Chapter 8
Eight
Rowan
My neck is broken.
Not literally. But after two nights in that reading chair, my body has stopped caring about the distinction.
I turn my neck and give a push on the edge of my chin with my thumb until a pop releases the tension, then repeat in the other direction. The relief is instant but short-lived.
I open my eyes to the library ceiling. The blanket I pulled over myself around midnight lies in a heap on the floor.
My left shoulder is locked solid. The damn thing won't move without grinding.
My right leg went numb hours ago where I have it draped over the chair arm.
I might have managed an hour of sleep. Two tops.
All because of her. Because of what happened on the terrace yesterday.
The taste of her still burns on my tongue, the sounds she made against my mouth still vibrate through my skull.
If I go anywhere near a bed with her in it, I won't stop at tasting.
I'll consume. I can’t let that happen to a woman under my protection.
And I won’t stop at consuming her. I’ll fucking ruin the woman and enjoy doing it.
I can’t let that happen. Not when anyone close to me could get hurt for simply knowing me. Being romantically involved with me is a death wish. That thought provokes another truth. If my son finds out I have her, he’ll torture her before letting her bleed out.
I slowly ease my frame out of the chair and every bone in my body pops and cracks.
Neck, back, left knee, right ankle. The knees are the worst. They always are.
The two bullets I received as a parting present from Russia are the gift that keeps on giving.
The damage never fully healed and every day I pay for carrying the Volkov name.
Most mornings the ache is manageable. After two nights folded into furniture, my legs feel like they belong to a man thirty years older.
I stretch and my lower back protests so aggressively that I put both hands on the desk and lean forward to breathe through it.
"Fuck. Me." This is not sustainable. I never thought I would fold myself into a pretzel over a woman, yet here I am.
While I only have one bedroom, I do have two bathrooms. I make my way to the cabin above the underground fortress and head straight for the shower.
After the hot water pounds my body for ten minutes, I grab a towel and head for the built-in closet off the side of the bathroom.
I keep clothes on this level as part of my be-ready-at-all-times motto.
I grab a fresh pair of slacks, a black button-down and skip the tie and jacket.
Rolling up the sleeves, I make my way back down to the kitchen and prepare the coffee pot.
While I wait, I grab my phone. Two texts came through overnight.
The first from Drake confirming Kon handled the cleanup at Cora's apartment and Mrs. Mertle across the street is booked on a six-month cruise leaving tomorrow. The second from Luca, timestamped four in the morning. Five minutes after interrupting me with Cora last night with the news of a second body, he called back and suggested I stay put. Going out and picking up a tail that follows me back here is a risk we all agree I shouldn’t take.
I open Luca’s text.
Second body confirmed. My contact in the Ravenswood network. Found him two blocks from my front door. Same kill signature. Two to the throat, one to the forehead.
The kiss of the Volkovs. My son's calling card, left within walking distance of my brother's home.
I stare at the text for a long time. Two of my informants dead in forty-eight hours.
Both killed with my father's signature. Both positioned where I would find them, where the message would land with maximum impact.
This is not random violence. This is Nikolai dismantling my intelligence network one body at a time, and he wants me to know it.
And Cora was right. He wants me to think he knows where to find me and the other men. My father was good at scare tactics and it seems my son has picked up my father’s bad habits.
Unlucky for them both I don’t scare easily and I know every play in both their handbooks.
I type back: Keep Ilona and baby Lucia close. I'll call if anything comes up.
I crack my neck and roll out the pain buried in my left shoulder. I can focus on the shit going down and the fact my brothers are handling it while I hold up, or I can make the best of my time here.
I know my brothers can handle the mess my son is making, but it’s not easy staying on the sidelines. I scrape a hand over my face, the weight of my last name heavier than it has ever been. Idle is not a good speed for me, but Cora needs me here.
I pocket the phone and grab the only mug in the place. Skipping sugar, I pour a cup of fresh brew and hope it helps work out the rest of the kinks the shower didn't touch.
I lean a hip against the island, taking the first few sips when it hits me.
