Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
In hindsight, he could really only blame himself.
He hadn’t told her she couldn’t leave the penthouse.
He’d assumed that she’d want to rest after the chaos of the previous night, and perhaps she’d take the opportunity to blow some of his cash as a misguided way to annoy him.
Luis had even deliberately forgone having new clothes delivered for her because he wanted to be extra certain she’d relax.
Gods forbid the woman take a bath or nap on the couch, apparently.
He’d just been leaving the Amauri Estate when he passed Dahlia and Marietta entering. He knew they’d gone to see her, so he was a little surprised that they’d come back so soon.
Even more surprising was the news they relayed to him. Francesca hadn’t stayed home.
It was all very funny to them until they saw the look on his face.
It wasn’t their fault, though he wanted to blame them.
Dahlia was still new to their world, and Marietta, though fierce in her own way, had been sheltered from the worst of it.
They didn’t know the catastrophic error they’d made until they watched the fear pass over his face.
Francesca was almost as valuable as Dahlia had been before she took Felix as her mate — and twice as vulnerable.
Keeping her in the penthouse wasn’t just about the raw possessive urge that pounded him every second of the night. It was about keeping her safe, especially after the conversation he’d had with Felix.
Fear burned away his normal good humor as he tore through the streets of United Washington.
It blinded him to everything else. Street lights, one-ways, and pedestrians were functionally nonexistent to him.
It felt as though he barely breathed the entire ride.
Until he got eyes on her again, until she was in his arms, all he could see in his mind’s eye was one of Malachi’s men dragging her away.
Luis loved his brother. He loved his parents. He even loved all of his annoying cousins.
But he’d never felt a protectiveness like he did when he skidded to a stop in front of her apartment building, as if the world would fall to pieces if she so much as cut a finger.
He figured he’d have a fight on his hands when he told her she would need to lay low with him for a while, but it didn’t occur to him that she’d scamper away from him immediately.
Luckily for them both he’d thought to make a special stop before he earlier in the evening to pick up what he’d need to make sure she never ran away again.
The man smoking on the street gawked at him but didn’t protest as he stormed through the apartment building’s doors.
Normally he did his best to know next to nothing about his partners.
He didn’t send guards to stalk them or hack into their bank accounts to secretly deposit money or send outrageous gifts like some people he knew.
It helped keep everything impersonal. Almost businesslike.
The less he knew, the less chance his instincts would begin to stir.
But he’d broken his own rules with Francesca. One of them, anyway. Early on he’d found her address.
That was why he wasn’t at all surprised by the less than luxurious accommodations and how he knew to take the stairs rather than try the elevator. She lived in a speck of a studio on the third floor at the end of a long, musky hallway, which he barreled down like a thunderstorm.
He spied her immediately.
Dressed in all black, her hair pulled into a tight bun at the base of her neck, and wearing smoky shadow around her eyes, she looked almost unrecognizable from the woman who’d been his housekeeper for months and in his bed just that evening.
He watched her dig around in her purse for a moment before she retrieved her key and inserted it into the lock.
A vampire, even one caught in the rage of protectiveness for his anchor, could be very stealthy. She didn’t hear him until it was too late.
Luis wrapped his arms around her waist. Dipping his head to breathe against her ear, he growled, “You’ve been bad.”
Francesca jumped. A shriek nearly tore from her mouth before he covered it with his hand. Breathing hard, he closed his eyes and sucked the scent of her into his lungs, reassuring himself that she was well, that she was untouched by another vampire, and that she was his.
His heartbeat slowed but the persistent, burning ache in his gums and roof of his mouth didn’t.
“You shouldn’t have left the house,” he told her. A nip of his fangs to the corner of her jaw made her tremble against him. “Unlock the door. We’re going inside.”
He could almost feel her rolling her eyes as she turned the key and opened the door. They stepped inside as one.
Shutting the door with his heel, he looked around curiously. It wasn’t a bad place to live. Small, maybe, and a little drafty, but Francesca obviously took care to make it inviting. When she had the time, he couldn’t even imagine, but she did.
She liked creams, marigold yellows, and deep greens. Little touches of natural woods and leafy plants gave the tiny space an earthy feel he hadn’t thought to expect.
He normally would’ve found it quite calming, except for the fact that he was still running on adrenaline.
Releasing her mouth, he spun her around to demand, “Why did you leave?”
Francesca looked up at him like he’d grown a second, less attractive head. “I’m sorry, was I being held prisoner there and not informed? Because I was under the impression I could still do whatever I wanted to.”
“And you chose to go to work?”
She waved her hands in the air. “I wanted a bit of normalcy after everything that happened yesterday. And I explained to you why it’s important I keep my options open.”
“Keep your—” Luis stopped himself before he could finish the sentence.
It didn’t bear repeating, anyway. Sucking in another calming breath, had to consciously unclench his fists.
“You shouldn’t have left. Do you have any fucking idea how dangerous it is for you to be wandering around the city alone now? ”
Francesca really did roll her eyes that time. “Not much more than it was two days ago. It’s not exactly safe here, is it? I can look out for myself on the train, Luis. I’m not going anywhere shady.”
