Love of a Queen: Chapter 7

I didn’t talk to any of them for another week. I worked closely with Ivan. We found a penthouse that I could set up in. He’d already introduced me to the men within the bratva that needed to know who I was.

None of them welcomed me.

They eyed me up and down like a piece of meat. All except Maksim who’d helped me that first night while being held hostage by Dimitri.

The only thing I had going for me was that I’d killed my uncle. The bratva respected that, like it was survival of the fittest, like I was suddenly stronger than I looked.

It only took a week and we were all standing at Mario’s funeral dressed in black, driving in black, make-up in black. Even the cops that showed up wore black instead of a uniform.

The chief of police shook hands with Bastian, then Rome, Cade, and Dante. The Stonewoods shook hands too. They were the leaders of this city, the men who pulled all the strings.

The women among them stood tall, though. Each of the Stonewoods had married or were tied to women they cared about. Jett held Vick’s hand like she was his lifeline and Jax never took his eyes off Brey.

I wondered if Rome would ever look at me that way or if he had in the past and I’d just missed it.

The ceremony was large, green grass sprawling across the cemetery where Mario wanted to be buried. He’d bought a plot next to his mother and father.

The priest said all the right words, praising Mario’s drive to always do right by the city. He mentioned he was a businessman but never touched on what type. Every person there knew but didn’t say. We’d become a blanket of secrets that didn’t hide very well because we didn’t have to. Standing in plain sight was how our family worked now, loud and proud and full of power.

The priest mentioned Mario’s love for his family, his boys, and those he’d taken under his wing. Rome was just that, his brother’s son but someone he’d looked at as his own. Rome had been the one to kill him too.

Was that death for me or the family?

The lines were so blurred and mixed up at this point, I didn’t know.

We all made the sign of the cross and then the priest asked for last words. No one spoke.

Not Bastian. Not Cade. No one.

I stepped forward. I didn’t need to give Mario words of kindness, but everyone deserved love at their death.

“Mario knew, like we all do, that his blood was our blood. In his death, a part of all of us died.” I took a breath. “Let us pray.”

The priest cocked an eyebrow at me before he bowed his head along with most everyone.

Except Rome. His heavy, dark stare caught mine. My heart seized at the sadness I caught in his eyes. Heavy was the burden of a monster and a friend who had to take the life of the one he cared about.

His strong jawline flexed as I rolled my lips between my teeth, trying to keep in the emotions that were bubbling up. We’d complicated things beyond repair but my body still wanted to run to him, to feel his skin against mine, to find a way to be with him even if the bratva was where I belonged.

I cleared my throat and tore my gaze from him to stare at the casket. “Let us pray for ends that are cruel like Mario’s death and new beginnings that bring life and love between us all in this city. Let the demons he took to his grave find peace there and let the lessons he taught us take flight to bring light to his family. Let us all bind together to make sure his death wasn’t in vain. Amen.”

The men and women all dressed in black followed my prayer with the sign of the cross and more amens.

Rome stepped forward. No one said a word as we watched him hold his arm over the casket. He rolled his wrist, and the chain he always had under his sleeve dangled out and dropped onto his casket. Rome draped it over the smooth surface.

I gasped as I watched and covered my mouth when a sob almost escaped. Rome was letting go of some past he had with those rusted links. I knew his father had trained him with it, probably beat him with it, and he’d definitely hurt others with it. It was a symbol of his pain and the pain he inflicted on others, something that made him the monster he was. Maybe he felt the emotion, maybe he’d mourned the loss of the life he took too. He had to. He’d taken his father’s and now his uncle’s life, and most everyone had to see him as a ruthless animal.

I wanted to go to him.

Knew I couldn’t.

I wanted to mourn with him, for him, and by him, but knew I had to be stronger than my desires now. They normally led me astray anyway.

I let him stand on his own and give his gift to the dead.

As they lowered the casket, the chief of police walked over to me. He held his shoulders too high and his back too straight to be anyone but law enforcement. His stride held purpose and his bushy eyebrows frowned when he stopped right in front of me. “We haven’t formally met. Shall I introduce myself?”

In the past, the question would have been for the man whose arm I’d been placed on. I was used to men discussing their place around me but had never been approached as though my place mattered.

