Sins That Bind us: Madly Ever After, #2

Preface

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As the only daughter of the Romano empire, I was always up for auction, but Kane made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I might be exchanging one level of hell for another, but at least in this one, with Hades by my side and the other misfits in my bed, I can rule as queen. I can finally have power over the person who had made it clear my worth was only in what someone was willing to pay.

And then it all came crashing down. My father might not be clever, but sometimes he gets lucky, and the prison that had become my sanctuary is now under threat. Kane is missing, the rest of my men are frantic to find him, and I’m still being hounded by the life I left behind.

Chapter 1

PHOENIX

I thought I knew what it was like to lose my mind. To feel utterly helpless. To know that nothing I can do will change my circumstances. It was like that after being shot. The first couple of days, it was a coma, and then there was some light and shadow that slowly crept into darkness. And there was pain.

Then there was Kane’s voice telling me that he was sorry. His words were thick and slurred and anguished. He said there was nothing he could do.

The next time I woke, my eyes were gone, and my fate was sealed.

I would be totally blind for the rest of my life.

There were times I felt like that was hell and that there would never be an escape. And this is the same feeling. Hearing Kane scream, then losing his call—I want to tear the world apart. It kills me to ask Alice to describe what’s on the screen, and it’s worse when she says there’s nothing. The connection is severed, and the screen is black.

It takes me nearly a full minute to compose myself before I can get out of bed, and I don’t even register that my dick is hanging out and I’m half-dressed as I burst into James’ room. I hear his quiet laugh, but it dies seconds after he sees my face.

What is it? That’s the tone I want. It’s all business. He understands that something’s wrong.

We lost Kane on his call, and the connection was severed. It sounded like a car accident, I say. I turn on my heel, confident he’ll follow me, and I hear two sets of footsteps, which means he was likely fucking Ari when I burst in. I catch a whiff of Alice, too, as I rush into my office, and my fingers skim over my computer as I boot it up. Even if his car is in pieces, the tracker should still be functional, I’m saying, barely registering the words coming out of my mouth. My brain splits into two—the desperate man terrified for his lover and the emotionless beast whose only job is to get things done.

It’s almost too easy to let the beast take over.

Alice, I hear James say quietly as I open up the tracking app that’s connected to all of our cars. Can you please tell me exactly what happened?

I feel a small measure of relief that she can do that, and I quickly tune her out as I stick my earbud in my ear and fire up the location device. I feel a warm presence behind me—enough to be grounding, but Ari knows better than to touch me right now. Everything is heightened, and I’ll lose it if anyone gets too close.

And that’s not what we need right now.

…screen went dead. So then he had me pull up the video feed, but it was just black, she finishes.

It’s accurate enough. My fingers skim over my braille display, reading coordinates as the AI speaks them into my ear. Having both mediums keeps me focused, and I feel the way the location refreshes and refreshes until it settles.

He’s off the ten, I say. I double-check, but his car isn’t moving. I switch over to his phone tracker, but it’s not picking up any readings. Get a car. Get out there.

I feel a light tap on my arm. ‘On it.’

I turn to James and hold out my hand. Get me clothes and shoes. His fingers touch mine, and I yank him close, needing him for just a second—needing a moment to be weak and afraid. His brow knocks against me, and I smell cloves and aftershave. And tell me you’re going to find him.

We will always find him, James growls. He lets my hand go to grab my chin, and his kiss is mean and messy and far too short.

When he finally pulls back, I nod and turn back to my workstation. It’s better if I don’t go.

Phoenix, he starts to protest, but I put up my hand.

That was the first time I’ve been out of the house since this. I gesture to my eyes. I’d be a worse liability than Alice.

I hear her suck in her breath, but she doesn’t defend herself, and I appreciate it because I don’t have the fucking time to coddle her feelings. James is silent for a moment, and then I hear him take a few steps back.

I’m leaving her with you. This may be an attempt to draw us out and leave her vulnerable at home, he says.

I nod. I’ve already figured that much. They’ll assume James and Ari will leave Alice with me, and being blind, they’ll think I can’t protect her. Underestimating me will only end in them dying because this is my home—this is my circle of hell—and they have no idea what I can do.

Get dressed, I say to Alice, and then I turn my attention back to my equipment. I can tap into CCTV, and while it’ll take me a while to isolate the footage, I should have something for the boys to go on before they leave.

