AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I step forward, wrapping my arm around her neck and pulling her in for a hug. A little more awkward than the one with Val, but I don’t expect anything else. “Come in.” I step aside and gesture into the foyer, eyeballing Val as he enters with a cheeky grin.
Uncle and Aunt are behind them, so I give them a quick kiss and gesture inside. Uncle glares at Val the entire time, but they’ve agreed to play nice. Since our settlement with the Russians, and with a La Rosa in their arms—literally both of them—I can’t imagine them wanting trouble.
Closing the door behind me, my eyes land on Ivy, who is standing against the staircase, watching me. Everyone else has disappeared and it’s just the two of us.
“Val told me everything. I’m sorry what you’ve been through with, well—”
“—that man?” I lift one eyebrow at her, gesturing to the spot on the stairs. She lowers herself down, folding her hands on her lap. She’s wearing a white turtleneck knitted dress that stops just above her knees, and a single diamond cross around her neck. Her hair is pulled back into a high pony, showcasing her soft cheekbones and bright blue eyes. She resembles Gigi Hadid more than me. The polar opposite in every way.
“Can I ask you something?” she asks gently, and I don’t know what I was expecting meeting her for the first time. I guess the thing that scares me most is that she is going to be exactly like me. Then we’ll most likely kill each other. But she isn’t. She is the polar opposite and it is—refreshing.
“Of course.”
She shifts her body inward, giving me her whole attention. “If you had known about me before, would you have done something—anything to help me?”
My heart squeezes in my chest at her wide, doe eyes. Resting my hand over hers, coffin-shaped black nails against her soft pink. “Ivy, there’s only one thing in this world that I will kill and be killed for, and that’s family.” I touch the long curls over her shoulder. “And that includes you.”
She breathes out a relaxed deep breath. “Okay.”
“What’s it like there, though? I mean, I love Val. Trust him too. I can’t imagine him being a problem?”
“Oh, no, he isn’t. It’s—”
“—Mikhail.” I snicker, shaking my head. “Last I heard, you three were like a… thing?”
She scrunches up her little nose. “Yes… and no. I mean, we are, for the most part, but it doesn’t come with Mikhail’s challenges. For one, he likes to upset me. Gets off on it, mostly.”
“So are you all together, or are they yours, not each other’s?”
“They are mine,” she whispers, blinking slowly toward the kitchen. “Val is consistent. Mik is a problem.”
“Well…” My hand comes to hers. “Good luck with all of that.” We both laugh as we make our way to the sitting room, where Gio is dancing to a remix of Mariah Carey’s Christmas tunes and for the kids. My uncle is rolling his eyes at his disappointment and Wicked reaches for me, dragging me onto his lap. During all of the years of us both fighting one another, we didn’t realize we were tying the knots that bind us together. Love, hate, they’reboth energies. Even now, as I watch my family laugh, joke, talk among each other with smiles on their faces, a sense of peace flows over me. We’ll rebuild our family. This home. And if anyone tries to come between that…
Well…
Christmas Eve before the clubhouse
“Why the fuck am I here?” I slam my door closed before Juno can do it for me, treading through the snow in my Prada boots. “It’s Christmas Eve and I need to be at the clubhouse.”
“I know.” Mikhail leans against his Aston Martin, arms crossed.
“You come alone?” I raise a perfectly arched brow at him.
“Seeing as I have your sister, I’m going to say you don’t want to piss me off.” I ignore his threat, meeting him at the hood of my own car. I reach into my pocket and take out a cigarette. Mikhail makes me fucking nervous. The deranged bastard.
“Well, hurry up, then… what is it?”
He tilts his head in a way that I know I’m not going to like the next words that leave his mouth. “What I’m about to tell you cannot go back to Wicked. Under any circumstances.”
I blow out a plume of smoke, eyeing him up and down. “Why?” I don’t bother to tell him he can forget it. That man knows everything there is to know about me, and that’s not by choice. He tears every secret away from me by the fangs of his teeth.
“Because you’re going to betray him.” I choke on my smoke, but he continues to glare at me with seriousness.
“What is it?”
“The night we got you away from Skully, another MC was there, waiting to take the whole La Rosa family out. They had been hired by Victor in the event of his death hit. The MC decided to make a deal with Wicked instead, since they had suspicions that their president’s old lady’s ex had that same plan for her, and Wicked confirmed he had taken the hit. You know how we men can be.” Mikhail’s eyes darken. If he wasn’t so classically attractive, this wouldn’t be a problem. He would be hard to say no to a lot of people, but because I fuck Wicked on a daily, no one stands to him.
“Right… keep going.” I wave my hand at him.