“No, I know your name.” I stuck out my hand. “I’m Katalina.”

His eyes didn’t widen, not that I expected them to. Everyone knew by now. “Ivan never disclosed he had a granddaughter.”

“And yet you know all about me.”

“It’s my job to know those things. We should probably have a private conversation. It’s normally best to have an understanding.” He eyed me up and down and I immediately knew the type of man he was. He didn’t think I could hold my own and he was ready to make that known.

“Katalina doesn’t have private conversations unless she requests them. Even when she does, you can believe I or someone similar to me will be present.” The deep timbre of Rome’s voice still sent shivers up my spine even though he’d been the one to take the life that warranted this funeral. We were burying the man he’d murdered and still my heart beat faster knowing he was right beside me.

“Rome.” The chief nodded and slid his hands into his suit pockets. “It’s my understanding she’s not a part of your family anymore.”

“She’s a part of me.”

I shook my head, knowing I needed to interject. “We aren’t—”

“He doesn’t get to know what we are or aren’t, woman. Chief Brown gives us the right to remain silent, right, Chief?”

“Rome, why make things difficult?” the chief asked. “Do you want to talk about how difficult Mario dying here was?”

The smile that spread across Rome’s face was menacing and slow, like he could take his time with whatever he had to say, like he knew this man in front of him would wait. “Why was it so difficult for you, Brown? You want to share something with me?”

A silent stare down took place. I was sure the police had to cover up Mario’s murder, sure that they’d covered up a lot for Rome in the past. I didn’t understand, though, why Rome was taunting him. It was just clear that the upper hand remained with Rome, that it always had and it always would.

“I can have a private conversation with the girl here. What’s the harm, huh?” He rested his fingers on his belt buckle and pulled at it a little, like it was something he usually did with the gun holster he wasn’t wearing today. I made sure to scan him and most everyone else at the funeral for weapons. I needed to be aware of the target on my back at all times now.

This wasn’t a normal funeral. I’d worn a garter that my knife tucked into nicely. Weapons were mandatory along with black attire.

“There’s harm because she may be Ivan’s granddaughter but, first and foremost, she’s mine.”

“I’m not yours!” I felt myself heating up at his words. He shouldn’t be claiming me, not after I told him we were done, that we were going our separate ways.

“You’re mine, Katalina. Whether you’re my savior or my demise, my prey or my predator. You’re mine. You’ll learn that one day, even if it’s after everyone including Chief Brown here.”

The chief shook his head at us. “I’m thinking she’ll be the demise of all of us. If this points to a partnership between Ivan and Bastian, we’d like to know.”

“We’d all like to know.” Rome had shifted his stance so that he was blocking me from the chief.

I peeked my head around his body. “One day soon, we will. Until then, nice to meet you, Chief Brown.”

I spun away and made a conscious effort not to beeline toward Bastian, Cade and Dante. They’d been my crew for so long that my feet almost carried me there automatically.

Instead, my heels sunk into the grass as I measured each step I took toward Ivan.

“I need a minute with you.” The rumble and strain in Rome’s voice had me closing my eyes and sighing. My heart wouldn’t let me take another step away from him without giving him something. “Rome, what’s there to talk about?”

“Your phone number, for starters. I can’t even get ahold of you, woman.”

“You don’t need to get ahold of me. We have nothing to discuss.”

“The chief of police isn’t someone you talk to alone. Anyone over there tell you that?” He motioned toward Ivan who was sitting in a cherry oak chair, smiling at both of us. My grandfather tracked every movement I made and corrected it when it was out of line. I was learning the bratva way quickly enough, but the men had to learn to respect me too.

It wouldn’t happen overnight. It might never happen at all. Tradition was rooted deep in their bones and the tradition was to have men in power.

“We’re going to figure it all out, Rome. It takes time to learn everything.” I looked at the grass rather than him, trying my best to disconnect from the pull he had on me.

“I’m trying here, Katalina. I know this world and I can’t have you getting locked up or ending up dead because Ivan wants to Mr. Miyagi you in his free time. Is he even sane?”

