Tamed Enemy (Diamond Ring Trilogy #2)

Chapter 1

KATE

The human brain has two primary responses to threat. Option One is fight. Option Two is flight.

Me? I’m a lass who fights—with words when I can, with fists when I must. But here, today, in a penthouse suite at one of Washington DC’s most luxurious hotels, I’m afraid I’m not strong enough to win the fight that’s brewing. And I’m not sure I’m fast enough to get away if I run.

So I settle for the far more rare Option Three: I freeze.

I’m vaguely aware that Independence Day fireworks continue to explode outside the windows of our posh suite. My husband and I are on holiday, treating my grandmother and sister to a grand weekend. We’re supposed to be enjoying a treat after the months of tension we’ve managed to survive.

Instead, one single text—with an attached video—has turned everything into a nightmare.

Cole taps the screen of his mobile before I can.

The video freezes on the face of a man: Nikolai Tarasov, the pakhan of Baltimore’s bratva.

His black eyes look like he plucked them from some dead sturgeon on ice.

His cheeks are so sunken they look hollow, and his close-trimmed beard resembles filthy snow.

“Go on, then,” I croak, the Irish strong in my voice. “Play it again so we can be sure of the gobshite’s demands.”

Cole shakes his head. “We don’t need to hear that bullshit again.”

He’s right. Nikolai’s ultimatums have already scored my brain.

One: Cole must pay him ten million dollars on the first of every month, or Nikolai will disclose secret files about my husband’s criminal past.

Two: Cole must build him a new cryptocurrency, all the anonymous power of Bitcoin to be controlled by Baltimore’s Russian mob.

Three: Cole and I must divorce, so Nikolai can marry me himself.

My stomach heaves, painting the back of my throat with bile.

I’m the reason we’re facing these demands.

I insisted on kidnapping Nikolai’s son, Pyotr.

I held the bratva brigadier in the dungeon of Cole’s Georgetown mansion, along with the corpse of his clearly incompetent bodyguard.

I tortured Pyotr with BDSM tools Cole kept in the basement.

I killed Pyotr.

There are plenty of reasons why. My Irish-mob family has been at war with Pyotr’s Russian one for years, fighting over Baltimore. Pyotr seduced my mother and supplanted my father, and he intended to marry my sister to cement his claim to the Canton Crew.

But there’s one main reason Pyotr had to die: He raped me when I was eight years old.

The bratva kidnapped my sister and me, intending to use us as bargaining chips.

Pyotr forced me to choose all my torments.

I chose for him to hurt me instead of my sister.

I chose to take him up my arse instead of in my mouth or in my virgin cunt.

I chose to lick his cock first, because he said that would make it hurt less.

I chose to call him Master instead of Daddy.

He made me complicit. I consented to all his depravity—as if a child could ever consent to anything.

Pyotr Tarasov was a feckin’ monster, and I haven’t regretted one second of the torture I doled out last month. But now the chickens are coming home to their feckin’ bratva roost.

“What will we do?” I ask Cole.

“Not give in to one of his demands.”

“Nikolai Tarasov always gets his way,” I warn. “He’s run the Baltimore bratva for forty years. He’s come close to wiping out Da’s Canton Crew half a dozen times in the last decade.”

My words come faster as I speak, my voice ratcheting higher. My fingernails dig into my palms. Cole wraps his fingers around my right wrist, squeezing hard in a silent command.

My first instinct is to fight him. I want to stiffen my free fingers and aim straight for Cole’s eyes. Crash a knee into his bollocks. Butt my head against his chin.

But over the past three months, my husband has taught me that my instincts aren’t always my friends. Lashing out can leave me a hell of a lot worse off than I’d be with a little measured thought.

Sometimes, a controlled response is better. And Cole is the most controlled person I’ve ever met in my life.

