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“There you are,” he said like it had been days since we’d last seen each other, and drew me into his arms. “I can’t wait to get you alone.”
“Mm.” I snuggled closer and slid my hand under his T-shirt. Loving that I could touch his warm, hard-muscled body whenever I wanted to.
“All right,” he said. “Talk. What are we going to do about Victorine?”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to talk about Victorine. I didn’t even what to think about her.
But I had no choice.
“That last night, when she came to tell me we were going back to Montreal, she told me something.”
My chest tightened. I still couldn’t believe how cold and matter of fact Victorine had been. Like she didn’t care about me at all, just my uterus and the fact that I could bear her an heir.
“Go on,” he said.
“She informed me,” I said, “that she was going to give me to a man of her choosing.”
Rafe swore. “The hell she did.”
“I tried to reason with her.” I swallowed something sharp and painful as a shard of glass. Recalling how my mother had coolly threatened to take my child had brought the hurt and anger flooding back. “But she’d made up her mind.”
“But why? She knows that if she forced you to mate with someone else, you might not have a child with a man you hadn’t bonded with.”
“It was a chance she was willing to take. She knew I’d never agree to mate with anyone but you. That’s why when I saw the chance to mate with you, I took it. It was the only way.”
“You did the right thing.” Rafe’s arms curved protectively around me. “That’s it,” he gritted. “You have to break with her. You know that, don’t you?”
“There’s more.”
“More than forcing you to mate with a man you don’t want?”
I nodded. “She said that if and when I had a child, she’d take the baby and raise it herself.”
Beneath my hand, Rafe’s stomach went rock-solid. “I’d like to see her try,” he said, soft and dangerous.
“She won’t willingly let me go. But I’m never going back.”
“No fucking way.” He exhaled through his teeth. “Okay. At least we know what we’re up against.”
“Yeah,” I said miserably.
My stomach churned. Despite everything, Victorine was my mother. I didn’t want to do this.
But I knew her. To break free of her and protect Rafe, I’d have to be as ruthless as she was. She’d clearly crossed a line. The other syndicates wouldn’t take sides in a blood feud, but they would if they’d heard she’d not only broken the treaty with the Krals, she’d brought in Slayers, Inc., to take out Karoly’s heirs.
She’d be ruined.
“I have allies in the Tremblay Syndicate,” I said. “I can force her to honor the terms of the treaty with your father.”
“How?”
“I’ll threaten to go public with the fact that she hired SI to slay your brothers. She’ll agree, because otherwise she’ll have a rebellion on her hands. And if I have to, I’ll send everything we know about your brother’s kidnapping to her allies, and your father’s allies as well.”
“So we go for the jugular.” He sounded approving. “Hit her with everything we’ve got. I like it. We’ll run it past my dad, see what he thinks.”
“All right.”
My muscles tightened. That was the one thing I hadn’t considered—I was going to be living in Kral Syndicate territory, under Karoly Kral’s power.