The rumors had spread about his dementia or Cade had hacked a phone or two. “It doesn’t matter.” I looked toward the sky. “My wellbeing isn’t your concern.”

“How can you say that? If I was bleeding out in the grass here, would you walk away from me?”

That barb had me snapping my gaze his way and glaring at him. “I’d never walk away from you.”

“You did just a week ago!” he yelled and then winced when two of Ivan’s guys walked over. “I’m not going to make a scene. You and I both know these two wouldn’t hold me if I didn’t want them to. Give me your number.”

I shook my head. The hair I’d straightened fanned out around my cheekbones. “We don’t need to have contact.”

“Who are you planning to have contact with then? My cousin? You going to set up with Bastian all over again?”

A frigid voice sounded from behind me. It cut through the air like a blistering cold wind and I now knew it as my grandfather’s. “I think she’ll do what it takes. This is a bratva and Armanelli Family matter at this point.”

Rome never took orders well. He never took advice or direction of any sort from any leader in the family ever. I didn’t expect that this would be any different. He basically growled at Ivan when my grandfather extended his wrinkled hand. “I think Katalina does what she wants, not what it takes. I’ve witnessed that more often than anyone here.”

I crossed my arms over the sweetheart line of my black dress as Bastian, Dante, and Cade ambled over. They moved with precision, each of them appearing so put together in their suits that both men and women watched in awe as they moved. Even if they didn’t want to, they would always cause a scene when they moved in sync like this. Their dark, thick hair, their athletic builds, and their confidence magnetized people’s attention. They didn’t care nor even acknowledge another’s gaze. They were focused on me, on Ivan, on the heartbeat of the city shifting as we all stared one another down here at the cemetery.

“Is it time for a meeting?” Bastian asked, glancing at Ivan’s extended hand and then Rome’s disgusted scowl.

My grandfather dropped his hand as I stepped in front of him. I’d grown attached to him quickly in the last week. He’d showered me with pain, not gifts. He’d been brutally honest to the point of cruel most days too. Yet I found that success wasn’t built on love or kindness. It was built on respect and equality. That was the basis of a relationship really. For one to truly believe in another, they had to respect that person, have confidence in them, and treat them as equal.

Ivan wasn’t a kind man. He wasn’t even an okay one. I saw how he watched his son die. I saw that under any love he tried to show, there was emptiness. The bratva had created a callous, hard-hearted leader just like the Italian families had. I stood amongst men without souls and hoped to make it out of this life with one.

“If we need a meeting, now’s the time.” I shrugged and peered up at Bastian. “We know what makes the most sense.”

“Our families from LA and New York are here.”

“Let’s meet somewhere more private.” I eyed the chief of police who watched us with his body tensed.

“New Reign’s will suffice,” Rome offered as he glanced around, waving over a few men. “The work on it is almost done.”

“New Reign’s?” I tilted my head, not knowing what place he was talking about.

“The Stonewoods and I are putting the finishing touches on a new club.”

“Not one you ever mentioned to me.” I cocked a brow, caught off guard by how little he’d told me about his side businesses. I knew most of the businesses managed by and for the Armanellis and I was used to the few bars Rome had on the side but this was new. With the Stonewoods involved, it would be epic too.

“When would I have mentioned it, Katalina?” He sounded exasperated.

“Oh, I don’t know. When we were in the car together, when you kidnapped me? I could name a lot of times.”

“It just happened. I needed to preoccupy my mind with something other than losing your smartass.” He shot back.

I opened my mouth to argue, but stuttered on my words. His voice was laced with a pain I knew very well, because I was feeling it too. My heart was yearning for him, begging for him, beating for him with him in front of me. I’d missed his dark stare, the rumble of his honest words, and the way he touched me like he wanted to cause me pain and pleasure at the same time.

“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. It’s a business venture for all of us,” he replied. “The Stonewoods asked me to invest and I took the opportunity with most of the legwork already done.”

“Not exactly neutral territory, Rome,” said Ivan. “You’ve taken out men of mine in your bars and clubs before. You’ve let them bleed out on your floor.”

“Don’t send your bratva in as spies, Ivan. Or I’ll do worse next time.” Rome cracked his knuckles and I tried my best not to clench my thighs at how good he looked, talking back to the head of the bratva. The man had a death wish or maybe death was what he wished upon everyone else.

