Chapter Twenty-Four

Never Broken

Rafe

The boy I've grown to love drops out of my grasp, blood spraying from his shoulder. He cups the wound in slow motion, his mouth open in a silent groan I know is a remnant of the years he remained quiet in a screaming world.

Or perhaps he simply learned that in his silence, others talk and he learned to listen. There is so much I don't yet know about him. If my people don't stop getting shot at I'll never get a chance to fucking find out.

If.

My gun is back in my hands, the weight telling me I have two, maybe three bullets left, damning myself to hell and back for not reloading earlier.

"Put it away, Rafe," a voice I don't expect breaks through the warehouse.

Even Konnor has the grace to look surprised as the man who fired walks out from within his own ranks, taking nearly two-thirds of his entourage with him.

"Seamus," Willow breathes somewhere behind me. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Seamus smiles, a dead, rotting thing, like a corpse that's been left under a bridge too long and came floating to the surface, bloated and ghostly.

"Yes. Please do tell us." Konnor rocks back on his heels, his hands sliding behind his back in a relaxed posture, but Seamus shakes his head.

"Oh, no, my friend. Or should I call you brother? Perhaps you'd trade me in for Mister Hernandez here."

"Don," I hiss through clenched teeth. "If you address the man you just shot correctly, you address him as your Don, Cunningham." Not that Seamus pledged his allegiance to anyone, but I need to make a point.

Blessedly, Konnor says nothing, watching the man who lived in his house and ate at his table walk across the space like he was the only one in it, and not one of near twenty men and two women spread out in a large circle, with the five of us in the center.

Three women. I didn't search for Sonja, and I didn't need to. She was nowhere to be seen.

I'll find out if you are loyal before I die.

"It's not our day, Rafe," Willow murmurs, her voice almost inaudible.

Her comment falls in one of those rare, still moments, and Seamus laughs.

"You don't know how lucky you are that my bastard isn't planted in her belly right now." He shakes his head, his eyes glinting manically. "Or maybe it is, and you are as naive as ever."

"Perhaps," I murmur, not giving him an inch of my fury, widening myself in and shifting slightly to one side to shield Willow while her brother bleeds out in utter silence at my feet.

Guns point at us from every direction. Not just us, but Konnor too.

The Irishman rocks once more on his heels, his head canting slightly to one stride while he watches Seamus's little coup play out while letting me know which entrance his reinforcements will come through.

Someone doesn't trust you, little man.

Seamus gloats, while I pray he won't take the second shot at Roman. I'm not sure anyone will survive the carnage if he does, including myself.

"Are you truly stupid enough to believe you can threaten my family?" I draw Seamus's wandering attention as Konnor rocks back on his heels twice.

Two minutes.

It might as well be an eternity.

"I thought he was your boss," Seamus sneers. "The one you're all bowing to now."

Willow creeps forward, pressing her warmth to my back and dropping to her knees beside her brother.

"Perhaps that's a good idea," Konnor speaks up, and my attention shifts to him.

I narrow my eyes. "What's that?" Perhaps I read him wrong and he was in on whatever Seamus concocted all along.

Konnor eyes me. "Do you remember what I said to you the day you left my office, looking for your wife? She was in the other room."

I stare at him as my mind clicks in.

The waft of night jasmine. The day I knew she was there but I didn't hunt her down. Jesus, had she been hurt and hadn't told me? My gaze drops but one word lifts my attention back to the man before me, the only one in this place who I respected enough to fear, if only for an instant.

"Kneel. Will you kneel for her?"

Seamus gins and gestures with his gun while the men around him shift.

I try not to smile, all too aware that while they would let him kill one of the family heads, humiliating us might be that one step too far on men who've had loyalty reared into them by my father and Konnor's.

Keeping my back straight, and my eyes on Konnor alone, I lower myself until my thigh screams and first one knee hits the concrete, then the other.

Months ago I failed Willow by letting her be taken by her uncle while I was distracted, and it cost my father his life. Guilt still claws at my gut but I understand now why he didn't fight, why he accepted his fate, knowing it gave me the moment I needed to save my wife and the boy who has become my brother.

Now, I have that same opportunity, if from a different perspective.

Konnor nods, some of the tension leaving his face, apparently satisfied by my unspoken reason, so I address my next words to Seamus.

"We are one family. Two sides, but joined. We can have more than one seat of power, though I don't expect you to understand that." I count the seconds off in my head, working my knee slightly forward to press to Roman's back.

