Chapter 24
BANE
“Thanks for coming on such short notice.”
Taylor nods, brushing a lock of red behind her ear. “Of course, Bane. We’ve worked with your father for years,” she says, dipping her chin at Dad, standing next to me, “and I’m more than happy to help with this…delicate situation.”
Taylor Crown is the “Crown” in Crown and Black, the most prestigious and “fuck-you” legal firm in New York.
Dad’s used them forever, and they also do plenty of legal work for other prominent mafia and bratva families in the city, including the Reznikov Bratva, the Kildare Irish Mafia, and the Greek Drakos family.
Taylor’s own husband is Drazen Krylov, one of the most feared, respected, and powerful bratva pakhans in the world.
But the firm’s clout doesn’t just come from the underworld families they do business with.
Taylor herself is a beast of a lawyer, with an insane win record in court.
The other founding partner, Alistair Black, is just as cutthroat.
And his brother, Gabriel, the third founding partner, is only on sabbatical from the firm so he can pursue his current career as governor of the goddamn state.
When you need the very best, this is who you call. And right now, yeah… We need the best.
The Cielo family, whose dead, piece-of-shit son was Lorenzo, aka The Barber, decided that today would be a good day to hold an impromptu press conference announcing that the private investigator they’d hired had found credible evidence linking my fiancée to their fucking son.
That’s bad enough. But they didn’t stop there.
Their second claim is that not only was she in cahoots with Lorenzo, it was she who killed her friend. Not him.
It’s obviously bullshit and a beyond pathetic attempt at yanking back some limelight.
Years ago, when all of this was unfolding, that’s exactly how Lorenzo’s family operated.
On the one hand, his mother was up there sobbing on fucking TV about her son’s innocence, and how he was “failed by the system”.
But on the other, right after her sob-fest she’d be trying to land a publisher for her “tell-all” book about “my son, the killer”.
Lorenzo’s fucking brother tried leveraging the publicity of the horrendous crimes to sell cryptocurrency, for fuck's sake.
These people are shameless, and I know this is just another disgusting attempt to make a buck. But it has the potential to be very bad for us.
“Just how worried should we be?” I growl, glancing at Taylor.
She tips her head. “Well, it’s potentially…complicated. The Cielo family has a sympathetic ear in the DA’s office. My sources there say there’s a newer prosecutor—an asshole called Wilkes—who’s willing to open an investigation.”
I swear under my breath. Dad's firm hand lands heavily on my shoulder.
“It’s obvious she had nothing to do with her own fucking kidnapping,” I snap. “Are these people too stupid to remember that she was locked in the next room over with her own head fucking shaved?!”
Taylor’s frowns, thinking. “If I were them, I’d probably go after the connection between Lorenzo and the Marchetti family,” she says quietly. “I’m almost positive that’s their angle, actually.”
“Cesare buried that pretty well,” I growl.
Taylor nods. “That he did. But even the most bulletproof NDA’s have their weaknesses, and they don't hold up in criminal cases. If Wilkes takes this the distance and it becomes a criminal investigation, it will come out that Lorenzo worked for the family as a driver. From there, it’s wouldn’t be hard for someone to try to link Dove to Ms. Peltier’s killer.
” She frowns. “I…have a delicate question.”
“Shoot.”
She frowns and nods past me.
“Is Dove on any medications?”
I scowl, turning to follow her gaze to where my fiancée is sitting on a couch by the window with Chiara.
Apparently, Cesare had more important shit to do than be here.
My dad clears his throat, “I’ll, uh, be over here,” he murmurs, patting my shoulder again and then walking away to talk with Sergey in the corner.
I turn back to Taylor. “Yeah, she is.”
“Anything an asshole prosecutor could turn into a problem?”
“Two different anti-anxiety meds, lithium, risperidone, Zoloft, lorazepam—”
“Fuck,” Taylor mutters, wincing. “Okay, not great, but I can work with that.”
My brow furrows. “Is she going to be charged with something?”
Taylor purses her lips. “Let’s hope not.
But even if she is, it’s just the next step, not an automatic L.
” She smiles quietly. “Look, Bane, my professional guess here is that this is just the Cielo family looking for some attention. Even if there is something this PI of theirs found…” She frowns.
