Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
ANDIE
With my right hand, I smear a clear path through the condensation of the bathroom mirror and stare at my blurry reflection. Even though I told the guys to give me a few minutes, they still hovered. I could hear their voices through the bathroom door. I know their concern comes from a good place, but it’s not what I need right now. I don’t need coddling or sweet words said to make me feel better. I don’t need to lose myself in the euphoria of hot, wild, toe-curling sex. What I need to do is get my shit together. I will not shed another damn tear, so help me God. I will not allow my fears to stop me from doing what needs to be done. My smile will be wicked and fierce when I bathe in the blood of Alejandro and Julio. It’s time to release my chaos and end this. But not as Alexandria McCarthy.
“I’m Andie Donatella motherfucking Levine,” I declare in the mirror.
I rip off the water-logged wrapping and splint from my broken finger and toss them into the nearby trash bin. The swelling has gone down some, leaving behind ugly black and purple bruising. It’s difficult bending the digit, and I hiss as pain explodes and travels up from my fingertip to my wrist. Fuck it. I’ll just have to ignore the throbbing agony and hope that I don’t irreparably damage my finger to the point where a good hand surgeon can’t fix it. A fighter needs both fists to break their opponent.
Ignoring the other bruises, both old ones and new ones that litter my pale skin from head to toe, I get to work. Time to put on my war paint. Grabbing the makeup kit Tessa got for me, I slather on face lotion and eye cream, followed by foundation and under-eye concealer, making sure to pay special attention to where the bruises and cuts are. I can’t do much about the swollen cheek or lip.
Next, I line my eyes with black kohl and add dark eye shadow, enhancing the violet color of my irises, making them pop. Black mascara coats each eyelash, and a rose blush sweeps up both cheeks. I leave my lips for last and turn them a dark scarlet red with my favorite Pretty Poison lipstick.
Picking up the blow dryer Keane left out on the counter, I artfully dry my hair, leaving it down and flowing around my shoulders in its natural waves. Satisfied with my appearance, I walk into the bedroom and into the closet. My fingers flick through the clothes Pearson procured for me and stop on a body-hugging deep red corset top and black leather pants that are soft and flexible. I study the selection of shoes before choosing a low-heeled black ankle boot. With care because I still hurt every-fucking-where, I finish getting dressed, shove Jax’s knife into my ankle holster, and make sure Rafe’s bracelet with Keane’s ring is secured to my wrist.
Time to get to work.
Stepping out into the hallway, I hesitate for a second outside the door to the room next to mine, wondering if Rafe is awake. Deciding not to disturb him, I walk down the hallway toward the living area. I can already hear Liam and Keane arguing, and smile. Nothing with these guys will ever be easy, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. Only things worth having are worth fighting for.
As soon as I enter the room, conversation stops, and all heads turn my way.
“Fuck me,” Liam, Keane, and Jax say at the same time when they see me—and sweet Jesus, the hungry eye-fucking I’m getting from all three guys sends a wild shudder through me.
Tessa’s whistle is loud and shrill. “ Damn , girl.”
But I ignore them because my sights lock on the enormous Russian standing across the room.
“Why aren’t you at the hospital?” He was supposed to call me when Declan came out of surgery.
His eyes drop briefly before he raises them again, and it feels like he just shoved his hand inside my chest and fisted my heart.
Be strong. No matter what he says.
Switching to Russian, I implore, “Tell me.”
“He made it out of surgery, but there were complications.”
My world crashes in around me just as profound relief hits me. Declan’s alive.
“What complications?”
“When the fuck did you learn how to speak Russian?” Keane says from his corner of the couch.
“Whatever it is they’re talking about, stay out of it,” Liam warns him.
“He took four bullets. One lodged in his left lung. Two went through muscle tissue. But a fourth nicked a major artery. He coded during surgery. The doctors were able to bring him back. He’s in ICU now.” Pearson rattles off the information robotically, but it’s his eyes that give him away. So much emotion, pain… and love. It should shock me, but it doesn’t.
“How long have you been in love with him?”
Pearson doesn’t even hesitate. “Declan and I have been lovers for a while. Twenty years.”
“That’s how old I am,” I mumble to myself.
It helps bring me some peace to know that Declan got to experience real love, something that is so rare to have and so difficult to keep in this violent, fucked-up life we’re forced to live in.
I close the distance to Pearson. Jax is silently watching us in his usual calculating, stony way, but I see the tension coiled in his body. If he thinks Pearson is a potential threat to me, he’ll kill him without a second’s thought.
“I’m happy he had you all these years. That he wasn’t alone.”
