Chapter 15 #2
Rowan's thumb traces a circle on my knuckle. "Da." The accent thickens the syllable. The man is proud of himself. “To be fair, no one was looking at your face.”
I'm going to kill him. Right after I kiss him.
"The comments are very supportive. Someone called it 'the most unhinged meet-cute since the invention of the internet.' There's fan art." Raine watches me glare up at Rowan and him wink at me.
"You two are something."
I shake my head. "Don't start."
"I'm not starting. I'm observing." She pauses. "You do realize the entire internet ships you. Wanna see the fan art?"
She pulls up people’s social media posts with the hashtag #stealinghisqueen and sure enough I’m featured in tens of different styled renderings.
While I’d love to fall down that rabbit hole, I can’t let a detail go. "But how did that video show you where to find me?" I turn back to Raine.
Raine's eyes cut toward Soren and then the Red Letter men. "My boss is a friend and he recognized the man behind you."
For the first time in my life, I don’t have a come back for that except, "What a fucking small world.”
Rowan's thumb traces a circle on my knuckle. “It most definitely is, malyshka.”
Soren turns to Rowan. He closes the distance in two strides and wraps his arms around Rowan.
"Fuck, brother." Soren's voice goes rough against Rowan's shoulder. "It's been a long ass time."
Rowan's arms come up. Slow. Rusty. But his hands grip Soren's back with a force that tells me this man is filed somewhere important, in a category that predates the Syndicate and the compound and the empire.
"Da. It has."
"You look old."
"But I look better than you."
"Both true." Soren pulls back, straightens his jacket, and grins.
My gaze bounces between them. “So what? All the growly stuff was just for show?” Call me disappointed. I kinda like the possessive streak he showed.
Rowan winks at me, pulling me into his side.
Raine watches the hug and bumps me with her shoulder. In a low voice she says, "I brought him as my muscle. He was supposed to intimidate people on my behalf. Instead, he hugged every one of these men and proceeded to tell me they’re old friends."
"He was never going to be your muscle," Rowan says, and his eyes move to Soren with a look that carries a conversation I'm not part of. "Soren doesn't hit people he can negotiate with."
"I do occasionally hit people," Soren says mildly. "When the negotiation requires it."
“I hate to break up the bromance.” Raine swipes to a different screen, and angles it toward me. "But here's the part that really matters."
Petals & Thorns.
My flower shop. The pale blue awning I painted myself on a Sunday morning with Raine holding the ladder and telling me the color was too whimsical for a business that wanted to be taken seriously.
The window display I changed every two weeks now looks dead and abandoned.
My heart aches for all the work I put into the shop only to see it so run down.
Yellow police tape stretches across the front door in a jagged X. A news article headline fills the bottom half of the screen, but I can't read it because my vision has gone blurry.
"The article came out two days after the video.
" Raine's voice shifts, softer now. "I’m sorry baby girl. I know it hurts.” She takes my hand.
“Someone killed a man in the alley behind your shop.
The police found evidence of what they called 'organized criminal activity.
' They roped off your shop as a secondary crime scene. "
"I know." My voice comes out steadier than my hands, which are shaking against Rowan's fingers. "I was there, Raine. I was in the shop when it happened."
The color drains from her face. Her fingers tighten on my forearm until the pressure registers as pain.
"You were in the shop."
"It’s how I ended up slung over his shoulder and why I went off grid."
I spend the next ten minutes filling my sister in on all the details about the man, Nikolai, the dirty cops and my wish.
"Jesus Christ, Cora." She grips my arms with both hands.
Raine's jaw tightens. The muscles along the sharp line of her face tense.
"I knew you were alive. Our missed calls told me that.
Every time my phone went to your voicemail I told myself if you were dead I would feel it.
Twins feel that, right? We're supposed to feel that.
" Her voice cracks on "feel" and she clears her throat, sharp and deliberate.
She never was one to let her emotions show. "But I couldn't get here fast enough."
"Where were you?"
Raine's eyes flick toward Soren. The glance lasts less than a second, but it carries the weight of something she's not ready to say in a room full of me. Soren's expression doesn't change, but his jaw shifts, a micro-movement that I’ve learned to recognize in Rowan.
"That's a story for another time." Raine reaches for me again, grips my forearm, and holds on.
