An Hour Earlier—Outside Kian’s Penthouse Building
My phone rings. “Yeah?”
“Calling with an update,” Phoenix says in a low voice.
The valet pulls my car into the broad-roofed driveway. I walk around to claim the driver’s seat. “Go ahead.”
“We’ve got a lead. He’s a Lombardi loyalist and we intercepted a phone call he made twenty minutes ago. Apparently, he’s on his way to an important meeting. The name Lombardi was thrown around a few times.”
This is unexpected. But certainly not unappreciated. “Who’s he meeting?”
“No idea yet. But we’re tailing the fucker.”
“Good. Don’t let him out of your sight. I’ll meet you at the location.”
“Hurry,” Phoenix tells me. “This zhopa isn’t gonna stay in one place for long.”
“I’ll do my best,” I reply. “But traffic’s gonna be a bitch. Try and place a tracker on his vehicle just in case.”
“On it.”
I hang up and drive out onto the packed New York streets. I’ve been here long enough that I know shortcuts and by-lanes, but it’ll still take me at least an hour to get to Long Island.
The traffic leaves me feeling fidgety and impatient. Of course, it takes no time at all for my mind to start spiraling. Inevitably, it lands on the feisty brunette trapped in the wardrobe of my guest bedroom.
It took a fuck-ton of will power to keep me from going in there this morning before leaving. She needs to be taught a lesson. And my new desire to spar with her at every opportunity needs to be squashed.
My cock strains against my pants and I grit my teeth with frustration. Why on earth does she turn me on so fucking much?
The morning I met her, I’d woken up with two different women on either side of me in bed. Now, that memory feels distant. Detached from me. All I can focus on is the image of Renata bursting into the shower with her arm raised. The glint in her eye as she’d tried to stab me with the crystal ornament Ma bought as a housewarming gift years ago.
It was a fight to the death—theoretically, at least. But my cock was throbbing from the moment she charged at me.
And of course, once she was wet, there was no holding it back.
Her breasts looked just as firm and plump as her lips and I was at war with myself over whether to kill her right there or fuck her in the shower with my hand clamped around her throat.
The memory is enough to get me hard all over again. I should focus on the road, on Lombardi, on literally anything else. But no matter what I do, I can’t get her out of my head.
The violence radiating from her skin calls to me. Like a fucking beacon I can’t turn away from. I’ve been here before. It’s too much. Always fucking too much.
And she is no ordinary woman. She’s a fucking Lombardi, and they’ve proved to be a bigger problem than I ever anticipated. Keeping her around is only going to invite more trouble. No woman is worth the headache she’s causing.
Tiernan will take care of the Renata problem soon, like I asked. And then all of this can become a distant, dusty memory.
Things will be better that way.
* * *
The updates keep lighting up my phone, but I spare them only a glance as I drive to the industrial hub in Long Island. I take longer than I would have wanted to get to there, but thankfully, the Lombardi loyalist that Phoenix is trailing hasn’t moved.
Phoenix and my other men are waiting for me when I arrive. There are dark circles around the kid’s eyes, but apart from that, he looks alert. Energized. He really is built for this world.
“Well?”
“He’s inside the data housing center over there,” Phoenix tells me, pointing out the building in question. “Been in there for almost fifty minutes now.”
I nod and survey it. “You think he suspects us?”