Chapter Thirteen

Ciska

5210 Interbay Blvd, Ballast Point, Tampa, Florida...

"Stop it!" Ciska finally gave up trying to control the shivers that had been racking her body since the wild sex she had with Jax earlier. "Either get ahold of yourself, or I'm divorcing you from my mind," she continued to berate her body for ignoring her demands to come down to Earth.

Not that it would work. It was a repeat of how she had reacted the first time they had sex at Club Decadent Skies. It seemed the dratted man had more than the Midas Touch. He was a magician, a freaking wizard with a magnetism that stretched over hundreds of miles. Not even two cold showers had done the trick.

"No, it still feels as if his hands are all over me, branding me, possessing me, just as hard and wild as his... his god awfully ugly dick had."

Yeah, right. I distinctly remember you telling him he had a really nice dick.

"Well, one tends to say the stupidest things in the heat of lust," she defended herself against her inner voice's mockery. "There's one last resort," she mumbled as she walked into the kitchen, heading straight for the fridge.

No! Please, not the cliche of gobbling down gallons of chocolate chip ice cream!

"Pfft, I might not be an heiress, but I have refined tastes, I'll have you know," she scoffed as she took out olives, figs, grapes, and a variety of cheeses.

Ah, overloading on dairy in a different form... okay, I'm suitably impressed.

"Oh, leave me alone. Just go and zap yourself in the myriad of brain sensors, why don't you?" she snapped as she uncorked a crisp Chardonnay. Armed with a surefire solution to rid herself of Jax Crowthorne's cocoon of possessiveness that refused to dissipate, she settled on the sofa and switched on the television to watch her favorite thriller.

"Yep. No honeyed romance or romcoms for this girl. I don't want anything to keep reminding me of touching and kissing. Gore and blood. That's what I need." She popped a grape into her mouth and mumbled around its juiciness, "Perfect pairing with my cheese platter."

Halfway through the movie, her cell phone rang. Engrossed in the scene unfolding on the screen, she didn't check the number and answered with a mumbled, "‘Ello?"

"It wouldn't be wise to put the phone down in my ear again, Ciska, so if I were you, I'd play it safe."

Well, fucking shit!

If the movie and the cheese platter hadn't helped to get her mind focused, the deeply threatening voice of Theo Gulliver sure as hell did.

"What is it with men who don't get the message when a woman ignores their phone calls?" she said while attempting to still her battering heart. No matter how brave she sounded, fear ruled her at that moment. "Your threats don't work on me anymore, Theo. I've done nothing wrong, and I sure as hell have no intention of following that path ever again. One thing I've learned the hard way is that honor among criminals is nothing but a myth."

"Let the past go, my dear. What's done is done and can't be undone. Besides, you know I had no choice. When the big man gives orders, I obey. It's as simple as that."

"Is that the reason for this call? Because the big hotshot mobster ordered you to?"

"No. I honestly only wanted to check in and find out how you were."

"How noble of you, especially since it's been ten years since I was thrown in jail because you ratted me out to save your own ass." Dragging in a deep breath, Ciska attempted to calm her raging mind. "Why now, all of a sudden? Don't tell me you grew some balls and finally allowed yourself to feel guilty for fucking up my young adult life?"

"Whether you choose to believe me or not, I tried my best to get your charges dropped. When that didn't work, I personally paid for the best defense attorney to apply for an appeal."

"Of course you did." She cracked a derisive laugh. "I call your bullshit, Theo. If you had done so, I would've been told. No one applied for an appeal. I sat for five of the ten-year sentence. I only got out for good behavior. I was on parole until a year ago. Do you have any fucking idea how degrading that was? To be reminded every fucking month what a loser I was? How stupid I was to have believed every word you spoke and all the promises you made. No matter what you say. You threw me to the wolves, and you know it."

"The appeal wasn't granted, Ciska. For some reason, someone high up in the FBI National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force squashed it before it made it to court."

"For some reason? Fuck you, Theo. The job you had me do was a direct attack against the FBI and the government. Of fucking course, they wouldn't want me set free."

"Except they didn't have concrete evidence of what you had done, Ciska. We both know the project was at the beginning phase and that you had barely designed the framework of the full cyber-attack."

