SWNOVELS When He Takes: Chapter 18
I’m in bed and drifting in and out of a fantastically explicit dream featuring my wife, when I get a call from Gino the next morning.
“Well done last night.”
The sound of his voice makes my dick deflate instantaneously. I swear I can hear his fountains fucking gurgling in the background. I don’t know how he lives like that. I’d have to piss all the time.
I sit up against the headboard and rake my fingers through my hair. “What happened?”
“They put eyes on you this morning.”
Huh. He’s moving fast. Blake will be pleased to hear our efforts have paid off. “You got some more details?”
“The penthouse is being watched. There’s a black Mercedes parked half a block east, and there are guys on each of the exits. They’re dressed in athletic gear and caps.”
Great. Who doesn’t love having a few trigger-happy Russians on their doorstep? “Do you think Maksim is acting on his own or with the pakhan’s blessing?”
“It’s doubtful he went straight to the top. Given his position, he won’t tell the pakhan about you until he’s absolutely certain he’s got you leashed.”
Irritation spikes through me. Me, on a fucking leash? I thought my pride went out the window the moment Gino told me to get on my knees in his office, but it looks like it’s still here, because that image makes me want to shove Gino’s face into a fucking wall.
“And how is he going to do that?” I growl.
“We have to wait and see. Another accidental run-in would be too suspicious. But if he’s put his guys on you, you’ve clearly caught his attention.”
Did I?
Or did Blake?
I didn’t miss the way Maksim looked at her last night. He practically frothed at the mouth over my wife.
My. Fucking. Wife.
“If I had to guess, he wants to monitor who’s coming in and out to see you. Vita won’t be stopping by anymore. Every discussion from now on will take place over this secure line. I’ll make sure Rafaele also gets the memo. I don’t want him around you at all. We need to sell the idea that there’s a rift between you two.”
I sniff. “All right.”
That won’t be hard. Rafaele has kept his distance, and I don’t know if it’s because he feels weird about what almost happened in Gino’s office, or if it’s something else.
An ache spreads through my chest. There was a time when we were inseparable.
But Maksim was right about one thing last night. Things change.
“You need to get him to trust you, Nero. He’ll do whatever he needs to do in order to get a feel for where you stand.”
“Yeah, I got it. You don’t need to hold my hand.” Frankly, if all I’ve got to do is convince Maksim I’m hungry for revenge, it won’t be hard. I’d never betray Rafe, but Blake’s right. My current situation isn’t good. She deserves better than a husband who’s got less power and influence than a low-level soldier.
“Is that disrespect I hear in your tone, De Luca?”
Fucking Ferraro. He’s giving me plenty of frustration I can channel into the lies I’ll feed Maksim.
“Just getting in character, Your Majesty. We’ll be in touch.” I toss my phone on the nightstand and let out a sigh. I hate being bossed around by this asshole. Rafe was never a condescending piece of shit like him.
Irritation buzzes beneath my skin as I throw off the blanket and sit on the edge of the bed. Outside the window, the city I once ruled goes about its business as usual.
Seriously, though, why the fuck did Maksim look at Blake like that? There was a certain glint in his eye—a glint that a married man shouldn’t have, especially not with his wife standing right beside him. A glint that a man speaking to the wife of the Angel of Death shouldn’t dare possess. Unless, of course, that nickname doesn’t carry the weight it used to.
Working with Rafe always felt like a partnership. Yes, he had final veto power, but it rarely came to that. He listened to me, respected me, and valued me.
Gino doesn’t.
If my boss treats me like a nobody, soon enough, everyone else in the city will catch on.
I swallow hard. My problems seem to be multiplying, but they will be solved if Blake and I pull this thing off.
Even though the main reason I agreed to the plan was because I think it’ll bring Blake and me closer together, it will be nice to be a capo again.
Gino’s capo. And eventually, Cosimo’s.
But that’s better than being Alessio’s lackey.
I roll my shoulders back and let out a long breath. I can handle Maksim. I’ve handled men far more clever and dangerous.
But something about this doesn’t sit well with me. Was it right to allow Blake to get involved in this?
Forget the fact that she’s the one who wanted to do it. She doesn’t understand how quickly things like this can go off the rails. It’s my job to make sure they don’t, but it’s a hell of a lot easier to control a situation when you’ve got an arsenal at your disposal, and right now, all I’ve got is me.
I might be putting her in danger. Again.