The kitchen is different this morning. My gaze sweeps over the space, but it takes me a second to find the change. It's not perfume. Cora isn't wearing any. It's more subtle than that.
I reach for the case of smokes I usually keep in my breast pocket, only to come back empty-handed. I left them in the car on purpose last night. A nasty habit and the idea of filling her air with toxic smoke didn't sit right.
I huff out a grunt.
That's what is different. Her. Her warmth, her energy. It's soft, inviting and it has seeped into every part of this place.
I'm not a woo-woo kind of person, but I understand energy. It's kept me alive for over forty years. When you're in my line of work you learn to listen to your senses. When the energy shifts it often means something good or something bad has entered your space.
Massimo and Kon say I have eyes in the back of my head and can sense when someone is gunning for me from behind.
It's just reading the energy. Someone is always looking to stab a wealthy mobster in the back.
I know because there was a time I didn't believe in reading the room.
I learned how wrong I was the hard way and have the scars to prove it.
I down another swallow of coffee and catalog the compound. Dirt streaks the kitchen counter where she leaned against it with garden-soil hands yesterday at some point. I grab a dish towel and clean the space, tossing it aside.
A barefoot print marks the stone outside the door leading to the garden she found. The books on my shelf sit in a new order. The blanket on the reading chair was folded when I found it last night, she folded it sometime yesterday while I was out. She's left her touch on nearly everything.
I pour another cup of coffee and cross to my bedroom door.
She's left it ajar so I push it open a few inches and stop.
A lamp on the nightstand throws a glow of warmth over her. It pools on the bed and spills over her sleeping form, turning her white hair golden. Sunshine. The word plays through my mind.
She's in the middle of the bed. Dead center, claiming it.
Half under the covers, half out. A shapely leg drapes over the top of the blanket.
Despite bringing her new clothes and pajamas, the woman chose one of my shirts.
A black button-down. She's rolled the sleeves and left enough of the buttons undone that I can see the soft swell of her breasts.
At the other end, the hem rides high over the curve of her ass.
My jaw tightens. I grip the doorframe hard enough to feel the wood bite into my palm.
Yesterday I had her pinned to a rock wall with her legs wrapped around me and the taste of her on my tongue.
I can still feel the pressure of her grinding against my cock, the wet heat of her soaking through my slacks, the sound of my name breaking from her mouth.
If that phone hadn't rung, I would have been inside her.
And I would have hated myself for it. A man who takes a woman under his protection is no better than the men he protects her from. My father taught me that lesson by being the opposite of it.
I'm a bastard for standing here watching her sleep. I know. But I've never had a woman in my space. Never wanted one. And I've damn sure never had one this beautiful, this tempting, wearing my clothes in my bed like she belongs here.
But she doesn't belong here. That's the problem.
What happened on that terrace was a mistake. My brothers fell in love and now they spend half their lives worrying about protecting their families. Their wives are scared to leave the house. Their children will grow up with targets on their backs.
I'm not walking into that trap. Not when anyone close to me could end up dead. Again.
I swallow past the knot tightening around my throat and leave temptation where it belongs. Behind me. She’s the one. I know it. That knowledge is another reason I need to keep my hands and dick to myself.
I take my coffee to the cliff-face windows. Lake Michigan is gray this morning. Flat. The only thing that offers signs of life is the rolling fog over the still surface of the water.
My phone vibrates with an incoming call.
Rafael, following up from last night's meeting.
I handle it in clipped texts. The brothers are working the pipeline intel.
Drake is running Detective Vickers through his contacts.
Luca is pulling shipping manifests for all our routes despite having a dead body appear two blocks from his home twelve hours ago.
The machine is moving. It's how I designed my network.
I don't have to be hovering in order for it to perform.
I used to find comfort in that. The self-sustaining system. The machine that doesn't need me.
Now the quiet leaves me nothing to do but think about the woman in my bed and the way her body arched against mine on that wall.
Sometime around nine the energy in the fortress shifts.
She's awake.