The Deadliest Sin Series Complete Collection, page 114
Those assholes chasing us and now hitting the damn warehouse.
When will it end?
How can I fucking end it?
“FUCK!” My scream echoes around the high ceilings, and I hurl my phone against the wall and watch it shatter into a million pieces, joining the broken tumbler.
Nicki winces, and I stalk over to the door and jerk it open, holding my hand out to one of my only remaining reliable men.
“Give me your phone.” I let my focus drift over my shoulder to Nicki. “There’s someone else I need to call.”
Her eyes widen slightly as she watches me take the phone from Luke’s hand. She knows exactly who I’m calling…and why. Besides Rose and Kat, Cutter and Valentina are the only ones I haven’t spoken with since the church. He might be the last person I want to talk to after what just happened with Nicki, but I have to do it. I have to know if it was them.
The phone rings twice, and I flip it to speaker phone as Cutter answers abruptly. “You’re still alive?”
I growl. “How did you know who it was?”
He snorts. “I had a feeling I’d hear from you after what went down. I heard you got chased through the streets and had to visit with Detective Lopez.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t the best day of my life.”
“You've gotten in deep at this point.”
Visions of drilling into his sister in a shower flash in my head, and my cock stirs against my zipper. I clear my throat to dislodge the lump forming there. “Yeah, you could say that. Someone just hit one of my warehouses.”
Cutter chuckles darkly. “You really are having a shit day. Was it Luna?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because of how organized this all seems. The men at the church were trained mercenaries, the type of men you work with.”
“Are you accusing me of something, McGinnis?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time you went after one of us. It wasn’t so long ago you had Rose locked up in that house of yours…”
Cutter growls a low warning. “If it had been me, you’d be dead on that marble floor.”
Fuck.
He’s right. Cutter and his crew move with precision. So many people wouldn’t have escaped the church if it had been them. These men were trained and organized, but not the way Cutter is.
“If you hear anything on any of these fronts, Cutter, I would appreciate a call.”
Cutter barks out a laugh with no humor, and I can almost picture his trademark sneer twisting his scarred lips. “You would appreciate a call? You're not my concern, Galen.”
“I may not be, but there are other considerations.”
“Like what?”
I hold Nicki’s gaze. She won’t like this, and even though my gut twists thinking about it, I have to say it.
“Like that new baby of yours…”
A gasp slips from Nicki’s lips, and she jumps from the chair and rushes toward me. “Galen! No!”
Shit.
I wince.
Cutter growls low. “What the fuck was that? Nicki?”
Fuck.
She winces and retreats a step.
“Nicki?” Cutter’s voice practically vibrates through the phone. “What the fuck are you doing with my sister, Galen? Is that what the fuck this is? Did you call to threaten me? To threaten my child and to let me know you have Nicki and try to use it as some sort of leverage now that you seem to have the whole fucking city after you?”
Nicki shifts toward me, staying far enough back that she’s out of reach. “Cutter, it's me.” She holds my gaze, fear darkening hers. “I'm okay—”
“You sure as fuck better be. Galen…when I get my fucking hands on you, you're dead. Do you understand me? Fucking dead.”
The line goes dead, along with any chance we had of ever approaching this situation delicately.
I end the call and slip Luke’s phone into my pocket slowly, never looking away from the woman who just turned my world on its head.
She opens and closes her mouth a few times, her pretty pink lips that were wrapped around my cock not so long ago parting in a way that brings visions of things I shouldn’t be thinking about right now.
“I'm so sorry, Galen. I didn't mean to. I just heard you threatening the baby, and I—”
“You just signed our fucking death warrants.”
Greed is a fat demon with a small mouth and whatever you feed it is never enough.
- Janwillem van de Wetering
NICKI
“You just signed our death warrants.” Galen’s dark, definitive tone sends goosebumps skittering across my arms.
“No!” I step toward him, daring to close the distance between us, even when he's practically vibrating with rage. If we leave things like this, then Galen is right. Cutter will come for me, and he’ll destroy anything and anyone in his path—including Galen. “Call him back.”
Maybe I can reason with him. Make him listen.
Galen slams his palm against the table that runs along the back of the couch and glares at me with green eyes hard enough to feel like they’re physically cutting me. “It doesn't matter, Nicki. There's absolutely nothing either of us could say to him right now that will change what's going to happen.”
“You don't know that.”
“I do.” He squares his shoulders, his injury either no longer causing him pain, or he’s become so accustomed to it that he doesn’t even care or react to it anymore. “I know your brother. I know what kind of man he is. Maybe you’ve been sheltered from the truth because of the distance between the two of you, but your brother is a cold-blooded killer. An assassin who works for a woman who will do whatever it takes to survive and thrive. I know these people; these are my people, my world, and I know Cutter.”
Galen may think he knows Cutter. No doubt things have happened that have proven how lethal Cutter really is, but I know the boy he once was still exists somewhere deep inside him. My brother still exists somewhere in there. And he’s a completely different person from the one Galen is so afraid of. He was always protective of me, always watched over me and had my back, but he wasn’t irrational. He wasn’t a mindless machine.
