Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
ANDIE
“Whose phone is that?” I mumble, my face smashed into the elbow of my arm covering my eyes.
I’m lying flat on my back, not able to move a muscle. The guys literally broke me. I groan when Liam shifts on the bed. His hand had been lazily stroking my breast. Keane is playing with my belly ring, tickling my navel with a fingertip, and Jax decided to take up residence between my thighs. He’s lying on his back and has my legs curled over his shoulders and resting on either side of his chest.
“Mine,” Liam says, reaching down to the pile of phones on the floor. Sometime during our fuckfest, Jax found the time to grab all our stuff from my old room and brought everything here.
Liam yawns and scratches his head, messing up his hair even more. I’d already done a number on it with my hands. “Is there anywhere in this place that doesn’t have eyes or ears, so I can take this?” he asks the guys, getting up and shucking on his pants.
“Fuck,” Jax grumbles, rolling over to plant a kiss on my pubis before getting off the bed. “I’ll set you up in the office.”
Jax rummages around in Keane’s dresser and pulls out a pair of gray sweatpants, and I giggle. He looks over his shoulder at me and winks, knowing exactly where my mind went. There are a few memes that have gone viral on social media about men with big dicks wearing gray sweatpants.
“I’ll check in with the men and bring back some food and coffee,” Jax says, crawling back onto the mattress and over me. “Don’t move your sexy ass from this bed.” He gives me a quick, hard kiss before retreating and walking out of the bedroom.
Liam leans over and kisses my bare nipple, making me hiss. “Sore?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
Typical male.
“We’ll need to get back soon,” he tells me, and I groan again. He’ll have to carry me out to the car because there is no way I’m going to be able to walk to it myself.
“Okay.”
“Want me to check in on Rafe?”
I shake my head on the pillow to tell him no. “I’ll do it. Hand me my phone?”
It’s been a couple of hours, but my phone hasn’t gone off, so I’m assuming still no change. The longer that goes on, the more I worry. I don’t know Declan’s doctor. Hollis was who would tend to the more serious injuries for the men working for Maximillian, and he’s a fucking plastic surgeon.
“Hurry the fuck up,” Jax calls Liam from the hallway. Guess their tentative truce while they fucked me is quickly coming to an end, and it’s back to business as usual.
As soon as Liam walks out, Keane pulls me to him and drapes me over his chest like a blanket, tucking my head under his chin. He runs a hand through my sexed-up, tangled hair and begins massaging the back of my neck. I melt into him like warm candle wax, staying like that for several minutes before I rouse up enough energy to lift my head and turn on my phone’s screen. There’s a text from Tessa waiting for me that I didn’t hear come in.
GirlDownLow: Still no change. When are you and Liam coming back? He hasn’t checked in. Declan won’t admit that he’s waiting up for you. But he totally is. It’s kind of cute actually.
A small grin curves my lips. It’s bizarre how easily Declan has taken to the new role of being a dad. It’s even weirder how easily I’ve accepted him in that role.
GirlUpHigh: Leaving soon.
Keane flips my phone around to see what I’m texting. Nosy asshole. I turn the screen off and toss the phone to the other side of the bed. I’m not ready to face the world outside this bedroom yet. I want to live in this quiet bubble with the guys a little while longer. I know my next words are going to set Keane off, but I can’t avoid not telling him or Jax what went down earlier tonight. I came here to the house for a reason.
I decide to play my woman card and butter him up first by kissing along the side of his jaw and nibbling his ear. His dick instantaneously perks up under my thigh that’s splayed over his middle.
“How can that thing still work?”
His chest vibrates with his chuckle. “It tends to do that whenever you’re around.”
I turn his face and our lips meet. “I need to talk to you about something.”
Pulling back, he eyes me with irritation. “Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like this?”
My face scrunches up. “ Eh ,” is my answer.
Keane’s dark brows knit together. “What the hell did you do now?”
“Why would you jump to that conclusion?” I accuse, but he’s spot on.
“Andie—”
“—What happened to Rafe is my fault,” I quickly get out, shame and guilt riding me hard. I should have known better than to try and handle Julio and Alejandro on my own. My stupid fucking plan to lure them out with me as bait backfired big time, and Rafe paid the price.
Keane lifts me off him to sit up. I mirror him. He runs a hand through his hair, then rests his forearms over his bent knees, his face a mask of both concern and exasperation. “Explain.”
My hackles rise whenever he gets all bossy and demanding, but I resist the urge to throw attitude at him.
“I fucked up. I thought I could handle Julio—Will you just wait a damn second and let me say what I need to say?” I tell him when I see he’s about to interrupt me.
His mouth shuts and those hazel eyes that had burned bright for me moments ago are now narrowed. I wonder if there will ever be a time when Keane and I don’t butt heads. Then again, that would probably weird me out because I’m used to him being a domineering, controlling jackass. That’s just who he is and part of the reason I lov?—
Ignoring that life-altering revelation, I rush on. “I had Tessa set up a meet. He must have known somehow that it was a trap. Alejandro had a man already there, hiding in an abandoned gas station. He shot Rafe.”
“For fuck’s sake, Andie.” Keane bends his head to scrape his hands roughly over his face. Reigning in his temper, he sighs. “We’ll find him and make sure he regrets the day he was born.”
I take a deep breath, grateful that he’s not blowing up at me, but also hesitant to tell him the rest. “He’s already dead, Keane. I killed him.”
