3. Chapter 3
Chapter three
Istayed exactly where Lachlan Byrnes had dropped me, listening as he walked down the hall.
Even after everything I’d said and done, the man hadn’t backed down one bit. He’d walked in and owned me.
The nerve of him.
The fucking nerve.
I waited until his footsteps faded, then slid off the desk and locked the door.
Only then did I laugh.
I wasn’t some amateur who lost her head because a dangerous man had gotten his hands on her. I pressed my fingers to my mouth, remembering the desire that had coated his lips.
Lachlan Byrnes had come into my office ready to tear me apart.
He’d left wanting to save me.
Men were so pathetically predictable when they thought a woman needed them.
Especially men with Catholic guilt rattling around in their heads. He wasn’t the only one who’d done his homework.
I yanked open the top drawer and grabbed my cellphone.
Ciro answered on the third ring.
I switched to Spanish before I spoke. “We have a problem.”
Ciro didn’t answer right away. A lighter snapped on his end of the call, followed by a slow inhale. I waited. Men like Ciro made silence a weapon, and only fools tried to fill it.
“What kind of problem?”
“Lachlan Byrnes.”
“Lachlan Byrnes.” Ciro repeated the name slowly. “The younger Irish brother?”
“Yes. The man from Xyst. The one I served papers to last night.” I paced behind my desk, stepping over the broken pieces of the office phone. “He came here, to my office.”
“You let him near you?”
“He didn’t ask permission.”
“You should have called security.”
I looked at the cracked plastic on the floor and almost laughed again. “He had inside help. Whoever he used got him all the privacy he wanted.”
Ciro cursed. “Volkov.”
“Probably. Or Genovese. Or both.” I moved to the narrow window and stared at the brick wall outside.
“What did you say to him?”
“Nothing much.”
“Isabella.”
My name in his mouth held warning and possession.
I hated both.
“I told him nothing,” I snapped. “I played dumb. I played cornered and was exactly what he expected me to be.”
“What does he know?”
I turned away from the window. “Volkov traced Farris back to Whitaker’s network.”
He didn’t react, so I kept going. “He knows the truth about her. Not just about the complaint, but about the fact that she goes by Tammy Bondi and works for Elysian Companions. He also knows about Leon Brands. He threw enough names at me to make sure I knew he wasn’t guessing.”
Ciro’s breathing changed. “What else?”
“Volkov made the liquor-license suspension disappear too.” I made myself sound pissed instead of worried because Ciro respected anger more than fear.
“He fucking erased it?” Ciro asked.
“Gone. Lachlan bragged about how it evaporated into thin air.”
“The suspension had been processed through both the state and the city.”
“Apparently not solid enough for Volkov.”
Something crashed on Ciro’s end of the call. Glass, maybe. He liked throwing expensive things when people disappointed him.
I waited.
His rage had to burn somewhere. Better in whatever room he was standing in than through me.
“That Russian son of a bitch torched The Sacrifice,” Ciro barked. “He stole my girls, humiliated my men, and thought fire could erase what belonged to me.”
“He definitely doesn’t think small.”
“No. He thinks he is untouchable.” Ciro’s voice dropped lower. “The men of Xyst think the same. They hide behind old families and old rules. They’ve forgotten what pain teaches.”
I leaned against the desk and glanced at the door. “Lachlan doesn’t think he’s the one who needs the lesson.”
Ciro went quiet. “What did he say?”
“He told me I was one wrong move from landing on The Syndicate’s hit list.” A smile tugged at my mouth. “Then he made it very clear that Manhattan belongs to them, not you.”
Ciro laughed under his breath, the sound mean enough to make the hair on my arms rise.
“And yet you are breathing.”
“I told you. I played him. He believes I’m trapped.”
“Is that so?”
“He thinks you forced me into this. That I’m some poor little girl with no way out. He even offered to help me disappear.”
Ciro went quiet again as he sucked on his teeth.
“Tell me exactly what he said.”
“He said he could help me relocate somewhere safe. A new identity, money, everything I’d need to disappear.
He thinks I need protection from you.” I glanced at my reflection in the window.
My hair still looked perfect. My mouth did not.
Kissing Lachlan had smeared my lipstick.
“He felt responsible, Ciro. I saw it. He came in ready to kill me and left with a hard-on.”
“You let him touch you?”
“Of course. You should have seen how he held my chin and carefully wiped a tear away. I had him eating out of the palm of my hand.”
Another pause.
Good.
Jealousy made men stupid, but possessive jealousy made them useful.
“You kissed him?” Ciro asked. The possessive edge in his voice made my skin tighten.
“Yes, we kissed.”
His voice hardened. “That is not what I asked.”
