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Fuck. He wished he could be with her. But there was too much going on. And now he had this fucking meeting to get over with.
He wiped his face clean, pushing all other thoughts down.
Time to get this over with.
“So you killed Vince for touching the girl?” Jacques asked, staring at him like he was insane.
“Yes.”
This wasn’t going as well as he’d hoped. It wasn’t that he needed any of these assholes. He was the most powerful man here and they all knew it.
However, things ran smoother in the city when they co-operated and stuck to their own territories. And when things ran smoother, they all made more money.
Which is why they’d all agreed to these meetings. It wasn’t a partnership, but a relationship of checks and balances.
Until you killed two of them in one night.
“Why?” Gavin asked. “She’s no one.”
“Maybe he just wanted to take over Vince’s territory,” Jacques suggested slyly.
“I don’t need anything that Vince had. Someone else can have the money laundering. It would be a drop in the bucket for me.”
“So it’s up for grabs?” Jacques asked with a greedy look in his eyes.
“Hey, why should you get it?” Gavin barked. “We might want it.”
“I don’t,” Hudson said.
“Neither do I,” Tariq drawled. “But I want to know why we should just let this go . . . you killed one of us over an employee that you barely know. I mean, I’d understand if she was your woman. But just a girl that served us some drinks. That . . . I find interesting.”
What the fuck? Tariq didn’t even like Vince. Things had been tense between them at their last meeting.
“True,” Gavin said. “What’s to stop you from taking out one of us if we, or one of our men, touch someone that you consider yours? How far is your reach?”
“You shouldn’t be touching women without their consent,” he snarled.
Jacques’s face hardened. Fuck. “So you’re now going to take out anyone who gets a bit handsy with a woman?”
Oh, he’d love nothing more than to do that.
Only a coward tried to take what they wanted without consent. It was different if it was your kink. If you negotiated a scene where you wanted to give up consent. But this was something else, and he knew that fucker Jacques likely had girls in his clubs against their will.
But he wasn’t as easy to take out as Vince.
“I have no interest in protecting other women.”
“So she is special?” Gavin asked. “I get that. If I had an old woman, I wouldn’t let any fucker touch her.”
“He didn’t say she was his, though,” Tariq said. “Or is she?”
“I get it if she’s yours,” Hudson added.
Jacques watched him with a calculating look. “So we all agree that we’re willing to let the killing of Vince slide if this girl is special to Alejandro. If she’s his.”
Do not show any emotion.
“Yes,” Hudson said.
“Yes,” Gavin added. “If Vince’s businesses get split up equally. That’s only fair.”
Fuck.
“Yes,” Tariq added. That fucker looked far too amused by all of this. He loved to stir the pot.
“Then it’s unanimous,” Jacques said. “She is yours?”
There was only one answer. Oh, he could say no. But he didn’t have time to put out the thousand fucking fires that this would cause. There would be a lot of blood and death before things settled.
Gavin’s crew alone could cause a fuckload of mayhem before he could eliminate them all.
“Yeah, she’s mine.”
“Everything good?” Tobias asked as Alejandro entered the car fifteen minutes later. The Scot was still out with his injury and would be for a while. So Tobias was filling his spot as Alejandro’s personal guard.
“That’s debatable,” he replied. Fuck. Had that just happened?
Had he declared that Cat was his?
Fuck. He hadn’t even had a chance to think it all through properly.
He couldn’t keep her. That would put a massive target on her back.
And yet . . . hadn’t he already done that? Letting her go now . . . fuck, that wouldn’t be safe for her.
Which meant that he had to keep her.
He was keeping her.
Once he took ownership of those words, something eased inside him.
Cat was his. Yes, she’d be in constant danger. But he’d simply keep her safe. Lock her down.
If she was locked away, then no one would be able to harm her.
But can you trust her?
Those things likely wouldn’t come. He couldn’t trust anyone after Elena. What she’d done to him . . . it had torn him apart. She’d betrayed him.
But would she have had a chance to betray if you’d watched her more closely?
He had to do better with Cat.
This felt right.
That’s when he realized he’d never intended to let her go. That’s why he hadn’t fought harder tonight. He could have. And probably won.
But he didn’t want to let her go.
“Where now, Boss?” Cairn asked.