My brain automatically goes into work mode, and the relief of shutting my feelings off is the only thing that keeps me going.

Ari’s the first one back after the three of them left me to my work. His steps are light, and I only hear them because he lets me. I brace myself for his touch, though he keeps it to the tips of his fingers as he spells out their plans on my skin.

‘We’re taking the Bugatti.’ It’s the most conspicuous, but it’s also the fastest, and James can navigate through damn near anything, including open fire. I don’t actually think it’ll come to that, but I keep that to myself. ‘Do we have anything to go on?’

SUV, I tell him, finishing up forwarding the footage to James’ phone as well as the GPS coordinates and the last place the SUV was spotted. From everything I was able to discern, the SUV hit Kane from behind, sending his car rolling. After that, the footage is spotty because clearly, they have someone who can disrupt the feed.

They don’t have my level of skill, but it’s enough to keep me from being able to follow him. I’ve got a trail as they head into the city, and then I lose it.

I think you’ll need to pick someone up and make him sing, I tell Ari.

He touches my face, telegraphing a kiss that lands at the corner of my mouth—unyielding and furious. ‘He’ll be a fucking soprano by the time I’m done with him,’ Ari vows.

If I wasn’t losing my mind with worry over Kane, I’d probably be hard in my jeans right now. Where’s Alice?

‘James is giving her a quick lesson in self-defense.’

Knowing James, that’s how to shoot something small and deadly. He’s also a weapons expert and largely the reason I can shoot a target now. Kane was willing to let me wallow in my misery and lose myself in relearning the tech I thought I’d lost, but James had seen that I needed more.

It won’t be enough.

‘I think he’s doing it to calm her down. She’s terrified.’

I feel a surge of anger because there’s this little irrational voice inside me that says she has no right to be worried about Kane. She’s not one of us—not really. Her father—or, well, the man that raised her—is the reason I’m forced to live the rest of my life without sight, and Ari without a voice, and James without a hand. He’s the reason Kane has invisible scars that damn near destroyed his ability to love. He’s the reason Kane is missing.

But none of this is Alice’s fault. Guido tortured her too, in other ways. I could feel it in the way she was fucking grateful for how I didn’t tear her to pieces. How she all but thanked me for stealing her virginity after Kane forced her to sell it to us.

She fell apart in my arms and didn’t want to let go. And then, when she let me have her again, she’d been tender with me. Like she wanted to be in my arms.

That softens me a fraction, and I turn my face toward Ari, nodding. Tell her to come in here after you both leave.

Ari taps my hand. ‘Do you think we should call Aldis or Rhys?’

In the moment, I hadn’t considered either of them, but my instinct is to say no. I know them both from when I was younger, and though it’s been twenty years since I’ve had anything to do with either of them, something about them rubbed me the wrong way.

I don’t think it’ll do us any favors if they think he’s missing. I’ll keep an ear to the ground, and if it looks like Romano’s going to go public with the knowledge that he’s got Kane, we’ll call them in first. But if we can get him back without anyone finding out…

‘That’s what Kane will want,’ Ari answers for me, his fingers tapping on the side of my chin.

I nod. I don’t want to trust anyone else with this right now. Things might not be as stable as they seem.

Ari squeezes my chin, then kisses me a bit softer before he hurries out of the room, and seconds after the door shuts, it opens again. I recognize Alice only because she doesn’t sound like either of my lovers, and I sink back into my chair as she crosses the room.

Did you find him?

I shake my head. I have a short trail, but it just leads to the city. The boys are going to go have a look.

Her voice wobbles a bit when she asks, What do we do? If you can’t find him?

We find someone and torture them until they talk, I tell her simply, not bothering to sugarcoat it. And we keep doing that until we find someone who has information about where he is.

I can feel the tension and unspoken questions radiating off her, but I wait to see how long it takes her to crack. What if we’re too late? Her voice is barely a whisper, and I can’t take it. I can’t take it because I want to be that afraid and that vulnerable, but I’ve never been allowed.

I stretch my hand toward her, and she steps into my embrace, falling into my lap as I bury my nose in her hair. The scent of her paints a picture in my head, and I cling to it. Kane is a survivor, I remind her. Romano is behind this, and he’s too pissed off to let Kane die easily. We have time.

Alice scoffs. That’s not a huge comfort, considering what they can do to him in that time. He shouldn’t have gone there alone.

