“I should kill you,” he seethes, looking at Piper. He lifts his gun and presses it to her shoulder and pulls the trigger. Her eyes go wide before a scream tears from her mouth.
His eyes, dark as the night sky, land on me. “You. Get out, right now.”
“Do it,” Piper says, nodding.
I manage to open the passenger door and the two men grab hold of me and pin my hands behind my back.
“Don’t kill her,” one of them yells.
“She’ll bleed to death in five minutes if help doesn’t get here,” he says, looking to Piper, then to me. “Now, move.” I’m pushed into a black car, and the driver takes off before the door is even closed.
“What do you want?” I ask.
He eyes me, then shakes his head. He looks familiar. I didn’t really pay attention when he shot Piper, too lost in attempting to help her. I look back to see her car still sitting there and hope to God she doesn’t die before help arrives.
“Seems you’ve caused a shit ton of trouble,” he comments, but I keep my eyes straight ahead.
We’re driving in the direction of Keir’s apartment building and we pull up out the front. The guy grabs me by the arm hard, and pulls me from the car. He puts me in front of the buzzer and presses it. “Tell him it’s you.” He leans in closer. “And I would be real careful with what you say. I won’t flinch to add a bullet to your fucking brain,” he says.
Keir’s voice comes through the speaker. “Who is it?”
“It’s me.”
“Sailor.” The buzzer sounds, and we all go inside. I stand at the back of the elevator with the guy who shot Piper. He’s eyeing me, sneering, as if I’m dirt. The doors open and he pulls on my arm.
He’s dressed much like everyone else—suit, clean and presentable—but it’s his eyes that are familiar. He’s older—older than me, that’s for sure.
The door is opened by a shirtless Keir, his bandage fresh on his shoulder. He looks at the men in front of me before his eyes land on me.
“Papa, I thought you were dead,” Keir says almost breathlessly, a look of pure disbelief on his face that I’ve never seen from him before. I look back to the man whose death-gripping my arm, so much that I know it’s going to bruise, and don’t believe it.
This man…
… is his father?
“You are meant to follow contracts.”
Keir grinds his teeth at his father’s response as his eyes fall to me, assessing, before he pulls the door back. The men with his father enter first, followed by his father and me.
“You’ve broken years of long-standing tradition for this.” He pushes me at Keir, and Keir catches me, instantly wrapping an arm around my waist.
Joey walks out a moment later, muttering something, but stops when he sees all of us. Then his eyes widen when he sees his father.
“You…”
“Yes, not dead. So glad you can catch up, Joey. You should have led him straight,” he bites out at Joey.
Joey has a glass of whiskey in his hand, and he quickly downs it. “I’m going to need more of this to deal with that.” He points to his father. “We buried you.”
“No. Clearly, you didn’t,” their father snaps, eyes shooting to Keir. “But since you have brought that up, I would have stayed gone and buried if you hadn’t fucked and knocked up a whore.”
“She isn’t a whore,” Keir growls back.
His father throws his head back and laughs. The men with his father stand there like statues, each with a gun in their hand, ready and willing to do his bidding. “You will do the right thing. You will end whatever it is you have with her and marry correctly. I don’t care what you do with the baby. Sell her for all I care. But you will marry Paige and you will have babies with her. Boys.”
“She’s fucking Roberto.”
Holy shit, how did I not know that.
And how long has he known that?
“Yes, about that…” Their father looks back to his men and nods. One walks off. “You let him live, even after what he did.” He shakes his head. “You’ve gone soft.” His eyes fall to me. “It’s because of her, isn’t it?” He clicks his tongue. “I had a side piece, I bet your mother has told you all about that, but I didn’t marry that side piece. Because that’s what they are… side pieces.”
Side piece? Is that what I have been all this time?
“Where is she now?” Keir seethes. “She seemed to have disappeared when you did.”
“She’s with me, as she should be.”
“So you love her,” Keir points out, and I look up at Keir.
Is he doing all the same things his father did because he loves me, or so he says?
“I do. And like a good whore, she knew she had to wait. Yours will do the same.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Keir says.
I reach forward and clutch the top of his pants, trying to keep him close.
“You aren’t in charge any longer, old man.” I feel Keir straighten to his full height. “Where is Piper?”
“That little bitch. She came to Italy and stirred up some shit.”
“Where. Is. She?”
“Hopefully dead,” he answers. Then he nods to me. “Hopefully, your little whore will be the same soon.”
“There’s no law against killing you,” Keir says with a malicious smile curving on his lips. “Because you are already dead.”
The doors open and Roberto is brought in.
Where did they keep him?
In the trunk?
Shit, he looks all kinds of banged up.
“I brought you a present.” His father nods to Roberto. “You kill him, or…” his head turns and he looks at me, “… you kill her.”
Keir steps forward, takes the gun from his father, who has it outstretched, and in one swift movement he shoots Roberto straight between the eyes. I scream as he drops to the floor and then Keir turns and points the gun at his father, pulls the trigger, but nothing happens.
His father laughs.
“I had heard you were ruthless.” His father slaps his back. “I’m glad to see that’s true.” Keir’s hand drops but still clutches the gun. “One bullet. I had a feeling about what you would do next. But I wasn’t quite sure if you were going to try it on me first, so I took my chances.” He walks off and looks around the apartment.
Keir comes over to me and touches my face, blood splattered on his chest. “Are you okay?” he asks.
“You just…” I look past him to Roberto, dead on the floor.
“He betrayed me. You don’t live if you betray me. He knew this.” Keir’s hand cups my chin and he lifts it. “Was Piper dead when they took you?”
I shake my head, and my breath catches at that thought.
“No, she was breathing, but barely.” Keir nods and pulls me to his chest. I forget about the blood there for a second as he kisses the top of my head. “What did he do?” I ask, referring to Roberto.
He waits to answer me as he looks around, so I lift my head to look at him.
“Paige,” he says. “I never slept with her. Roberto did. It’s his baby.”