My gaze moves to Sisco in question, and he nods in agreement with Joey. “I’m not letting her go either. She’s one of us now. Maybe she always has been.”
“And if she doesn’t want to stay?” I ask. “What then?”
Sisco laughs crudely. “Were you upstairs with us earlier? Did it seem like she wanted to get away from us?”
I sigh. “It’s all well and good in the dark of night, but in the stark reality of daylight, people have a way of changing their minds.”
“Then we’ll lock her in the fucking basement until she changes her mind!” Sisco snaps, his eyes ablaze with madness and excitement at the prospect. “She’s ours, forever. I can’t let her go, not now, brother!”
“Not after that,” Joey agrees with a jerk of his head upstairs. He’s more serious and subdued, but he’ll stand by Sisco’s side in this.
I stand up and walk to my desk, my bare feet padding on the wooden floors. “What you’re talking about is kidnapping an innocent woman and forcing her to fuck us for the rest of her life. I’ve done many terrible things in my life, brothers, but that won’t be one of them.”
Sisco comes over and pats me on the shoulder, a smirk on his face. “No, what we’re talking about is convincing her that she should stay with us.”
“That she belongs with us,” Joey adds on, his expression serious.
“Shedoesbelong with us, Dom. You know it as well as we do. It’s like she was made just for us,” Sisco says matter-of-factly.
I sigh. Heavy is the head that wears the crown I suppose.
“She is everything we could have ever hoped for, I’ll give you that. But it has to be her choice. She has to want to stay with us. All three of us. Her whole life up until this point has been orchestrated for her. This can’t be like that.” I wrestle with the words in my head, unsure how to get them out. It’s Joey who says them with clarity for me.
“You want better for her,” he states.
“More for her,” Sisco adds. “Then let us give it to her. We can give her anything and everything, Dom, you know this.”
“It’s not about trinkets, brother. It’s more than that and you know it. She’s fucking special.” The words burst from me, sounding almost angry. “She needs to know the truth. Only then can she make her decision.”
Sisco takes step towards me, his expression turning angry. “Don’t you fucking dare!”
“She’ll leave, Dominic. You know she will. Why would you risk her for that? To ease your fucking conscience? Don’t act like your whiter than white. Like you don’t have blood on your hands.” Joey has come closer, his anger growing with each passing word. “You may want to make us legit. To stop the bloodshed and war, but death will always surround you. You can’t hide who you are, brother.”
“Enough!” I yell, standing up straighter and taking a step towards him. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? I know I have blood on my hands, blood I don’t even try to clean off because it’s who I am. I own that. I accept that. I know who I am. But this…keeping her without her knowing all the facts, that’s not fucking happening. If she wants to go, she can go. I won’t let either of you keep her here without her consent.”
Sisco snorts out a laugh and takes a step towards the door. “I’ll prep the basement for her,” he throws over his shoulder, “she’s not going fucking anywhere. She’s mine…ours!”
I slam my glass on the table. “God damn it, brothers. Listen to yourselves! You can’t force her to love you.”
Joey sneers at me. “I can fuck her until she loves me. Until she wants to stay. I’ll pleasure her body in ways she’s never dreamed possible, until her every waking breath is for me. Until she doesn’t want to leave because all she can think about is me!”
“I want to stay,” Natalia says quietly from the doorway.
We all turn to look at her, my breath stolen from my lungs when I see her standing there. She’s wearing my dress shirt, her hair wild and untamed with an air of just-fuckedness about it. Her cheeks are still flushed, her lips swollen. A low growl begins in my chest automatically and her cheeks flush redder. Sisco and Joey have stopped in their tracks, both of them eyeing her like lions waiting to pounce.
“I’ve never felt like that before,” she says, her voice hesitant. “So wanted, so in control of…everything.”
She comes closer to us, and as she draws near, Joey hands her his glass of vodka. She takes it with a shy smile and my dick twitches at the sight.
“My whole life I’ve been told what to do, where to go, who to talk to, how to talk, but that upstairs . . . that was . . .”
Joey touches the bottom of her glass and she nods and takes a sip while she gathers her thoughts.
“I chose that,” she says firmly. “I wanted that . . . you . . .allof you.”
“You should sleep on it,” I say, and Sisco turns to me with a scowl.
“Will you shut the fuck up, brother!”