What he saw and experienced and suffered during his time on Delta Force may have hardened him, may have made him push me away and shut him down emotionally, but he still cares. Enough that we can still do something about this to prevent bloodshed.
“We make him listen, Galen. Give me the phone.”
Galen grits his teeth together. “No.”
“Fine. Then I’ll go find wherever you stashed my phone myself.”
I turn away from him and make it half a step toward the bedroom before he grasps my wrist and stops me dead in my tracks. He tugs at me, whirling me around to face him and tightening his grip hard enough to hurt.
“You are not calling him back. Even if I believed you could reason with him, he’s going to try to trace the call and figure out where we are.””
“He’ll figure it out anyway, and I'm not going to sit here and wait for bullets to fly. We have to do something. Have to explain.”
“Explain what?” He drags me closer until his warm breath that carries the sweet smell of whiskey flutters over my face. “That I kidnapped you? That you've witnessed multiple shootings because of me? That I fucked you mercilessly multiple times and made you come so many times we lost count? Just what are you going to explain to him?”
The pure anger vibrating through his touch makes me swallow thickly. I know it isn't really directed at me but at the situation we find ourselves in. And he’s already proven he’ll never hurt me—at least, physically.
“I'll make him see reason. I'll make him understand.”
He barks a sardonic laugh and shakes his head. “Do you really think it will matter?”
It’s a valid question given Cutter’s reputation and the fact that he’ll be in protective big brother mode on top of how volatile he normally is.
“Maybe not but sitting here and doing nothing while we wait for the world to explode around us isn't a very fucking good plan, either. Is it?” I raise an eyebrow defiantly, waiting for him to snap, to lose the control he’s barely clinging to. “He would never hurt me. You’re the only one in danger here, so I’ll go see him alone.”
His grip tightens on my wrist. “Like hell, you will. You're not going anywhere.”
“You told me I could leave. That you would make sure I was safe. Set me up somewhere. Ensure I was protected. Even if we weren't together…”
His grip loosens slightly, his face softening for a split second, showing the man I know is in there somewhere. “Is that what you want?”
“I don't know, Galen, but if you stop me from leaving now, prevent me from going to my brother to try to stop him before he does something rash, I won't believe anything you've said to me. I can’t believe it if you won’t even let me go do this.”
He releases my wrist, takes a step back, and shoves his hands through his hair, locking his gaze with mine. We stare at each other for what feels like an eternity. A battle of wills neither one of us wants to lose. One neither of us can afford to.
Galen’s right. Cutter is going to destroy us. Destroy him. He's going to come for me. We’re sitting ducks waiting for a trained hunter to flush us out from where we’re hiding in the reeds. It won’t take long for Preacher to find this place. No matter how good Galen thinks he is at hiding the location of the safehouse, Preacher is better. He can hack anything, find anything and anyone, and Cutter will use everything at his disposal to hunt down the man standing in front of me and pry me from his hold.
But Galen also isn’t going to just let me walk out of here and go to Cutter. He can’t, despite what he promised. It would be a concession, an admission that I have power over him, and he isn’t a man who gives up power. His fight with the Luna Cartel and the other families has proven that.
Still, the longer we have this staredown, the more I question every decision I’ve made since leaving Wisconsin.
Galen sighs, then stalks over to the bar and pours himself a hefty tumbler full of whiskey. He downs it quickly, hissing at the burn, but keeps his back to me, staring out the window at the front of the condo onto the quiet street below—one that won’t be so quiet once Cutter finds us.
Finally, after what feels like hours, Galen turns to face me. “Luke!”
His call echoes through the high ceilings, and he leans back against the bar and waits for his minion to enter.
The door swings open, and Luke sticks in his head. “Sir?”
Galen stands stock still for a moment, then considers me again. The silence settling over the room makes me shift on my feet under his scrutiny.
Why isn’t he saying anything?
The dark energy radiating off him is so much worse than if he were ranting and raving and throwing a tantrum. The barely restrained rage is far more terrifying.
Ultimately, he releases me from his spell and returns his focus to Luke. “We're going to the Marconi estate.”
Luke’s eyes widen as he steps fully into the room. “What?”
Yeah…what?
“Nicki and I are going in to talk to Cutter and Valentina. You gather as many men as you can and follow us. Wait just outside the gates, and if we don't come out within an hour”—he locks eyes with me again—“come the fuck in after us.”
It goes without saying that if it comes to that, a whole hell of a lot of people will be hurt—or worse. He’s giving me the opportunity to prove what I can do with Cutter, that I can get this resolved. If I can’t, the shit will truly hit the fan.
Luke glances toward me and swallows thickly, his adam’s apple bobbing. “Understood, sir.”
He steps back into the hall to call the rest of Galen’s surviving men. The door closes with a click behind him, the sound almost deafening in the silence hanging between us.
Finally, Galen returns his hard green gaze to me. “I hope you know what you're doing, Nicki, because if you don't, I'm not walking out of there alive.”
