CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Connor
H eadlights flashing in the rearview pull my gaze from the road. I catch myself staring at an asshole in a Lamborghini who cuts me off.
I miss driving a sports car, but I retired mine when I stepped up to lead the killing arm of Quinlan Empire. There are a lot of rich pricks in Manhattan, but not a lot of Lamborghinis.
At an extra-long light, kept red so firetrucks can scream by, I take a moment to catch my breath from coming all over myself a few minutes ago. My blood is still running hot. My body is still tense.
From her.
Storm . Not her real name, I’m sure. But it’s cool and mysterious like her. I’m tempted to go back to Dirk to add storm clouds around my snake. It shocked the shit out of me to not only see her tonight but to have her sidle up next to me and pretend not to fucking remember me.
She was supposed to be just another mindless fuck I usually walk away from. Finding out she was DEA gave me pause to keep looking for her. But seeing her at the gala, it all came crashing in on me.
She’s fucking mine.
What a turnaround from the hot mess I met that night in June. Tonight, she was all smooth hair, lipstick, and perfume with a hint of that lingering scent of cinnamon apple shampoo .
She makes me feel alive. She makes me want to strip away every brutal, bloody part of myself and just be a man again.
Not a mob boss. Not a killer. A guy she met in a bar and fucked for a few stolen hours.
She made me forget the weight of my last name, the expectations of me, and my hunger for vengeance.
God, I remember her raspy voice telling me to fuck her deeper, but tonight her soft-spoken questions and fake outrage when I told her what I wanted from her have me wondering if I remembered that night wrong.
Then she choked on her drink. Right there, the porcelain doll chipped.
Christ, I liked watching her falter, knowing I’d shaken her.
I want to do more than shake her. I want her under me again, clawing at my back, moaning my fucking name.
We exhausted each other last time, and she took the hint when it was time to leave, but tonight she left before I was ready to let her go.
After showing me two sides of herself, I don’t know who she really is. She’s chaos wrapped in something beautiful. Sharp enough to cut me open, yet cunning enough to make me crave the pain.
Christ, I’m catching real feelings for her like all three of my brothers in the last few years.
Seeing Rhys parked on the street he mentioned in his text, knocks me back to the here and now. He’s leaning against his Audi, and I ease my Ram behind him.
He didn’t attend the fundraiser and is wearing the same black jeans and a casual button-down from earlier. Only now, he’s also wearing a light jacket to conceal weapons.
Rhys takes one last drag of a cigarette burning between his fingers and waves me over.
“Got another one of those?” I ask when I reach him.
“Women don’t like men who smoke,” he says, as if he’s keeping up the habit to stay single .
“Women like your neighbor?” I take a blunt from his pack, some brand he gets in the post from Dublin by the carton.
Rhys snorts a rare laugh. “I can light her on fire and—”
“Have you? Lit her on fire in your bed?”
His jaw goes tight. “No.”
“But you’re thinking about it.”
He exhales. “Forget her. Look up.”
I glance up at one of the many new high rises in Midtown Manhattan. Bold letters along the ground-level windows read: York Towers.
“Who lives here?” I ask him.
“Blade and Jett tracked Noel Tahiri here. Penthouse A.”
This fucking Albanian kyre twists my stomach.
“Still no response to a sit-down with them?” I click my da’s butane lighter, admiring the blue flame to fire up my cigarette.
Rhys shakes his head. “Total radio silence.”
I drag smoke into my lungs. “Have you or your guys tried to get up there to see Tahiri?”
“No. Don’t want to blow our load without a real plan.” Rhys strokes his chin. “We have no idea how they’re organized other than the kyre and his guards.”
“Don’t forget all the drug dealers they have.” I pace a few feet in both directions, scoping out the block. “Traffickers. Money laundering. They’ve come a long way in a short amount of time. But who the fuck are they?”
“Berisha’s bloodline goes back close to a century, all to one kyre from Albania,” Rhys answers. “I’ve been doing some research. One family has ruled them. Until now.”
“What?” I stare at him.
“Noel Tahiri is American. The kyre title should have passed to someone in Levin Berisha’s family, but he was never married and didn’t have any children as far as we know.
He’s rumored to have a cousin, but we couldn’t ID him.
Some secret council named Tahiri kyre , but he has to marry someone in the bloodline. ”
“This makes me nervous as hell.” I pinch the cigarette between my fingers.
Rhys finishes his. “Without that blood connection, they’ll be looking to marry into another family for legitimacy.”
“With who?” I think about all the daughters of the current dons, pakhans, and godfathers. Slim pickings. But I suddenly worry about my young nieces and the daughters of the O’Rourke brothers.
“You’re next, you know,” Rhys says, lighting a new cigarette for us to share. “Marriage.”
A sharp laugh leaves my throat. But then she pops into my festering thoughts. God, what’s wrong with me?
“No thanks.” I savor the rest of the smoke, thinking of where I can stop to get a pack of my own, even though I’m supposed to be on the wagon.
“You don’t think Griffin is already looking for your wife?”
What am I? A goddamn broodmare who needs to be put to stud?
“Griffin knows me better.” I’d rather cut off a limb than be forced into an arranged and loveless marriage.
But Griffin and Shane’s marriages are anything but loveless.
Rhys nudges me. “Just keep your eyes open, mate.”
Only a strong woman can survive in our world. A na?ve princess will get eaten alive. I need someone who can keep up with me. In every way possible.
I inhale sharply, and those green eyes flash through my mind. I’m starting to think my curious kitty from the fundraiser, who’s also a fucking DEA agent, was there to scope me out. Only, we don’t traffic narcotics.
My cock twitches, pissed off that I let that lass go tonight. It was so bleedin’ hard when I got home, I had to fucking jerk off.
“I don’t see who we need that badly as an ally right now,” I say to Rhys, so he can’t tell I’m losing my mind over a woman.
“I’m gonna talk to Trace and get one of the guys on our team to watch this place,” Rhys says, walking back toward his Audi. “Later.”
He leaves me standing on the curb, the late summer night pressing against my skin.
I thumb the comb in my pocket. When I saw it just sitting on the carpet near the bar, I recognized it from her hair. She must have dropped it rushing out of the Warwick.
I should toss it. Burn it. Pretend she never existed.
But I don’t. No, I can’t.
I crack my neck, rolling my shoulders, the anticipation of finding her again settling into my bones. A woman with a sharp mouth and the steadiest hands on a weapon I’ve ever seen can fucking keep up with me.
She’s not afraid of me, either. No one has ever affected me this way. There’s a pull in my gut I’ve never felt before. Something dark and aching and real. She’s a challenge. A fight. A goddamn wildfire.
I want her . Not some polished heiress that Griffin will hand-pick to secure his next deal. He was forced to marry Ava. He forced Shane, too. Rhys is right. I’d be a fool to think Griffin would stop there.
If that woman were mine, Griffin wouldn’t dare force someone else on me. She might be the only way I get to choose anything for myself.
I’ll hang back and play her game for a while, find out what she’s really after. If she does something like refer my family to ATF, well then, I’ll be taking her prisoner and teaching her a lesson in loyalty.