Ivan mumbled Russian under his breath and then announced, “We’ll meet there in two hours. We’ll bring the bratva leaders who are in town for Mario’s funeral too. If this goes as planned today, I’ll disappear from all of your lives. Katalina understands my wishes.”

I understood more than ever now. His mind would fail him. He saw it in tiny little pieces throughout his day but had most of his marbles at this point. He knew Dimitri had left the bratva a mess and was handing it off to me. I could sink or swim for all he cared. The other bratvas throughout the country would absorb us one way or the other. This was the only way I made it out alive and the only way he felt his family would get some recognition.

“She rides with me.” Rome gripped my arm right above my elbow. I glared at him, but the electricity in his touch made me hold back my initial retort.

Ivan beat me to the response because of it. “It might serve you both well considering it may be the last time either of you get to sift through whatever disgrace of a relationship you have here. It will most likely be done after the meeting. So Katalina, cut ties now.”

I glared at them all. “Rome and I already cut ties.”

“Not according to him,” Cade grumbled.

“Just go.” Dante sighed and gave me a look. “Put us all out of our misery.”

I threw my hands up at the ridiculousness of the situation. Bastian even waved us away as Rome started dragging me to one of the black limos. “This is fucking fantastic.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Rome said with a high-pitched tone that let me know he was being condescending.

“I don’t want to ride with you!” I pouted like a petulant child as we continued across the freshly cut blades of grass.

“Tough shit.”

I tore my hand from his right as we got to the limo door. The driver rounded the hood of the vehicle and opened it. He didn’t hang around to close the door behind us and with good reason. He knew I was about to put up a damn fight.

“Say what you need to and I’ll go with Ivan, the way I came.”

“Say? You think I need to say something to you?” He leaned onto the limo and dragged his black, ominous eyes over my body, all the way up and then all the way down. He took his time, like the most powerful men of the nation could wait. “I don’t need to say anything.”

“Well then…” I turned on my heel to give him my back, but he spun me around and then pulled me close so that my breasts were in his chest.

He leaned down so that the scruff of his jaw was tickling my earlobe. “Words won’t fix what’s been done now, Katalina. I’ve suffered for days without you. I haven’t tasted your mouth, owned your pussy, or dragged my hand across your skin. And I’m saying this the nicest way I know how because it’s all mine. You took away my mouth, my pussy, and my damn skin. You’re fucking mine and I want you back. Even if it’s for a second in that limo.”

“You can’t have me back. You threw me away when you—”

“Enough.” He slammed his hand on the roof of the vehicle and then breathed out slowly. “Get in. Now. Do not make me carry you.”

“You wouldn’t be able to even if you tried,” I threw out, but I stepped past him to get in. I didn’t want to make a scene, not when every single person at the funeral was still watching.

He slammed the door after me, then ducked his mess of beautiful dark hair to my window as he mouthed a thank you.

Why did my heart ache at that one small gesture when it should have been beating in rage at him bossing me around?

I knew right then that I wasn’t going to handle this ride well. I missed him. I missed his commands, his eyes on me, the little glimpses of the gentleman under the beast that he gave me.

I just missed him.

I took a deep breath and focused on what I knew couldn’t be anymore. We were enemies now. He was the reason we were all burying Mario today.

He deserved my hell, not my longing for him.

“Drive until I tell you to stop,” Rome announced to the man in the front seat and then he pressed the partition button. I watched it rise in silence and then turned to the man I craved more than anything else in the world.

Nothing about the day was going as planned. I’d lost complete control when all I’d wanted was to maintain it. Now, I sat with the one man I lost myself with and felt my blood pressure rising. “Why keep driving, Rome? None of this is of any importance at this point.”

“We could change that if you’d let go of your anger toward me. Why not show me the same grace you showed Mario in his death?”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re not dying.”

He pulled at his hair and then stared out the window before mumbling, “I could be from the way I feel without you around.”

His voice fell to such a small, soft tone that I almost didn’t hear the agony in his words. It was enough to remind me that my heart hadn’t hardened toward him at all. Instead, it gravitated toward him, wanted him, longed for him. I wanted to jump across my seat and touch him again. And I almost talked myself into it.

