Chapter 11 – Sage
W atching this massive, scary man transform into a puddle of vulnerability has me fighting the urge to pull him into my arms and cradle him like a baby.
“I took over the QBM when my father died. I was twenty-two,” Elias says.
“How did he…?”
“Cancer.”
Elias clears his throat, but he doesn’t expand on his father’s illness.
Which reminds me of what Noah had said when I went to Del’s safe house.
“Noah told me about your mother.”
His head jerks up at my words. His jaw tightens.
“She did, did she? ”
I purse my lips. I shouldn’t have said anything. This is his story to tell, and I can understand him being angry that someone else shared it with me.
But I can’t take it back. Now I can only offer him my sympathy.
“I’m sorry you were the one—” my voice cracks.
Fuck, I’m tearing up. He’s barely told me anything, and I’m already so heartbroken. Why does this man make me so… passionate about everything ?
“I’m sorry, Elias,” I say, my voice barely a whisper.
His anger softens slightly, and we sit in silence for a few minutes before he starts speaking again.
“It was my fault.”
“What? But I thought—”
“Lance was the one who was forced to slit her throat, but I should have been there to protect them.” He ends the sentence on a growl, voice raised.
“Explain it to me,” I say. I understand why he thinks he should blame himself, but I need to hear him say it out loud.
Does he have anyone to talk about this with?
A therapist? His brother? It doesn’t matter.
Right now, he has me. “You were just a kid. It shouldn’t have been your responsibility to protect them. ”
His jaw is clenched so tightly, I’m surprised I can’t hear his teeth grinding.
“Start at the beginning. I’ve got nowhere to be. ”
That’s not entirely true. Chase has been blowing up my phone with calls, likely because I took the wire off and shoved it into my purse earlier when I went to the bathroom after first arriving at the penthouse.
I couldn’t risk answering, so I sent him a text saying that I couldn’t talk, and I’d give him the rundown tomorrow.
I could lie and say I was stuck at Lenetti’s, but I don’t want to risk it.
If he has spies... if he saw me leave with Elias.
.. he might punish me for lying by harming my parents.
I wait for Elias to continue talking, and I almost think he’s going to refuse when he forces an agitated stream of air through his nose.
“My father had always been on the wrong side of the law. When I was learning the business, he’d tell me stories about how he’d steal cars as a teenager and deal drugs to people far too young to be ingesting that shit.
By the time he was in his twenties, he had a following.
A crew. Men who’d help him with elaborate schemes, usually dealing with illegal drugs but nothing was off limits.
He had chop shops, money laundering operations, and whatever else he could make money from.
“He dealt dirty. A lot of deaths resulted from the drugs he ran. A lot of people were murdered for speaking a single wrong thing in front of him.”
Elias picks up his empty glass and swirls the melting ice, staring numbly as it clanks around .
“He met my mother when she was fifteen and he was twenty-five. She was given to him to clear a debt. Fucked up shit, but my mother didn’t fight it. She always told us that it was a sacrifice she had to make to protect her family, mostly her younger brother and sister.
“Anyway, Mom said Dad didn’t touch her until she was eighteen when they got married.
How honorable of him, right? Nine months after their wedding day, I was born.
I was her saving grace because Percy—that was my father’s name—abused her physically and mentally, but that stopped when I arrived.
She stayed busy raising me, and my father left her alone to do so. ”
I reach out for Elias’s hand. He hesitates for only a second before taking it.
“But then he started beating me when I was six. I remember getting backhanded for talking back to him. Then again for acting out at school. Anything, really. My mother was my escape from my father and his harsh punishments. She loved me and did everything she could to protect me. But she wasn’t safe from him either.
He may have stopped harming her while she was pregnant with me and for the first five or so years of my life, but if he couldn’t get to me, he’d get to her.
When Lance was born, it got worse. I was the big brother.
The role model. The one who had to lead by example. Especially once we both got older.
“When I turned thirteen, my father stopped letting me hang out with my friends or do anything fun in general. I had to sneak around a lot, but he had eyes everywhere. He caught me a few times, and I paid for it.
“Then I got smart and convinced my father to let me go to parties, clubs, and concerts where I could recruit QBM soldiers. My father liked to sign them up young so he could manipulate them into doing his bidding. He would teach them to love violence and enjoy killing.”
Elias shakes his head; his eyes darken as he relives these memories. The pain in his face almost has me begging him to stop. I should tell him I no longer want to hear about how he became a mafia boss.
But when I lift his hand to my mouth and press my lips gently to his knuckles, his entire body seems to exhale.
“On Christmas Eve, when I was sixteen, I went to a party. My brother and mother tried to convince me to stay home. They were going to bake cookies and watch Christmas movies all night. My mother loved Christmas. She’d decorate the entire house, inside and out.”
The corner of his mouth tilts up briefly before he frowns.
“I wanted to stay home with Lance and my mother so badly, but I worried my father would return home and catch me and punish me…” Elias swallows hard. “So, I acted like I was too old for that shit and left.
“At least with the party, I could make up the excuse that I was there for recruitment. I wasn’t though.
I just wanted one night of fun. No mafia.
No crime or violence or my father’s strict rules.
I got wasted. I drank a lot of booze, took whatever drug was handed to me, and fucked any pussy that was put in front of me. ”
I dig my nails into the top of Elias’s hand, then I realize it’s dumb to be jealous over a young Elias and release my claws. If he notices my reaction, he doesn’t let on as he lifts his cup to fish out a piece of ice. He chews on it forever. I know it’s to prepare himself for what’s next.
