HANDLING A SITUATION ANDcontaining one were two different things in my syndicate. I handled business ventures, investments, day-to-day finances and dealings.
I contained explosions of passion, emotion, people acting out. The Diamond Syndicate didn’t just exist in the Chicago suburbs and Paradise Grove—it was on the West and the East Coast and across the globe. I didn’t have time for miniscule problems or weaknesses within my own syndicate. Or with my own allies.
For the man who had invited Trent, I gave two minutes of my time. Not five. And his argument had been an actual waste of those minutes.
The bullet in his head was a waste also. In med school, they told me every second counted. I felt the same with my business. It was a body I took the utmost care of, and when something infected it, every second counted in removing the virus.
“Get this piece of shit off the premises,” I told one of my men. When Olive and Dimitri walked in with Bane and Pink, I pinched the bridge of my nose and informed them, “He was working with Paolo along with Trent.”
Bane frowned. “You know for a fact?”
“He used the same phrase Paolo did.The East Coast will take care of the cracks. The same phrase Lex used to say about her company helping us Diamonds.”
“You saying what I think you are?” Bane lifted a brow and I nodded before he grumbled, “Shit. Well, you wanted more action, Pink. Guess we get a little blood tonight, and might be time to get surveillance on all Paolo’s properties. Doesn’t seem they’re going to stay quiet any longer.”
I agreed, sliding my gun back into my belt holster. “Keep me updated,” I told them, and then went to find Mia.Shewas my focus now tonight … or every night.
Trent was right about that. Ihadoverreacted and killed a man or two at the club that I might not have had she not been there. Would it cause ripples amongst the East Coast? I didn’t care now. The second Trent had said the same phrase Paolo Ruiz had, everything clicked into place. Val and Trent were close, and I had it on good authority she’d gone to him after I turned her away last night.
It meant he’d tipped off O’Connor’s men and his loyalties were with them over us. For that alone, he deserved a knife in his heart. He got a bullet in front of everyone, though, because of how he’d talked to Mia.
No one got to disrespect that woman ever again. Not when they knew she was mine.
And when I saw her dancing with my brother, I had words with both of them, reminding her she was mine even though I couldn’t clarify the rest. I just knew I was ready for more with her. Ready for everything.
I took her soft lips in mine now on the dance floor because they were my territory just as mine were hers. She’d learn over time what it meant to be faithful to me, that it meant not even my brother would be able to touch her. I wanted her home to ingrain it into her, so I pulled away to tell her, “We’re leaving.”
“But we should say bye to—”
“Blame me later.” I gripped her hand and wove through the party. She’d see them all again in a month or so. Or maybe never, since I didn’t want to share her with anyone. Not with the way men kept eyeballing her. Why had I sent short-ass dresses to her today, anyway?
But when I got her back on the Ducati, I knew why. Her exposed thighs against my clothed ones in the night wind heated my damn soul. I wanted her in a way I never wanted women.
To own her.
To punish her for letting my brother touch her.
To ravage her so she was wrecked for everyone else.
To rip her apart and then put her back together so she knew she was safe only with me.
The moonlight glowed on her skin, and her fingers gripped my abdomen every time I accelerated. She wasn’t teasing me the way I had teased her under the table tonight. She didn’t inch her hands down toward my cock or try to cop a feel the way I had.
But I fucking thought about her doing it, how it would feel for those hands to grip my dick instead of my stomach, for her legs to open wider for me on my bike so I could fuck her in the moonlight with the stars highlighting her pretty brown eyes.
I took the turns faster, the wind whipping past us, and blew through the lights, pushing the machine only a little. The Superleggera V4 was a damn beast, one of five hundred in the world, and mine wasn’t stock. I’d custom dipped the carbon-fiber fairings in obsidian-infused paint, wrapped the handlebars in leather—the same Italian leather that I enjoyed in my Bugatti—and the exhaust was tuned to rumble lower and quieter. There wasn’t any red on my brake calipers either. They gleamed of steel, and the dash flashed with an upgraded HEAT digital interface, the best in the industry.
My machine was made for me. Not the streets. And thewoman on that bike with me tonight was made for me too—how she held herself amongst my syndicate, quiet and almost apathetic to everything but my touch, her concern focused on my daughter, on me, and on her friends.
She didn’t care about the power; she didn’t care about the wealth or the prestige, and her heart made her too good for all of us. For me.
Yet, I was too selfish not to take it, couldn’t have stopped myself if I tried. I hit the button on my dash to open the iron gates. Every second that idled by as the metal parted slowly was a second too long. The drive curved ahead, and I felt how she’d caught on to leaning with my body, but I leaned hard so that we were right on the edge of the drive, my estate in view with the darkened stone and glass glinting in the moonlight. I engaged the kickstand and looked back at her. She was breathless from the fast ride, her lips still swollen from my kiss were parted just slightly, and her dress bunched high on her thighs from being pressed tight against me.
I let the engine idle and the night air infect us. She didn’t let go of my waist, her breath hot on the curve of my neck as I stared at her. I didn’t move right away because I couldn’t, not when every inch of her was molded to me like she belonged there.
“Ready to go home?” I asked her.
“Not ready,” she murmured.
