ALESSIO
Tiny is a dead man. Not today. Probably not tomorrow.
But soon, very soon. The oversized biker had spent the last hour treating me like unpaid labor.
Move this. Carry that. Stack those. Sort these.
As if I don't own a casino. As if I don't have employees specifically hired to do things like move boxes.
As if I haven't personally authorized murders that required less effort than this. I shove another dusty crate onto a shelf. The wood groans. My back does too. Fantastic. Capo of one of the most powerful criminal organizations in Vegas. Reduced to warehouse help.
Massimo can never find out about this.
My phone rings, Rossi.
"What?"
"We got the guy who gave you the envelope," Rossi informs me.
Finally, something I can sink my teeth in. Unfortunately, I don't have time to interrogate the bastard myself.
"Get him talking. Whatever he knows about the fucking Collector."
"Consider it done, boss."
We hang up, and I glance around the storage room.
Dust. Boxes. Old paperwork. Broken furniture.
A surprising amount of pornography. Classy.
Very classy. I reach into my pocket. The corner of black lace brushes my fingers.
A grin immediately appears. The little menace.
I pull the fabric free. Just enough to look at it. Then shake my head.
Eight months ago, if somebody had told me a pair of women's underwear would improve my mood, I'd have had them committed. Yet here we are. The scent of her perfume still clings faintly to the lace. Magnolias. Trouble. Bad decisions.
Beccs Morgan.
My thoughts continue to drift. To the way she'd laughed earlier. The way she'd looked at me across the bar. The way she'd slipped these into my pocket without me noticing.
Actually, that's concerning. I should probably frisk her more thoroughly in the future. For security reasons. Obviously.
A much more dangerous thought follows. Becca isn't wearing these. Which means...
I freeze. Slowly lower the lace. And stare at the wall. Oh. Oh, absolutely not. My gaze swings toward the clubhouse. Toward the bar. Toward the room filled with bikers. And idiots. And drunk men. A muscle jumps in my jaw. No.
Nope.
Not happening.
I shove the lace back into my pocket and head for the door.
Then stop. Something catches my eye. A cardboard box tucked behind a filing cabinet.
Old. Forgotten. Hidden. I crouch and pull it free.
Dust explodes everywhere. Inside are dozens of photographs.
Mostly Polaroids. Some faded. Some not. I flip through them.
Parties. Motorcycles. Women. More women.
Then another. And another. My amusement slowly fades.
The girls aren't posing. They're being cataloged. Dated. Numbered. Tagged like inventory.
What the fuck?
I turn over the next photograph. And go completely still. Because written across the back in faded black marker is a date. A location. And a name: Rachel.
The second I step into the hallway, something feels wrong. Call it instinct. Call it experience. Call it the fact that I've spent most of my adult life surviving people who wanted me dead. Whatever it is, the feeling hits hard.
I stop and listen. All my senses are primed.
The clubhouse noise ahead of me fades as I register individual notes.
The sound of a cue striking a pool ball.
A raised voice, quickly dismissed—just a drunken rant.
Mixed with the smell of cigarettes is the scent of overwhelming cologne, the kind the bikers don't wear.
A muffled voice drifts from the bathroom. Male. I home in on it, a grunt that sounds female. Beccs' voice. My pulse immediately spikes. I move fast and silent, primed for the kill. By the time I reach the door, I pull the gun from behind my back and have it ready in my hand.
I hear her. Her voice sounds calm, but something isn't right. There is fear underneath it. I push the door open. And see red.
A Mexican has Beccs backed against the sink—that explains the overpowering scent of cologne—the cartel douses themselves in the stuff. One hand is gripping her wrist. The other is reaching toward her waist. His attention is entirely on her. He never sees me. Never hears the door open.
The glint of metal catches my attention. My little menace is pressing a blade against his ribs. Jesus Christ. I never even knew she carried a weapon. Where the hell has she been hiding it?
"Let me go," she demands with the fierce power I've come to admire about her.
"Ah puta, what are you going to do with that little prick stick of yours?"
I step fully into the room and close the door behind me with a soft click that sounds like a gunshot in the small space.