Relaxing my hand beneath his grip, I uncurl my fingers to reveal four crimson half-moons across my palm, where my nails have almost broken the skin. The wounds look like the marks that ladder my thighs, the scars I’ve made by cutting when I’ve been overwhelmed by my past.

Cole raises my palm to his lips and kisses the red marks slowly, tenderly. Tension starts to melt from my shoulders, washed away by his sweet touch.

But then—holding my gaze like he’s issuing a challenge to a duel—he traces the scarlet curves with the very tip of his tongue. A white-hot wave breaks across my scalp, flooding my entire body so suddenly my knees begin to buckle.

Cole’s arms are around me before I can sway.

One possessive hand spreads between my shoulder blades, pulling me close to his black-clad body.

The other grips the back of my head, finding the perfect angle as his lips seal mine.

His kiss is hungry and hard, demanding and desperate.

Eyes closed, body forfeited, I meet his tongue with mine.

He breaks away first, but only to bite my lower lip, hard enough to raise a squeak at the back of my throat. “What was that for?” I ask, pulling back to press my palm against my mouth.

“Punishment,” he says, not letting me go. “For what you were thinking.”

“You have no way of knowing—”

“You were thinking Tarasov has a chance.”

“He does. He—”

“Not at marrying you.”

“You say that, but—”

“No,” he says.

“You only know Pyotr,” I say. “The son. He was bad news, but he’s nothing compared to Nik—”

“No,” Cole says again.

“Trust me,” I insist. “I’ve known the bratva my entire life. They alw—”

“No,” Cole says one last time. “They don’t. Not now. You’re my wife. You’re mine. And nothing that Russian motherfucker says will ever change that.”

I want to believe him. My heart is beating so hard, I feel it in my fingertips, in my toes.

But then, I realize that’s not my pulse.

It’s the barrage of fireworks outside, the grand finale of the national July Fourth celebration.

Cole’s arm slips around me and we both turn to the sliding glass door, to a display of red and green, blue and gold and breathtaking, shimmering white, filling every inch of the sky.

It goes on for longer than seems possible, explosion after explosion rocking the hotel. Every time a star fades to black, another takes its place, even larger, lingering longer.

The fireworks are stunning and they’re beautiful and they’re a little bit terrifying, because I can’t help but think of what could be done if all that gunpowder was harnessed as ammunition. But finally, finally, finally the wall of light comes to an end.

I gulp in a deep breath, wondering how long my lungs have been starved for air.

You’re my wife, Cole said. You’re mine.

A month ago, I would have fought him over that.

I don’t belong to any man. But tonight, I want to sink to my knees in front of him.

I want to work his belt buckle and slide his zipper down and take his cock into my mouth.

I want to feel his fingers tangle in my hair, pulling hard to remind me that he’s the one in charge, that he sets the rules.

Because Cole Wolf is always in control.

“My,” I say, stroking the generous bulge I can feel through his black jeans. My voice goes husky as I play out our now-familiar joke. “What a hard cock you have.”

“The better to f—”

He only gets out half of his gruff reply before the balcony door slides open, and my sister tumbles into the room. Breagha’s blonde curls frame her heart-shaped face, her hair soft with summer humidity. Her cheeks are flushed with heat or excitement, and her laugh is breathless.

“That was incredible!” she gushes. “I always thought Baltimore’s fireworks were amazing, looking out over the Inner Harbor, but these put them to shame!

We were so close! It was like we could touch the Washington Monument!

They were so loud! I can’t believe you missed the finale!

” Breagha finally pauses her exclamations to suck in a deep breath, and she turns to help our grandmother over the threshold.

“Granny? Can you believe they missed the grand finale?”

My grandmother’s eyes are as sharp as a raptor’s.

She zeroes in on my face, on my lips, which feel like they’ve been injected with a year’s supply of collagen.

She glances at Cole, who has moved to stand behind me, letting my body hide whatever his black jeans can’t disguise.

She raises an eyebrow at the wildfire of my hair, as if she can detect which tangles come from summer heat and which from Cole’s flexed fingers.

