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It was in the middle of the night, out here by this pond, years ago. It was just the two of us while Ari was sleeping off a vicious kill and James was still in the basement enduring his punishment. Phoenix was petrified that I was looking to replace him, so I got down on one knee, slipped a ring on his finger, then spoke vows to the heavens for my ears and his alone. Promises that I would die before breaking.
I touch that ring now, on his left hand. He never takes it off.
He softens, but only just. “That wasn’t—”
“If you say that wasn’t real,” I growl, moving so close my lips touch his, “I will put you on your knees until you beg me to let you up.”
He shivers. “It wasn’t thesame.”
I kiss him, then pull away. “It wasn’t, and thank God for that because why the hell would I want it to be?” I don’t say everything else I want to because there are really no words to convey what he means to me and what I would do for him. The others are just as precious, but he’s different. He’s from…before.
“You have regrets about all this, don’t you?”
“Reservations,” I tell him. “I have reservations. For the first time in my life, when I look at her, I want to save something instead of break it.”
His eyes flutter shut. “I know what you mean.”
His hand searches for me again, and I let him find me. He traces a line across my neck, then down my arm, over my stomach, and along my thigh. He stops when his fingers touch the crease in my trousers—just the subtle reminder of my own changes because there’s a sleeve there that holds my prosthetic on.
“Does it hurt?”
We still haven’t really talked about it. Not since the night he climbed into the hospital bed and allowed me to shake apart in his arms.
“Yes.” I take his fingers in mine and raise his hand to my lips, kissing his ring, his knuckles, then the pads of his fingers. I kiss him until he releases a breath that sounds like it comes from the depths of his soul. “We have a lot to prepare for.”
“We do. And we need to talk tonight.”
There’s weight to his words that I don’t like, but I knew something like this was coming. He and James have been cagey since the yacht, and they must have been worse on the boat because Rhys called me after and asked if there was trouble in paradise. It took a couple of passive threats to get him to keep his nose where it belongs—which is far from my business—but I don’t like it.
“After dinner,” I tell him. “Do you want Alice there?”
“She’d cut off all our balls if we turned her away,” he tells me. He pulls his hand back, and I know he needs the rest of this time alone to process, so I give him that. I find my way back to the house, slow and steady and pained, and I don’t look back before losing sight of him.
I don’t need to.
He’ll always be there.
* * *
Dinner is a tense affair.James is staring at Alice like she’s a bomb about to go off, Alice is green around the edges and barely touches her food, Ari looks like he wants to poke one of the bears just to shake things up, and Phoenix looks ready to murder. It makes me wonder how I appear to all of them.
I say nothing apart from discussing the upcoming party. I have the guest list approved, and Phoenix is currently going through surveillance to make sure that no one is stepping out of line. We have eyes on Romano, who’s currently licking his wounds in New York—though I know that won’t last—and he’s with Marco.
The youngest Romano was last spotted in the city, having spent most of the nights at the Rose Gold—the single decent strip club that the Romanos run. Their entire sex-work ring comes from that single building, which still makes me laugh at how he’s never learned to spread out his reach.
He thinks holding everything close to his chest will save him, but he should know better.
He should have learned his lesson when I held him by his priest collar and forced him to choke on my dick, making it so obvious how one tiny thing could destroy his whole world.
But he’s always been a fool.
Dabbing the corner of my mouth with my napkin, I stare around the table, then clear my throat. “I’m going to assume no one wants afters.”
“Booze,” James says, and Alice fixes him with a glower. He meets her gaze, unrepentant, and I’m now wondering if he has regrets. “You know where to find me.”
“Head into the study,” I tell him. He glares at me, but he strides through the door, and a moment later, Phoenix rises and follows. Alice and Ari wait, but I catch Ari’s eye and lift my hand. ‘Follow them. I’ll be along in a second.’
Ari’s smile is crooked and boyish and absolutely terrifying because I could order him to take out a knife and stab them for being children, and he’d do it without a second thought. He stops by my chair and leaves a kiss on my mouth before striding out, and when the dining room door shuts, I turn my gaze to Alice.