His face falls, and he pulls me to him, fitting me between his legs and cradling me to his chest. “Fuck, princess. We never wanted this for you. None of us. I’m so goddamn sorry,” he whispers in my hair.
“But don’t you see? This is who I am now.”
Since the day I was born, outside forces—Max, my mother, my childhood growing up as the daughter of a mafia don, this life—have shaped me into the woman I am. A woman who knows pain, death, and heartache. A fighter and survivor. A killer. A woman who wants four men. A woman who was meant to rule. None of it is normal, but it’s my normal.
“Does your offer still stand?” I ask him.
My question takes him by surprise. “What offer?”
“To marry you.”
It’s time to end this shitshow. Take down the other families and destroy the Ortiz Cartel. Keane needs me to solidify his standing in the family, and I just need him… Shit, Andie. Focus. I give myself a mental shake.
I need him to gain access to the other families. They’re old school, ruled by dons that still practice the old way like Maximillian. Women are nothing, useless, and have no place within the organization. I’m about to give them a big fucking wake-up call.
I do have an ulterior motive as well. If this is what Keane wants—the key to the Rossi kingdom and to permanently take over as don—I’m in a position to help him attain both of those things. I’ve quickly come to realize over the past week that I’m willing to do just about anything for these guys, even if it means altering my plans once again. What better revenge than to have the house of Rossi fall, only for Keane Agosti to rise and take its place?
Keane has gone silent, his mouth slightly parted as he stares at me in bewilderment. “What?” he says again.
Trying to lighten the mood, I roll my eyes. “You said to think about it. I have. My answer is still yes. I already said yes, if you recall.”
I had told him yes in the kitchen the morning of the day of the dinner party where I was to be handed over to Julio. The day Declan’s men stormed the house and Rafe kidnapped me and brought me to my real father.
Keane gently forces me back onto the bed and moves to settle over me. When his lips press a path of soft kisses along my chest and neck, I moan. My skin is rubbed raw after hours of being abraded by the guys’ scratchy stubble, but all I feel is pleasure at his touch.
“You’re safe now with Declan. You’re not being forced to marry Alejandro anymore,” he says as he kisses at my temple and buries his face in my neck.
“And?” My breath hitches when he nibbles my earlobe. My hands brush up his thick, muscled arms and over his wide shoulders. Now that the invisible barriers of our own making between us have fallen, I can’t seem to get enough of touching him.
“And, you don’t have to go through with my stupid idea anymore.”
I pull back slightly when his mouth reaches my lips to kiss me.
“Keane, I know I don’t have to. I want to.”
I can count on only one finger the times I’ve ever seen Keane knocked speechless. The first instance being minutes ago.
Without taking his eyes off me, Keane stretches an arm out to pull on the drawer of his bedside nightstand. The images inked on his chest morph and pull as his muscles contract and expand with his movements, and I get a little lost in them. Suddenly, a small black jewelry box is placed in the valley between my breasts, and my heart skips a beat. Oh, shit.
When I make no move to open it, Keane rests his weight on an elbow while he uses his other hand to lift the top of the small, black cube open. I peer down to the opened box facing me to see a delicate, yellow princess-cut diamond engagement ring with a matching eternity wedding band.
“These were my mother’s.”
My hand goes to my lips. I don’t know how to respond to that. Every girl fantasizes about the day her man proposes to her. Down on bended knee, flower petals strewn everywhere. Candlelight and soft music playing. Or maybe that was just me. I touch the rings reverently.
“She would be honored for you to wear them.”
Jesus. Keane has a way of knocking the oxygen right out of my lungs. He never spoke of his mother often. She died when he was a little boy, but he was old enough to remember her. I once heard him talk to Kellan about her. It was Keane’s sixteenth birthday, and the guys had gotten roaring drunk. Of course, I had to be the snooping little sister, wanting to be a part of everything the boys did. I sat outside Kellan’s bedroom in the hallway and listened to the guys talk. Keane started rambling about a memory of him and his mom. She had taken him to the beach. He recalled seeing the ocean for the first time. How scared he was of the crashing waves and refused to play in them. How his mom built sandcastles with him. How she held his hand and showed him how to jump the small breakers that rolled to shore. How much he missed her.
My violet eyes raise to his. “The honor would be mine,” I tell him.
Keane grips my neck and jerks me to him, kissing me like the world will end. He leaves me breathless and wanting, as his fingers slide both rings onto the fourth finger of my left hand just as his cock slides into me in one smooth thrust. I should be too sore to take him but tell that to my already soaking pussy. She can’t seem to get enough tonight.
“Andie Agosti. Has a nice ring to it,” he says as he pulls out, ever so slowly, before sliding his cock back in, the scrape along my sensitized nerve endings making my toes curl.
I burst out laughing. “Oh, hell no.”
“Hell no, what?” Jax asks, walking over to the bed, seeming to forget he’s holding four mugs of coffee by the handles between his fingers of both hands. He watches with heated interest as Keane fucks me.
Panting out my words when Keane picks up the pace, I try to get out, “Looks like… there’s going to be... a wedding.” Instead, I moan it because I’m two seconds away from coming.
“Over my dead fucking body,” Liam growls at the doorway, but I can’t reply to that because I’m crying out Keane’s name as we both come at the same time.
Oh boy.