Chapter 23 Reign
REIGN
Ihad never been more scared in my life than the moment I saw Jamie near my fucking bastard of a father.
And she was the one who had put herself there.
I fucking knew she hadn’t planned on that run-in when she decided to seek out her father, but that was what happened. Fucking hell.
I ran my hand up and down her bare back, taking in the solid feel and warmth of the girl in my arms. She had been quiet since she came, her face resting on my chest, and her arms wrapped loosely around me.
I leaned down and pressed a kiss on the top of her head, feeling her move a little and snuggle further into me.
My heart reacted to the simple move, and I wondered if there would ever be a time when she didn’t affect me so much.
“Are you okay?” I asked softly.
She nodded. “I’m just a little tired.”
And I got the feeling she meant she was tired more from everything that was happening than she was physically tired.
If only I could help her carry all that weight on her shoulders.
“Reign?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“What are we going to do?”
“About?”
“About everything. About Caine. About my dad and your dad. About this obviously impending war between the Italians and the Russians.”
And whether or not we wanted to be, we were right in the middle of it all.
I tightened my arms around her.
The easiest thing to do was to leave everything behind and let everyone handle this by themselves—or let them kill each other until there wasn’t a Caparelli or a Mahankov left in all of New York.
But we knew leaving wasn’t easy. And there wasn’t a chance she would leave her brother behind, nor could I leave Kingston, even if I didn’t exactly trust him. My loyalty had shifted from our father to him a long time ago, and had only cemented when Caine approached us for the first time.
It pushed me toward his side against everyone else, including our sperm donor.
And then there was my mom. She would never leave Dad, even if I wished she would.
“Why don’t we just not worry about that? Why don’t we just take it one day at a time?”
“One day at a time,” she repeated. Then she pushed off my chest and looked at me. I tucked a stray hair that had fallen over her face behind her ear. “Does Caine really intend to kill my dad?”
I didn’t respond because I didn’t know how to tell her without making it hurt.
Her face fell at my silence.
“Do you really not trust your brother?”
“I did… I do. I have trusted him my entire life, but then again, I have also trusted my dad, but now…”
“What does your gut tell you?”
“That Caine probably has a good reason for his betrayal?”
I nodded.
“And it’s not going to be something I like, will it?”
I cupped her cheek and brought her face closer to me. “Secrets always have a way of coming out, no matter what.”
She shook her head. “I don’t like this.”
“I know, baby.”
Her bottom lip trembled before she lay her head back down on my chest. “I want to go home. Back to your home,” she said.
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” I said. But despite her words, she made no move to get off me. I went back to wrapping my arms around her, letting her lie there until she was ready to move.
I would have stayed there and waited forever if that was what she needed.
And it was just as simple as that.
I walked into the factory, where the Bratva used to store our goods before shipping them out for transport.
It was busy, and my eyes moved around the place until I found Fabian nearby.
He was talking to one of the lower-ranking men. I stayed where I was, leaning my back against the wall and watching him, waiting for him to finish.
It didn’t take him long to feel my eyes on him, and he looked up.
He said something to the man he was with before walking away and heading over to me. He stood next to me and leaned against the wall.
“Is everything ready?” I asked.
He nodded. “Is this the way you want everything to play out?”
“Yes,” I said. We were going to let the Bratva take the hit this time. Last time, we managed to intercept the Caparelli with their droppings, raising the suspicion that there might be a rat among them. This time, it was the Bratva’s turn.
We were going to incite this war, one way or another.
“It’s still not too late for you, Makar, and Baran to back out,” I said.
I had never asked them to follow me when I decided to betray the Bratva with Kingston. It was just something that happened. We grew up together, and we were all taught not to fear death, not to fear anything, and for the most part, I could say that was true about me.
But now I had Jamie, and fuck if I wasn’t scared of something happening to her, and I didn’t like the thought of something happening to Fabian, Makar, or Baran either.
“We go where you go,” Fabian said without hesitation.
I nodded, already expecting that answer.
I reached over and placed my hand on his shoulder briefly, showing my silent appreciation.
“Will you be in there when the Italians come for the raid tonight?”
He nodded, his lips tilting up in a half smile. “Caine already promised to make it look extra believable with me, whatever the fuck that means, the fucking crazy bastard that he is.”
I smiled a little.
“How is Jamie?” he asked casually.
I turned toward him.
“What?” he said. “It’s just a question. No need to look so goddamn possessive.”
“She’s good,” I said with a grunt.
“Is that it, then? She’s yours, and that’s all there is to it?”
Again, I grunted. I wasn’t about to get into what I felt for Jamie. That wasn’t the kind of shit we talked about. And it was as he said, there was a part of me, the possessive part, that didn’t want to talk about Jamie with other men.
But hell if I didn’t like the fucking sound of that. She was mine, and that was all.
“What makes her different?”
I frowned at him. “And what makes you so interested?”
He shrugged. “Just curious. I’ve never seen you like this with a girl. And the fact that you willingly walked into that warehouse alone, where Tito was holding her, says something.”
I didn’t respond to that. And moments later, I didn’t care to because my father had just walked into the warehouse, with Kingston on one side of him, and even more surprisingly, Tito Costa on his other side.
Fabian and I exchanged a look before I pushed us back further until we were no longer in view.
While Tito hadn’t seen Fabian, he had seen me, and he would surely recognize me on sight.
The fucker was like a fucking cockroach.
He realized he no longer had a place with the Caparelli, so now he was working with the Bratva.
Anything to survive.
I pulled out my phone and took a picture of him standing next to dear old Dad before moving along the wall toward the back door, glancing at Fabian one last time before getting out of there.
It didn’t take long to get back to my car.
I climbed in but didn’t drive off. Instead, I took out the photo I had taken, sent it to the burner phone I kept in my car’s glove compartment, and used it to send out a mass text message.
That way, no one would be able to link me to the message, and it wouldn’t take long for word to reach the Caparellis.
If they were hunting him before for cheating them out of their drugs, they would double their efforts to find him now, once they learned he was working for the Bratva.
I put the phone away and was about to head out of there when my phone chimed with a message from Kingston.
I had barely read the first one when a second message came in from him.
Kingston: He knows.
Kingston: Take Jamie to one of the safe houses and stay there for now.
I didn’t ask him who the he he was referring to was.
Either Dad knew about Jamie and me, or Tito finally figured out who I was. It didn’t matter which.
I quickly pulled my car out of there and put in a call to Jamie.
It went straight to voicemail.
Fucking hell.
I tried calling her again, and it was the same fucking thing.
I pulled up the app I used for tracking her.
At least she had her shoes on this time. She was moving away from the apartment. Where the hell was she going?
I thought I told her not to leave the fucking place without me. And I fucking knew she was leaving of her own accord just from pulling up the video surveillance I had at my place.
Once I made sure she was safe, I was fucking reddening her ass.
She obviously needed a firmer hand if she had this much trouble listening.
Fucking hell.
I stepped on the gas pedal and rushed toward her location.
A call came through just as I pulled away from the property.
I frowned when I saw Caine’s name flashing on the screen and picked up the call. It connected to the Bluetooth in my car, his voice ringing out.
“You’re not hurt?”
“No,” I answered slowly, knowing he wasn’t asking because he was worried about me.
“Then why the hell does Jamie think you are?”
“What?” I asked, getting a bad feeling.
“She got a message with your picture in it, showing you’re hurt. Whoever sent the message told her to come alone.”
“And you told her to fucking stay put, didn’t you?” I asked.
“Of course I did. She hung up before I could reason with her.”
Fucking hell.
That was why she left the apartment.
She was walking straight into a fucking trap.