Chapter 19 – Markos
This model of ten millimeter was designed to be sleek and compact, light yet powerful. Right now, staring at the beautiful threat, the handgun had to weigh ninety pounds. My arm hung at my side, the deadweight pulsing like a living thing in my grip.
Theos—no. Just no.
But to protect my people, I would silence her.
“Then why aren’t you moving?” a voice snarled in the back of my mind.
Ignoring the menacing whisper, I continued to watch. Serena spoke rapidly. Her hands flew about as if they were a vital part of the conversation, each gesture inserted at the proper time.
And then she stopped. Her gaze trained on the old couple eating pie.
Something...heavenly shifted through her features. The emotion was so intense, so vibrant, that I found myself stepping forward, my right hand reaching out to touch.
The gun chinked against the glass window.
I jerked back. The gun slammed back into the shoulder holster before I gave into the urge to throw it as far away from me as possible.
Serena might have to be stopped, but I wasn’t going to shoot her.
There were other ways to tame the beauty.
As I contemplated them, she slammed the phone back onto its holder and spoke again to the cook.
Then she gobbled her food as though she’d been starved.
I watched, noting how each bite seemed to be consumed with more appreciation than if it was a meal at a five-star restaurant.
With a small box of pie in her hand, she paid the cook and left.
Pushing aside the irrelevant question of where she obtained that money, I noted the direction she began to walk before slipping into the diner for a quick chat.
“What can I get you to drink— What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” the cook shouted at me.
The number on the phone flashed with a strange area code. I reached for a pen and scrawled down the digits.
The cook was there in a flash, glaring in my face.
And then at the barrel of my gun.
“That woman. What did she say?” I demanded.
Scowling, the man muttered, “Nothin’, she just ordered.”
“On the phone, what did she say on the phone?” I insisted.
“Don’t know, man. Wasn’t English.”
“It was Italian,” a toothless waitress, standing at the edge of the room, clarified. “I only understood a few words, the ones similar to Spanish, but it sounded like a lover’s quarrel.”
My heart thumped violently. Those words hung in the air, taunting me.
My little princess had a lover? Of course, she had a lover.
It would be strange indeed if a beauty like her didn’t have a string of them, all dancing to her tune.
But to hear the truth. That she actually had one, which was why she turned away Alexios’s attention. Fuck. That hurt.
That was unacceptable.
Red tinged my vision, heat raged in my veins, and my pulse began the wild patter of a war drum. Whoever this lover was, I would kill them.
Turning on my heel, I marched from the Waffle House.
Serena was just disappearing around the corner. I had to jog to catch up to her.
“Who are you thinking about, Serena?” I growled into the wind.
I’m coming for them.
And I’m keeping you.
The how was irrelevant. Serena was in my life, and I liked her there. That was the only thing I needed to know.
I was an idiot not to realize it before.
But as I tailed her through the dark, another realization broke through. Her lover would make an excellent incentive. I pulled out my phone and sent the number to Anatole. The computer genius would have the details in minutes.
Serena stopped short, two blocks from Delphi. She stared down an alley, the small box hanging at her side. I slowed, gaze pinned on her. Just minutes ago, I faced the hard reality that I might have to silence her—for duty to my family.
A crack ached in my chest. No, I didn’t think I could have done that. Now that we were through that danger, an icy fear trickled through me how close that call had been. But it was only another man she’d called. Called and quarreled with.
Not one hair on her head was being hurt, not by me or anyone else. If someone tried, they were dead. It was as simple as that. And I would move heaven and earth to make sure she wasn’t seen as a threat to our organization.
My phone pinged, and I shot a look over the information Anatole sent.
The name was more old-fashioned, probably British, not Mediterranean.
But that detail didn’t matter. He was rich, powerful—handsome.
There was a picture of him standing in a fancy monkey suit, with an impressive ship behind.
It was a safe bet the fucker couldn’t even sail the yacht.
Thoughts of Serena on his ship, sailing around the Great Lakes—and who knew where else!
—tormented me. Of course, someone who moved in the wealthy circles of society would want a man like that.
I hated him immediately.
“You’ll be with me, or I’ll kill your lover,” I mused. “Your Italian lover.”
Now that idea was perfectly acceptable.
Glad that I’d had enough time to calm down, to think through this situation rationally, I breathed a sigh of relief.
If the lover had been there at the diner, I would have eviscerated him.
But the distance gave me time to plan. Other difficulties and power moves would sort themselves out later—like why she spoke another language fluently and I was only now finding that out.
Nothing else was relevant in this moment.
I would make it crystal clear to Serena that she was mine or else.
Holding the lover’s life over Serena’s head was the perfect opportunity.
She would never choose to be with someone as grotesque, as vile as me.
I was an underworld kingpin, and an ugly motherfucker at that.
But if it was the lover’s life or becoming my queen, well. ..that was a damn good bargain.
And my own power moves? I could figure them out later. It took the idea of losing her to make me admit that wasn’t fucking happening.
So wrapped up in manifesting the future I craved, I didn’t see the threat until Serena was running. Her box of pie was gone. Her arms pumped by her side.
Some lowlife scum had the nerve to chase her—my goddess.
A slow smile curled across my face. The lover might not die tonight, but this idiot was going to sate my rage. With a manic laugh, I took off sprinting.
Serena tripped, sprawling and rolling over the curb. She rounded quickly on the man and screamed in his face, “I don’t have anything! For the first time in my life, I am penniless, and I love it!”
But, princess, you have me. And I was loaded. She would want for nothing.
Not protection, not luxuries. As my queen, it was all hers.
It was time she learned that.