Chapter 13 What Could Go Wrong?
What Could Go Wrong?
Tess to Kai: You’re not as grouchy as you pretend to be. [delivered]
Tess
It’s not even been a week since Jake tried to kill me and instead became… a tragic victim of bad lighting.
Get it? Bad lighting? I killed him with a lamp?
No?
Just me?
How has my life imploded so much in so little time?
My new brother stormed in, gave his instructions, then left twelve hours later, and I’m now packing because I’m being shipped off to some safe house for the foreseeable future.
Oh!
And did I mention that the man who now has a star spot in all my wet dreams is coming with me? The same man who sometimes likes to kiss me, and fuck me with his tongue, then other times wants nothing to do with me?
What could go wrong?
“We need to get moving,” Kai says, leaning casually against my doorway. His arms are crossed, his expression bored, like he’d rather be anywhere else.
“I’m ready.” I sling my one bag over my shoulder. It holds everything I managed to salvage from my flat before I left—which isn’t much.
We head down the stairs, and a sudden thought hits me like a brick to the face. “Oh my god!” I gasp.
Kai glances over his shoulder, his brow arching. “What now?”
“The door to my flat!” I blurt out, the words tumbling out in a rush. “It’s broken! Anyone could be walking in there and stealing my stuff. Not that it was Fort Knox before, but now it’s basically open house. I mean, it’s—”
“Tess.”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
“Don’t tell me to shut up!” I snap, glaring at the back of his head. “It’s a valid concern. I know I don’t have much, but it’s all I’ve got, and—”
“For fuck’s sake.” He stops and turns, pinning me with an exasperated look. “I sent Nate to fix your door the same day.”
Wait. What?
“You… did?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you do that?”
Kai sighs, like he regrets even telling me. “So your things would be safe until you can go back.”
My heart does an annoying little flutter at his words. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.” His frown deepens. “Can we go now, or do you have another crisis brewing?”
I bite my lip to hide the smile threatening to break free. “No crisis. Let’s go.”
But the butterflies don’t stop somersaulting the whole way down the stairs.
We trudge outside. I’m expecting Kai to drive us so I’m rendered speechless to see a sleek black car idling outside his drive and two guys who could be characters in Men in Black standing outside it.
“Ms Russo,” one of them says, nodding his head politely and opening the door.
“Russo?”
“That’s your fathers last name,” Kai whispers, placing a hand on my lower back and nudging me towards the car.
I slip in, then Kai scoots me over so he can join me in the back while the two henchmen get in the front. I’m trying to process what just happened, but all I can manage is, “Wait—am I about to be driven around in a car by two mysterious men in suits like some sort of mafia princess?”
“You are a mafia princess, Hurricane,” Kai reminds me. His tone is casual, but I can see the tension in his eyes: he’s unsettled.
I grumble but don’t reply as the car starts up. A glance behind me shows another car, the same make as this one, following behind. “This is crazy,” I mutter under my breath.
The drive drags on for two hours, with Kai lost in his thoughts, staring out the window blatantly ignoring me. Me? I’m stuck, staring at him like a creep. We had to leave our phones behind, which means no distractions—just me and my growing fascination with him.
I don’t even get it. What is it about him?
Sure, he’s ridiculously good-looking, but it’s more than that.
It's how he helped me on the worst night of my life, a stranger to me at the time. How every morning this week, he’s handed me a cup of coffee—even when he’s been pissed at me.
And how, when things got ugly with the Russians, he didn’t hesitate to show up for me.
Oh. Right. I guess I do know why I like him.
Goddamn, infuriating, irresistible man.
“We’re here,” henchman number one—I’ve nicknamed him Grumpy—grunts. I tried to initiate conversation with him and henchman two—Dopey—on the journey but Grumpy just looked bored and Dopey looked like he wanted to laugh at my rambling but didn’t know how.
“Thank you, kind Sirs.” I get out the car and give them a curtsy before turning to look at my new home for the foreseeable future.
In front of me stands a pretty unremarkable building. It looks like a typical countryside home—weathered yellowish paint, a crooked old slate roof, and hanging flower baskets under the front porch that leads up to a wooden door.
Surrounding us is what feels like miles of green space and a woodland area even further than that.
“What makes this place so safe?” I ask, looking around, half-expecting no one to answer me.
The car that followed us rolls to a stop, and four more men step out, all dressed in black, just like the ones from earlier.
“She wants to know how secure this place is,” Dopey says, a grin playing at his lips as he speaks to one of the other Men in Black.
The one I’m now calling Happy laughs, picks up a small stone from the ground, and casually tosses it onto the front porch.
For a moment, nothing happens. Then, just as the stone hits the step, a sudden, sharp sound rings out loud enough for me to need to cover my ears.
