couldn’t shake.
Hence the early morning session in the gym, battling my demons with my fists because my mind was too exhausted and my heart too inexperienced to make any sense of it themselves.
“So, what’s the plan, boss?” Walcott asked from the matts a few yards away where he was doing his usual morning stretches. Maintaining mobility in his extensively scarred tissue was a daily battle for him that he combatted with yoga, frequent massages, and moisturizing.
“He doesn’t have one,” Henrik drawled as he hulled his bulk over the chin up bar.
“Fuck off,” I ground out as I pummelled the bag in a quick series of punches that rattled the chains attaching it to the ceiling.
Walcott sighed. “That means he doesn’t have a plan.”
A growl worked itself loose from my tight chest as I landed one last upper cut that made Ezra shifted his weight to keep from losing his balance. I stepped back, chest heaving, eyes stinging with sweat, and glared at my men.
“There is a plan,” I growled. “It’s just…changed form in the last few days.”
“So, we aren’t out to take down the Constantines?” Henrik asked, dropping to the ground with a heavy thud. “Somehow I doubt that.”
I glared at him. “If Caroline touches a single hair on Bianca’s head or mistreats her in anyway, you better fucking believe we’ll take that bitch down. But it’s not the priority. There’s no doubt in my mind Bryant will try to put me in my place for turning against him. We need to attack before he fully recovers to put him in his place. A dark, cramped place like the inside of a coffin or a jail cell.”
Walcott stopped his movements to frown at me. “You’re serious about this? Your own father?”
“Aren’t you the ones who told me he doesn’t deserve the title?” I countered, remembering the twisted delight on his face when he revealed who I was to Bianca. It was the last in a series of so many misdeeds against me that I couldn’t believe it had taken me this long to reach the breaking point.
Only, for most of my life, he’d been one of my only sources of validation and love, however perversely it presented itself. I’d been so young when he took my family from me, young still when he took Grace, that I’d been programmed to believe he was all I had left.
All I was good for.
Not anymore.
There was a boy upstairs in his Spiderman bedsheets that deserved more than a villain for a role model and a girl across Bishop’s Landing in another house that would never be a home who deserved more than that.
So, I’d find it in myself to give more to both of them.
And that started with eliminating the enemies who stood against us.
“How the hell are you going to take down the head of your own family?” Henrik pushed, wiping his bald head with a Santa towel he’d picked up yesterday after taking Brando shopping for Christmas paraphernalia. They’d returned with dozens of bags stuffed with tinsel, holly, cookie cutters, ornaments, and Santa only knew what else. “How do you hurt him without hurting the entire family name?”
“He isn’t the head of Morelli Holdings anymore,” I reminded them. “Lucian is. Bryant’s exerted his control over me for too long. It’s time he retired. The only thing that matters to him more than power is money.”
You go after his private holdings, Ezra signed.
I nodded, signing along with my words for him even though he was brilliant at lip reading. “At the end of the day, Bryant is a greedy motherfucker. If we dangle something enticing enough for him, he’ll take the bait.”
The low keen of the doorbell interrupted our conversation. We looked at each other, obviously wondering who the hell would visit Lion Court at five fifteen in the morning.
Walcott got up without a word, ascending the stairs to check out the situation. We listened to the faint sounds of the door opening and indistinguishable voices floating down the staircase.