“Evidence collected by PIs is notoriously unusable in court due to lack of chain of custody. I doubt there’s anything anyway, though. ”
I wrap things up with Taylor and she leaves. Dad comes over to tell me it’s going to be okay, and then he and Sergey take off, too.
“Bane?”
I turn to see Chiara standing in front of me, her brow furrowed and her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she looks up at me.
“Can you do me a favor?”
I nod. “Of course.”
She exhales. “Look, I know she’s got her issues and is a complete psycho sometimes. But…” She smiles wryly. “She’s still my sister. Take care of her?”
“Always,” I growl quietly.
Chiara leaves, and then it’s just the two of us.
“I have to ask you something.”
There’s a fractured note in her voice as she looks up at me.
“And before you say ‘anything, Dove,’ just…” She winces.
“Just let me say it first.” She looks away, out the window.
“I realize asking you this when it’s just the two of us is ridiculous.
But I’m asking because I hope I already know the answer.
If I’m wrong, well…” She smiles wryly as she turns back to me. “Guess I’m fucked.”
My brow knits. “What’s going on, little bird.”
She takes a shaky breath and looks right up at me.
“Did you ever plan to hurt or kill Lark?”
The whole room goes quiet as the sharpness of her question sinks into my chest. Part of me almost wants to laugh, like this is a joke I’m not quite getting. But then I see the haunted look in her eyes and the tremble in her jaw, and something in me breaks.
I take a step closer. My heart twists when she flinches.
I drop to my knees in front of her. I don’t touch her, but I’m close enough that I could.
“No,” I growl quietly, shaking my head. “No.”
I don’t add “Of course not” or “Are you crazy”. I can tell from the broken look in her eye and the fragile note in her voice that she already thinks that of herself.
So, I just tell her the truth.
“No,” I murmur, gently placing my hands on her knees. “Not once. Never.”
She exhales a shaking, shuddering breath, her shoulders caving. She nods quietly, staring at my hands.
“Can I ask you another question?”
“You can ask me a million of them, little bird.”
Her lips twist as she glances away. “Do you…” Her brows furrow before her dark eyes slip to mine. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
There’s something so vulnerable in her voice, like she’s afraid of the answer.
“I was kidnapped when I was nine years old.”
The silence is deafening as her eyes snap to mine.
“My dad had a business deal go sour with an Armenian family," I say. "In retaliation, they tracked me down in the park with my nanny, broke her jaw, shot the men guarding us, and took me.”
My eyes close as my hand slides up her thighs until my fingers lace with hers.
“I was held in a basement for two weeks. No sunlight. No fresh air. A bucket for a bathroom, and just water and bread, sometimes an apple to eat.” A cold sensation drags through my chest. “I still fucking hate apples, actually.”
When I open my eyes, my heart breaks a little. She’s crying silently, her eyes red, her face crumpled.
“Eventually, my dad’s men found me. They slaughtered the men who’d taken me, and took me home, and everyone told me I was rescued. That I was fine now, and everything was going to be okay.”
I shake my head.
“But you and I both know how stupid a statement that is. It’s never fine, or okay.
Nothing ever goes back to normal.” My jaw tenses as I reach up to cup her face, my thumb stroking away a tear as it rolls down her cheek.
“You never leave the room in which you were imprisoned. Not really. We’re both always going to be in there.
The trick is, living your life in spite of it all. ”
I lean forward until our foreheads are touching.
“So, no, baby,” I murmur. “I don’t think you’re crazy. I think you’re surviving…and you’re fucking killing it at that, for what it’s worth.”
She chokes out a broken laugh, tears rolling down her cheeks as she clutches my face.
She leans in and kisses me hard, sobbing into my lips as I kiss her back.
One of her hands drifts back to her own face, her fingers sliding over my hand.
She pulls it from her cheek and drags it down to her neck.
It’s not until she’s curling my fingers around her throat that I realize what she’s doing.
“If it’s not this,” she chokes, “then it’s going to be me cutting, or finding a way back up to a roof, or fucking using again.” Her haunted eyes hold mine, full of pain and need and sadness. “So please, Bane…” she tightens my fingers around her throat. “Fuck me, and fuck me your way.”
I groan as I squeeze her throat, feeling her pulse jackrabbiting when I lean in to brush her lips with mine.
“Do your worst,” she chokes quietly. “Please.”
“Do you remember your safe word?”
Her eyes lock with mine, her teeth raking over her lip.
“Tonight, I don’t want to.”