Incensed by the very clear message that she didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation, he hissed through his fangs, “Rule number three: You never leave our home alone. From now on, you leave with me, one of my cousins, or a guard. No fucking exceptions.”
She sputtered, outraged, and took another few steps back. “Okay, the other rules were tolerable, but that is outrageous! You can’t keep me captive, Luis. I didn’t agree to that!”
“You signed the contract,” he challenged, stalking her across the studio until the backs of her knees hit the foot of her small bed. “You agreed to follow all my rules no matter how over the top or outrageous they sounded, remember?”
Her big brown eyes tracked the movement of his hand to his pocket, where he’d hastily stuffed some of what he’d picked up that evening. Her voice came out squeaky when she spied the tightly bundled length of white silk rope in his hand. “What are you doing?”
The silky glide of the rope unfurling in his hands was enough to regain his composure. It was a physical reassurance that he was in control and that no harm would come to her under his watch. She was his to protect, his to pleasure, and his to punish.
“I’m teaching you a lesson in actions and consequences,” he calmly informed her.
She scrambled backward onto the bed, babbling, “Wait! It wasn’t a rule! You never told me I couldn’t leave!”
Luis slowly crawled over her. The bed wasn’t big enough for her to wiggle away, and with one side up against the wall, she was good and trapped within moments. Gathering her wrists in one hand, he executed what he felt was a truly impressive handcuff knot under the circumstances.
A narrow pipe ran from the ceiling down the corner of the room, probably a relic of the days when old buildings ran on gas, which provided an elegant solution to the problem of where to restrain her.
Francesca bucked and twisted, protesting loudly that it wasn’t fair as he secured the rope around the pipe.
Job done, he stared down at his flushed and furious captive, his eyelids heavy and his determination unshaken.
Pressing his thumb into the cushion of her plump lower lip, he explained, “It doesn’t matter if it’s fair.
You’re a golden anchor, Frankie. Everyone’s talking about what happened at the mansion last night, and that means everyone — from the lowest soldier to the biggest boss — knows about you now.
You’re in danger, every second of every day, until you’re recognized as mine. ”
“But I’m not yours,” she panted, feebly tugging at the ropes. “You and I both know that. You don’t do long term, Luis.”
Frustration boiling over at last, he found his claws sinking into the mattress on either side of her.
His mind knew that she didn’t mean it as an insult — probably — but his instinct, the thing that screamed at him to sink his fangs into her and fuck her until she was bred, took it as a deadly slight.
She’d left their home. She’d rejected his support. Now she was saying she wasn’t his, as if he was unfit and unworthy of her.
Luis was a master at shrugging things off and making a joke, but there was no waving this away.
To want an anchor as badly as he wanted her was to crave the stuff of life.
It was the certainty that he was staring at the woman who would sustain him, love him, and be the beating heart of him until the day he died.
In return for all the sacrifices he knew she’d make to be with him, he’d give her anything that made her happy. If she asked him for that beating heart, he’d carve it out and hand it to her.
If only she’d just trust him, truly trust him, he’d give her the whole world.
“This isn’t fucking temporary,” he growled, lip lifting to expose his fangs — not as a threat but as a promise of what was to come. “You’re mine. You’ve been mine since the day we met. When are you going to accept that?”
Francesca tilted her head back and away from him.
In a warbling voice full of frustration, she admitted, “I can’t be another one of the girls you play with and then dump in a fancy restaurant when they get too attached, Luis.
I’m already too attached to you. I can’t stand being thrown out by someone who said they’d love me. I just can’t.”
“Frankie, what on Earth gave you the idea that…” His attention snagged on white cursive lettering embroidered over the pocket on her chest. Bewildered, he asked, “Georgio’s?”
“Yes,” she answered, sniffling.
He’d been to Georgio’s. It’d been several months, but it was one of the go-to places he knew he could take a business associate or a date who ate food.
The atmosphere was classy, the lights were always turned low to not bother vampire eyes, and the bill was high enough to warrant not being printed on their menus.
Luis wracked his mind, trying to think of the last time he’d been there. It was shortly after they met, he was fairly certain, but he hadn’t been back since that last disastrous night. There hadn’t been any reason to.
Sensing something was amiss, he pressed, “How long have you worked there?”
“Why does that matter?”
The hair on the back of his neck rose, as it did whenever Francesca avoided the truth.
An uncomfortable possibility presented itself.
He couldn’t think of any other reason why she might not tell him the name of the place she worked before now or how long she’d worked there.
His girl wasn’t hiding something like secret syndicate connections or a double life.
It had to be something much more mundane than that.
Which was almost worse.
Bracing himself, he asked, “Were you working the night of May eighth?”
A better liar would’ve had a lot of room to bob and weave around his question. It was six months ago, making memory of exact dates iffy at best. She could’ve pressed him about why he was asking, or even told him to shove it.
But for as much spine as his gorgeous girl had, she folded like wet tissue when he added, “We might fight and disagree on things, but we don’t lie to each other, kitten.”
He could tell it pained her to admit, “Yes. I was.”
Ah, fuck.