GALEN
The closer we get to the Marconi compound, the thicker the tension builds in the narrow space between me and where Nicki sits in the passenger seat. I glance at her out of the corner of my eye, the last light of day fading away slowly. She shifts restlessly, twisting her hands on her lap and biting her lip in a way that has me imagining all sorts of wholly inappropriate things given the current circumstances.
There’s a very good chance I won’t walk out of Valentina’s mansion alive, and it’s because this woman refuses to back down to anything or anyone—including me.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t give it one more go…
Maybe try to save my fucking life…
I pull up in front of the massive metal gates—the only break in the high red brick walls surrounding the historic Marconi estate. “Are you sure you want to do this, a chuisle?”
She stares up at the cameras mounted on either side of the gate. “It's too late to turn back, anyway. He knows we’re here.”
Almost as if in response to her statement, the gates slowly swing open, allowing us to pass onto the grounds that’ve been the home of the Marconi crime family for generations, while my men wait just outside and down the street.
Il Padrone used it as his seat of power, requiring anyone who wanted to meet with him to make this same long drive up. Until Arturo stole it from him. Now Valentina has returned it to its prior use. Ruling from here with the same brutality as her father but with a slight reservation that can only be attributed to her prior profession as a police officer. She’s smart and ruthless but also holds a respect for precedent and history, and Cutter only adds to the volatility of the situation.
The fact that I kidnapped and fucked his sister assures my destruction—at the hands of one or both of them. They won’t care how this happened. Whether she tells them about the kidnapping or not is irrelevant. All that will matter is that she’s with their enemy.
We pull through the massive oak trees and expansive lawn and park in front of the steps leading to the massive double doors that loom above. Cutter already waits just outside them, gun drawn and pointed at us before we even stop, sunglasses covering his damaged face even though night is quickly descending.
I glance at him and sigh, though it isn’t unexpected. “I see we have a welcome party.”
Nicki doesn't respond, just stares at her brother like she's never seen the man before. And even though his eyes are covered by the reflective aviators he never removes, the slight tilt of his head in her direction acknowledges her in a less-than-loving-brother way.
This'll be some craic.
I throw the car into park, shut it off, and inhale deeply, what might be my final chance to breathe air as a free man again, if I breathe again at all. Slipping the keys into my pocket, I open my door and slide from the driver's seat, raising my hands while trying not to wince at the twinge the motion brings to my arm. Ignoring the pain only works for so long.
Cutter takes a step down from the concrete porch toward the vehicle as I knock my door closed with my hip. He stops a few feet in front of me, gun trained squarely at my chest.
“Give me one reason I shouldn't unload this entire fucking magazine into you right now.”
Nicki's door slams to my right, and she rounds the front of the car and shoves a hand into Cutter’s chest. “Because I would do the same to you, asshole.”
Cutter’s jaw hardens like steel, and he glances down toward his sister for a split second before returning his focus to me.
There are those balls she’s so fond of swinging around.
No one talks to Cutter like that and survives. At least, no one I know. Apparently, baby sisters can get away with just about anything. God knows I would let Rowan get away with anything now that I have her back in my life.
After all the years of praying, begging, making promises to God that I would give up this life and repent if I ever found her, she’s finally back, and here I am, with a gun pointed at my heart by a master marksman and the only thing stopping him from firing is a five-foot, one-hundred-twenty-pound blonde firecracker who might not even want to be with me when all is said and done.
Fuck. How did it come to this?
I got greedy. I wanted it all—Rowan, Nicki, Chicago…
Cutter steps back slightly from his sister’s hand at his chest, shoulders tense and body ready for a fight, but he finally inclines his head toward the house. “Inside. Now.”
He's right, of course. This isn't the place to be having such a delicate conversation, nor would he want to spill blood on the cobblestones out here. It would be pretty damn hard to get them clean. The Marconis are too smart for that. They would never do their dirty work where there might be prying eyes from outsiders, and you never know who might be watching from a neighboring home or even from above.
I move past him and head for the front door, where two of his men wait on either side. Nicki shifts to step behind me, but Cutter grabs her bicep, snapping her to a stop. Anger flares deep in my chest at the way he manhandles her, and I turn toward him to say something, then think better of it when his gun remains squarely trained on me.
He sneers at Nicki, tightening his hold on her arm. “You stay with them.” He motions toward the two at the door with his chin. “While I take care of Galen.”
Her blue eyes widen, her lips twisting into a scowl. “Don't you dare hurt him, Cutter Samuel Jackson. I swear to fucking God, if you—”
“I don't want to hear it, Nicki.” He pushes her toward one of his men. “You don’t get to decide what happens right now.”
She gasps incredulously before Cutter steps forward and grabs my left arm around the bicep.
Fuck!
His fingers dig into the stitches there, threatening to break through them and tear open the still-fresh wound. I wince and suck in a deep breath to fight against the nausea and dizziness making my head swim.
He leans forward slightly and examines me. “Oh, shit? Are you hurt?” He leans even closer until his hot breath hits me like a warning flame. “Good, I hope you're in agony. It’s what you deserve for thinking you can touch my sister.”