But I’d be back to what I was then. Or worse. Because now I had the bratva on my back. “You say those things like you’re willing to die for me, like you love me.”

“Because I do.” His voice echoed through the vehicle loud and vicious. He announced it from the pain deep within him. It wasn’t a statement of beauty, but one of agony.

“So you’re telling me like this in the back of a limo?” I whispered, trying to hold on to the fact that I should be angry, but my eyes welled with emotion I didn’t want him to see.

“Yes, because you won’t give me any other line of communication.” He saw through my façade and a string of curse words erupted from him before he slid across the middle seat to me. “Don’t cry, Katalina. I’m not here to make you cry. I’m here for you to see we can’t separate. You know we can’t. This arrangement isn’t going to work.”

“Why not?” I bit out as I leaned my head back on the arm he’d wrapped around my shoulders. I closed my eyes and wiped away the wetness on them so that I could try to relax, try to take in his presence all around me and have a moment where it was just us again.

Ivan may have been right. Maybe it was our last moment.

I didn’t want to spend it bickering.

“Do you love Bastian enough to take his arm instead of mine forever because that’s what they’ll ask you to do?”

“It’s not the worst thing.”

“It’s not a thing at all.”

“Dare I ask why not again?”

He pulled me so close his lips were on my ear, and then he did what he knew how to do best. “You tremble when you see me, Katalina. I know you’re not scared. It’s just your body’s reaction. When I touch you, you jump away because if you don’t, you’ll lean in for more. When my hand goes between your legs, your pussy is wet. It’s not for anyone or anything else. I own that part of you while you own every other part of me.”

“Rome—”

“I’m done talking.” He pulled his arm out from under my head and unbuttoned his suit jacket, then slid it from his shoulders and draped it on the seat next to him.

“But…”

“Take off your panties and spread your legs.” He said it while rolling up his sleeves, one measured fold at a time. Those strong fingers moved quickly with purpose and precision.

“I’m not in here to fuck.” Yet I wanted to obey so badly that I wiggled in my seat trying to cull some of my need.

“That’s fine. I’ll do the fucking.” He sighed. Before I could stop him, he was undoing his tie and unbuttoning the top button on his collar. He pulled his Glock from where he had it tucked into the back of his belt. I thought he was going to set it on the seat beside him, but he unloaded it before placing the cool steel on my thigh.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“I wonder what you’re carrying today, how good our weapons would look next to each other?”

When he eyed the space between my legs, I knew that he could tell where I’d placed my knife. It was his job to know those sorts of things. His hand went right to it, on my left outer thigh and he wiggled the handle of it. The leather was buckled tight, but he slid it slowly so my knife rested right below my pussy. He tapped his gun against it. Then he pointed the barrel higher and higher. The knowledge that he was holding a weapon that took lives right next to my knife and near enough my clit that it might graze it had my breaths coming faster and faster.

“I wonder, what’s the most powerful thing under your skirt right now? Your knife, my gun, or that pussy of yours?” He lifted my skirt and we both stared down at the view. My knife was tucked in a leather garter belt made specifically for my weapon. His gun was just a centimeter from touching my core.

I whimpered as he moved his hand the last tiny bit. The barrel hovered over and then covered my clit. I gasped at the cool sensation. He let the feeling sink in before he rolled it back and forth.

Back and forth.

My hips rocked immediately. “This is dangerous.”

“It’s only dangerous because I’m watching you ride my gun. Because I’m sure more than ever now that you belong to me. You ride what’s mine. That’s it.”

My hands were at his shoulders and I arched when his other hand moved up my thigh to test my entrance.

“You going to get the leather of this seat cleaned, Kate-Bait? Seems like even though you think you want to be on the arm of another man, you can’t stop getting wet for this one.”

“Want and necessity are two very different things. It’s a necessity for the bratva.”

“We’ll see,” he murmured, but his eyes were laser focused on the barrel of the gun rolling over my clit, his fingers starting to slide in and out of me, and me riding them uncontrollably.

I’d lost my sense of power here. I always would because the enigma that was Rome always consumed me, maybe the same way I consumed him.

