Bound By Debt (Sinful Mafia Daddies #7)

Chapter 1

EVA

“I’m gonna kill this kid.”

I feel the bass pounding through the soles of my shoes before I even hear the song.

My heels tap to the beat as I stride down the dark, smoky hallway.

It’s hard not to stumble back. The music, the bright strobes, and the thrum of the crowd swamp my senses, and for a moment I almost run back the way I came.

Instead, I forge ahead, pushing through club-goers in short dresses and tacky suits, ties pulled loose or draped around their necks. It’s hard to tell one face from another in this place, much less spot the person I’m looking for.

“Where the hell is Jordan?” I ask, finally spotting Damon’s light hair, messy as always, like he rolled out of bed and didn’t bother with a mirror. He’s hunched over a drink at the bar, his eyes half-lidded.

“Well, look at you,” Damon says, his eyes raking over me in a way he wouldn’t dare if he were sober. “Is that what’s hiding under all those baggy sweatshirts?”

“Shut the fuck up before I do it for you, Damon.”

I’m out of patience tonight, and I’m not dealing with this asshole whose creepy stares I’ve put up with since he and my brother became friends in ninth grade.

“Don’t shoot the messenger.” He shrugs, sipping whatever clear liquid is in his glass. “Shouldn’t you be thanking me for getting you out of your basement lair?”

With its sharp angles, dark leather, exposed steel, and crystal chandeliers, this club is not my scene. I spend my days in a windowless basement by choice, away from other people, surrounded by my monitors and the soft hum of their towers.

“Just tell me where the fuck he is, Damon. And aren’t you a little, I don’t know, underage to be at the bar? Or in this club at all?”

My throat already hurts from yelling to be heard over the music.

His only answer is a shrug. “Like they care here as long as they have my money.”

“I’m pretty sure they’ll care if it’s all over the news that Club Empire is serving minors. You think they’ll appreciate that?” I put all the menace I can into the threat.

Damon shakes his head and drops the glass onto the marble counter with a thud. “Whatever. I was going home anyway.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know where he is. Somewhere in the club. He went off with a few guys a while ago, and I haven’t seen him since.”

The club sprawls, with a busy dance floor past the bar. Never mind that there are surely private rooms I won’t be able to talk my way into, which means my idiot brother could be anywhere.

“Eva.”

I look back at my brother’s friend as he slides off the barstool. An edge of fear has replaced the bleariness in his eyes. “Be careful. Those guys looked like trouble, and you know what Jordan’s been into lately.”

I don’t know. Not exactly. But this club is rumored to have connections to the Kucherov Bratva, and that’s bad enough. They aren’t a bunch you want to cross. Kucherov.

“Fucking asshole,” I growl under my breath, but I’m not talking about the kid whose blonde head I see squeezing through the crowd to the exit, the guy I’m here to drag out of trouble. I couldn’t count on my fingers how many times I’ve had to save his ass.

Someone screams as the music changes, though it’s hard to hear the melody over the pounding club beat.

Then more screams join the first, and the crowd, which pushed me one way, surges back like a riptide, pulling me with it.

I’m too small to resist it, so all I can do is cover my head and try to stay on my feet so I don’t get trampled.

The crowd clears just in time for me to see a big man in a cheap suit lower his head and barrel into a tall kid with dark hair standing in the middle of the vacated dance floor.

“Jordan!”

The scream leaves my throat before I’m even aware of the impulse to yell my brother’s name. And then I’m running, heels be damned, launching myself at the guy who has the front of my brother’s shirt in one hand and is smashing his other fist repeatedly into my brother’s face.

I’m not even aware of what I’m doing as the thrumming of adrenaline and blood in my ears drowns out the music and any sense of what’s going on around me. All I know is I’m all flailing arms and legs, pounding on whatever I can reach to get the guy to let go of Jordan.

My brother stumbles away when the guy finally lets go, blood pouring from his now-crooked nose, an enormous bruise blossoming on one cheek.

“Jordan, run!”

I barely get the words out when a hand grabs my shoulder, wrenches me around so fast my breath catches, and flings me away like I weigh nothing.

Jordan’s shout of my name mixes with the sensation of flying through the air before I hit something, and pain explodes, blocking out every thought and sound as my vision blurs and goes gray.

Get up. The thought echoes through my head, but my body isn’t responding. Get up, get up, get up!

