Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
SIRE
“Look at her,” Mom admires Wren. “She’s like a swan to water.”
We stand by the one-way glass window in her third-floor office overlooking the main floor below. I loom beside her, watching Wren sip a soda at the bar while animatedly talking to Lucy, the head bartender.
It looks perfectly innocent … except there’s a new shipment of giant boxed dildos on the bar beside Wren.
I say flatly, “She’s too young to be in here.”
In return, I expect a dose of Southern sass from my mom. She’s the queen of it, an art she perfected to blend in.
But she sighs, touching my arm. “I love how protective you are of her, and I love how you saved her, too. That’s why I wanted to meet here.”
She glances down at my hand. I’m not wearing a bandage. My stitches have dissolved. The scar on my partial pinky is raw, making tears well in her eyes, as if my wound is hers.
I guess, for a mom, it is.
“Sergei, you’ve always been the one who hurt the most and—”
“No, mom. You did.”
As her eldest son, I have the most memories. Many horrific. A few, sweet. Mom and I were so close in age, I became like her best friend, too. I could always make her smile.
“Yes, I did,” she answers, “and I was years younger than Wren is now when I had you. In this world, perhaps fourteen is too young to become a mother, but Wren is like me; we were girls in a world where our innocence was taken from us so we could survive. I was married to an evil monster who gave me three sweet sons by the time I was her age, and the only reason we survived,” she points between us, “is because every girl is born with an army of women inside her who will fight back, so do not underestimate her.”
I swallow the lump in my throat, remembering every black eye my mom had, every sweet song she’d sing to me, despite her pain.
“So, what are you saying, my Queen?”
I mean it. I worship my mother. All of my brothers do.
She’s wise and warm, a badass and brutal. I know this “lunch date” is Mom trying to set me up with Wren…
And it’s working.
It was either love or a heart attack that seized my chest so fucking hard at the sight of Wren in that white dress. I couldn’t breathe standing so close to her. I wanted to unzip her dress.
And then our duet in the car? Belting Dolly and Kenny and those lyrics? I don’t do shit like that. I don’t smile like that. But it was like hanging out with my best friend.
Who’s hot.
Who makes my dick raging hard.
Fuck, this is happening too fast, and I can’t stop it, especially when my mom says…
“I’m saying follow your heart.”
“My heart isn’t the problem. I’ll never hurt her. My dick on the other hand…”
She cuts me a look. “While you’re grown and require no lectures from me about ethics versus erections … get over it.”
“What?”
“Get over whatever it is that’s been bothering you for years. You think I didn’t notice? How you were hell-bent on finding your queen in your twenties. Woman or man. You know I’d love either. But then, like a switch when you turned thirty, the light in you died. You stopped believing in love.”
Thirty?
That’s when my father found me. He found us. And that’s when he said either I provide him with a legitimate heir for his criminal empire, a grandson with a woman of my choosing, or he’ll kill my mom.
While my brothers and I are powerful, trained, and ruthless when needed—we escaped one of the world’s most powerful criminal organizations—if my father doesn’t kill my mother himself, the hundreds who work for him will.
So, it was a deal—a deal I made with the Devil. I’d give him an heir, and he’d let us live.
But he didn’t keep the deal.
“I still believe in love, Mom, I just don’t have the time for it.”
She sniffs. “What’s that smell?”
I roll my eyes; she always does this. “Bullshit.”
“That’s right.” She points to Wren, who’s—fuck me—inspecting a new ponytail anal plug Lucy is showing her. “Because you will make time for her. And you will tell her everything about us and earn her trust.”
“Everything?”
“Yes, everything. I spent a week with her and instantly trusted her. There’s something about her. I want her to be safe, and so do you. And the only way she’s going to tell us who sold her into that ring is if she trusts you.”
“She thinks I’ll kill him.”
She deadpans. “Then don’t.” I make my face stone. “Sergei.” But fuck, she’s my mom. She sees straight through me. “Young man, when I tell you not to do something, you’d best listen.”
I snort. “I’m not young, Mom.”
“The hell you aren’t. You’re young enough to let yourself fall in love with her, marry her, make her your queen, and give me some beautiful grandbabies. And you and your brothers will make your vows to protect her, and keep her safe, or I will whoop your ass into next week. Understand?”
Has my mother ever laid a violent hand on me? If yanking my earlobe counts, yes. But she owns too many guns, and I respect her too much to disobey her.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll tell her everything and try to earn her trust. We’ll find out who sold her. But marry her?” I shake my head. “Mom, you know I can’t.”
She flits her jeweled hand. “Just get to know her and you’ll realize I’m right.”
“Wren has no filter. Give us four more days, and I’ll know everything about her. But they won’t accept us. My flock. They’ll say I’m a cradle-snatcher or a manther.”
“A what?” she scoffs.
“Like an older woman with a younger man is a cougar or a panther, a manther is an older man who goes after much younger women.”
“Hmm.” She smirks. “Well, They can walk a mile in my heels and kiss my ass. Judgmental people either need to be loved or laid. Honey, don’t listen to them.”
“I’m their pastor. It’s my job to listen to them.”
“Listen, yes. Go your whole life denying yourself love?” Laughing, she points to Wren, who’s straddling a BDSM breeding bench like she’s riding a pony carousel outside a grocery store. “Darlin’, it’s too late. Your love is sitting right there.”
