AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Twenty-Two
––––––––
Hunter curled his handsinto tight fists to stop himself from bashing his knuckles into the shatterproof glass of his skyscraper. Moments ago, he’d had Kensley’s hot, naked, and wet body pressed against the glass all while his dick waged war on him.
He also managed to resist the urge to roar out his frustrations.
Shrugging out of his clothes, he stepped into the bathroom in his office and into the shower cubicle. Ice-cold jets of water pounded down his body, but he could still feel her pulse against him. The tiny samples he had taken of her by dipping the head of his shaft into her would haunt him for the rest of his life. Nothing would give him any relief from the torture. He should have known that.
If she had been there but five minutes later, she would have found his office empty and him nowhere to be found because, where he was going, he wouldn’t be known as Hunter McLeod anymore.
McLeod had been his mother’s maiden surname. Despite taking on his mother’s name, he couldn’t escape the fact that he had the blood of a Russo running through his veins. He was his father’s son in all ways. And now he was going to step into his father’s shoes since there was no other way for it.
He had known the day would arrive since he turned twelve. His parents, involved in a love-hate relationship with each other from day one, hadn't tried to keep it from him. His father would say that when he died, Hunter would have no choice but to take his place as the head of the family. His mother would confidently reply that only the good died young and his father would live forever. Still, a contract was a contract. Hunter had signed it when he was eighteen years old. His father had died six months ago. His contract with a dead man stipulated that he would be given seven months to finalize his business dealings and tie up loose ends as Hunter McLeod before he became Hunter Russo.
Kensley Reid had been the only loose end he needed to deal with. He had seen her moments before he got the call about his father’s death. He had foiled two attempts on his life by members of the family who wanted to take his place. In those few months, he had rooted out his enemies from within, and only when it was safe for Kensley did he make his first move with her.
She was supposed to be a one-night stand to end his instant obsession with her. He had planned to take her virginity and then leave the next morning without a trace.
Instead, he had prolonged it to thirty days, and then he had grown a conscience as big as his raging dick was for her.
She had softened his fucking heart, where he had thought himself immune.
He didn’t double-cross her; she’d find out soon enough what had really happened with her grandfather.
But he’d had her right there. Her body to take, to shatter apart when he took her innocence and replaced it with his thick cock.
But he’d stopped himself because he was a fucking coward. If he took her, he knew he’d never let her go. He’d drag her down to the pits of hell, where his own mother had tried her damndest to crawl out of the first few years of her marriage to his father. She had wanted a better life for her son, and now he was going back there.
After dressing in a clean suit, he picked up his overnight bag from a chair in his office and left. The scent of her perfume lingered on his clothes. The sweet, intoxicating scent of her imprinted itself in his mind forever. Just that one small taste.
Hunter didn’t look back. All he was taking was that overnight bag to end the life he had previously known. A car was already waiting for him, and before he knew it, he was stepping into his father’s house, where he’d fill his role as the new don of the Russo family, a coveted title for one of the most dangerous and deadly families in the underground world.
A group of men, his father’s trusted council, weeded of traitors by Hunter himself, awaited him. They were also testing him to see if he was easily manipulated. They had no idea how hard his father had trained him for this role. Every waking moment they spent together throughout his childhood and youth, his father drilled into him the rules of being a mafia boss. He had insisted Hunter join the military because that kind of lethal training was a necessity for someone who would hold the title of don for the family. His father had also told him that a man who could make millions and then billions from nothing was a man who would be respected and feared for the rest of his life, so that was what Hunter had done. He started as a waiter, then owned half of the restaurant through a series of power moves. Then he bought his own restaurant. He didn't sleep until he made his first million, then his next. Throughout his rise to being a billionaire, his father tested him, over and over again, throwing obstacles in his path, and Hunter demolished those too.
He nodded at the men there to greet him in the old but robust Russo mansion. He was then led to his father’s office to conduct his first order of business. His office now. He sat in the massive chair behind the colossal desk and listened to one of their own plead his case for double-crossing the family. Hunter then sentenced the man to oblivion without blinking. He had become the cold-hearted crime boss his father had trained him to be in an instant—what the Russo men have been for generations upon generations. There was no going back for him now. He had turned, and the process had required him to leave his conscience behind as well.
But what did that mean for Kensley?
Could he really leave her alone?