Pearson’s midnight black gaze holds me prisoner. I’m standing only a foot from him now. This close, I can see every scar, cut, and tattoo on his face and bald head. This man has lived a very hard, painful life, yet still has gentleness inside of him. I recall all the meals he cooked for me and Declan, but ones he never ate with us; the clothes he picked out for me to have after I arrived here. Pearson was always behind the scenes, taking care of Declan. And me.
He reaches up, his gargantuan hand grazing the side of my face, and I stop myself from flinching when he caresses where Alejandro punched me.
“Don’t fucking touch her,” Jax seethes, rushing forward, but is blocked by Liam.
“I’m okay, Jax,” I assure him.
“You look so much like him,” Pearson murmurs in his thick accent.
The compliment settles deep in my chest.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell him, still speaking in his native language. “Everything that has happened is because of me.”
His hand drops away. “You do not need to apologize, nor do you need to feel any guilt about what happened. You’re his daughter. His flesh and blood. He loves you deeply and would sacrifice anything to keep you safe.”
“I don’t deserve it.” My chin dips to my chest in shame, but Pearson lifts it back up with his finger.
“You are his, Andie, deserving of everything he could give you. He’ll pull through and come back to us.” Pearson reaches down and lifts my right hand. “There was a minute after he came out of surgery when he was cogent. He wanted me to give you something.” Pearson places a heavy men’s ring in my hand.
“Pearson, what are you doing?” Liam demands, clearly not happy.
I look at the piece of jewelry in confusion. It’s Declan’s, the one he wore on his forefinger to show his affiliation. My fingers curl around the unusual ring. Something with intricate symbols carved into the metal surrounding a blood-red ruby, much like the smaller rubies in the ring Keane put on my bracelet.
“We’re clearly missing something, so why don’t you fill us in?” Keane demands, but Liam is too busy cursing a blue streak.
“Are you out of your fecking mind? She’s not ready!” Liam shouts at Pearson.
“Declan thought otherwise,” Pearson replies in English.
“Declan isn’t thinking properly. He just had major surgery!”
I round on Liam. “Why are you freaking out?”
“What the hell is all the shouting about? Quiet the fuck down,” Rafe grouches as he hobbles into the room.
He looks awful. Hair a mess, purple bruises under his eyes, and he’s swaying slightly, more likely from the cocktail of painkillers they’ve been feeding him.
I immediately go to his side and wrap my arm around his waist, encouraging him to lean on me.
“You shouldn’t be out of bed.”
Rafe’s hand goes to my hair, and he fists it. “I’m never leaving your side again,” he declares and pulls my head back, kissing the daylights out of me.
Any coherent thought I had flies right out of my brain. I’ve missed this man’s kisses. How they make me melt while also sending me on a high at the same time.
“And you look fuck-hot,” he adds, giving me one last, lingering kiss. I tamp down the lust suddenly flowing through my veins because now is not the time.
An arm wraps around me from behind and pulls me away from Rafe. “Sit your ass down before you pass out,” Jax says, gripping a possessive hand on my hip.
Rafe looks down at Jax’s hand and back up to me, a question in the way his eyebrow jacks up. Shit. I haven’t had time to talk to him yet about what happened at the house with Keane, Jax, and Liam because he’s been doped up and sleeping the majority of the time. I don’t even know if Rafe has figured out that Jax and I had already slept together the night I found out who Sarah was.
Arguments erupt around me, coming from my four men. Tessa looks on with her mouth gaping open, and Pearson stands silently waiting.
I yell, “Will everyone shut the hell up?”
Turning to Rafe, I point at the couch. “Sit. You and I will talk later. I promise I’ll explain everything.” I turn around and face Jax, cradling his face in my palms, hoping my touch will help calm whatever darkness is lurking inside him. “Yours,” I remind him, readjusting his glasses, and he releases a pent-up breath.
Next, I meet Keane’s scowl, and our stare-off quickly ends when he gives me a small chin lift and sits down. Lastly, I face Liam.
“What am I not ready for?”
“That ring and all it entails,” he says, his face turning as hard as the timbre of his voice.
“Explain.”
Pearson motions for me to sit, and I take the seat next to Tessa.
She leans over and whispers, “This feels like some heavy Lord of the Rings shit. If you start calling that thing ‘my precious,’ I’m out of here.”
I try not to laugh, but she makes it difficult.
Pearson shoves Liam into the armchair and keeps a hand on his shoulder to hold him in place. “That ring which is now yours is the Levin crest. It signifies your position as the head of the family.”
Declan explained how Levin became Levine due to a clerk error when his grandfather immigrated from Ireland.
“I can’t take Declan’s place,” I reply incredulously with a huge amount of ‘holy shit’ infused as well.
“With Declan out of commission for the foreseeable future, the business doesn’t stop and needs someone at the helm. The men are at your command. You are now the queen of an empire,” he states bluntly, and fuck me, I was not expecting this.