He holstered the gun behind him again and knelt before me, never stopping pumping his fingers in and out. “I’m going to feast now while you contemplate how to end this. And remember that while you scream my name in ecstasy, no man will ever bring you to this high.”

“Rome, I can get myself there. It doesn’t take you or—”

“You think of me when you orgasm every single time, woman. I know it because I do the same. You going to deny it?”

My mouth slammed shut, not willing to argue. I knew he was right, but I didn’t agree immediately. Instead I shrugged, knowing it’d piss him off.

The smile that crossed his face was sinister, then he smacked my pussy like he owned it. I should have been offended or in pain, but instead it throbbed for him and I gasped at the tingling sensation that shot through me.

“Don’t make me punish you, Kate-Bait. We’ll both like it too much,” he said, eyes still locked on my center.

“Not true, Rome. I don’t enjoy pain for pleasure.” I’d always made that known in my sex life but here in this limo, I questioned myself. I was panting harder, riding his fingers faster, and grinding into him more roughly after that slap. I couldn’t make myself stop. I’d build a wall later, create a barrier of some type then. Right now, I was chasing a high of love and pleasure that couldn’t be ignored.

His forearm flexed and the veins popped from him moving his fingers in me. I watched the way every muscle tensed like he meant to work every part of himself just as he worked me. “You’ll enjoy the pain if I lick it better, baby. I know this pussy better than you know it yourself.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but he moved like a panther starved for his next meal. His tongue flew over my clit, and then he sucked on me until my nails dug into his shoulders, until I screamed that I couldn’t take anymore. Then he dove into my core and lapped every charged inch of me.

Over and over again.

I clawed at him, ripped my fingers through his hair and rode his face like I would never have him again.

It was honestly what I thought.

My whole body convulsed around him as I saw everything we were made of exploding beneath my eyes.

I clutched him to me and he stayed between my legs for long moments after, massaging my ass with his fingers and letting me relax before he slid up my body. He gripped right under my jaw and turned my face up to his. “Is my girl satisfied?”

I bit my lip and glanced down to his length between my legs. With his suit pants still zipped, I saw the strain there, wanted to undo it, and realized that if I didn’t get my sex drive under control, we would never be over.

I nodded and closed my eyes as I clenched my fists. “Satisfied.”

He quirked a brow. “Really?”

It only took that word, just one extra push and my hands flew to unbutton his fly. “We stop after this, got it?”

He was laughing, no remorse or confirmation coming from his lips. Rome was a different type of monster to me: one of my own indulgence. He brought out my greediness and my emotion. I wanted all of him and I didn’t ignore my wants and feelings with him. He didn’t let me.

We were playing a dangerous game because of it.

I wrapped my legs tight around his ass, my knife still on my garter digging into both of us, and slammed my core right on top of his cock. He entered me fast, meeting my momentum with his.

He gripped my straight hair and yanked it back so my neck was exposed to him. Then he bit down hard, taking another piece of me for himself. I let him ravage my neck as I sucked on his earlobe and rode him for all I was worth.

We hurled our aggression at one another in those moments. There was clawing, yanking, shoving, grinding. All of it. He was my enemy, my lover, and my best friend. I needed him to feel it all.

I’d never screamed out as loud or felt such a tsunami of emotion as I did then when I climaxed. Rome wasn’t far behind. His neck tightened and he growled into my neck, a string of curses coming from him before I felt his cock pump his release into me.

“Why does this get better every time?” he asked as his breath returned.

I laughed at his bafflement. “You’d think as we neared complete chaos, it’d be worse.”

“I think we thrive in the dark and forbidden, Katalina. It seems we were both born into it.”

I dragged my nails down his back before I gently pushed him away and he pulled out of me.

Empty. Lost.

The feelings flew into me the moment he left my body.

What makes a happily ever after and a fulfilled life? Was it finding your soulmate? Was there such a thing?

He grabbed a Kleenex from a console between the limo seats. I watched him clean up, took in his relaxed posture, how his neck finally fell smoothly down to his shoulders without bunched muscles. His jaw wasn’t flexed but still as square as ever and there wasn’t a line between his eyes creating a frown. The tattoos peeking out from under his collared shirt didn’t seem alive with tension anymore either. They just snaked around his tanned skin, adding to the beautiful masterpiece the man already was.

