3. Tyran
THREE
TYRAN
New York City
Icould hear Kyran stomping down the hallway toward my office. My latest expansion was the newest, state-of-the-art gym in New York City—a private haven where the city’s most powerful businessmen, billionaires, politicians, and A-list actors came to train.
My twin had a very particular walk that resembled the walk of a herd of horses and made the hardwood groan beneath his every step, followed by the dull thud of his boots.
I took another slow sip of my coffee and sank deeper into the long leather couch, waiting for him to emerge through the door.
The office was quiet otherwise. Late-afternoon light spilled through the tall windows, cutting across the dark wood paneling and catching in the haze above the fireplace. The faint scent of leather, expensive whiskey, and coffee hung in the air.
I preferred the coffee. Whiskey had too many memories attached to it.
Kyran finally stepped into the office and stopped.
His gaze swept over the room before landing on me.
“Where the fuck is Aiden?”
I shrugged. “Fuck if I know.”
My brothers and I agreed to meet here to discuss the product movement.
Aiden suspected we had a mole in our organization who had slipped information to the FBI and that was how I ended up behind bars. Rather than telling him the truth, I agreed. He was unable to find the mole, and the moment I got out, he charged me with finding it and with enforcing our security.
I appeased him by opening the gym where we ended up conducting meetings and laundering money.
“So it’s just us?”
“So it seems.”
His brows pulled together. “Are you okay?”
“Always.”
I wasn’t. The need to punish ate at me and drove me nuts. It made me a great enforcer for our organization, but it didn’t satisfy this insane urge, because the one person I needed to punish wasn’t being punished.
“You seem on edge.”
“You think so?” I asked sarcastically. “It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that the FBI is preparing for another trial that could put me away for life?”
Fucking Sienna and her skillset that made it easy for her to hack into any database…
It was impressive as much as infuriating, not to mention dangerous. The little blondie played me like a fucking fiddle.
“We’re working to find out who this mysterious witness is,” Kyran assured. “Whoever it is, we’ll get to them before the trial ever takes off.”
He wouldn’t, because Sienna was no dummy, and instead of trusting the FBI to protect her, she covered her tracks and identity herself. I was fairly certain her family helped too, because you needed money to disappear.
“Tyran, are you listening?”
I looked up at him. “Yeah.”
“So will you go?”
I frowned. “Where?”
“To the family party.”
It turned out I wasn’t really listening to him. He watched me expectantly, but he already knew the answer.
“No, not this time.”
“Why not?”
“I’m busy,” I deadpanned.
Since getting out of prison early—thanks to a combination of family connections, a few favors owed by people higher up the food chain in the U.S. government, and good behavior—I had kept mostly to myself. Except for when I worked on ending people from the list I started before I got locked up.
Why was I still punishing people who had a hand in Sienna Baldwin’s kidnapping after she betrayed me?
Fuck if I knew, but it took the edge off, and it was far better than participating in family dinners, celebrations, or hearing how fucking happy Aiden was with his wife and how adorable his children were.
Of course I was happy for him, but I couldn’t celebrate anything until I punished the one who had betrayed me.
Five years behind bars had a way of changing a man. Prison stripped you down to the ugliest parts of yourself and then forced you to live with them. Day after day. Week after week. Month after month.
Until you come out of that place hard, cold, and angry as fuck, and all of it had to do with one person.
Sienna Rose Baldwin.
The name tasted bitter on my tongue. It was the name I breathed through every push-up, every weight I lifted, every brutal repetition that left my muscles screaming. The name that haunted me through every minute of every day I spent behind bars.
“I need to speak to Aiden about the sex club and—”
I cut him off with a low growl.
“I don’t want to hear about that fucking sex club ever again.”
His mouth snapped shut and he shot me a look full of disbelief. We spent many nights and shared many women in that sex club. As far as he was concerned, we loved that place.
I did, once upon a time. Now, however, just the mention of that club was enough to send me spiraling.
That fucking cursed place was where I’d met Sienna Baldwin five years ago.
It was where I’d kissed her. One kiss. One goddamn kiss and that girl had turned my entire life upside down.
No.
She wasn’t a girl.
I needed to stop calling her that.
The little blondie was barely twenty, and I’d made it my mission to avoid her and those soft brown eyes that somehow managed to captivate me every time she looked at me.
Unfortunately, she refused to stay away from me, and since then, my life had become one clusterfuck after another.
My jaw clenched.
Five years ago I avoided her, but now I was actively looking for her and there wasn’t a corner of this earth I would leave unturned in order to find her.
“What’s with the sudden resentment of that club? You never minded it before,” Kyran huffed, ignoring my apparent dark mood.
“Don’t like it, that’s all.”