“I don’t think they missed a thing,” Granny says to Breagha, her tone tart enough to make my cheeks flush.

Even Breagha catches Granny’s meaning, and she laughs with delight. “Cole and Kate, sitting in a tree,” she chants, as if she’s still five years old.

I cut her off before she can make me blush again. “Go pack up your things.” I nod toward the bedroom she’s sharing with Granny. “We need to get home.” Now that Nikolai has delivered his threats, it’s not safe for us to stay downtown. We need the security of Cole’s fortified Georgetown mansion.

Breagha looks like I just kicked her favorite puppy. “I thought we were spending the night.”

“We were,” I say. “Change of plans.”

“You said we could get room service for breakfast, in the morning.”

“We will, another time.”

Granny tilts her head, as if she hears some distant fire alarm. “Go on, a stór,” she says to Breagha. “Fetch my bag as well.”

But before my sister can move, a chorus of car horns sounds outside. Instead of moving for the bedroom as I’ve asked, Breagha whirls back to the balcony. Pointing to the street twelve stories below, she says, “Look at all the lights! No one’s going anywhere.”

A river of red lights flows toward Georgetown and home. The traffic is bumper-to-bumper, automobiles frozen by traffic lights, by buses crawling to their next stop, by pedestrians heading for the subway. The crowd that gathered for the national fireworks has overtaken the streets.

Cole finally steps out from behind me to say, “She’s right. It’ll take hours to get home.”

“But we can’t just sit here! Not with—” I cut myself off. I’m terrified by the thought of what Nikolai Tarasov could do if he finds us here, exposed. I killed his son, and the Russian shitehawk won’t rest until he has revenge.

But Breagha doesn’t have any idea what I’ve done. Granny either. To them, this is a joyful holiday outing, made all the more fun because we don’t have to fight the traffic down below.

Cole says, “We’ll stay.”

I know that tone. No amount of my arguing will change his mind.

Before I can even try, he says, “Breagha, why don’t you check the freezer? I think there might be something room service left behind…”

My sister shoots me a curious glance as she crosses the room to the suite’s kitchenette.

She knows I never give in to anyone without a fight.

But whatever questions she might ask are driven away by her delight when she opens the freezer’s stainless-steel door.

“Bomb Pops!” she exclaims, grabbing a cardboard box.

She distributes them like a queen dispensing favors, first handing out frozen treats, then circling back with paper napkins, then collecting plastic wrappers. Her lips are already stained cherry red when Cole returns his pop to the freezer.

“What—” she starts to ask with a frown.

He gives her a reassuring smile. “I have to make a quick phone call. I’ll be back before you get down to the white part.”

“Do you need any help?” I ask.

He shakes his head.

I’m not satisfied. “Who are you calling?” I press.

“Sawgrass,” he says, with a meaningful glance toward my sister and my grandmother.

I don’t know if they recognize the name, but I know that Sawgrass Corporation deploys a private army of the most skilled mercenaries anywhere on the planet.

Our Georgetown home is already guarded by Sawgrass men.

And from the look on Cole’s face, he’s about to request additional support here at the hotel.

“Kate!” Breagha says as Cole turns toward the privacy of our bedroom. “Your Bomb Pop is melting!”

I look down to find sticky blue juice coating my fingers, and I fight the urge to toss the melting treat into the sink.

I want to follow Cole into the bedroom, to close the door behind us, to listen to him order up guards to protect us before I let him distract me from all the nagging fears chewing their way through my belly.

But my sister is laughing, and my grandmother is waiting, and I have to believe my husband has everything under control—as much as possible. For now.

So I lick the sweet berry-flavored juice from my hand, and I challenge Breagha to a contest to see which of us can finish our pop first. I laugh when she wins, even though my effort lodges a sharp, steady ache behind my eyes.

Or maybe that pain is a holdover from the video. From the war I know is coming.