12. Jett
JETT
“ Y ou think she’ll poison us in our sleep?” I asked Talon while we waited for the auction to start.
He hesitated before leaning closer to me.
“Hard to say. The princess seems to have a possessive streak like Ronan. Maybe we just stay on her good side?” said Talon.
I sat quietly watching the room. Watching the people.
Where oh where could the little rats be?
It was apparent most of the assholes, or guests, were here for this part of the evening.
Several deeds for land and buildings were up for auction.
The reason was to hide money, hide the crooked deals.
You couldn’t just give away land these days without flagging law enforcement.
Harrington knew what he was doing, but so did we.
This wasn’t his charity any more than it was ours.
It was one that could be bought for the right price at any given time and could hide dirty money.
The charity gave police a front to help show the public that criminals were rehabilitated.
“Stop bouncing your damn knee,” Talon said and put his hand on my thigh.
“I can’t. I gotta move. This thing is taking too long. Give me pretty girl, she can sit on my lap.”
Talon shook his head at me, but I wasn’t kidding.
“You want me to sit? Her giving me a raging hard-on would do the trick.”
Talon cleared his throat and whispered to Knox who leaned over and whispered to Margaux. I fucking bounced my knee even more at the anticipation. Would she actually help a guy out?
I should have picked a different dress for her. The slit running up the side of that damn thing had me imagining how I could slip my fingers under it. If she could be real quiet, I could play with her pussy and get her ready for my desperate cock when we got home.
I was too far into my little mind when the sparkle of red in front of me caught me off guard.
“Really, Jett?”
She wasn't talking loudly, but she was talking just to me.
I nodded.
“I can’t help it, pretty girl. You’re the only one who can control me. I need to get out of here. I’m ready to crawl out of my skin.”
She narrowed her eyes, and I wondered if the whispered rumors around the room were going to have her changing her mind and going back to Ronan. Instead though, she surprised me.
There wasn’t a chair next to me, just an aisle. She sat on my lap with her feet in the empty space, wrapping her arms around my neck. She kept her voice low.
“Is this really what you wanted? Me sitting on you? Or are you just being a prick trying to stir the pot here like Betty Crocker?”
I gasped but wrapped her up in my arms.
“Hand me a spoon baby,” I said.
She smiled at me and even let a surprised little laugh out before she put her fake little face back on.
She was beautiful and I hated the way here, or anywhere that her uncle was, seemed to drown the real her.
We’d watched her uncle for years. When the Harrington family had been murdered, we’d been just getting our place in the Barone family.
Ronan, fuck. I watched him right now and smiled.
He would share her. We’d been watching her, trying to get a glimpse of her for so long it’s fucking shocking that he hadn’t stripped her down and taken her in front of all of us at the poker game.
He had a thing for her, even if he wasn’t admitting it. Shit, maybe we all did.
We didn’t let women in. Separating us would be a fate no woman would survive. Poor little Margaux really didn’t know what she’d walked into.
Her hair was so much softer than I had imagined now that I had her up close and all up in my space. I pushed a strand behind her ear as I sniffed it trying to remember whatever her scent was.
She was different tonight; it almost seemed like the real her wasn’t buried too far beneath the surface.
What had changed?
I couldn’t stop the way she made me feel when she turned and wrapped her arms around my neck.
“So, Jett. Now that you have me, tell me. What are we trying to win tonight?”
I glanced back at Ronan. He might kill me or he might not. He watched me as I turned down the line of chairs and I winked.
“What if I said you?”
It seemed delayed, but she slowly smiled at me.
“Worst pickup line ever. What are you really trying to win?”
She could not believe me, but that would be a joke on her.
“You won’t ever be free of us, so you might as well want us, pretty girl,” I said, playing with a soft curl of hair hanging down her back.
I lowered my voice, trying to ensure that even the Thornes behind us couldn’t hear me.
“I’ll consider your threat. Now tell me. What are you bidding on?” she asked again.
Fucking hell. How could I focus on anything but this little creature?
“Oh, pretty Margaux, where have you been my whole life?”
She seemed to study me, no doubt wondering where the jokes ended and the truth started.
“Locked away in my tower waiting for a shitty prince to come find me. Something tells me you aren’t him though, are you?”
I side glanced at Ronan, and even Knox and Talon were invested at this point. My fingers seemed to have a mind of their own as they stroked the bare skin of her leg exposed by that side slit.
“We’ve never rescued a princess, and I don’t think we’re starting now.”
She studied me for longer than I’d have expected. Someone tapped a mic and she wiggled out of my lap, but before she moved back to her seat she leaned between Talon and myself.
“I’ve learned that sometimes the prince isn’t the one who needs to save the girl. Maybe I need a few villains.”
She sidestepped around our feet and sat back in hers. Ronan’s arm wrapped around her shoulders, claiming her for the moment. I leaned into Talon.
“Are we the villains?”
He rolled his eyes at me.
“Have you ever heard of the prince killing off the competition if he needed to?” Talon nodded to the stage.
Right. I shifted in my seat a bit calmer now that I’d gotten her for a moment.
I smiled.
I liked the idea of being her villain. I’d make everyone in her past hurt. We finally had her in our world, and Ronan certainly wouldn’t stop us anymore.
Talon elbowed me.
“Pay attention. The deed is coming up. The land needs to remain within the family.”
I stretched out my legs and got comfortable for the show to start. We had a good idea of how much was coming in from the shell operations run by the good old senator and funded by his voters and investors. The fucker was dirtier than a pig in a mudslide, not that it changed anything.
“Now, the land at 1532 El Fortuna Avenue where the once glamorous Fortuna Royal once thrived. Bidding starts at eight million,” the auctioneer announced.
Paddles went up, and I watched who the key players were.
Not many and all the expected ones. They thought they were getting it for a ghost value and they thought they were getting away with taking this from us.
“Twenty million,” Ronan said and raised his paddle just as they’d nearly called it.
If they were going to attempt to block us from further construction, we were going to have to control more than just the crews and the union. Good thing for the Barone family, we were good at the real estate game. We were even better at calling the bluffs of assholes like Harrington.
I turned to see his face.
“What a photographic moment.”
I slipped my phone from my suit pocket and snapped a photo of him and gave him a little finger wave as the gavel hit the podium and we were the new owners of land that should have never left the family’s hands to start.
Too much mafia history sat on that land and too much money would be made to let it all go.
“Time to leave then?” I asked and stood up as they brought out some paintings. Good ways to hide money, but tonight we just didn’t need to deal with the land.
I reached for Margaux and pulled her with me, dragging her against Talon and Knox, maybe on purpose. I wanted to see her reaction.
“Let’s go play, pretty girl.”
Eyes followed us, but no one said shit. Not now. We’d just added a wildcard and now we’d just wait for the Thornes or the senator to catch up.
The doors opened without me having to push them.
“Thanks, guys, three more are coming.”
I knew my boys would follow.
Most of the people were in the room for bidding, but there were still plenty of rich but not too rich idiots milling about the food tables. I kept walking. Out here there were fewer looks.
“Jett, where are we going?”
I pulled her into me and stopped, letting my brothers catch up.
“Home. Where else can we play? Unless you want to wait for Carrow in the shadows?”
Some things I wouldn’t do. Force a girl into my bed or sway a girl’s choice on murdering her ex.