Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
KEANE
Standing next to the wet bar in the living room, I tip my glass back. The whiskey stopped burning three shots ago.
“How drunk are you planning to get?” Rafe asks from where he’s sitting on the couch.
I grab the bottle of vodka since the whiskey isn’t working fast enough.
She and Rafe were holed up in her room for hours reading that damn journal. When they finally emerged, she destroyed Kellan’s bedroom looking for the thumb drive that contained the videos Kellan recorded. Thank fuck for small miracles, because Jax and I had already destroyed it.
“She hates me for not telling her.”
Rafe looks at me like I’m the dumbest person on the planet. Perhaps, I am, but only when it comes to Andie. Every attempt I make to protect her backfires stupendously. When I ripped into her in the kitchen, I expected her to fight back with her bitchy one-liners that make me hard as hell. Instead, I got a composed Andie handing me my ass with a heartfelt speech about acceptance and love. I didn’t think I could feel worse after that, but then she found Kellan’s journal.
“No, she doesn’t.”
I take a slug from the vodka bottle, wanting nothing more than to smash it over his head.
“Who did she fuck last night?”
Andie spent the night with them, not me. I was shut out, and it fucking hurts. Andie meted out my punishment, and I had no other choice than to take it. My punishment? I had to watch as Jax and Rafe each took her right in front of me. They gave her pleasure. Kissed her and touched her. Made her moan and come over and over again. Then she spent the night with Liam in his bed. It was absolute torture knowing she was with him.
But if that was my penance, so be it.
I’m ticked that Jax didn’t get the same blowback as I did. He also didn’t tell her what was in Kellan’s journal. Didn’t stop her from riding his dick like the world was ending. Bastard. I can guarantee there won’t be a second night of that shit. Andie will be screaming my name and gagging on my cock tonight. And these motherfuckers aren’t invited.
Needing an outlet for the anger directed solely at myself, I turn on Jax. He’s leaning against the back wall, joint between his lips. He hasn’t lit up yet because Rafe would beat his ass.
“What the hell is wrong with you? I blame you for what happened in the courtyard.”
He pushes his glasses up his nose with his middle finger.
“We agreed she wouldn’t see that shit, and then you just take her to one of your torture parties. Do you want her to end up as fucked in the head as you are?”
I knew my words would cut him open before I said them. Knowing that didn’t stop me. I’m livid that he had Andie participate in one of his torture playdates. I’ve seen Jax at his worst. The gruesome things he enjoys doing to people. How he gets off on others’ pain and suffering. It’s a good quality to have if you’re an enforcer for the mob. Not one I want in the woman I love. A woman who has been the recipient of the kind of torture Jax inflicts on others.
“Keane, it wasn’t Jax’s fault. It was Andie’s choice. And her arguments are valid,” Rafe says.
I slam the vodka bottle down. “She killed a man like it was nothing.”
“She did what any of us would’ve done in her place,” he counters.
“She’s not one of us. She’s better than us.”
Rafe gets up and walks over. “Damn straight she is. But you’re wrong about the first part. Love her enough to accept all of her, even the parts you disagree with.”
Fuck. I hate it when he’s right. I jerk my chin at Jax in apology. He rolls his damn eyes at me, but I know we’re good.
“I want to talk to you both about what happens next.” I gesture for Jax to sit on the couch. Of course, he takes his sweet-ass time.
Rafe puts one foot up on the coffee table and relaxes back into the leather cushion. “Is this a discussion Liam should be included in?”
“No,” I say a little too quickly.
When Jax sits down, Rafe reaches over and snatches the joint from his mouth. “You’ll get it back later.”
“Good thing I have a spare,” Jax says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pre-rolled one that’s bent in two. He looks at it in disgust and tosses it. Rafe grins.
“Are you coming back?” I ask Rafe.
“Do you want me to?”
I rub my hand over the back of my head a few times. “You’ve made it clear that you want out, so this is me giving you the choice to stay or to go.”
He thinks about it, then asks Jax, “You got an opinion?”
“I want us all together. But my opinion doesn’t mean shit if that’s not what Andie wants. Honestly? I think she’s finally found where she belongs. Declan handed her the reins for a reason. Is the wedding still happening?”
“Unless she says otherwise,” I reply. After what happened yesterday, I wouldn’t be surprised if she called it off. Just means I’ll have to hog-tie her and carry her to the altar myself.
Jax takes out his knife and taps it against the arm of the couch. “Are you prepared to align the Rossis with the Levines? It’ll piss off a lot of the other families we do business with. You know how they feel about the Irish.”
I hate how old cultural prejudices get in the way of progress. “They can think whatever they want. They won’t do anything about it, unless it affects their bottom line. We no longer have the New York families to contend with. I’ll assimilate them under the Agosti name.”
Rafe sits up. “Wait. You’re dismantling the Rossi family? The business?”
I laugh at the irony. “What family? There’s no one left. Andie isn’t a Rossi, and she sure as fuck doesn’t want to run the family business. Kellan, Dom, and everyone else with blood ties to Max are all dead. It would be more of a rebranding, not a dismantling.” All semantics, but whatever.
“Then walk away from it. Let it die. Let Andie burn the house to the ground,” Jax suggests. It doesn’t help.
I lean my head back and look up at the ceiling. “And do what? I don’t know anything other than this life. Neither do you, Jax. Besides, my family has been intertwined with the Rossis since my great-grandfather was the underboss for Vino Rossi.”
“So what?” Rafe argues. “You say you want Andie to have a better life than this one? Build one for her. She wants it. A family of her own. Kids. Us. We can give it to her. We can be happy and not have to look over our shoulders all the damn time. Aren’t you tired of always fighting? Always waiting for the next turf war to arrive or the next power-hungry asshole to decide he wants what’s yours.”
“She wants kids?” My cock wakes up at the thought of Andie round with my child growing inside her. With all the bare fucking we’re giving her, she may already be pregnant. She said she gets the birth control shot, but like all forms of contraception, there’s never a hundred percent guarantee. “ Is she pregnant?”
Rafe’s exasperation is apparent. “That’s all you got out of what I just said?”
Any thought of fucking Andie overrides everything else, but I reply, “I heard you.”
A commotion erupts somewhere in the house before we hear Tessa’s voice scream our names.