Why couldn’t she just walk away from her father?
****
“These figures are next month’s financial projections for the Aurora,” Benny said, sliding a tablet across the table.
Carver finished his beer and nodded, listening with half an ear as Benny droned on about numbers. Fuck, but he was bored out of his mind. Benny had been working for him for five years, and he didn’t hire just anyone to handle the Family’s finances. Besides, anyone in his employ knew what would happen to those who betrayed him. Mercy and forgiveness weren’t in Carver Edward’s dictionary.
From the corner of his eye, he noticed Anatoli walking in the club, hands shoved in the pockets of his trousers, lazy smile on his face. Carver recognized that look. Anatoli had that smug look when he smelled blood in the water.
Two other suits strolled in, followed by two figures with slumped shoulders and defeated expressions on their faces.
Under the club’s dim lights, Carver couldn’t make out their features and didn’t give a damn. Benny mentioned Anatoli would be bringing over some poor sucker whose debt to the Family was due. Most of the time, Carver let Anatoli run their money-lending business. Ruthless and efficient, Anatoli also possessed a surprising head for numbers. Anatoli knew his shit.
When Carver had washed the streets with blood and crowned himself as the new kingpin of the city, he’d carefully picked the men he wanted by his side. Usually, he trusted Anatoli’s judgment—until he saw her.
Carver gripped the beer bottle in his hand so hard that cracks appeared across the amber-colored glass. Benny paused, looked up from the tablet, and followed his gaze. Carter first turned his attention to the sloppy old bastard with the unkempt hair and nervous hands. He looked ready to bolt, gaze repeatedly shifting between the two suits who blocked the way to the entrance. The old man only seemed concerned about saving his ass.
Yasmin though, she stood with her chin raised, her back straight. Her heels made a clicking noise on the slick floors.
Ten years ago, Carver had been a nobody, a speck of dirt easily crushed under the expensive Italian shoes of a second-rate mobster like Gunn and Sal. A decade could turn an opportunist to the most powerful man in the city, with the right motivation. To reach the top, he’d climbed over a hundred corpses, but Carver never forgot the girl who saved an up-and-coming monster and offered him kindness. All the money she’d given him added up to twenty bucks, enough for his ride to the hospital, but if she hadn’t offered him everything she had, he probably wouldn't be where he was today.
A decade. Most people said it was an impossible task, but he proved them all wrong.
She didn’t know she’d damned herself in the process. Yasmin might have forgotten all about him, but the memory of her remained seared in his mind.
Like him, Yasmin McDowell had changed over the years, turning into a woman with steel in her blue eyes. Fuck, but the matching blue sundress she wore highlighted her tempting curves. Possessiveness surged through him. Red haze covered his vision. Seeing the way Anatoli and the two other suits eyed her like a piece of meat, he cracked his inked knuckles.
Anatoli was useful, an essential cog in the well-oiled machine of the Family’s many operations, but if Anatoli made the mistake of going near, let alone touching his angel, Carver would lose it. A beast lived inside his skin, one that howled out one word ever since he spotted Yasmin.Mine.
Carver reeled in his control. His vision cleared. He unclenched his fists, but a tic still rode his cheek. Anatoli and the others didn’t know Yasmin was his and therefore untouchable, but soon they would.
Carver had been keeping track of her movements without her knowledge. With his connections, it was easy. Carver knew she’d moved out of her old house after graduating from college, that she’d tried to put new roots in another city.
He told himself an angel like her didn’t deserve to be tied down by a monster like him. When he heard she was back, Carver knew deep in his bones she was meant to become his woman. He intended to wait, to come up with a strategy to win her over, to convince her that since that day he’d never looked at another woman again. When she’d lived a thousand miles away, it was easy to keep his distance.
Too late for that now.
Seeing her in the flesh was so much different than looking at the photographs taken of her by the PI he hired. So much better.
Carver bet she would taste so fucking sweet, better than honey. She would feel so soft under his rough and callused hands.Pliant.His dick thickened in his trousers. How many times had he lain in his big ass bed, imagining it was her soft curves underneath him? Those big blue innocent eyes looking up at him, her lips parted with need.
Carver didn’t believe in a higher power. Men and women carved out their own paths, but for some reason, fate landed Yasmin here. That couldn’t be sheer coincidence.
“Sit,” Anatoli was saying, gesturing to the two empty seats on a table far away from him. Anatoli knew Carver didn’t like to be disturbed.
He buttoned up his suit and rose to his feet.
“Boss?” Benny asked, and Carver realized that was the third time Benny called out to him.
“We’ll continue this meeting another time. I have another matter to attend to.”
Carver ignored the silent question in Benny’s eyes. He nodded to the two other men standing guard near his table and made his way to Anatoli. Ten years he’d waited patiently in the shadows, convincing himself that the only woman he wanted, yearned to own, was beyond his reach. Starting today, his luck was about to change.