“Jordan…”

My head buzzes, my vision blurs, and it feels like someone took a hammer to my forehead. Struggling through the pain, I push myself to my knees, using the wall I’m slumped against as leverage.

“Jordan—” My voice is stronger now, but as the world tilts violently, I’m still not steady enough to get to my feet and join the fight again. Jordan has one of the guys on the ground, and it’s his turn to land blow after blow while the other guy tries to pull my brother off.

A shadow shifts beside me before morphing into a hulking figure rising above the three bodies tangled on the dance floor. I blink, then blink again, trying to banish the blur from my vision so I can see what’s happening.

Except it’s not a shadow, or a figment of my brain bouncing around my skull from hitting the wall. In the strobe lights, I can see the figure is a man in a suit wading into the fight.

I try to get to my feet, to regain my equilibrium. But I sway and fail, sinking back down, my head swimming and throbbing with pain.

“Jordan!” I scream again, dragging in the breath I’ve just regained. “Watch out!”

I know my little brother can’t take three against one. He can’t even take two against one. He’s getting his ass kicked no matter what.

The man takes a swing, and his fist connects with the stomach of the guy on top of Jordan. The guy doubles over, instantly immobilized, unable to fight back as the newcomer pulls him bodily from my brother.

Jordan stumbles away, the weight lifted from his back, and he rolls just as the first guy manages to lumber to his feet, arm already cocked, another blow for him. Jordan cringes back, hands held up to ward off a blow that never comes.

The beast of a man has the guy’s wrist in a death grip he can’t seem to break.

He thrashes and pulls until he looks into the face of the man holding him.

The guy’s eyes widen, his mouth opening in an “O,” before a blow lands under his chin.

His head snaps back, and he slumps to the floor, the shadowy figure releasing him.

The strobe lights disappear. The dance floor falls into dusky, smoky twilight as the music stops, leaving only echoes while the two bouncers from outside push through the crowd.

The man in the suit snaps out an order in Russian, get these two the fuck out of here, and they scramble to obey, dragging the two half-conscious men off the dance floor.

As I push myself up, I notice Jordan has also slipped away with the crowd.

“Damn it.” I gently probe the throbbing spot on my head, and my fingers come away bloody. The blood is already sliding down the side of my face, and I know if I look down, I’ll find it on my dress, too.

“Are you okay?”

The man in the suit is hovering over me, and I squint as I look up, figuratively traveling about a mile to see his face.

“Jesus, you’re tall,” I mutter under my breath before swallowing. “I’m fine. Just a little knocked around.”

“Did you pass out?” The man kneels so he’s right in front of me, and my breath catches.

The world slowly melts away as my senses settle on him. The noise, the flashing lights, and the crush of club-goers pressed in close around us all disappear. All I can see is the man crouched in front of me, the bright green of his eyes pulling me in so nothing else matters.

Holy hell, the guy is hot. His face is mostly in shadow, but I still see the tousled hair, the defined jaw, the almost elegant shape of his features. Never mind the width and breadth of his shoulders and chest now that he’s hovering so close.

We stare at each other so long, eyes locked, that I don’t know whether it’s been a minute or a year, until a flashing strobe light brings me back to reality.

“No,” I manage, swallowing against a suddenly desert-dry mouth. “I don’t think so, anyway.”

“Hmm.” The sound rumbles in his chest, and those same hands that, in two blows, demolished the guys attacking Jordan are suddenly holding my head gently as he touches the spot where it hit the wall.

“I think you’re going to live,” he says, a hint of amusement in his voice, before he unfolds to his full height.

I’m trying to steel myself to stand when he holds his hand out to me. I take it and let him pull me up. But it’s too fast, and the blood rushes from my head to my toes. I wobble on my legs, which feel like jelly, as the world tilts dangerously.

“Steady.”

His arm closes around my waist. It’s only to steady me, I know, but I’m enveloped by his scent and his presence, and I lean into it gratefully. Never mind the shiver that settles as a warm spot in the center of my stomach.

“Shall we patch you up and get you something for your headache?”

“Sure. Where?” I ask.

“The back office. There’s a first-aid kit there.”

“The back office?”

“The owner is a friend of mine,” he replies.

It’s not reassuring, but at least the guy who owns the place won’t have us arrested when he finds us in his office.

The crowd parts before us as he leads me to the far side of the club, melting away the way oil repels water. It’s odd, and the attention makes me uncomfortable, as all eyes follow our slow progression.