He tucked himself back into his pants and sat back into the seat to the side of mine, putting distance between us.

When he glanced down at me, I realized I was still open to him. I jerked upright and closed my legs, then put my hand out. “Kleenex, please?”

“You wiping me from you so soon?” He smirked as he grabbed a Kleenex and held it just out of reach. “Maybe we should let me linger on you to warn away anyone else.”

“You just did the same thing, Rome! What about warning away women from you?” God, he was a freaking caveman sometimes.

“If you want, I can tattoo your name across my neck, so they know I’m yours.” He handed me the Kleenex.

I chuckled at the joke and then shook my head at my crazy desire to immediately tell him to go get it done. “We have to get it together. This isn’t smart or something I want to indulge. You shouldn’t either.”

He waved me off. “I have what’s mine whether it’s smart or not. By the way, you on birth control still?”

“What about how clean I am? You’re not nervous I’m sleeping with someone else?”

He side-eyed me. “You better not be on someone else’s dick that fast, woman.”

I rolled my eyes at the deep warning in his voice because we both knew I wasn’t. “Yes, my birth control is still going strong. A word of advice, though. It’s a good idea to ask a woman if she’s on birth control before she has sex with you. It defeats the purpose to ask after.”

“You’re the one who dove onto my dick.” He shrugged like he didn’t care either way and smirked at his joke.

“Oh, please. Get fucked. No one’s jumping on you that quick,” I shot back even though I knew it was a lie.

He laughed at my quick retort and I joined him. He raised a brow as if to question me. “Sure about that?”

My gut clenched. Rome was a freaking god amongst men and I could imagine the women who would throw themselves at him. I looked down at a nail, acting unfazed. “Yep. You got me off first. Got on your knees for me. In all actuality, maybe you had to coax me onto there, hmm?”

His smile stretched full across his face at me goading him. “I think you want real punishment. I’m happy to deliver too. You got a nice enough ass that I could lay a few good slaps over it without causing any real harm.”

I found myself breathing faster and clenching my thighs together at his words. I glanced out the window quickly so as not to give myself away.

He caught me, though, and moved to sit right next to me, putting his arm around my shoulders. “I’m inclined to not make this damn meeting at all at this point.”

“It’s the biggest meeting of our lives.”

His tongue dragged from my bare shoulder all the way up to my ear where he bit me softly. “I’ll table your punishment for later then.”

My nipples tightened and I had to clench my fists to stop from responding physically to him. I closed my eyes at the reminder of the meeting, of the fact that we were going to another new club that was under Rome’s name and housed the family’s events.

We were dancing on thin ice, playing with fire, walking on melting rock and hoping it didn’t turn to lava as the volcano erupted in the background.

“We have to be stronger than our connection to one another, Rome.” I said it with my eyes closed, my body rigid in denial.

He sighed and I felt him pull away. There was a long silence. I heard the roll of his deep breaths through the limo and wondered if he was even going to respond.

“Maybe you’re right.” He wiped a hand over his face, and I heard the scruff on him I loved so much scratching at his palm.

My core clenched again and I ran my fingers through my hair before I turned to look out at the city rushing by as we drove. Hearing him agree with me sent an unexpected shock through my heart, one I couldn’t even begin to interpret. “We know what they’re going to ask of us in the next hour.”

“I know what they’ll ask of you.” He emphasized ‘you’. “You get to decide.”

“Does that mean if I choose to be on Bastian’s arm so all of us can survive, you’ll table the monster in you and let it happen?”

“You expect that I’ll be the only problem here, woman? You can’t control the pull I have on you either.”

“Well, we have to try. We can figure it out as we go.”

We’d hidden in the shadows before, taken our passion in the night. We could do it again if we needed a fix. I’d have to get stronger, but as I looked at him, I knew I’d give in to weakness time and time again.

Rome shook his head like he could read my mind. “I won’t have you like that again. I won’t hide, Katalina. You’re either mine or you’re not.”

