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Three years later
Present
The room is dark. There are LED lights that line the outskirts of the floor and tables, and smoke machines that spill fog out around your feet. Music plays gently in the background, but it does nothing to distract my thoughts.
They think I care enough to run.
That I’m doing the usual Cartier and running away from my problems, but they’re wrong.
“Another?” The bartender holds up a bottle of Grey Goose. He’s young. Around the age of Jordan when I first met him.
I slide my glass toward him with my index finger. “Thanks.” He watches me carefully as he continues to pour in the vodka.
“I take it there’s a reason why you’re here?” His brow lifts, and on another night, I might’ve fucked him because he’s pretty, but not tonight. Tonight I only have one thing on my mind, and that’s answers. I’ve spent three years training and quietly building the reputation that I have.
“Isn’t there always a reason why people are here?” I flick my leg over the other, leaning back in my chair. “And I gather there’s a reason why it’s empty right now and I’m the only one in it.”
“Smart…” He crosses his arms in front of himself and leans against the shelving. His eyes are smudged with dark liner—even darker than what Kohen does—and his hair is long but tied to the nape of his neck. I’d call him pretty, but I’m not sure if it’s just the long hair that makes him look that way.
“Guess I have to be…” I place the now empty glass onto the counter, tracing the rim with my finger. “What I don’t have to be, though, is patient, and I’ve got to be honest with you, Callum from Eastwood with two children and a wife…” I pause, rolling my eyes. “And let’s not forget the sneaky link you have pregnant, I don’t have a lot of patience.” I watch as the color drains from his face at the mention of his entire life. “So.” I clap my hands. “Tell your boss—and I mean your new boss—to bring his ass in here now so I can have that chat. You know…” I lean forward, parting my lips while keeping my eyes locked on his. “While I still have a smidge left.”
His eyes slant, but he reaches for a phone that’s sitting on the bar, tapping three numbers while keeping his gaze locked on me. “She knows.” He hangs up and now my phone vibrates against my leg.
I reach into my pocket and take it out, seeing Lilith’s name flash over the screen.
I open her message.
Can’t talk right now. R U Ok?
She messages back. Yes. I’m worried about you…
The hardest part about my keeping everything a secret for three years and playing the bratty little sister that throws her weight around and has no substance, is how many times I have to say I’m okay. I was supposed to be if anything happened to Delila, but now The Fathers have asked me to keep it quiet a little longer. If it wasn’t for my mother, I would feel completely alone through the first two years.
I’m fine. Don’t tell them we spoke.
I push my phone back into my pocket. I need some more paparazzi photos of me with Alexandra, the third kissing outside a nightclub or something. It’s been four days. My brother will start to grow suspicious if he doesn’t see me dragging my drunk ass around Europe, laying every man with a title flat on his back. Every time a new photo drops, Keaton sends a selfie of him flipping me off. So there’s that. Anything to piss off the man who I haven’t touched, fucked, or been near for three years. I just made it my job to stay away from him, since I knew any time we were near, it would be unDoveable. Not to mention he could sniff a lie on me like he could my perfume.
“Cartier Nero… what a pleasure.”
A smile spreads over my lips as I turn the barstool slightly to face the owner of the voice. “Afternoon. I don’t believe we’ve met in some time…” His graying hair is longer, and instead of it kept short on the sides, he’s grown it long and ties it all back with a band. The skin around his eyes is withered, but the dark orbs that look back at me tell me stories that I don’t think I could imagine.
“Three years, isn’t it?” He smiles around his cigar, and I smile through the memories of him burning my carpet. The chair squeaks when his weight rests on it, curling his fingers at the bartender to serve him a drink.
“That’s right. Three years since you broke into my home and had one of your”—I cast my eyes over his shoulder, to the same man he had with him all those years ago—“little puppies with his hands on me.”
“Oh, trust me, Cartier, his hands would have been in a lot of other places had it not been for Eli.” I pause, the corner of my lip curling up in disgust, before I swipe it away and regain my composure. The first hint of a lie is the person’s shoulders. They’ll dip because you’ve pinched a nerve.
“Your threats don’t frighten me, Stranger. I know who you are and what you run here. I also know that you have my friend, so—”
“Let me guess…” Dominic Stranger snickers around the fat trunk of his cigar. “You want to save him? How about this…” He pauses long enough to roll the cigar between his fingers, and I watch as a shadow passes his eyes. “You can do him a favor. You are Kiznitch, after all.”
“I won’t be doing anyone anything until I have him back with me. He doesn’t belong here with you, and I don’t know what it is you think you’re trying to do here, but you won’t win.” I lean forward, resting my palm against his chubby chest. “You will not win against Kiznitch and the EKC. So I’ll leave you with a parting thought.” I stand, swiping my hands down my pants. “I’ll give you forty-eight hours to deliver Eli to the address that is being sent to your phone right now, and if he is not there? Let’s use your imagination real quick.” I wave my hand up in the air to accentuate an imaginary image. “A war in this town, people knowing your secrets, blood all over this beautiful suit.” I lean down so my lips are near his ear, fighting the bile that’s rising in my throat from his sheer proximity. “And a war is something I’m willing to start for my family. Is it something you’re willing to lose yours for?”
I snatch my Prada clutch from the bar, pointing at the bartender before moving my sunglasses down the bridge of my nose. “And the answer is yes, I would have fucked you.” My heels clink across the dirty bar floor until I’m out on the open street, my city car waiting on the curb.
Jordan is already standing with the back door open, his Uzi strapped outside his suit and the wrinkle lines in the middle of his forehead deeper than they were this morning before I told him what I was doing.
“Cartier, please don’t ever ask me to sit out again. I will say no. You could have gotten hurt and it’s my job to protect you. I took an oath!”
