Desire Reclaimed (Bone’s Brotherhood #2)

Prologue

The Fight

Nico

Icould lie beside my son for hours and watch him breathe. His curly black hair is a wild mass on his head. His golden-brown skin is flushed as he sleeps with his mouth slightly parted. Noah is only five months old, but he is my entire world. My redemption.

I’ll make sure that the cruelty of the world will never touch him.

The things I did to get to this point in my life were all worth it.

All the lives I’ve taken, all the late-night deals I’ve made, all the money and the sleepless nights—he and his mother are my prizes.

I didn’t deserve either of them, but I wasn’t letting them go.

They brought out the human in me. A part of me I buried in a pile of ashes when I was only eleven years old.

A part of me I lost to the hardness I’ve had to develop in order to survive.

The creaking of the bedroom door alerts me that my other half has entered the room. Without taking my eyes off my son, I speak to my wife.

“I swear I don’t care who says otherwise, we have the most handsome kid in the entire world.”

She’s silent for a moment. “I think you’re right….. Saint.”

The moment the name comes out of her mouth, my entire body goes rigid. Tiffany has just called me a name that was never supposed to slip from her lips. Looking away from Noah, I turn to my wife.

Her beautiful face is flushed, and dried tears track down her cheeks. Her eyes are red and puffy. Clutched in her hands down at her side is her cellphone.

“What did you just call me?”

Although my voice comes out calm and collected, a fire is slowly coming to life under the surface. A fire that she was never to know about. One that I’ve learned to tame around her.

“I called you Saint.” My chest burns at her words. “That is your name, isn’t it?”

Slowly, allowing the simmering fire to die down a little, I roll away from my son. Getting to the side of the bed, I sit up, my feet flat on the ground. I roll my head around on my shoulders to ease the growing tension.

“No, that’s not my name. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I lie as I climb to my feet. “Come here, tell me what’s…” My words die on my tongue when I reach for her, and she takes a step back.

From the first day I met her in that club, she has never pulled away from me. The roaring in my ears has me closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. The anger and rage that always lie so close to my surface want to come out.

“Not now. Never around her.” I tell myself.

Once I feel I have successfully coaxed the beast in me back under the surface, I open my eyes. New tears are streaming down her face. The roaring in my ears grows louder, and my chest burns even more.

“How could you?” she sobs.

“Baby, I….”

She tosses her phone at my chest. I catch it before it can hit the ground. Looking at the screen, there is a still shot of me in my wedding tux, standing before a bound Marcus. Written across the image are the words. Let me introduce you to Saint.

My heart races, and the roaring in my ears grows louder.

Before hitting the play symbol, I already know what this video will detail.

Even knowing the outcome, I still press play.

My voice comes through the speakers. Everything I admitted to doing that day is replayed.

How I set Marcus up, how I hired the guy in the coffee shop, and even me changing out her birth control.

All of my sins are recorded in this video.

When I finally get to the part where I stand from my seat and point my gun at Marcus’s head, I stop the recording and shut my eyes.

The moment I do, everything in me catches on fire.

My fist is so tight down at my side that if I had nails, they would be embedded into my skin.

Who the fuck sent this to her? And who out here has this video? My brain is working overtime trying to figure out how to solve this bullshit problem.

Opening my eyes, I look back at my wife, not sure how to approach this with her.

“Before you—”

“—You killed him.”

Her concern for him has me gritting my teeth before responding. “He had another debt that needed to be paid. He’d offered you as collateral again, but this time it wasn’t to me.”

Admittedly, I didn’t know that when I killed him, but that shit doesn’t matter.

I can tell my response has shocked her, but she quickly shakes it away. She storms past me toward our closet. I follow behind her.

“Killing Marcus is not even half the problem.” She yanks her suitcase from the top rack of our custom closet.

She tosses the luggage onto the closet island and opens it up. I watch in wonder, trying to figure out exactly what the hell she thinks she’s doing with that.

“I’m not understanding the issue.”

She turns to me and narrows her eyes. Even with dried tears on her face and her long braids in a messy topknot on top of her head, she is still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

“Let’s see, you lied to me, kidnapped me, manipulated me, and tricked me into being with you.”

“I didn’t trick you.”

She rolls her eyes and goes back to yanking clothes off the hanger and stuffing them into the suitcase.

“Then what do you call it?” She stops what she’s doing and glares at me. “Everything I thought was real was a lie. You kidnapped me and drugged me.”

I wave away her concern. “They gave you a fucking sedative. Nyquil is stronger than the shit they gave you. You were never in harm.”

“It doesn’t fucking matter,” she shouts.

She looks away as more tears fall. “Everything you did, all the tricks and the schemes, is what brought us together. Hell, even my son is a ploy by you. How do I even know any of this is real? I have a fucking child with you, Nico.” She wipes at her fast-falling tears.