Happy grins. “That’s just one of the little touches around here. Motion sensors, infrared cameras, and a perimeter that’s tighter than a bank vault. A stone’s enough to set off half the system. If anyone other than us tried that, they’d be facing a whole lot more than just an alarm blaring.”
I glance at the porch again, now illuminated by the light, my eyes catching sight of several more sensors disguised as part of the architecture. “So... no one just walks in?”
“Not without a lot of trouble,” Happy says, his tone light, but there’s an edge to it now. “And trust me, you wouldn’t want to try it.”
Dopey chuckles behind me. "You just became a priority, sweetheart."
I stare at the stone on the porch, knowing that anyone trying to break in would be walking into a full-on security nightmare. This place isn’t just protected—it’s locked down tighter than a secret government facility.
Two of the men head inside to check the place for any security threats and once they give the all clear the rest of us head inside.
Grumpy leads the tour, gesturing to each room with a sense of pride, though his expression barely changes. While the exterior of the building looks a little rundown—weathered stone and peeling paint—the inside is a stark contrast. It’s a modern architectural dream.
The walls are a sleek, minimalistic white, accented by dark wood beams that add warmth to the open, airy space. The floors gleam with polished tile, and the entire place has been renovated with a blend of industrial chic and contemporary luxury.
The living room is open and spacious, with an oversized sofa facing a modern fireplace with a sleek black frame.
There’s an enormous flat-screen TV mounted above it, though it doesn’t dominate the room.
The kitchen—easily visible from the living area—has state-of-the-art appliances, the countertops made of smooth, gleaming granite.
What I’m trying to say is; Oh, she fancy.
Grumpy takes a turn, pointing out the dining area where a glass table sits beneath an abstract chandelier, the kind that looks like something pulled from a high-end design magazine.
There’s even a wine cellar hidden behind a glass wall, its shelves stocked with what looks like a serious collection. Wine drunk, here I come.
I expect him to show us upstairs, but instead, Grumpy presses a hidden panel on the wall. With a soft click, a concealed door swings open, revealing a staircase that descends into the depths of the house.
“This is the panic room,” he says, his voice cool and matter of fact. “If you ever hear the alarm, you head straight here. It only opens with our fingerprints, so no one else can get in.” He lets the words hang in the air for a moment, then swiftly closes the door, sealing it without a sound.
He jerks his head towards the upstairs. “You guys have the house to yourselves. We’ll be rotating watch shifts.”
“Where do you guys stay when you’re not guarding?” I ask, raising an eyebrow, still trying to take it all in.
Grumpy doesn’t miss a beat. “There’s a second house in the garden for us.”
I blink, stunned. “How did Enzo get all this set up so quickly? Do you guys just have safe houses randomly scattered around the country?”
Grumpy stares at me like I’ve just asked if unicorns are real. “Yes.”
Right. Okay.
“If you need anything, you let one of us know. We’ll be making a run into a nearby town for food and essentials later.”
Grumpy leaves without another word, and suddenly it’s just me and Kai, the two of us standing awkwardly at the bottom of the stairs.
“After you,” he says, motioning for me to head up, his voice calm, like this is all completely normal.
Upstairs, there’s a short hallway, but it’s not much of a hall—just a small landing with a single door. I hesitate for a second before opening it, half-expecting some weird layout with more doors beyond it. But no.
It’s a bedroom. Just one bedroom.
And one bed.
I stand frozen in the doorway, taking in the ridiculously oversized bed, the neatly made sheets, and the obvious implication.
This is just perfect.
Kai
There’s one bed.
Of course there is.
Because it’s not enough that I’ve somehow had to uproot my entire life in the space of a week.
“I’ll take the couch,” I say to Tess as we stand in the doorway together, both of us with our eyes fixed on the bed.
There’s little I want to do more right now than to have her writhing beneath me on those sheets, my cock pressing into her tight pussy, her moaning my name—
Stop. It.
I can feel my dick hardening at the thought of her red hair fanning out on the pillows, sweat beading on her silky skin with each thrust of my hips taking her higher, closer—
Nope.
I high-tail it down the stairs, sprinting like a bat out of hell before she replies.
This is going to be so, so bad.
I can’t want her. It might seem illogical to most—why not just give in to the fire raging through me, to the desire I know she feels too? But I can’t.
Everything about Tess is wrong for me. She’s messy. She’s unpredictable. She’s loud in every way—her voice, her emotions, her presence. She doesn’t fit into the neat, controlled lines I’ve drawn around my life. She makes my mind spin, and I can’t afford that.
I’ve spent years building walls around myself, perfecting the art of control. Control keeps me steady. It keeps me safe. Tess doesn’t just chip at those walls; she bulldozes right through them without even trying.
And that’s the problem. Tess is chaos. I’ve lived through chaos before, and it nearly destroyed me. I can’t let it in again, no matter how much I want her.
Because if I do, I might not come back from it.