"Let me tell you what I'm going to do with it," I interrupt in a deadly calm voice while ice-cold blood moves through my veins. "I'm going to shove it up your ass and watch you slowly bleed out while I make you beg for the privilege of dying."
Both of them turn toward me.
I don't raise my voice. I don't need to.
The temperature in the room drops ten degrees the second they register who just walked in.
The Mexican's eyes widen. Beccs's gaze locks on mine, relief, fire, and something deeper flashing through it all at once.
My eyes never leave the bastard's face as I take one slow step closer.
I'm still holding the gun, but I'm not going to use it.
"You have three seconds to get your fucking hands off her," I tell him, soft and pleasant, like we're discussing the weather. "After that, I start removing pieces of you. Starting with the ones that touched what's mine."
The air is thick with the promise of violence. My blood is singing with it. Touch her again and I will paint this entire bathroom with you. Slowly. Creatively. And I will enjoy every single second of it.
His smile vanishes, turns into something calculating as he takes me in from head to toe. The room goes still. For one second nobody moves. A lion against a hyena. Unfair odds, I know, but I don't give a shit.
He shoves Beccs aside and pulls his own knife. A showy Ka-Bar. It looks intimidating as fuck, but it's cumbersome to wield.
I step forward, and he lunges, fast. Knife out.
He's making it almost too easy for me. I turn slightly, catching his wrist and twisting it.
The knife drops, and I drive my elbow into his throat.
The impact crushes his next breath. He staggers.
I hit him again. A knee. A punch. A sharp crack echoes through the room.
The entire fight lasts maybe three seconds.
Four if we're being generous. The objective is to keep this fight as quiet as possible.
He collapses to one knee. He's half dazed already. For good measure, I grab the back of his head and introduce his face to the sink.
The room falls silent as I let him crumble to the ground. Blood drips lazily from a split eyebrow. The only sound left is her breathing.
My heart is hammering, though I'm not out of breath. The fight didn't even require an adrenaline surge, and violence usually calms me. But not this time. Because all I can think about is what I saw when I opened that door.
His hand on her. His eyes on her. The possibility that I could have arrived thirty seconds later. A minute later. The thought makes something ugly move inside me. Something dark. Something possessive. Something dangerous.
Mine.
The word slams through me. Absolute in its primal claim.
Mine. Not just desire. Not just possession.
Something deeper. Something ancient and vicious that rises from the darkest part of me and roars that she belongs to me—body, soul, and every sharp, stubborn inch in between.
No one else gets to touch her. No one else gets to threaten her.
No one else even gets to look at her the way this piece of shit was looking at her.
Mine.
The thought is so raw, so violent in its certainty, that for a second it drowns out everything else, the cartel stench, the knife in her hand, the rational part of my brain that knows starting a war in the Reapers' clubhouse right now would be messy.
All I can see is his hand on her wrist. All I can feel is the overwhelming, blood-red need to end him for daring to touch what's mine.
I turn toward Beccs. She's staring at me, wide-eyed and silent. Still holding the knife. Still ready to fight. There is not a trace of fear or judgment in her eyes for how I just beat the piece of shit to a pulp. God. She's beautiful.
I take one careful step toward her. "Beccs?"
"Still here," she quips, but there is a slight tremble in her voice.
"Are you hurt?" The question sounds rough. More desperate than I intended.
She blinks. Then slowly shakes her head. "No."
Relief hits so hard my knees almost give out. I hadn't realized how terrified I was until that moment. I want nothing more than to pull her into my arms right now, but there is no time for it.
"You okay then?" I ask instead.
"I'm fine." Comes the predictable answer.
It's not her words that reassure me—it's that some of the fierceness has returned to her voice.
"What now?" She asks, jerking her chin at the still unconscious Mexican.
A smile tugs at the corners of my lips. That's my girl.
One of these days, she's going to have to tell me how she got this tough, because I doubt this is something that developed solely due to her search for her sister.
Most girls would have long since given up.
Let the authorities handle it. Not her. Oh no, not my Beccs.
That means she was already one tough force before her sister vanished.
And I want to know who, what, and why made her that way. I want to know everything about her.
The thought should surprise me, but it doesn’t. I freely admit I have no use for people, but Beccs isn’t people—she’s Beccs. Everything with her is different, and I'm slowly coming to peace with that realization.