Mom takes us to lunch at a place by the river and introduces Wren to Oysters Rockefeller. It’s obvious Wren wants to puke, but she won’t do it. She’s too polite, and she and my mom have too much fun, laughing over stories about me and my brothers.
“Tell her the poison ivy story,” my mother insists.
I sigh—God, kill me now—as I look at Wren, who’s smiling at me with those pink lips I want to devour.
“We lived on a farm when we first moved here, and to earn our keep, we picked peaches and did yard work. One day, guess I was seventeen or so, we cleared the weeds growing behind the farmhouse and thought nothing of it until we started itching the next day.”
“Itching where?” My mother taunts.
Now, God. Now would be a good time.
“Itching on our penises because we’d been pulling our puds with poison ivy hands all night.”
Wren snorts her sweet tea, and my mom grabs her hand, laughing, “Darlin, four of my boys had poison penises. What a proud day for a mother.”
“Who?” Wren smiles, and Mom’s right.
My love is sitting right in front of me.
I raise my hand. “Me, Axel, Grant, and Jace. Nick and Loch were too young, and I hadn’t met Nash yet.”
“Sweet Jace?” Wren looks shocked, asking me, “How old was he?”
“Barely thirteen and a threat to anything that would hold still.”
“My Lord,” Mom shakes her head, “my sweet Jace used to hump the sofa cushions.”
I throw my chin up, laughing. “Until Axel caught him and told him to quit fucking the furniture.”
We spend hours with my mom, who takes Wren shopping for more clothes, handbags, heels, makeup, and my favorite, painfully awkward moment ever—expensive lingerie.
I have to wait outside the sexy store while praying to God to give me restraint.
With my mother’s blessing, Wren’s angelic lure, and every sign being thrown in my face, I feel like a caged demon who’s been set free. My urges are too strong.
Driving back to my penthouse at night, I switch the mood to an emotion I can control. I tell Wren more funny stories of life on the peach farm. For me, my mom, and brothers, it was the first time we were safe, so damn if we didn’t laugh at almost everything.
“Tomorrow at two,” I ask Wren as I park my car, “would you like to come to my service?”
“Are you singing?”
“Yeah. A few songs. But sorry, no Dolly.”
She exaggerates a pout, and I stare at lips I’m dying to kiss.
It would be the perfect end to an almost perfect day.
“Tell you what,” I say instead. “I’ll print the lyrics to the songs I’m singing so no one will hear you fuck them up.”
“Uh!” She laughs, yanking her door open. “I don’t fuck up lyrics.”
I can’t get out to open her door fast enough, but I have a feeling I’ll be saying it for the rest of my short life, “Whatever you say, Angel.”
Laughing together, we walk side-by-side, my hand on the small of her back, our bodies brushing. Every urge tells me to take her sweet face in my hands and kiss her, but—
“Ahem.”
A deep voice from the shadow by my door makes me step in front of Wren, my hand reaching for the gun in my back holster.
“It’s me, holy fucker.”
Axel steps out of the shadows. Wren grabs my jacket. Like me, my brother is a menacing sight at first glance.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “He’s one of the poison penises.”
Axel cocks a dark brow, and Wren switches gears from frightened to a fairy.
“Hi, Sire’s brother.” She sticks her hand out. “I’m Wren, and I believe we met before you murdered those dickheads. Thanks, by the way.”
“Hi, Wren.” Axel grins, shaking her hand. “It’s nice to meet you. And yes, I’m Axel, we’ve met, my penis has amazing properties, but poison ain’t one, and you’re welcome. Glad to see you’ve invaded my brother’s monkish life.”
Wren smiles my way. “I like him.”
“Don’t.” I scowl. “He’s a dickhead wrapped in gangster’s clothing.”
But really, he’s not. Axel has a caring heart. It’s just buried under all the shit we survived as kids.
“Wren,” he asks, “can I steal Pastor Prick for a minute?”
“Sure!” She likes that nickname too much. Pointing to my car, she asks, “Should I get my bags now or—”
“I’ll bring them up.”
“Okay.” She turns toward my door, entering the code.
But I draw my gun. “Wait. Let me go up with you and clear the place.”
I’m disturbed that Wren seems unfazed by this. Dutifully, she stands behind me until I’ve checked every room.
“So, who’s the oldest?” she asks, opening the container of muffins in the kitchen.
“Me.” I holster my gun.
“But Axel talks like he’s in charge.” And she talks with her mouth full—another irresistible trait.
“He is.”
“Why aren’t you? You know, patriarchal birth order and all.”
“You sure know a lot about patriarchy.”
She gestures to the air. “We all have its cancer.”
“Exactly, and I was the first male heir my father always wanted, but fuck him; I didn’t want the power. I just never expected he’d turn his wrath on Axel next.”
Her brows bend. “Then why don’t you take over now?”
“Trust me, Axel’s better at it. You don’t want me in charge.”
“Why?”
“Because when I’m mad, heads roll.”
Her head tilts, curious, not afraid. I’m beginning to love that trait, too. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” I turn for the door. “When I get back, I have some answers for you.” I glance back. “And Wren?” She looks up. “You’ll have answers for me, too.”