My hands tighten at my side with the urge to grab her and pull her into me, but I know now isn’t the right time for that. There is a clawing of panic in my throat. My heart is racing.

“Everything we have is real, Tiff.” Her narrowed gaze tells me she doesn’t believe me. “You’re right. I pulled a lot of stunts to get your attention, but I never took your free will. Every decision you made was your own. I may have set the scene, but you chose the outcome.”

I don’t explain that I would have continued to set and change the scene in order to get this outcome. The truth is, I wasn’t going to let Tiffany go. While I never forced her to come to me, I would have continued to play my games until she made the decision to be mine.

She watches me for a minute before going over to her suitcase and closing it up.

“I’m leaving.”

She grabs the suitcase off the island and places it at her feet. I look her over, taking in her red eyes and tear-stained cheeks. The pain and mistrust staring back at me from her dark eyes should have concerned me. However, only a chuckle slips out of my mouth.

“I understand you need time. Get some rest. I’ll sleep in the guest room tonight.” I turn to leave.

“No.” Her sharp voice has me turning back to her. “I’m taking my baby and I’m leaving.”

The roaring is back in my head, and my chest tightens. The fire that was once simmering has flared back up inside me.

I shake my head and run my thumb over my bottom lip. “See, now you got me fucked up.”

She takes a nervous step back.

“I don’t think you understand what those vows meant. For better or for worse, Tiff. ‘Til death do us part’.”

Her nostrils flare as she lifts her chin. “So what, you’re going to kill me too now, Nico?”

I take in the woman before me. The woman that I love. The woman who is truly my rib, my sanity, and my light. She looks nothing like the woman who only a year ago told me she loved me, that she would never leave me.

“I love you too damn much for that to be a real question.” I can tell my response relieves some of her fears. That shows just how much this woman doesn’t know me. I’d never hurt her.

“But just because I won’t hurt you don’t mean that I won’t bleed this got damn world to keep you. You know me as Nico, Tiff. You don’t ever want to meet Saint. Now put those clothes back and put that suitcase up.”

I turn and leave the closet after that. I needed to put space between my wife and I.

Twelve Hours Later….

The clock on my wall reads after midnight. The house is quiet, quieter than it has been in the year since Tiffany and I’ve been married. I hate the fucking silence.

The memory of Tiffany’s tear stained face this morning plays back in my mind.

Glancing at the picture on my desk of her in that gorgeous white dress, her thick curly hair straightened and pinned back off her face.

She looked so beautiful and bright that day.

The last time I saw her, that light was nowhere in her eyes. I can admit I’m the cause of it.

The letter on my desk catches my attention. Picking it up, I read the scribbled letters once again.

Hello, Niccolo Basille or should I say Nicholas Roberts,

You don’t know me, but I promise, before it’s all said and done you will. For now, you can call me the Horseman. My sole purpose is to destroy everything you and your brothers created. Everything that was gained after the four of you destroyed William Bone’s school for boys.

You, and your brothers built your empires off the backs of those young boys you left behind in that hell hole. I’m here to claim their reparations.

The rapture is coming for you, Nicholas, starting with your pretty new wife.

Balling the letter up, I toss it on my desk. Someone out there knew our secret. A secret, my brothers and I swore to take to our graves.

A soft knock comes to my office door, grabbing my attention.

“Come in,” I call out.

Roc, Ghost, and Jake enter my office. Immediately, I can tell by the forlorn look on their faces that they don’t have good news for me.

“I’m sorry, Boss. We can’t find Tiff and little man anywhere. Mira has no idea where she is, and we’ve had people watching her house all day.

“What about Mr. Best?”

Roc shakes his head. “He has no clue. He’s still on that singles cruise.”

Picking up the glass of scotch off my desk, I take a sip as I allow the weight of what’s happened to lay on my shoulders. Not only do I have some fucker calling himself the Horseman, threatening to take down my empire, but my wife, the love of my life, took my son this morning and left me.

The Horseman sent her the video of Marcus being killed. The fury I’ve been keeping bottled up inside me fills my limbs like fire. I toss the glass of scotch in my hand against the wall over my men’s heads. They all duck just in time to miss being hit.

“Find. My. Fucking. Wife,” I growl through gritted teeth.

“Sure thing, Boss,” Ghost says.

The men quickly exit, leaving me alone with my silence again.

Slowly, the fury that I buried deep inside me long ago starts to fill me up again. Gone is the levelheaded businessman that contained his craziness for his wife and son. Standing to my feet, I twist my neck from side to side. Tugging on my suit jacket, I release a sigh.

Until Tiffany and my son are back beside me, all hell will break loose. I’ll be only Saint from here on out. Let the hunt begin.