Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
SIRE
Harboring an innocent woman should give me peace.
Right?
Wrong, and welcome to my world.
Especially after thoughts of Wren kept me and Dick up all night, only to find another manila envelope on the floor by my locked, steel door this morning.
My fucking father.
This is how he communicates with me, and he’s not even the one leaving the envelopes.
No, Ruslan Kholodov, the head of Russian Bratva, is probably kicking back in his compound in Moscow while I have to deal with this shit. He gets one of his soldiers to leave me a note, like we’re some goddamn pen pals and not mortal enemies.
I could kill my abusive father a million times, but he has my mother in his crosshairs. He has my brothers, too. He’s found us, and I’m the only one who knows, so I play along.
I keep us safe.
Swiping the envelope from the floor, I rip it open.
It’s a clipping from The Palm Beach Post newspaper from four days ago.
An article about a headless body found washed ashore on South Palm Beach.
The remains have been identified as those of a hedge fund manager from New York City, who was renting a vacation home nearby.
Yep, this was my work. My rage. I’m usually not so sloppy, but that man touched Wren. He wanted to violate her before selling her, and Axel couldn’t stop me.
No one can when I want vengeance.
Under this article, there’s another about a golf tournament on Hilton Head Island in three months.
The client list.
The powerful, predatory men trafficking girls, and the ways they hide their evil enterprise.
Don’t ask me why my father sends me clues. Why, when he kidnapped and trafficked my mother, is he sending me intel about monsters like him?
Is he gloating?
Or feeling guilty?
I don’t give a damn; innocent girls are at stake, so I follow the clues.
Sometimes, I get intel from my parishioners. A few are undocumented, the most vulnerable to exploitation, and they give me names and ways to help others like them. Other times, I get these taunting letters from my father, likely delivered by his Sovietnik, Viktor.
Viktor is my father’s advisor, and it’s as if they’re praising my work. Like my gruesome vengeance is a kid’s drawing you proudly hang on your refrigerator.
I rip it to shreds before washing it down the sink with dish soap and the metallic whirl of the disposal.
This is how I found Wren. My father sent me an article about a golf tournament in Palm Beach, sponsored by the hedge fund manager’s firm. I put the rest together.
How did Wren get mixed up with those men? She’s been in my home for less than twelve hours, and I’m ready to wage a war over her.
Grabbing my phone, I don’t care that it’s just after five in the morning, I call Axel.
“Yeah.” He sounds annoyed, not awakened.
“You already up?”
“Yeah, I’m going for a run.”
“Since when do you run and not lift?”
“Since I fucking feel like it. Hurry up. It’s five twenty. I gotta go.”
“Where?”
“Where you stop asking me so many fucking questions. What do you need?”
To annoy the shit out of my little brothers. Especially Axel. He’s in charge because I didn’t want it, but I want this. Giving him hell is fun.
“Careful. Penis chafing is common when you run. Especially if you’re running with a third leg, I should know.”
“Goddamnit, Sergei. What?”
When he uses my real name, I’ve really pissed him off. God bless him. I laugh. “When you’re done being Usain Bolt, come to the church, and bring Nash.”
“I have court at nine.”
“After that.”
“Copy.” He hangs up.
But I need more than Axel and Nash to help me protect Wren. I hate doing this, but I have to get to church before the preschool opens, and I can’t leave her at risk.
Gently, I knock on her bedroom door. “Wren? It’s me … Sire.”
No shit, Dick. Who else would it be?
“Wren?” I repeat.
“Just a sec.” Her voice sounds rushed before her door swings open. “Yeah?”
I’m going to hell.
The blood surging to my dick is instant. It swells so fast, I’m dizzy. Hastily, she’s holding a white bath towel around her naked body, her hair a sexy, untamed mane, her eyes wide and worried.
She should be.
For a second, I’m not a pastor who’ll protect her. I’m an animal, and she’s my mate; the instincts are overwhelming.
“Is something wrong?”
“Pajamas” is all I can utter because they’re all that’s missing in this moment. Everything else is here. Everything I want to take and fuck and own.
“I don’t have any,” she sighs, “and I need to do laundry because my bras and panties are dirty and—”
“Fuck,” I mutter, turning around. “Hang on.”
Dick, I swear, if you think about her panties and how dirty you can make her. You just did. Shut up.
Storming toward my closet, I snap one of a dozen dress shirts off a hanger. “Here.” I shove it at her when I meet her back in the hallway.
“Uh, thanks.” She takes it. “What’s going on?”
“I’m going to work, and you need a phone.”
Her face falls. “Okay, um. I can save up for one as quickly as I can and—”
“Fuck,” I mutter, turning around again. “Hang on.”