A throat clears behind me. I turn, and the lobby comes back into focus with the sudden sharpness of a camera adjusting depth of field, pulling the background into clarity after minutes of soft blur.
The brothers. They’ve stood patiently waiting for all of us to finish.
Six of them, arranged across the marble floor in a loose formation that looks casual and is absolutely not. They've been standing back during the reunion, patient.
“Oh my god. How rude of us all. I am so sorry. It’s been a whirlwind of chaos.”
Mortification drains the blood from my face.
The one I suspect is Rafael Milano steps forward first. He’s taller than I expected. His dark hair is threaded with silver at the temples. Warm gray eyes offer the same comfort as his gentle grip when he takes my hand.
"Cora." His voice is the smooth verbal equivalent of aged whiskey. "Nice to finally meet the woman who has melted our brother's frozen heart. And don’t worry about it. It was nice to see you and Ms. Vale reconnect. That’s not something we witness a lot in our line of work."
I suspect not. But I keep my commentary to myself.
"He's a little defrosted at best," I say. "Work in progress."
Rafael's mouth twitches. He glances at Rowan behind me, and the look that passes between them carries years of shared history compressed into a single beat of eye contact. "I can see why he's been hiding you."
The other brothers move in like a wave of warmth.
Drake steps forward first after Rafael, broad shoulders, dark skin, and a warm handshake. His eyes assess me with an intelligence built from the ground up. "Nice to finally have the privilege of meeting our brother’s woman."
"It’s nice to be part of the inner circle."
Drake's laugh is warm and heartwarmingly genuine. He casts a look at Rowan over my head with an expression that says I've been waiting years for someone to crack you open and I'm going to enjoy watching it happen.
We move down the line. Luca is next. Loose black hair hangs past his shoulders. His eyes crinkle at the edges when he takes my hand and holds it a beat longer than necessary. "Cora. I owe you an apology."
My brows furrow. "For what?"
"I'm the one who dropped your wish on his lap. Accidentally." He glances at Rowan, amusement and guilt competing behind his sharp gaze. "If I'd known it would bring you to us, I would have made sure it landed in his hands on purpose."
Rowan gives his brother a nod.
Massimo greets me with a handshake first and then he pulls me in for a big hug that earns him a growl from Rowan. "Massimo Santoro. Welcome to the family. We're not as terrifying as we look."
Kon is next. He doesn't shake my hand and do the bear hug route. And thank God for that. His dark eyes peer down at me, heavy with understanding. I can’t say for sure, but it’s like he understands what it means to be taken from your world and placed in someone else's. The nod he gives me is small and I can’t help but feel like it carries more weight than most people's speeches.
"Kon," I say. "I think I probably have you to thank for cleaning up my home."
"Da." Rowan's voice comes from behind me.
"You can always call me. I’ll be there for you as much as I am there for my brothers."
With that he walks away and starts talking to Rafael about who knows what. Probably where to dig new holes for graves.
“He’s a teddy bear,” I whisper to Rowan and he gives me a side-eye. But he doesn’t disagree, I note.
And then there's Cristian, materializing in the spot Kon vacated. Dark eyes, sharp features. He dips his chin in acknowledgment, brief and formal, and his attention slides back to the perimeter, scanning exits and entry points. He makes the hair on the back of my neck prickle and I can’t help but track his line of sight to see if someone has snuck up on us.
Seven men, if I count Soren. Seven pillars of an empire I am choosing to walk into with my eyes open.
I look at Rowan. His hand finds the small of my back again, anchoring me in this room full of new faces.
"They all refer to you as the human ice cube," I say, raising my gaze to his. “I know you've been hurt, my dear Russian.” I thread my fingers through his hair and press my forehead to his. “It’s okay if you don’t want to share with me the reason, but one day I hope you trust me with your pain.” I keep my voice low.
Rowan's arm slides around my waist. He turns me toward him, tips my chin up with two fingers, and kisses me in front of every single person in the lobby.
His mouth is warm and he tastes like the coffee we grabbed on the way out of his bookstore.
His hand cups the back of my head with the gentleness that always undoes me.
When he pulls back, his eyes are molten blue. The accent wraps around every syllable. "It's a story for another time, sunshine. I trust you with everything. But let’s wait until after we deal with my son."
The word "son" drops acid into the pit of my stomach and burns there, quiet and corrosive, while the warmth of his kiss still lingers on my lips.