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I smiled wanly. “I didn’t mean to hurt him, but I did it anyway because I wasn’t thinking outside of my own perspective. I didn’t consider the fact that he had a life beyond me with consequences I wasn’t used to.”
I shifted my gaze back to Jasper. “So it’s really important to me that I don’t get too caught up in my interests ahead of someone else’s again. The last thing I’d want is for you to have felt pressured to go along with… any of this. The coaching, our relationship…”
For a moment, Jasper simply stared at me. Then a chuckle I wasn’t expecting at all tumbled from his mouth.
“I get why you’d be worried after what happened before. But come on, Niko. Have Ieverhad a problem telling you when your approach was getting on my nerves?”
My lips twitched with the start of a warmer smile. “No, I guess you did let that inner grump out pretty often.”
Jasper shook his head in amusement. “It was opening up about the fact that I did want to pursue something more with you that I had trouble with. I wouldn’t have let myself admit it if I wasn’tone hundred percentsure I want this, totally of my own accord, because it makes me happy.”
I rolled that thought around in my mind. “I suppose you might have a point. But once the press finds out about our relationship—it’s bound to happen eventually when we’re together so much—”
He snorted and slung his arm around me, tugging me close. I couldn’t help melting a little into the warmth of his solid frame.
“Fuck the press,” he said with a hint of a growl that sent a shiver of electricity over my skin. “They can think what they want, and so can my family and anyone else who decides to have an opinion about it. The two of us—or, well, the four of us I should probably say—have something good, don’t we? That’s all that matters.”
“Hear, hear,” Lou put in, raising her hand as if offering a glass in a toast and beaming at us.
I found myself grinning back at the two of them, my spirits abruptly lightened. “That is what matters the most. And we do have something good—somethingverygood. I’d imagine even Rafael would have to agree with that.”
I hugged Jasper tight with one arm and drew Lou in with the other, tugging them together into a joint embrace. As Lou pecked my cheek and Jasper leaned his head against mine with a pleased hum, my heart swelled with joy.
This time, it seemed I’d done something right. Now if only I could free Lou from the shadows of her past, we could really get somewhere.
THIRTEEN
Luciana
The practicesI snuck away to were the only bright spots in my days. When I drove down the street toward the Cordova mansion after my latest skating session, my spirits still felt light from soaring across the ice with my men around me.
But as I pulled through the gate, all my remaining peace dissolved at the sight of a small army of Deadly Rose goons filing into a row of matte black SUVs.
Heart sinking, I parked in my usual spot in the garage and hustled back out to where Mom was standing by the front steps, overseeing the crowd. “What’s going on?”
Mom motioned a few more men into one of the vehicles. In the wan light of the security lamps cutting through the dusk, her face looked tight. She smiled when she saw me, but there wasn’t a particle of warmth in the expression.
“Oh, good, just who I was waiting for. You have work to do.”
That was news to me. I searched my mind briefly for any memory of Mom telling me she had a task for me tonight and came up with nada. But telling her that wasn’t a wise idea.
I crossed my arms over my chest in the sort of resolute pose she’d have encouraged me to take in front of our underlings. “What do you want me to do?”
It was an awful lot of underlings for the sort of jobs she’d sent me on before. I didn’t think we needed two dozen guys to guard me at a meeting. Although I guessed that depended on who I was meeting.
Mom’s smile only sharpened. “It’s time I confirmed that you can handle yourself in action as well as in conversation. The Deadly Rose needs to crack down hard—one of our subordinate gangs tried to double-cross our people in a deal.”
A chill flooded my chest. “And you want me to go with the guys?”
Mom’s gaze pinned me in place. “I expect you toleadthem. Take charge, direct the battle, make sure we come out on top. With an enemy this pathetic, it shouldn’t be much trouble for you. A good starting place for building respect.”
Without another word, she pushed a gun into my hand. I closed my fingers around it reluctantly, my throat constricting.
I knew nothing good could come from arguing with her, but charging off into a gang fight was the last thing I wanted to do. The violence and bloodshed was the part of the criminal life I’d always hated the most.
How could I say no? The second I defied her, especially in front of her underlings, she’d be sending a bunch of them to trackmymen down and deal out her sick brand of justice.
And they were even nearer at hand than she realized. It was a good thing my men had been holding on to my equipment bag and training clothes for me, so there was no hint of where I’d been to tip her off. God, if she found out that I’d been meeting up with them behind her back…
