Chapter 9 THE LETTER
Fuck.
This didn’t go according to plan. Lana was supposed to trust me when I told her I needed something from her box to protect her family. If pressed, I’d reveal it was related to her SUV stalker.
She’d ask more questions, but I’d have the answers. The men with me? New bodyguards.
She’d believe me. After all, I’d saved her brothers multiple times before.
I dispatched the Albanians after the chaos and hightailed to my safe house. The bastards no doubt headed straight to the Berishas, and with their body cam footage, there’d be no sugarcoating this disaster.
I told them they’d get their precious letter—still unopened in my pocket—after I settled things with the Andersons.
No way I’d hand something so important to those bloodthirsty lowlifes who are lieutenants in the Albanian mob.
Faint traffic hums through the windows in this nondescript apartment. I pace the length of the room, the city alive while the chasm inside me swallows me whole.
Strategies rattle through my mind. Possible moves on the chessboard. Ways to get out of this.
Part one of my Rite was to steal the letter. That’s done. I don’t even know what part two is.
Fucking shit.
My gaze snags on her.
Lana. My obsession. The woman I hate because of the role she played on the day that changed my life.
I must never forget.
She lies asleep on the king-sized bed, the chloroform still holding her under. She’s clad in one of my white dress shirts. My housekeeper changed her out of her blood-soaked outfit after I carried her inside a few hours ago.
Quietly, I pull up a chair next to her bedside.
Under the afternoon light, she looks even more beautiful. Her thick lashes kiss her cheeks; her inky dark hair splayed across my white pillowcase. Her pulse flutters in her neck as she shifts on the bed, her plump lips relaxed.
A break from the nightmare she had just lived through.
She moans—the soft sound going straight to my groin. I’m a sick motherfucker.
I lean in, wanting to feel her breath on my skin, to let her roses cloud my senses until they wipe away the stench of death and destruction.
I haven’t had my twenty-eight minutes today yet.
A reprieve. I need my twenty-eight minutes more than I need air.
Releasing an exhale, I lock up my anger, hatred, the violence coursing through my veins.
My fingers tremble as I touch a lock of her hair. So soft and silky. Innocence and perfection I shouldn’t taint, but I’m a weak man.
I wrap it around my fingers, once, twice, then lift it to my nose and inhale.
Sweet, tantalizing roses.
For a moment, I’m sixteen again with Lake Michigan’s breeze whispering across my face, the icy water numbing my swollen knees. I feel her gentle fingers tracing clumsy letters into my palm while humming her favorite Beethoven piece under her breath.
The girl who’s never left my memories, who believed a broke, dyslexic kid could be more.
My phone buzzes.
“Kent,” I whisper, not wanting to wake Lana.
“I’m packed and ready to go. This is my new number,” my sister, Sofia, drawls in a smoky voice. “What’s next?”
“We survive. I’ll figure something out.”
“You always do.”
“How were things before you left?” I ask.
Sofia helped me manage a few clubs on the Rose floors. We coordinated our exits in case anything went awry with the heist, and thank God we did.
“Chaos. The FBI, counterterrorism, every acronym showed up before I left. The Andersons are freaking out.”
Guilt tightens my throat. “How is he?”
Snippets flash behind my eyelids. Maxwell’s cutting gaze of betrayal. The blood soaking his shirt. His fear for Lana.
It was a no-win situation. A choice between Bekim and me.
Bekim the Deranged, as the Albanian mob called him, would’ve gutted Maxwell if he fired first. He would’ve relished it.
My bullets gave him a chance.
“He’s in surgery. Last I heard, there’s significant blood loss. But you had good aim. Ren would be proud. Both shots missed his vital organs.”
“I did what I had to do.”
Life carved a monster in me. Betrayal. Terrible choices. Loss. All part of the game of chess we’re playing.
“They’ll never forgive you. I know what they mean to you. You gave it all up. What if this doesn’t—”
“It was all a game, Sofia. You knew that.” The words ring hollow. “Getting into The Orchid, gathering intel and secrets. I played them, and we’re finally here. So close to finding out who killed our parents and little Beatrice. And…”
Who took you.
Sofia disappeared the day our parents died. I scoured the ends of the earth and couldn’t find her.
But eventually, I did. Three years later.
She was a changed person then. I killed her handler, faked her death, but it was too little too late.
I never knew what happened to her during those three years, and she refused to talk about it.
I would slaughter every single bastard who did this to us.
“The past is in the past,” Sofia replies, her voice hardening. “I’m on the next plane out. See you in Chicago.”
She hangs up.
A heavy breath escapes me, and I loosen the tie around my neck. Lana whimpers, her angelic face suddenly twisting in fear and pain as a nightmare grips her in its throes.
Probably nightmares about me.
Berating myself for my inability to resist her, I brush her hair back, my breath hitching as I touch her without my gloves for the first time in decades. Gloves were my way of keeping her at a distance. But now, with her so close to me, I suddenly forget why I need to stay away.
My fingers shake as I trace her cheek. Her warmth sizzles my skin and my chest spasms.
“You’re fine, Elise. You’re fine,” I whisper. “Everything’s fine.”
She thrashes, then quiets, my voice seeming to settle her.
A spark of warmth, an insidious craving, flares when she grabs my hand and snuggles it.
Just like that day on the lake when we were different people. A lost boy, beaten by life but with beautiful dreams of the future. A princess feeling suffocated by her gilded cage.
Her chest lifts and falls, drawing my attention to the pulse fluttering in her neck.
She looks good in my clothes. If I had my way, I’d have her dressed in my shirts all day long so the world knows she was mine.
I want to kiss the soft skin where her vitality beats. Inhale her light at the source. Whisper promises on her lips. Tell her who I really am. Tell her I’m not the monster she thinks I am.
One more kiss. Just one more.
Sweet kisses at sixteen weren’t enough. I didn’t know what I was doing then.
But I do now. Fuck I know just what to do if I had the chance.
Heat rushes to my groin. I’m a sick fuck. Incurable. I should go to Rafe for a confession when I get back to Chicago. The priest of The Syndicate is there to absolve us of our sins.
Yeah, right. My soul is so dark, no amount of bleach could cleanse it.
Biting my cheek to distract myself, I pull out the letter from my pocket—the document that sparked my point of no return.
Carefully, I unseal it. Why would The Association risk a high-profile heist in broad daylight?
I unfold the single sheet of paper and read.
My stomach drops. Fear shoots through my veins. My attention snaps back to Lana, who’s unaware of the future awaiting her.
This—what just happened in the vault—is only the beginning.
They aren’t done with her yet.
Whatever part two of the Rite is, I’ll walk through it—fires, flames, and hell. And Lana, the woman I hate? I’ll make sure she gets out alive.
Carefully, I reseal the letter and put it away.
Decision made, I pull out my phone and type a message to the Berishas.
Elias
I have the letter. Complications happened. Requesting meeting at my NYC safe house.
I glance at Lana again, who’s now gripping my hand like it’s her lifeline. Gently, I swipe my thumb over her skin, giving her a gentle squeeze.
Heat sears me from the simple touch, warming parts of me I thought were long dead.
She relaxes and lets out the softest sigh.
I whisper a vow I never thought I’d make.
And that organ behind my rib cage, the one I thought was burned to ashes along with my parents when I was sixteen, flickers to life.