To say everyone else in the room, except for Liam, are stunned silent would be an understatement. Declan wants me to take over his organization? Pearson or Liam would be better suited. My heart starts hammering as what Pearson says sinks in. Holy fucking shit.
“Why can’t you handle things?” I ask Pearson, desperate for him to throw me a lifeline.
“You’re his daughter. The rightful heir.”
I close my eyes, my father’s ring burning my hand as I hold it in a death grip. I don’t want this kind of power. I’ve seen firsthand how power corrupts and warps. How someone can use it to do horrific things. But I’ve also seen how someone can use it for good. Declan may have been a killer, but he was fair in the punishment he dealt to those who deserved it. He was the opposite of Max.
Keane is like Declan. Circumstances put him at the head of the Rossi syndicate, but he wields his newfound power with diplomacy and fairness. Can I do that? Or will my quest for vengeance turn me into someone Declan would be ashamed of? How am I even worthy of this responsibility?
“I… I don’t… can I have a minute?” I finally get out, feeling the weight of the world suddenly fall upon my shoulders.
Tessa goes to help Rafe stand up, but I still her hand. “I’d like Keane, Jax, and Rafe to stay.”
The hurt on Liam’s face when I don’t include him squeezes my rapidly beating heart.
Pearson waits for Liam and Tessa to leave before he says to me, “When you’re ready, we’ll meet with the men. They are expecting blood for what happened. I know you won’t disappoint them, little flame .”
Curious, I inquire, “Why do you call me that?”
A smile breaks through the crevices of his face and stretches the raised scar that runs down his cheek to his jaw. “‘ The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune’s spite; revive from ashes and rise .’ Miguel de Cervantes.”
“That’s very poetic.”
“It’s also very true,” he replies.
Okay. I can do this. Declan wants me to do this.
“Are you going to stop me from going to see him at the hospital?”
“No.”
“I want men stationed outside his room, and only doctors and nurses we vet are allowed to treat him. No one gets in to see him without our approval.”
“Already took care of that.”
Of course he did. Pearson knows how to handle this type of situation. I’m going to need to rely on his guidance to help me navigate my way through this new reality.
“One last thing, Pearson. I want as many men as we can spare scouring the city for Alejandro and the person or persons who shot my father. Scorched earth style.”
Pearson gives me an approving nod.
“What the fuck was that all about?” Keane asks as soon as he hears the elevator doors close, signaling Pearson’s departure. The guys don’t know what was said because Pearson and I conversed in Russian the entire time. They only saw Liam’s reaction to Pearson giving me the ring.
Guessing correctly, Rafe solemnly explains, anguish coating his words. “That was Pearson handing over the throne to the Levine empire to Andie. She’s now in charge.”
Keane and Jax get deadly quiet, and Jax’s handsome face falls. It breaks my heart.
“Andie, for fuck’s sake, no,” Keane implores and grabs me in his arms, pulling me to him and holding me tight.
I hold him just as fiercely. This is a gamechanger. A new, unexpected twist in this fucked-up dance we’re toeing. And I will not lose. Declan chose me for a reason. I owe him. And I will not fail him.
Against the muscled column of Keane’s neck, I breathe him in and gather my resolve. “I need you with me on this. I don’t want to do this alone.”
Keane grips the sides of my face and roughly attacks my mouth with a soul-curling, panty-soaking kiss that has me clinging to his arms as my knees go weak.
“We’re not going any-fucking-where.”
I want them with me, by my side, every step of the way. But that may not be possible.
With Keane now in control of the Rossis, Riccis, and Barones, his plate is full. He and Jax shouldn’t even be here with me. They need to start restructuring, solidifying alliances and weeding out weak links. One thing that’s a constant in this life is that there will always be someone in the shadows wanting to take what’s yours. Keane will have to deal with a lot of blowback for what he did. You can’t just take out a don of a family, put yourself in that position, and not expect retaliation.
“As much as I want you and Jax here twenty-four-seven, you also have other responsibilities that need your attention. You can’t look weak or uninvested. Keane, you of all people should know how precarious a time it is when there’s a power restructure. You saw it happen when we were kids and Max pushed my grandfather out and took over.”
Grandfather slips out before I can stop myself. It’s been difficult to remember that the people I grew up with are not my real family.
“Dante has it covered.”
Why does he have to be such a stubborn ass all the time?
“Dante isn’t the Rossi don. You are.”
“Jax and I are exactly where we need to be, princess.” He stops my further protests by kissing me.
Rafe makes an angry growl. “I think it’s time for someone to explain why everyone has been shoving their tongues down my woman’s throat,” he coldly states, grunting with effort as he leans forward, elbows to knees, with fists clenched in front of him.
“She’s not your woman.” Jax sends Rafe a deadly smirk, flipping his knife over and under his fingers. “She’s ours.”