I let a second pass before answering. “Yes. I kissed him and practically crawled all over him to express my desperation. I had to know how far he would go.”
“And?”
“He stopped me.” I smiled for real this time. “That’s the best part.”
Ciro made a sound of contempt. “Irish honor.”
“Irish weakness.”
“Same thing.”
“Maybe. Either way, it’s a leash we can put on him,” I hummed.
Ciro breathed out slowly, and I knew him well enough to know what he was thinking. Lachlan had handed us the opening himself. A man who wanted to save me could be manipulated. A man who thought he had to protect me could be separated from the pack. A man with rules could be made to take risks.
“You will use it to set a trap,” he ordered dryly. “I want him.”
“Yes.”
“You will let him arrange whatever escape he thinks he can give you. Then you will bring him where I tell you.”
I moved back to the desk and straightened the disheveled papers. “Yes, of course.”
“Buena nina,” he said. “Come to Papi tonight.”
The words held pleasure.
His cold, ugly pleasure.
“I want him conscious when he understands what his brother and Volkov cost me,” Ciro said. “I want him useful. He can give me access to Volkov’s DarkMatter security firm. Genovese’s weaknesses. Every little secret those men think oaths keep safe.”
“He may not talk.”
“They all talk.”
“Lachlan might not be the type to.”
“Then he will learn what silence costs,” Ciro said, inhaling a long drag of what I knew was probably one of his favorite Cuban cigars. “My men at home are patient. They know how to open proud men. Skin, bone, sleep, thirst, shame. Every man has something that breaks his mouth open.”
A small thrill moved through me.
Anticipation of the role I might play.
Lachlan Byrnes had walked into my office with judgment in his eyes and control in every inch of his body. I wanted to see that control stripped from him. I wanted to know what he looked like when he broke in my hands.
I wondered if the man underneath would still be so noble when he was bleeding.
“You’ll kill him when you’re done?” I asked.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“A dead Byrnes is a message,” Ciro said. “A broken Byrnes is leverage.”
I looked at the folder he’d left behind, sitting on my desk.
“I want to see his face when he realizes I handed him over. I want to watch him learn what trusting me cost him.”
Ciro laughed softly. “That’s my girl.”
I hated how easily that phrase slid under my skin.
Not because it touched my heart. It didn’t.
Because praise from powerful men carried weight. Praise opened doors and came with diamonds, bank accounts, passwords, houses, and planes.
Freedom, if I hid enough of it.
“I’ll wait for him to contact me,” I said. “He will. Men like him can’t stand thinking a woman might be in danger because of them.”
“Do not underestimate him.”
“I won’t.”
“Do not fuck him unless I tell you.”
My eyes widened.
“Jealous, Papi?”
The word left my mouth softly. Dirty enough to make him hear what he wanted.
“Careful,” he said.
“I’m always careful.”
“You are always ambitious.”
“That too.”
His chuckle crawled through the phone. “Come tonight.”
“To the estate?”
“Yes. Dinner.”
I glanced at the clock on my computer. “You want me there right after work?”
“I want you there before dark.”
“Demanding.”
“You like demanding.”
I smiled. “Sometimes.”
“I need your hands.”
“A massage?”
“To start with.”
My stomach tightened, but not with fear. Disgust had become background noise years ago. Ciro’s hands. His scars. The cigars on his breath. The rough way he handled me.
It was all just currency.
“Maybe after dinner,” I said, keeping my voice warm, “we can spend a little time in the playroom.”
Ciro went quiet long enough for me to know he was picturing it.
“Wear white.”
I looked down at my navy suit and laughed under my breath. “Of course.”
“And Isabella?”
“Yes?”
“Do not fail me with the Irishman.”
“I won’t.”
“I want him in my hands before Volkov realizes where to look.”
“He won’t see this coming.”
“No,” Ciro said. “Because men rarely understand women like you.”
The line went dead.
For a moment, I stood in the middle of my office, a smile spreading slowly across my face.
Good men.
Bad men.
It never mattered.
They all wanted something.
Lachlan Byrnes wanted to save me.
Ciro Delgado wanted to use me.
Both of them had made the same mistake.
They thought I belonged to the game because a man had put me there.
They had no idea how long ago I’d started playing for myself.
They saw the soft mouth, the polished hair, the cross at my throat, and decided they understood me. Ambitious, maybe, but manageable. Pretty enough to look good in their orbit. Smart enough to be useful, but not dangerous.
Men were idiots.
Isabella Marcela Reyes had not survived growing up in San Antonio mostly alone, law school, rich men, cartel money, and Ciro Delgado by waiting to be rescued.
I’d learned early that power was poverty with better shoes.