I laugh. I can’t help it. The sound is mostly bitter, but it’s also delighted because she’s a fucking clever little thing, and if she spends long enough here, she’s going to turn into a proper little psychopath. Just like us.

You can lecture him about that when we get him home, I tell her. And yeah, it’s probably going to be ugly. Romano enjoys leaving marks, so we need to be prepared for how Kane comes back.

She shudders, understanding, and I wonder how much she’s seen. I doubt a lot, because Romano preferred to keep her in her little bubble, but I have no doubt she’s heard things.

And I have no plans to shield her from the reality of our lives.

Stroking my hand up her back, I grip her hair and pull her into a kiss before letting go. I need you to go sit on the sofa and keep quiet for a bit.

I—

Be a good girl, I order. It’s not in my nature to be very dominant, but that dark shadow inside of me comes out at the sound of Alice’s voice, the one that wants to tame her brat. I stroke her jaw, feeling the warm skin under the pad of my thumb. Right now, we just need patience, and I think you can give me that.

I can. Her voice is smaller now. She slides from my lap, and I listen as she crosses the room, then sinks onto the worn leather.

A small, needy part of me wants to join her and curl up as we wait, but I have shit to do. There are hundreds of thousands of cameras in the city, and since I can’t be there with James and Ari to follow the trail on my own, I can do this.

It might not be everything, but by the time I’m done, I will have a target. And we will bring them here.

And we will make them pay for ever giving their allegiance to Guido Romano.

Chapter 2

JAMES

It’s only the fact that Ari is with me that keeps me from losing it entirely. He jumps behind the wheel and takes off, his face a stoic mask of determination as we leave the property and follow the GPS to the site of the crash. His single-minded focus is exactly what we need right now in order to locate Kane, but I’m well aware that whoever took him isn’t going to be easy to find.

When we get him back—and I mean that, when, not if—he’s going to be a mess. Guido isn’t going to let him walk away unscathed. Not after he was robbed and humiliated. And it’s not like we weren’t expecting retaliation, and I know that Kane can take care of himself.

He’s been in this position before, and he can withstand pain like no one I’ve ever met—including Ari. And I think it helps to know that Kane has someone new to fight for. He’ll survive for us, and I’m hoping that for Alice, he’ll live.

I don’t say that aloud, though. Ari’s gone into full shutdown mode, which means he’s feeling nothing other than the need to complete the mission. I envy him sometimes, with his ability to detach from all feeling.

He’s not going after Kane because he loves him. He’s going after Kane because he’s our leader, and those are the orders.

I stare at him as we tear up the open road, and I see a line of tension in his jaw.

There’s going to be cops, I say.

He gives me a short nod, his fingers twisting on the wheel, making the leather creak.

I don’t think there’s any point in stopping. We need to follow the trail into the city and—

‘I know.’ The sharp tap against his temple might as well be a shout, and my jaw clicks shut.

I run my tongue along the roof of my mouth, letting the barbell clink against my teeth. I count each little tap to distract myself as I focus on what lies ahead. Ten minutes go by, and then twenty before we’re instructed to take the first exit, and as Ari eases off the freeway, my phone buzzes. It’s from Phoenix, and the first message is an address. The second is instructions.

Phoenix: Romano, low rank, but possible information. He’s with his girlfriend. No witnesses.

He didn’t need to type out the last part, but I know it probably makes him feel better. I’m putting in a new address, I tell Ari before I tap it into the GPS, and then I lean forward and pop open the glove box. There’s a little black kit, and inside are all the things we need to get this done quickly and quietly.

I hold it in my hand, using my teeth to pull the zipper around the edges, and then I take inventory. We have five syringes because one’s missing, and I don’t bother asking who used it last. We have three vials of ketamine—enough to kill the woman if we need to, but my focus isn’t on whether or not she lives.

My focus is on the Romano piece of shit who’s going to wish he was dead by the time Ari’s done with him. I check our vials, then fold the case back up and glance over at my lover, who seems even more tense now.

Phoenix got a lock on one of Romano’s lackeys. Low level, but he thinks he’s got some information. He’s with his girlfriend. I’m going to take her out, and you can take care of him.

Normally I wouldn’t trust Ari to be able to get anyone home alive when he’s like this, but he knows better this time. He knows we need this man capable of spilling any and all information he’s got before we put him down for good.