I let out a sigh.
She won’t agree to call this off so quickly, not after fighting so hard to do it in the first place. And wasn’t last night great for us? Didn’t it feel like I was getting through to her? I made her smile. I made her blush. I offered her the support she needed without her even asking.
There’s a selfish part of me that doesn’t want to give that up, despite my anxiety.
The next few days only serve to agitate my nerves even more. The black Mercedes is out there day and night. Blake doesn’t leave the penthouse while I’m working, but I worry about the men staking out the building. They wouldn’t dare try to come inside. Then again, the Bratva are daring and not always logical. I ask Gino to station a car with three guys a few blocks away, just in case the Russians make a move. He agrees.
On Wednesday, my phone rings with an unknown number just as I pull into the parking lot of the penthouse. I turn off the ignition and pick up the call.
“Mr. De Luca.” The accented voice on the other end of the line is instantly recognizable.
“Garin. I don’t recall giving you my number.”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
I roll my eyes. “To what do I owe the pleasure? In case it wasn’t obvious at the gala, I’m happily married, so if you’re calling to ask me out on a date, the answer is no.”
He chuckles. “I’ve heard you have a sense of humor.”
“From whom?”
“Some mutual friends.”
I flick through my mental Rolodex. Everyone in the underground knows about the turf war between the Italians and the Bratva, and most have picked sides, except for—
“There’s a poker game at Red Vines on Friday. I wanted to extend an invitation.”
Ah. Red Vines is neutral territory. Been that way for a few decades. It’s a club run by a Greek called Yannis. I wouldn’t call him a friend, but I’ve been to some of his game nights. Maksim must have spoken to him about me.
I toss my car keys in my palms. “Those seats usually get taken quickly.”
“There’s room for one more. I thought you might enjoy a friendly game.”
As in, he wants an opportunity to put me under the microscope.
Gino will be happy. I hate making him happy.
I rub my jaw with my palm. “It’s been a while since I’ve played.”
“It’ll be a good time.”
“I’m sure it will be, but you know, I’ve got a packed social calendar.”
“Oh?” Annoyance creeps into Maksim’s voice. He knows it’s a lie given I haven’t gone out or had anyone visit me since he put his guys on watch.
But I can’t seem too eager.
“Let me check my agenda.” I swipe through the promotions tab in my email for a full minute before I finally say, “Looks like I’m free that night.”
“Great.” There’s a bite to his tone. “My wife is hosting a dinner that same night with a few of her girlfriends at a restaurant not too far from the game. She took a real liking to your lovely wife at the gala. Would Blake like to join them?”
No.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. I’m supposed to say yes. Vita spent two weeks preparing Blake so that she could hold her own with those women. “I’ll have to ask.”
“She must be lonely, not knowing many people in the city.”
“How do you know she doesn’t?”
“She’s not from New York, is she?”
So he’s looked into her. It doesn’t surprise me, but it still pisses me off.
“I’ll talk to her and see what she thinks. What’s the address?”
Maksim rattles it off. “I hope she can make it. It’ll be good for her to get out of the house.”
I bite on the inside of my cheek. “Thanks for the invite. Looking forward to it.”
Upstairs, Blake is munching on some pasta when I walk into the kitchen.
She glances at the clock. I’m home earlier than usual. When she sees the expression I’m wearing, she frowns and puts down her fork. “What happened?”
I walk over to where she’s sitting at the kitchen island and steal a bite from off her plate. “We’ve received two invitations. Me to a poker game with Maksim, and you to a dinner with his wife.”
“That’s good, right?”
The moment I take the stool beside her, she pushes her half-finished plate toward me and gets to her feet.
Frustration pulses inside my chest. She’s been trying to avoid me since the gala, going to sleep before I get back home from work, and now she’s running away from me again.
My hand shoots out to grab her forearm, and I tug her back into her seat. “Sit with me.”
Her gaze drops to where I’m touching her, to where her soft skin is pebbling with goosebumps.
Lightly, I swipe my thumb over her inner wrist. “Blake, we spent all evening together at the gala, and now it’s like you can’t stand five minutes in my presence. What happened?”
Slowly, her gaze rises to meet mine.
How is it that I used to be able to read her? To understand her? Now, she’s a black box to me.
“We were working,” she says softly.
A stab goes through my heart. “So you’ll only spend time with me while we’re working?”
