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“Uh-uh, babe, I was cocky before you met me, you don’t get credit for my wit and mouth.” She grins, her eyes on the tablet. “Now, get to work, I want my reward when we find this bastard.”
Sipping the coffee she made, I lose myself in bank statements, answering the occasional email as I go. We work mainly in silence, but she fills my coffee a few times before going back to work. After a couple of hours, I lean back and stretch. “Anything?”
She looks up and places the tablet down next to a list she has. “A few, three to be exact, but I still have four names to check. What about you?”
“I have four to examine in depth and seven names left.” I sigh, rubbing my eyes. It’s the middle of the night, but I can’t stop now. “Let’s get through these last ones, and then I’ll make us some food.”
She smirks at that. “It better be good food.”
Laughing, I quickly scan through the remaining names. She’s done before me, of course, and I notice her looking over the list with a frown, so when I’m done, I grab it and cross a few names off. “Some of these still do odd jobs for us, hence the transfers.” That leaves us with ten names between us. “Okay, I’ll get Kenzo to check these out tomorrow, maybe wire them and put tails on them. You hungry, love?”
“Starving.” She groans as she gets up and stretches, making my eyes drag down her delicious body. She grabs our mugs as I stand and roll back my sleeves.
“Homemade pasta?” I ask, and she stops.
“You cook? Make homemade pasta?” she murmurs, and I smirk.
“I do.”
“Fucking assholes, is there anything you lot can’t do?” she grumbles as we head to the kitchen again. She hops up on the island to watch as I grab the ingredients I need.
But her words stick with me. There’s something I’ve been thinking about, running around in circles in my mind. The only way I will ever know for sure is to ask her so, leaning back against the worktop, I narrow my eyes on her and settle in. “Roxxane?”
She tilts her head. “Uh-oh, am I in trouble? Is it about the guy I beat up?”
I blink in shock. “You beat someone up again? What—never mind, we can come back to that. I need to ask you something.”
“Sure, what’s up?” she inquires casually.
“Do you want to be here?”
She freezes, her eyes widening.
“I mean it. I know…I know we didn’t give you a choice. But now, it seems like you are almost happy. I see the way you are with my brothers, I have to know, I have to know if you’re going to try and escape again, or if you could ever stay and be happy with them?”
“And if I say no?” she asks slowly.
“I-I need to protect them, love, even from their own feelings. This is getting more serious than I could have ever imagined. Tell me the truth, Roxxane, do you want to stay? With us?” I hold my breath, waiting for the answer, because the truth is…I want her too.
She is the best debt I ever collected, and the most important business deal.
But for her, did she accept the inevitable? Are we just a decision to give up fighting? If it comes down to her or my brothers, would I choose wisely? Could I even choose anymore? For all my intentions at keeping her at bay, the little minx has got behind my armour, and now, even my own heart is on the line.
Held in this woman’s grasp.
She has the power to destroy us all. Does she know it?
She seems to be thinking, debating her answer. “Love, look at me. Are you happy? Do you still want your freedom…or do you want us?”
“Are those my only two choices?” she queries, and then glances away for a moment, the light of the city arcing across her heartbreakingly beautiful face. “I don’t know. If you asked me a week ago, I would have taken my freedom…but you’ve gotten under my skin. You’ve got your venom in me, and in this last week, I have felt more alive than I ever have. D keeps telling me I belong, Garrett is finally letting me in, and Kenzo is so sweet and shared his past with me…and you. You, Ryder, are giving me a chance to be part of a real family…”
“But?” I prompt, my hands digging into the granite as fear surges through me. I hate fear, it makes us weak. She makes me weak.
“But…how can I be completely happy as a captive? Don’t you want me to choose you? To not need you, but want you? I’ve lived my own life, I have my own place, my own business. I earn my own money and pay my bills and buy the shit I want. I’m not rich, but I’m comfortable. I learned to change bulbs, to mow the fucking grass, to change a goddamn tire. To build furniture, to travel and be alone. In all that, I learned I didn’t need a man to be with me, to do things for me, I could do it for myself. Nothing is too difficult, you can always find a way. But that means, when I’m with someone…when I choose someone, it’s because I want them. Not because I need them for something, because I have to be with them, but because Icanbe with them. Don’t you want that?”
It’s my greatest fear and what I knew from the start. Why I tried to stay away. Roxxane wants to be free. From us. To leave…but would she come back? She’s asking for that choice, and who am I to keep that from her? If I truly care for her, surely I should let her choose us. But what if she doesn’t? D will never let her go, it would break Kenzo’s heart, and Garrett—fuck, he’s finally letting someone in again, trying to heal.
She would kill us all, and break everything we have worked so hard for.
