I should be dissecting routes, hunting leaks. Instead, I’m thinking about her lips, the sounds she makes when she comes, and how that sweet little cunt was dripping for me.
“Shit,” I huff, straightening in my chair and adjusting my cock.
Pavel’s voice cuts through the line again in Russian. Logistics, ports, shipment delays—same shit, different continent.
“Martin’s dead. Find me men worth a damn,” I fire off.
He grumbles something under his breath. I don’t care.
A month back in Philly, and I’m already drowning in weak links and half-assed loyalty. I spent years turning men into machines over there. Here, they’re soft. Men like Martin, like Shane, they talk too much and bleed too easily.
But it’s not all bad. Rocky as it began, the network’s coming together. Quiet meetings, threats, and payoffs. Running guns, cars, and cleaning cash. The bones are there. Just need more blood in the dirt to make it stick. Maybe this place can be something. And I can make a home here again.
With her.
I shake my head and grin at the lunacy of it all. But I won’t give her up. I meant what I said.
Valentina is mine.
Having been privy to the inner workings of the darkest parts of this world, yet none of it scares her. That should bother me more than it does. It should make me want to push her away for good.
But it doesn’t.
If anything, it makes me want to pull her closer. Because if she can stomach this, if she can look at me, knowing exactly what kind of man I am, and still want me…
Pavel breaks me from those thoughts, and maybe it’s for the better.
“Is there anything you need?” he asks, sounding like he’s got more important places to be.
“Pavel,” I say, cutting him off mid-sentence. “I want every man on my roster triple checked. I don’t care if they’ve been with us five years or five minutes. Start digging. Anyone even twitches the wrong way, you bury them.”
There’s a pause on the line, then. “Understood.”
I hang up before he can say more. The silence hits different now. It’s the kind that makes you realize your choices start stacking bodies. I never gave it a second thought, maybe even enjoyed it. But now it creeps in when I picture Valentina caught in the crosshairs of this life.
She’s built for the tough shit, harder than most men I know. If Derek Cain did one thing right, it was making sure his daughter could walk into hell and come out untouched.
I push up from the chair, shove my phone in my back pocket, and head for the door, leaving Pavel and all the other bullshit exactly where it belongs, behind me.
Dusk bleeds into the skyline as I slide behind the wheel. Traffic’s crawling, and headlights stretch for miles, but I don’t give a fuck. I need to see her.
For a second, I think about calling and giving her a heads-up.
Then I don’t. She’s expecting me anyway. Said she was cooking tonight. And when I offered to bring something and advised her to take it easy, she told me to shut up and let her feed me. How could I argue with that? I rolled to a stop at a red light, laughing to myself like an idiot.
Goddamn, this woman.
She doesn’t need to prove anything, not to me. But she’s trying anyway. And I’d be lying if I said that doesn’t pull something tight in my chest that I’ve never felt before. It scares the shit out of me. Not because I don’t want it. But because maybe…I do.
Eventually, we’ll have to tell the others, tell the family—tell Derek.
Val hasn’t said much, but I know she’s nervous about telling her dad. They have a tight bond, and she values his opinion. It would gut her if he rejected us outright. Her pain would hurt my heart. But I’m a selfish bastard who has never claimed to be anything else. And I won’t let her go unless it’s what she wants…and even then, I’ll have her anyway.
When I reach her condo, I slide into my usual spot and take the stairs two at a time, bound up all five stories. I don’t have the fucking patience for the elevator, not when I’ve missed the hell out of my girl all day. My hands itch to touch her soft skin, to dip into the places that now belong to me.
I lean on the doorway, slightly winded from my sprint, and knock twice.
No answer.