“Bastian and I could have a partnership, Rome. That’s what the bratva and the families will respect. You know that their tradition is buried so deep in their bones, they’ll barely look at me as a leader because I’m a woman. If I don’t tie my blood to his, there won’t be much of a partnership at all. If I’m yours, the bratva ceases to exist. You get everything you ever wanted and I, nothing. I can’t make an impact without ruling and I can’t rule without taking the partnership. I’m left at your side while you put the family first. Can you say otherwise?”

He growled into the palms of his hands. “You’re the family. I put you first too.”

I shook my head. “You don’t.” My throat tightened at the thought of Mario bleeding out in front of me. “Mario’s a testament to that. You took his life after I asked you not to.”

“That was as much for you as it was for them.”

The ball in my throat grew large at the image of Mario lifeless in my arms. “He was a good uncle to you.”

“He was what he had to be to get power.”

“How can you say that? You shared meals with him, you stood beside him for years, you—”

“I was his weapon and I was his downfall. The last was for you.”

“Not for me!” I pounded a fist into my thigh. “Stop saying it was for me when I said no.”

He stared at me for long seconds, reading every part of me. He peeled back every layer he could, took me in for maybe the last time alone, and then he cleared his throat before he said, “I had to wonder for days if you were dead. Dead, Katalina. The muse to my monster was gone and she asked for time like I could quiet the beast. I went fucking insane. Mario did that to us. He pushed us all too far. I can’t cage anything that pushes the family to that point.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged, trying to rid myself of the emotion I felt at his words. I wanted to scream at him that I needed to go, that it wasn’t his fight. I had to learn about my family alone, make my decisions without the Armanellis making them for me. I’d been their pawn long enough. “Maybe we’re all a victim to the tradition of these families. We have to be more than that though. We’re all broken and we need—”

“We need you!” His voice cracked through the air like a whip.

“You need the old me and that’s not me anymore!” The words flew fast and furiously from my mouth. “I won’t be bait anymore. I won’t walk through this life without a cause or let the cause pass me by. I’m not the victim; I’m the fucking savior now.”

My body shook and I felt my skin dampening from the memory that was flying through my thoughts.

The odor hit me first. His stale breath panting into my lungs like an oversized walrus, trying to perform an act he hadn’t in a long time. My eyes shot open, because the smell was different. Marvin would brush his teeth like he thought I cared. The past few nights, he’d told me to kiss him and asked if I enjoyed it.

When someone takes everything from you, you don’t feel anything anymore. When every single hope is gone, you don’t contemplate what feels good or what feels bad. I only knew I wouldn’t lie. So I told him the truth. I didn’t know what joy was anymore.

He laughed in my face, his minty breath mixed with cigarette smoke filling the air as he said he would reintroduce me. I lay there and let him have me.

No tears fell.

Tonight, though, was different. This was a man I didn’t know, one whose sweat slid over my naked body. The rolls of him slapped against me as he floundered to get ready for whatever he’d paid to do with me.

He whispered how much he liked my mouth, that it was all he paid for but that he might sneak a few fingers in me to get me off too.

Did I fake it to make the time go faster? Try to find pleasure where I knew I would live out the rest of my life?

My mind recoiled at the idea. It was the first one it had actually responded to in a long time. I wasn’t a willing participant. This wasn’t something I could ever enjoy.

Revulsion hurled through my body as I lost more of myself that night to that man. I cried as he took what he wanted. Tears streamed down my face when I realized not that I was being raped, but that I’d had more to lose in the first place. I’d thought every part of me was gone already. Would it happen with every man that came here? Would I be stripped of more and could I handle it?

I remembered the words Rome in the dark of the night had said to me. “You’ll survive. Because if you don’t, you’ll die.”

I repeated them over and over in my head.

The stench of him lingered when he got off me and left the room. It grew sour with shame, weakness, and self-loathing.

People cope with rape and abuse in different ways. My only way was to accept it. I didn’t have a shower to wash the stench away. If I got up and did that, Marvin would most likely come to ask if I needed help. I didn’t get up to write to Rome again either. I’d written to him once about Marvin but I wouldn’t again. Not like this.

I’d already lost everything.

I’d lost myself.

And I vowed that if I ever got the chance to get that control back again, I would take it viciously, without remorse.