“It had to have been one in the morning when I got home. The moment I walked through the front door, I was immediately hit with a coppery metal scent. I froze when I saw her. My mother. She was on the floor of the living room with her throat slit.
“I couldn’t blame the drugs or booze on what I was seeing. I’d sobered up enough… it felt like hours before I dropped to the floor at her side. She felt so light and fragile in my arms. I begged her to wake up—”
Elias stops talking and looks away from me.
I want to say something. Anything, but what? How can I make this moment better? Words are useless. He doesn’t need words.
He needs comfort.
I crawl into his lap and wrap my arms around his head, cradling him to my chest. His long, strong arms cage me into a near-suffocating hug. He doesn’t cry. He just sits there. Breathing me in. Rubbing his hands up and down my back .
“If I hadn’t gone to that party... If I had just spent Christmas Eve with my mom and brother... I could have been there when those men arrived. I could have killed them, saved my mother, and prevented my brother from having to do such a horrible thing.”
“You couldn’t have known. And say you had been home. What if those men had killed you first? You can’t blame yourself. You blame those men.”
“I do and those men are dead for what they did. Lance killed them.”
“Good,” I say and kiss the top of Elias’s head.
My eyes widen at the move. Did I really just kiss the top of his head? He doesn’t react to it or say anything. Instead, he sighs and buries his face between my breasts.
I’m glad I took the wire off earlier. Otherwise, Elias would have felt it by now and instead of sharing this heartbreaking memory with me, he’d be kicking me out—or worse—for betraying him.
“I’m sorry I brought you into this life,” he says, his voice muffled.
“You didn’t,” I murmur and rest my cheek against the top of his head.
“Me, Noah… either way, I know you’re too good for it. For me.”
I open my mouth to protest but he keeps talking.
“You shut down after Lenetti stabbed my brother.”
“I... ”
He releases me from the hug so he can look me in the eyes.
“You were scared.”
I purse my lips, and he raises a brow, daring me to lie.
“Fine. Yes. I was. I’ve never witnessed someone get stabbed before. But you were there. You protected me.”
“Noah asked me to.”
“You would have even if she hadn’t.”
He pulls back and wraps his fingers around my wrists, and in a swift move that makes me yelp, he clutches them behind my back.
“What the hell, Elias?”
“Here’s what’s going to happen.”
I roll my eyes because the sweet moment of sharing is gone.
The Boss is back.
“First, I’m going to spank you for rolling your eyes at me just now. Not just once. I’m going to spank you until your ass is red, and you won’t be able to sit right for days.”
I suck in a sharp breath. My nipples harden through the soft fabric of my sweater and scrape against Elias’s chest. He glances down and smirks.
“You little slut. You like the sound of that, don’t you?”
“Not as much as me tying you to a chair backwards and putting a gag in your mouth so I can be the one to spank you. ”
Elias groans, and he frees a hand to pinch one of my nipples. I buck in his lap and grind my pussy over his hardening cock beneath me.
“Second, I’m not going to fuck you tonight.”
“What?”
“We’ve fucked plenty. Tonight? I’m going to make love to you. Worship you like the queen that you are. You are mine. My Reine. My queen.”
“That’s what Reine means? Queen?”
“It does, and I knew you were a queen ever since I saw you punch the man who groped you without an ounce of remorse.”
“So, you speak French?”
“Some. Bare minimum. What’s needed for business dealings.”
Elias skims his mouth over my neck while continuing to pinch and pull my nipple through my top. Thankfully, the bruises from Chase choking me weren’t too bad and have already faded. Same with the mark on my cheek when he backhanded me.
“Stop distracting me, Ma Chérie,” he says, moving his hand to my hair.
He clutches the strands and tugs, allowing him to suck on my neck. I squirm in his lap because I do not want a hickey. Especially when I leave for my parents’ place the day after tomorrow. But my attempt to break free of this man fails and it only causes him to suck harder .
Marking me.
The fucker.
“After I’ve made you come, I’ll make you come again.
And again. That pussy is going to hurt tomorrow, and it’ll remind you to never lie to me again.
Because once I’ve fucked the last orgasm out of you, when you’re near comatose from pleasure, you’re going to tell me why you’re using a fake name and who you’re running from. ”
Oh. Shit.
I don’t have time to panic because Elias lifts me off his lap and we stand. He wraps his hand around my wrist and leads me to his bedroom.
“Elias…”
“No, Reine. After,” he says. “All I want to hear from that dirty little mouth are moans and whimpers or the words ‘yes,’ ‘sir,’ or ‘fuck me harder, Boss.’”
Boss.
He hated the nickname when I first called him that. Now he’s begging me to use it.
This man infuriates me. He takes control, something I’ve refused to let another man do to me since leaving Chase. But this is different. Elias… cares. About my safety. My pleasure .
That first night we fucked, I came five times. He only came once.
Elias is demanding, but in the way I need him to be .
The way that doesn’t leave unwanted injuries or holes in my fragile self-confidence.
No. It’s no longer fragile.
I’ve been building my walls, strengthening my armor. I’ve finally figured out what I want when it comes to my life and my body.
And I want Elias.
I just can’t keep him.
I’ll give him tonight. Then I have to put some distance between us. At least until I make sure my parents are safe. After that, I’ll tell Elias everything.
And ask him to kill Chase.