Ciska winced at a loud thumping sound in the background. Either Theo was truly upset, or it was another attempt at pulling the wool over her eyes.

"Besides, you had the foresight to wipe all the drives before the FBI knocked on your door. For that matter, at the time of your arrest, there were only five people who knew exactly what was going on."

Ciska breathed in slowly. The fury at the reminder of spending five years in a five-by-seven cell threatened to boil over.

"That was not what was presented in court. They provided proof—"

"Did they? Or was your attorney on their payroll and didn't do a proper job of defending you?"

Ciska felt her heart slow down. Just thinking of having been in prison on the whim of someone who pulled the strings on her life threatened to finally break through her resolve. For years, she had rebuilt her confidence... her life, until those five years, was nothing other than a bad memory locked away in the deep recess of her mind.

Never again. I'm not unlocking that fucking box!

"You know what, it doesn't matter, and I don't care enough anymore to want to know. Like you said, what's done is done." She chucked down the remainder of the wine. Her voice turned husky. "Thank you for checking in on me. I'm fine. Now, lose my fucking number, and don't contact me ever again."

Ignoring him shouting out her name to listen to him, she ended the call and once again switched off the cell phone.

"Look what he does to me," she steamed as she lifted a trembling hand to her hair. "I'm on the edge of breaking down, and I resorted to cursing again!" No matter what Theo said, she knew there was a reason behind his call. Clutching her knees against her chest, she rocked back and forth as another thought came to mind.

"Five people. He said only five people knew," she mused as she counted off the names. "Me, him, Sanchez Grecco, the Street Boss, and I assume the big man himself... so, who was the fifth one?" She scoured her memory banks, but she couldn't recall anyone else but Theo and Grecco meeting with her. If what he said was true, either she had been set up as a front to give them a gap to get through federal system security, or there had been an internal leak that scared them off from pursuing the attack.

"So, I was the sacrificial lamb." Tears threatened to spill over as she remembered how scared she was walking into the prison. She sat upright as another frightening thought flashed through her mind. "For that matter, where the blazes did Theo find my number? And since he has my number, odds are he knows I live in Tampa."

Jumping up, she rushed to her room and quickly packed a bag. Within ten minutes, she was in her car on the way to a hotel. She might be overreacting, but her new motto was to be safe rather than sorry. Her gut warned her to run, and she had come to trust that more than the word of any man. She had no intention of being there should he decide to pay her a visit.

"I better remember to let Jax know where to send his chopper in the morning. I don't want his wrath on my head if the pilot arrives at an empty house."

Yay, lucky us. It's not enough that we now have a powerful Dom upsetting our libido; we also have your previous useless boyfriend sniffing at our heels as well.

I do not need you to remind me of that.

Theo Gulliver

C asino 777, Casino Center Dr., Hammond, Chicago...

"You better have positive feedback this time, Theo. My patience is running out."

Theo strode confidently into the opulent office and took a seat across from Donato "Black Snake" Carlisi, the formidable Don of the Sandolens Mafia Group. Carlisi was known for his ruthless cunning and violent tendencies. His cold, reptilian eyes were said to strike terror in even the hardest of men.

"I do, sir," Theo stated assertively.

Carlisi was a key figure in the Chicago Outfit, one of the most notorious crime families in America. The Outfit had risen to power during Prohibition and had since expanded into various illegal activities, including loansharking, illegal gambling, prostitution, extortion, political corruption, and murder. Despite its relatively small size of about fifty-eight official members and a hundred-plus associates, the Outfit remained a dominant force in Chicago's underworld.

As Theo settled into the plush sofa, he studied the man before him. Donato Carlisi exuded an aura of power that seemed to fill the room. His sharp, dark eyes missed nothing, and his well-tailored suit couldn't quite conceal the muscular frame beneath. Carlisi's face bore the marks of a hard life— a thin scar along his jawline and a nose that was crooked. Yet there was an undeniable charm to his smile, a charisma that made it clear why he had risen to the top of the brutal organization.

"Well? Do I have to drag it out of you?" Carlisi's eyes flashed dangerously. He wasn't known for his patience.

Theo knew Carlisi's reputation well. The nickname "Black Snake" wasn't just for show— the man was known for his cunning, his ability to strike quickly and decisively, and his cold-blooded approach to business. Theo had always admired the mob boss. After all, it was men like Carlisi who had given Theo the opportunity to rise through the ranks and made him a very rich man.

