Chapter 1
Water sluices down from the shower head, washing away the sheen of sweat that covers my body. Droplets cling to the red roses on my right arm, trailing down to drip from the end of my amputated limb.
Fighting one-handed is hard as fuck, but I’m getting better at it.
Muscles I never knew existed before are sore from my training sessions with Ryland, and even though we’ve only been doing it for a few days, I can already feel my body strengthening and adapting.
Good. We’ll all need to adapt fast in this changing landscape.
I roll my neck as I step directly under the spray, letting the heat seep into my body. We just finished a two-hour sparring session where Ryland helped me make adjustments to the fighting techniques he’s teaching me to compensate for my missing limb.
He was nominated to be the one to teach me all of this stuff since, out of the three men, he’s the one who has formal martial arts training. Theo and Marcus are good fighters because they have to be—they’ve all learned to defend themselves with any weapon at their disposal—but Ryland has actual training in Jiu Jitsu and a couple other forms.
And now that we suspect Luca and the Viper are the same person, all three men want me to know how to defend myself.
It’s hard to believe it’s only been five days since our visit to Luca’s house. Five days since that quick glimpse at the tattoo on his wrist sent me reeling, my mind putting together the pieces of an elaborate puzzle and finally seeing the complete picture.
Luca has been playing everyone. His “game” was an elaborate setup, a distraction designed to pit the most powerful families in Halston against each other and allow Luca to fortify his control of the city.
We still don’t have proof.
All we have is the certainty that we’re right, a gut feeling that this entire situation is utterly fucked.
That’s enough for me, and it’s enough for the men.
But if we’re going to convince the other players that Luca is the real enemy, we’ll need a hell of a lot more than just our word. We need fucking evidence.
Unfortunately, that’s proving harder to find than I’d hoped. Luca has done a good job of distancing himself from the Viper, keeping the connection between those two names basically non-existent.
We’ll find something though.
We have to.
Letting out a breath, I grab the shampoo bottle from the small shelf set into the shower wall and pour some onto my dark hair. Then I set the bottle down and begin to work the shampoo into a lather. Sudsy water pours down my face and neck, and when I hear the quiet click of the door opening, I don’t open my eyes.
I know who it is.
There’s the soft shuffle of clothes being discarded, and a second later, the shower door opens. Even through the spray of the water and the sweet smell of the shampoo, I can pick up the soft bite of leather and the clean scent that I recognize instantly as Marcus.
He steps up behind me, the broad expanse of his chest brushing against my back as he takes over massaging the shampoo into my hair. He’s already half-hard, his cock pressing into my lower back, and his touch is both tender and rough as he rubs his fingertips against my scalp.
I make a soft noise in my throat, leaning back against him with my eyes still closed. “You could do that lower if you want.”
He grunts, but once he finishes with my hair, he moves his hands down to my shoulders, leaving the suds in my dark locks. His strong hands knead away the tightness in my muscles, sending a pleasurable shiver down my spine.
I’m not surprised he decided to join me in the shower.
He’s been insatiable lately, unable to keep his hands off me. It’s not just him either. I’m the same way, and I can feel the same desperation in Theo and Ryland too. The fact that Ryland’s and my training sessions don’t devolve into sex every time is a testament to how serious he is about teaching me self-defense.
We’re all scared of losing each other. We almost lost Marcus already, and we barely survived that.
Whenever I’m around any of these men, it’s almost impossible to restrain the urge to wrap myself around them. To crawl into their laps and hold them as close as two people can get. To lose myself in their embrace and pretend that the electric connection that surges between us might be enough to keep the rest of the world out.
It isn’t enough. I know that. But it doesn’t stop me from wanting to try.
“How was your training session?”
Marcus’s deep voice cuts through my thoughts, the sound rumbling against my back.
“It was good.” I drop my head a little, letting water pour over me as the tension in my shoulders unwinds. “He said after seeing me beat the shit out of Natalie, he knows I’ve got what it takes to be a fighter. He’s just helping me shape that into better technique.”
Marcus huffs a breath that’s almost a laugh. “From what he and Theo have told me, you looked like an avenging goddess. I wish I could’ve been there to see it.”
I turn around in his arms, tilting my head back to rinse out the last of the shampoo before I blink my eyes open to look up at him. Earth and air gaze back at me, the rich brown of his left iris contrasting with the split brown and blue of his right one. His eyes are mesmerizing, and not just because of their unique color. It’s what’s behind them that pulls me in every time, drawing me the way the moon draws the tide.
I will never know enough about Marcus Constantine. Even if I spend my whole life by his side, my curiosity about him will never wane.
I want everything.
Every piece of who he is.
I won’t settle for anything less.
“If you’d been there, I probably wouldn’t have hit Natalie,” I tell him honestly, my arm wrapping around him. I can feel the scars of his bullet wounds on his back, and I trail my fingers lightly over them. “Every time my fist flew toward her face, I thought of you. I thought of where you might be, of the pain you might be in, of where your corpse might be if you were already dead. It hurt. My whole body felt filled to the brim with it, and I just couldn’t hold it in anymore. I wanted to kill her for what she did to you.” My jaw clenches, tears burning the backs of my eyes at the memory of my pain and rage. “So I guess she’s lucky I just smashed her face in instead.”
Something glints in Marcus’s eyes, something feral and dangerous and possessive. It’s the kind of thing that used to scare me, back when he first reappeared in my life, invading my space, my thoughts, and my dreams.
Obsession.
Pure, raw obsession.
It used to overwhelm me. It used to terrify me, knowing that I was the single focus of Marcus’s attention. That even before we’d said two words to each other, he knew more about me than most of the “friends” I’ve had over the years.
Now, seeing that look in his eyes doesn’t make my stomach flip-flop with nerves. Instead, it sends a bolt of heat shooting through me, making liquid arousal pool in my belly.
“Fuck, angel.” His large hands come up to frame my face, slicking my wet hair back as he looks down at me. “When you say shit like that…”
He doesn’t bother to finish that sentence, showing me what he means by moving even closer to me. His cock presses against my stomach, fully hard now and hot against my skin. My pussy clenches in response, arousal spreading through my limbs as I wrap my arm around his neck, closing the last small fraction of space between us.