Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
Luis let Maxine walk through the door of his penthouse first, then thrust her stupid cousin in after her. Tomas followed silently, more bedraggled than he’d ever seen him.
“Sit,” he growled at Easton, pointing to one of the couches in the living room where Milo was already relaxing after what might’ve been the most ridiculous night of their lives.
“Where’s Frankie?” Maxine demanded, her voice hoarse from some mild smoke inhalation.
Somehow she still managed to keep that icy lawyer facade despite the fact that she was covered in soot and one side of her face was streaked with blood — not her own but some guy who’d have to learn to live without his spleen.
Milo nodded toward the door of Luis’s bedroom. “I told her to rest.”
“Was she hurt?” His muscles felt too tight, everything in him stretched to his limit as he awaited his brother’s answer.
Luis had somehow lost his phone during the mad brawl that ensued after his narrow victory, making it impossible to check in. He’d managed to catch a glimpse of Milo carrying her out, so he hadn’t been nearly as panicked as he otherwise might’ve been, but that didn’t mean she was uninjured.
Any number of terrible things could’ve happened to her in that basement slaughterhouse. That was exactly why he’d ordered his brother to guard her rather than stand by his side. After Malachi had him stabbed, he had a gut feeling that something would go dangerously awry.
Malachi had made a terrible mistake, and it wasn’t just trying to shoot Luis. In publicly tossing aside the rules of the Games, which held that the winner’s right to the prize couldn’t be contested, he’d not only started a catastrophic brawl but damaged his reputation severely.
Syndicate vampires couldn’t claim to have much by way of honor, but what they did possess, they held sacred. Malachi had spat in the face of that threadbare honor. There wouldn’t be a soul in the syndicate who didn’t hear of it by dusk.
Milo leaned forward to brace his elbows on his knees. “No. Took a knock and might have some scrapes on her knees, but she’s fine.” A quick glance at the blood soaking through his shirt made Milo’s lips thin. “I’m calling the doc. You need real fucking stitches, idiot.”
“Fine,” he grunted, already walking toward his bedroom. “If Easton so much as twitches, one of you shoot him.”
Ignoring the sputtering, babbling cause of everyone’s problems, Luis stalked down the hallway to throw open the doors of his bedroom.
Truthfully, he didn’t really call the penthouse home. It was more of a crash pad where he brought his subs and sometimes hosted parties. Mostly he called the Amauri Estate home, chaotic and filled with nosy family as it was.
It was only after he stumbled across his new housecleaner that he began spending any real time there — and it was only Francesca’s presence that made it feel like a home.
It was a sight to behold, seeing his girl bundled under some of his blankets on his bed.
She propped herself up against the headboard and had wrapped the plain gray comforter around her shoulders. Her face was all streaked makeup and blood peeking out from her little blanket cocoon, but there were no visible bruises or cuts.
Francesca watched him enter silently. Her eyes looked huge in her slightly ashen face.
He closed and locked the door, more for his peace of mind than any real worry that someone would dare to enter. At that moment, he didn’t feel the pain of his numerous cuts and contusions. There was only the profound relief of seeing her safe where she belonged.
And mine.
Because he’d won. Fair and square. One lucky swipe across Bite’s chest and it was done. No one, not even Malachi, could take her from him now.
Luis sucked in a calming breath through his somewhat bloody nose. His steps were measured as he crossed the room to approach the bed. Her wide eyes tracked him but she didn’t say a word.
All he wanted to do was crawl onto the bed, press her down into the mattress, and fall asleep with her protected under his bulk. But they had business to finish, so that would have to wait.
Sinking onto the edge of the mattress, he demanded, “Are you okay?”
In a classic Francesca move, she deflected, “I’m not the one bleeding.”
“You’re the only one I care about,” he shot back. Patting his thigh, he ordered, “Now be a good girl and come here.”
She made an adorably disgruntled face. “You’re really annoying.”
“So I’ve heard.” He patted his thigh again.
And gods bless her, she did it. Luis held his breath as she shed her blanket cocoon, revealing the devastating development that she’d apparently abandoned her dress in favor of pilfering one of his undershirts.
He watched, hypnotized, as she crawled toward him in all her silky-legged, disheveled glory, and climbed into his lap. If she cared about the bloody, filthy state of him, she didn’t show it. Francesca threw her arms around his neck and pressed herself as tight to him as she was able.