Stupidity is an affliction, and I have the virus around her. Usually, I’m ten steps ahead in any game, but around Wren’s naked body in a bath towel, I want to drop to my knees and rip that towel open, losing the rest of my mind and mouth in her pussy.
Fishing through my nightstand’s drawer, I grab a white box. There’s enough charge on this new phone for me to enter my number, Jace’s, and who else? Axel? No, he gives off dickish vibes when really, he’s a giant kitten.
So, who?
Nash! He’s a dad. Alena, his daughter, is twenty-something. If Wren’s in trouble, Nash will know what to do because I feel like a stallion and Wren’s the filly in heat, brought into my barn stall to breed. Only my body works around her, not my brain.
“Here.” I hand her the device.
“An iPhone?” Her eyes widen like it’s Christmas. “And it’s new?”
“I put my number and Jace’s in there. Also, Nash. He’s one of us. Call us if you need anything while I’m gone.”
She considers the gleaming gift before her narrowing stare meets mine. “A new iPhone? And you just happen to have one in your bedroom?”
“Yeah.”
“How many do you keep?”
“Too many for you to ask about.”
“Do you have guns?”
“Do you like living?”
While I was loading contacts in her new phone, she put on my dress shirt.
I know some pills make a man’s dick hard for hours, but I’m hoping there’s one that makes you flaccid for days because Wren’s tawny skin in my white shirt is the goddamn sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
And I belong to a fetish factory in Atlanta. I’ve seen everything.
“So, you have burner phones, guns, and probably bags of cash lying around.” She crosses her arms. “Do you have an extra AR I can use?”
“First, don’t burn that phone. Apple has enough of my money. Second, I’ll leave you a hundred dollars a day. Let me know if you need more. And third, who taught you how to shoot an AR?”
Her voice lilts. “YouTube?”
“Wren.”
“What? They even have videos teaching you how to sneeze.”
I raise a brow.
She raises hers.
“Do you know how to use a Glock?”
Her eyes light up. “Yes.”
“Can you do it without turning my sheetrock into Swiss cheese?”
“Run a zig-zag pattern and I’ll show you.”
Goddamn, she’s hot when she’s a smartass.
“Alright. I’ll leave you a phone, a gun, and some cash. Try not to start a drug empire while I’m gone.”
“I’m going with you.”
“You’re cute when you’re mistaken.”
“You’re crazy when you think I’ll stay here all day.”
I shake my head, torn between keeping her safe by my side or relocating her to a remote convent on a cliff in Italy. “You can’t go to church with me. How will I explain who you are?”
“I’ll be a family friend.”
I laugh. “My family doesn’t have friends.”
“Liar,” she scoffs. “I’ve met Jace. He could make a corpse catch feelings.”
She’s right about my brothers—most of them. Jace, Grant, Nick, and Loch could charm a teenager into giving up their phone. Forever. While me, Axel, and Nash? We’d just take the damn thing and tell them to quit finger-fucking it. Either works.
“Look,” Wren sighs. “Honestly, I’m a little afraid to be left by myself until I know my way around. So, just give me the lay of the land around here and I’ll be fine.”
“Escape routes.” I nod. “You’re always looking for them, aren’t you?”
“I can’t sleep in a room with no windows, or with my back to a door. Not since I was nine.”
Letting Wren see how she wraps around my heart with each tiny confession of her story would be a big risk. A reveal. A regret I don’t want to have because each one pulls me even closer to her.
“Okay. We leave in thirty.”
“What’s my story if someone asks?”
“Our moms are best friends. They went to college together, and … uh …” Fuck, I’ve never done this. To most, I have no family. The less I say, the better. “And you’re visiting Charleston, deciding if you want to go to college here.”
Her head tilts. “There’s no way our moms could be the same age.”
“Say you’re adopted. Always use parts of the truth to sell a lie.” She glances away. “Wren, we have to come up with something. No one can know how we met.”
“Or who we are,” she mutters, and I don’t answer. After a deep inhale, she chirps, “Okay. What’s your mom’s name?”
“Nadine.”
“Ms. Faye?” Her eyes widen. “I knew it!”
I don’t answer that part, either. “Use my last name with hers; Nadine Rutledge from Pickens, South Carolina. It’s my cover story. And your mom and origin?”
“Dolly,” she blurts. “Dolly Parker from Chattanooga. That’s my mom.”
“Tennessee? Is that where you’re from?”
“Close enough. I’ve been there before, so I can bullshit the rest.”
I search her eyes, trying to figure out her tell. For such an honest creature with no filter, how will I know when she’s lying? And when will she trust she doesn’t have to lie to me?
Mine are much worse.
On the way to the church, I show her the code to my door, the iron gate to the graveyard behind my building, and the prettiest path through the historic headstones.