CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Fiero
Fourteen nights to go.
I can’t stareat the same bedroom wall I’ve stared at for five days straight any longer.
The club needs to be opened again. Guests need to be reassured that extra security is in place to make sure shit like that doesn’t happen again. They need toseeit with their own eyes.
I’ve had Brando pick out the most vicious fuckers he knows and pay them more than they’d get anywhere else, purely to keep the club from being infiltrated by misguided, gun-toting loose fucking cannons.
The Ring has to go ahead—the goods being gambled aren’t going to sit around and wait while blood’s cleaned out of a carpet, and it’s too late and too risky to relocate it now.
Having a headquarters out of action doesn’t look good to our crews either—the Philly Mob especially. We need to be up andrunning, taking inventory and issuing commands. I need to be able tolead.
There’s only so much I can do remotely, and I need to get off this bed because I’m bored out of myfucking mind.
And all of that pales in comparison to the other reason I need to get Velvet back up and running. My time with Pfeiffer is running out and I haven’t even begun to ruin her yet.
My memory of that last night is patchy but I know from brief snatches here and there, and the accounts of my brothers and the doctor, she was the one who fixed me up. Apparently the doc didn’t need to do much other than dose me up on morphine and order I take bed rest for two weeks.
But, that’s barely all the time I have left to break my little pet, so the bed rest isn’t going to happen.
Memories have peppered my dreams and my consciousness, the morphine making them vivid. I can literally hear her sighs as she came apart on my cock and feel her flood of arousal lubricating my full length. It’s as real and staggering as when it really happened.
It’s becoming harder to deny I want more of that, but my brothers are remaining stubbornly fixated on me tearing her apart.
I understand why. I was a teenager when it happened and Remo was about to turn thirteen. Cass and Brando weren’t even ten. Our mom had died and we were left with a father who didn’t think to feed us, let alone parent us. If it hadn’t been for our housekeeper at the time, we wouldn’t have eaten.
Remo, Cass and Bran needed me to be the strong one. They didn’t need me breaking into pieces in front of their eyes.
What we all lost that day, we’ll never get back. I understand they’re bitter about it. I am too. Orwas.
Bran said Pfeiffer pushed the mask off my face when she treated me, and there was no obvious recollection of who I am. Her face had already drained of blood I suppose, so a reaction wouldn’t have been obvious. Still, I get the distinct impressionshe doesn’t remember me at all, so it’s unlikely she remembers what she did.
Not only that, when I recall the day it happened, I remember being stunned because her behavior was so out of character. She’s still the same person she used to be—pliant, kind, eager to please. It doesn’t track with what she did. It doesn’t make any sense.
All I know is, I feel like I want to give her the chance to explain. My brothers would never stand for that though. They want total annihilation, and I don’t blame them.
As if on cue, Remo lets himself into the apartment, throws his keys on the side and walks toward the open door of my bedroom.
“How are you doing?”
“I’m good.” I sit up, even though it elicits a stabbing pain across my chest. “I can get out of this thing now.”
Remo pauses at the end of the bed. “You sure?”
I yank the IV from my hand and rip back the bed covers, lowering my feet to the floor.
“Yeah. The repairs are done, right?” I stagger past him, trying not to betray the fact my torso is fucking killing me.
“Pretty much.” He follows me to the kitchen. “But, you know, we don’t need you there to open the place. We can run it as normal for a few days—give you more time to recover.”
“I don’t need more time,” I grit out, turning my back to conceal my wince. “I have meetings.”
“I can take those for you.” He lets out an exasperated sigh. “That’s what I deputize for, remember?”
I almost black out trying to fill the coffee machine but I press on. “Yeah I know, but I’m bored out of my mind, Remo. If I stay here any longer I’m going to rot into the goddamn floor.”