“Nero, you spent all evening taking advantage of the fact that I couldn’t tell you to back off. I thought I made myself clear. We can be friends, but nothing more.”
My nostrils flare. That word used in relation to me and her makes me want to punch a fucking wall.
“If you can’t accept that and keep pushing for more, I have no choice but to keep my distance.”
I lean in, inhaling her vanilla scent. “Do you remember when you tried to be my friend back in Darkwater Hollow?”
Pink spreads over her cheeks. She tugs on her bottom lip with her teeth. “That’s old history.”
“Sunshine, history tends to repeat itself.”
She exhales a low breath, her eyelashes fluttering. I’m so close, I could count them all one by one if I wanted to.
Her body betrays her true feelings by tilting closer to me. When will she stop fighting this? What will it take to get her to drop her defenses and trust me again?
Maybe it’ll happen when you stop putting her in danger.
My jaw clenches. This time, it’s me who lets go of her and leans away.
She sounds a bit breathless as she says, “Tell me about this poker game.”
I give her the rundown of my conversation with Maksim.
Blake’s brows are furrowed. “Isn’t Maksim worried about being seen with you in public? If he’s already thinking about trying to turn you, he’d want to keep your meetings private, no?”
“He picked well. The two of us being seen on neutral territory like Red Vines shouldn’t arouse suspicion. In his mind, even if it gets back to Gino that he and I were there together, our attendance could be easily explained as coincidental.” I take another few bites of her abandoned pasta. “What do you think about this dinner with Ekaterina?”
Blake shrugs. “I have to go. It’s the kind of thing Vita told me to expect.”
“You’ll be there on your own. I don’t like it.”
“It’s not like she’s going to do anything to me in public. What are you afraid of?”
“I don’t know.” Something uncomfortable gets lodged inside my throat. Should I tell her how I’m really feeling?
Fuck it. I’ve got nothing to lose.
“I’m worried I’m putting you in danger. I promised you I’d keep you safe, and this doesn’t fucking feel like me fulfilling that promise. This feels like me doing the wrong thing for selfish reasons again.”
Her eyes widen, like that was the last thing she was expecting me to say.
“What are you talking about? I’m the one who convinced you to do this. I want to do this. You becoming capo…” She swallows. “It will make everything better, won’t it?”
No more twelve-hour days when I barely see her. No more blood caked under my nails when I get home. No more men doubting that I could disembowel them for giving her lingering looks.
And to top that all off…I just have this gut feeling that once we make it to the other side of this, she’ll be mine again.
“Yeah, it would. But at what cost?”
“I can handle this. I don’t want to see you hurt, Nero.”
“It’s not your job to fix my problems, Sunshine.”
Unease flickers across her expression. “It is when I’m the one who contributed to them.”
I frown. “What are you talking about?”
“Brett was my ex. Uncle Lyle was my godfather.”
Is she seriously blaming herself for what happened? “You’re kidding, right? Don’t tell me you’re doing this out of some misplaced sense of guilt.”
“You know, in the beginning, I was so worried about the people in my life causing problems for you. And then when I found out about how you’d lied to me, I was so full of rage that I became blind to my own part in what happened to us. But if it wasn’t for Brett and Uncle Lyle, you would have stayed Rowan Miller. You’d still be running Handy Heroes with Sam, and you wouldn’t have had to risk your life by coming back here. So yeah, I do feel guilty, and I don’t think my guilt is at all misplaced.”
My heart breaks all over again.
This woman. How can someone be this fucking pure and good?
She’s wrong, of course. She’s blameless. If I’d handled Brett differently, he wouldn’t have gone to the Iron Raptors and demanded they look into me.
But I can see now that this has been weighing on her.
I swipe my hand over my lips, trying to contain the flood of conflicting emotions suddenly rushing through me. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I know. But I want to. You’ve taken many choices from me, Nero. Don’t you dare try to take this one from me as well.”
She’s right. She’s fucking right. If I want to ever win her back after forcing her to marry me against her will, I have to start letting her make her own decisions. She will never allow herself to love me again if I insist on ruling with an iron fist.
I take her hand in mine, interlacing our fingers and marveling at how soft her skin is. “Fine. I won’t.”
A second passes, and then she squeezes my hand back. “It’ll be all right.”
I want to believe she’s right, but doubts still swirl inside. And maybe I’m imagining it, but I swear there’s a hint of something false inside her piercing blue eyes.