“Are Max and Easton all right?”
He let out a noisy sigh. “Maxine came to her cousin’s rescue. Her hair’s a mess, but otherwise she’s fine. They’re both in the living room right now with Milo and Tomas.”
Curling more tightly into him, she asked, “What happened?”
“Malachi didn’t like being a loser,” he answered, his voice dropping with cold rage.
“When his man lost, he had someone try to shoot me. Tomas saw what was happening and fucked up the man’s aim, but once the shot went off, everyone flipped the fuck out.
Don’t ask me who started the fire or why, but I’m pretty sure half the mansion burned down while everyone else was busy throwing punches.
I had a feeling some shit like that might happen, so I put my brother on bodyguard duty. ”
“Someone tried to drag me out,” she told him, shuddering.
Luis stiffened. A sharp feeling cut through him, carving open a path for something hot and volatile to spill out. “What?”
Francesca nodded. “I was pulled out of the box. I didn’t recognize the guy, but when I broke one of his fingers, I saw it had a snake tattoo a lot like the ones on Malachi and his proxy.”
Motherfucker.
A rush of useless adrenaline pumped through his veins, as searing as acid.
It was a distraction, he realized.
Malachi hadn’t been trying to kill him. That wasn’t his main goal, anyway. The whole spectacle had been a distraction from his real aim: snatching Francesca from right under all their noses.
Trying to find some way to speak around the rage, he rasped, “You broke his finger, huh?”
“It was less effective than kicking him in the balls,” she admitted.
A startled laugh burst out of him. Tightening his arms around her, he praised, “Good girl. Very good. That was exactly the right thing to do. Fight dirty until you can escape or help comes. Fuck fighting fair. Go for the balls.”
Despite the way he could feel her sitting up a little straighter under the glow of his praise, she argued, “Your brother did the real work. He had a bat with him and— Luis, have you ever seen one of those videos where people tie a bunch of rubber bands around a watermelon? It was like that.”
He winced. Pushing her head into the crook of his neck like he could retroactively protect her from the horror of what she’d witnessed, he grated, “I wish you hadn’t seen that.”
“I wish I hadn’t agreed to do the Games. None of this would’ve happened if I listened to Max when she told me to say no.”
“We can’t live in regret,” he warned her. “It’s done. You’re safe. That’s all I care about.”
In a muffled voice she confessed, “I was worried you might die.”
His chest constricted sharply enough that for a second he wondered if he was actually dying. It would be fucking embarrassing to meet Grim because of a heart attack, of all things, after the night he’d had.
Luis wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on the crown of her head.
The tightness in his chest loosened a little, allowing him to breathe in the scent and warmth of her.
She smelled a lot like way too many other vampires for his liking, but a shower would have to wait until their business was done.
“You think I’d let anyone kill me when I had you rooting for me?” He tsked. “Nah. I always find a way to win.”
Soft fingers curled into the short hair at the base of his neck, sending a shiver down his spine. Holding her like this felt a lot like trust — the most intoxicating gift one could give a man like him.
“I’m glad you won,” she whispered.
Luis found it hard to breathe again. He was beginning to suspect he’d broken a rib.
“Thank you, kitten,” he murmured, rubbing the underside of his bearded chin against her hair.
She’d let it down from its elegant updo, allowing the strands to curl around her shoulders.
Not caring about the fact that they were a little starchy with hairspray, he ran his fingers through the locks with great relish.
Finally, he thought.
She rubbed the back of his neck in a way that felt a lot like she was trying to comfort herself. “So, what now?”
“Now, we finish what you started.”
Francesca pulled back a little to give him a quizzical look. “What—”
Raising his eyebrows — and ignoring the way one of them definitely needed a stitch or two — he reminded her, “We have a contract to sign, remember?”
She blinked owlishly up at him. “But…”
Hooking his arm under her bare legs, he stood up from the bed. She yelped, contracting a little in his arms, and demanded, “Are you serious?”
“As a vampire bite,” he answered grimly. “I fought and nearly died for that damn thing. I’m not letting you wiggle out of it.”
Her lithe legs kicked as she squirmed to be free. “I thought you didn’t care about my blood!”
“I never said that. Of course I want to taste you, kitten. I want to taste every little bit of you.” He looked down at her with a hungry expression. “But that’s not the part of the contract I care about.”