I’d be damned if I involved myself in that cursed place that had brought her into my life and had ultimately cost me five fucking years of it.
Kyran marched over to the bar, opened the large glass-fronted fridge, and grabbed two beers. The metallic hiss of the door opening cut through the silence before he shut it with his hip.
He popped one open and carried the other toward me.
I didn’t take it.
His eyes flicked toward the untouched bottle in his hand before he shrugged and settled into the chair across from me.
I knew that look.
The conversation about the fucking sex club wasn’t over. That place made a boatload of money. My name was still attached to it. My cut still came in whether I wanted it or not. But money was the only reason I tolerated its existence.
Besides, I had different priorities now: finding Sienna. And I always found what I was looking for.
Always.
It was never my intent to let her get away with what she had done. However, I didn’t want my brothers anywhere near her. I would be the one to dish out the punishment.
When I first met her, I walked away the moment I learned she hadn’t even been twenty-one. I’d made my position perfectly clear to her. She had no business being in my life. There was a fifteen-year age gap between us.
I was a gangster.
Not the kind from some fucking movie either. The real kind. The kind whose hands were dirty and whose name made people think twice before crossing him.
She was a prim little college girl studying tech crap, surrounded by people her own age, living a life that had nothing to do with blood, death, or danger.
So, I made her off-limits.
I did everything I could to make her understand that whatever she thought she felt for me couldn’t happen.
For fuck’s sake, I thought I was doing her a favor.
Apparently she hadn’t agreed.
The stubborn little blondie wouldn’t give up, and that stubbornness had led to five fucking years in federal prison.
My fingers tightened around my coffee cup until the heat seeped painfully into my palm.
I remembered the courtroom. The verdict. The doors closing behind me.
The first night in that cell.
And beneath all of it, the knowledge that she was the one behind ripping my life apart.
Betrayal was a sick, hollow feeling that someone you protected used that protection against you. But then came the cold and hard anger, and that was what settled into my bones.
I had carried both her betrayal and my fury for five years.
And now the gloves were off.
Sienna had no idea what was coming.
“You do know that Aiden and I have your back,” Kyran drawled.
He took a long swallow, settling into the chair opposite of me like he was my fucking therapist.
I didn’t need a therapist. I needed her, and I was so fucking close to finding her.
“I know you’re dealing with something that you refuse to share,” Kyran continued, studying me over the rim of his beer. “Which tells me it’s something big.”
“It’s nothing.”
I lifted the coffee to my mouth and took a swallow while he continued to stare at me.
I stared back.
Kyran and I used to share everything. And I meant everything. Secrets. Women. Money. Problems. Fights.
We’d grown up together, bled together, and learned how to survive together. There had never been a wall between us.
Until Sienna.
She was the only thing I had ever refused to share.
I’d never even told him her name. I’d never told Aiden about her. Nobody.
And now, sitting in this office with five years of rage still burning beneath my skin, I knew I would never share her. Sienna’s life was mine.
Kyran shook his head and muttered something under his breath. The word fuck sounded off several times.
That pulled at the corner of my mouth. My twin had always been able to do that.
“You look in excellent shape,” Kyran said suddenly. His eyes traveled over me, assessing the changes five years had made. “Women won’t mistake us anymore. Swapping girls is definitely out of the question now.”
Five years ago, someone looking at us from across a room could easily mistake one twin for the other.
Not anymore.
Prison had changed me. I’d trained obsessively. Hard and every day.
When I couldn’t sleep, I trained. When I was angry, I trained. When memories threatened to drag me under, I trained until my muscles screamed and my lungs burned.
I came out heavier, harder, stronger.
There wasn’t an inch of softness left on me. I was feared more than ever before.
Kyran’s gaze dropped to the coffee in my hand before returning to my face. “And apparently you’re not drinking anymore.”
“No.”
“Have you sworn off alcohol?”
I didn’t answer, because telling him the truth was out of the question. The scent of apples and every alcoholic drink, especially whiskey, reminded me of Sienna. Every burn down my throat dragged her back into my head, and fuck, she was there so much already.
Besides, it wasn’t like I could drink in prison.
Kyran leaned back. “So you’re not interested in sharing a woman?”
“I’m not.”
His brows lifted.
“You found someone to fuck already?”
“Yes.”
A slow grin spread across his face.
“Good. Good. It didn’t take you long. I’m glad you got that out of the way.”
I didn’t bother correcting him, because soon Sienna would be underneath me just like she wanted five years ago.
Soon, she’d be looking up at me with those same soft eyes and she would learn exactly what five years of betrayal had done to me.
Five years ago, she asked for this and I refused her. This time, refusal was out of the question.
She would finally learn what it meant to be mine.