"I've made contact."

"Is she in?" Carlisi's eyes narrowed as he watched Theo through the circles of smoke swirling from the tip of his cigar.

"Patience, sir. She sat in jail for us for five years. I need to approach her with kid gloves. If she suspects what I'm after, she's going to turn tail and run, and that's the last thing we want."

"We don't have time for patience, Theo. We need to prepare our master plan. The Outfit failed in the sixties to bag Kennedy to ensure he lightened the pursuit of authorities on our group. Because he didn't keep to his word, the organization's growth effectively ground to a halt ever since. That comes to an end now.

"I already had a meeting with the presidential candidate we're backing. His cockiness makes him the perfect candidate, but I need to have a fail-proof system in place to hold over his head before election day. I'm not as naive as my predecessors were in believing the word of a politician. We'll make sure he wins, and he has to realize the repercussions to him personally should he renege on our agreement."

"I understand. I'll pursue Ciska Fowler with more aggression."

"Stop this pussy footing around, Theo." Carlisi's eyes turned glacial. "There'll be no fucking pursuing her. I need her to do a job, and your job is to make her do it." He took a deep drag on his cigar, leisurely blowing floating circles of smoke into the air. "She doesn't have a say in the matter. Either she does the fuck what I want, or I'll personally do what you failed to do ten years ago."

"Look, sir, I—"

Theo's confidence wavered as Carlisi's words sank in. He felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead, his heart thumping like a racehorse. The realization that Carlisi had been playing him for a decade hit him like a punch to the gut. He struggled to maintain his composure, aware that any sign of weakness was fatal in this world.

"No, Theo. Your instruction was to kill her at the time. You didn't... and yet here you are still and now one of my Street Bosses. Have you ever asked yourself the question why I allowed your disobedience to slide?"

Theo's mouth went dry. He had often pondered that very question in the dark hours of the night, but hearing it from Carlisi's lips made it terrifyingly real. He attempted to regain control of the conversation.

"You agreed afterward that—"

"Indeed, I did," Carlisi cut him off in a voice as sharp as a blade. "Because I knew the day would come that she would be useful, and you would have to make up for your negligence ten years ago."

The blood drained from his face. The axe he had long feared was finally falling, and he was powerless to stop it. He marveled at Carlisi's patience, his ability to nurture a plan for a decade, waiting for just the right moment to spring the trap. The Black Snake's reputation for playing the long game was well-earned, and Theo now found himself caught in its coils.

"See to it that Ciska Fowler checks in next week for duty, Theo."

Swallowing hard, Theo managed to respond, "Yes, sir."

Carlisi waved irritably, dismissing Theo from his presence. As he left the office, his mind raced. He had saved Ciska's life all those years ago and had done everything in his power to get her released from prison. Now, he understood why all his efforts had been futile.

In the privacy of the elevator, Theo muttered to himself, his voice gruff with anger. "It was Carlisi. He was the one who blocked all my attempts to set her free. Fuck! It had been his plan all along. From the moment he realized I hadn't killed her." He paused, a bitter laugh escaping his lips. "You were wrong about one more thing, Ciska. I wasn't the one who ratted you out to the FBI."

The truth hit him like a freight train. Carlisi had orchestrated everything, from Ciska's arrest to her shortened imprisonment. Theo should have seen it coming; after all, he had learned from the master himself— never make a move without thinking ten steps ahead— but he never expected anyone to think ten years ahead.

As the elevator doors opened, Theo stepped out with his mind racing. The implications of what was to come were like a nightmare coming to life.

"I guess your brief period of freedom is over, Ciska," he muttered sotto voce. "Soon, we'll be working side by side again."

The prospect filled him with more sorrow than joy. He had often imagined reuniting with Ciska, but not like this. Not with the burden of a decade's worth of hatred between them. As he walked out into the Chicago night, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was stepping into a game where the rules had changed.

A game where he was already several moves behind.

One, where Ciska was the core game piece that would decide not only his fate but hers.

And Theo Gulliver had no intention of dying this young. He had worked too hard over the past ten years to make his mark in the Sandolens Mafia Group.

"If push comes to shove, this time, I will be the one throwing her to the wolves."