In my periphery, he shifts, exposing the mat-black butt of a pistol I didn't think he's used today so far. My chest expands with the bubble of hope and I fight for control of myself. Like before, the air in the room holds, pensive like the moment before a thunderhead rolls through.

But that's the thing about storms—they can be deadly, or armless, all noise and washing away too fast to be replaced by the searing heat of a world washed fresh.

We are about to find out what sort of storm Seamus Cunningham has wrought.

"Fuck, you're wordy. I always liked that about Konnor, you know. He says what he thinks and shuts up."

"Unless he's had whiskey." I grin at the memory of crawling through Konnor's house on a break from the same boarding school Roman attended, seeking more of the golden ambrosia when I couldn't put two feet beneath me.

"Cheap drunk," Konnor mutters under his breath, shooting me an amused glance.

"I aim to please." I wiggle my toes in my shoes, seeking circulation. If I have to move, from here at least I can arch my body over Roman, but I need working limbs to be able to achieve it before he's killed.

Mind, with this many weapons in the room, we'll all look like Swiss cheese before the showstopper is over.

"Shut up!" Seamus lowers his gun, focusing it straight at Willow. "Both of you have had her—could have had her." He glances across at Konnor who says nothing. "And neither of you know what a fucking lying bitch she is. Teasing and taunting with that body and her pouts," the man pants, spittle foaming at the corner of his lips. "Whore," he whispers, as though his adrenaline rush of utter contempt is spent, glaring at her through glazed, mad eyes.

I have no doubt at this distance that he won't miss, and I curse myself for not holding her back.

"She can be a royal pain in the ass," I agree.

Willow snorts and mutters something I can't make out.

Still fighting, still so beautiful.

No matter what Cunningham says, he can never steal the memories I have of her from me. Can never tarnish them. And that assurance is all I need as my countdown hits the last twenty seconds of the promised two-minute window.

Seamus raises his chin, a deadly defiance in his eyes though he seems calmer. "I pushed her to stay, though I told her she shouldn't. It always worked, you see," he begins conversationally. "I want to say she loves you enough to stay, but then I'd be lying." His grin and disjointed thoughts grate on my nerves.

"You're a big boy, Cunningham. You know how to play with the big boys. What is it you want?" I yawn into the back of my hand, and Seamus raises the gun, pointing it straight at my head.

I smile broadly. Mission achieved.

Outside, vehicles pull up, their tires crunching on gravel. I need a distraction.

"How long have you been screwing with my family from the inside?" Konnor asks, not actually looking at Seamus, but at some point over his head.

Seamus swings around, pointing his gun at Konnor's head and walking straight into his space. "You never looked at me! But you will. Now that I—"

Roman's underhand toss with his good hand lodges a knife into the back of Seamus's neck at the same time Willow fires.

Konnor doesn't take a step back as the dead man hits the concrete floor in a splatter of flesh and blood. Around us, weapons jolt, and I wince, waiting for the next shot that will end my existence while the echo of my wife's ripples around us all.

I rise to my feet, unwilling to die kneeling before a fallen antagonist only to take a bullet in the back from a man without the balls to look me in the face as he pulls the trigger.

But the shots never come. Or rather, they do, but it's in the form of blades flying from somewhere high above us.

I must remember to thank the Lady Sonja for her assist.

Konnor's men burst through the doors, Dom in the lead charging straight at me.

"Willow!" he shouts. "Fuck, Roman." Dom drops heavily to his knees at my side, already attending Roman's wound without a word for me.

I look down at the cluster of people bleeding out on my shoes and shake my head. "Like a collection of fucking puppies," I mutter, stepping back.

Willow wraps her fingers around my ankle and I freeze on the spot. "Don't you dare move," she snaps. "We have a lot to talk about."

I grin at the woman who just made her next kill, and is already earning herself a tanned backside over my knee later tonight.

Damn good thing we have that no underwear rule in the evenings.

Roman rolls onto his back and offers a thumbs-up with his good hand to the room at large. Konnor huffs a laugh at my side. "Perhaps I should be negotiating directly with him."

"Perhaps you should." I stand side by side with the man who will take one person I love from my life and smile.

Until we reach that point, we can stay friends.

****

For the first time in over a year the door to my study is locked.

Willow sits on her knees beside my desk, her feet curled gracefully beneath her toned thighs. She's taken to swimming recently and her body is more beautiful and stunning than ever.

Tonight, she is naked. If she moves, her pretty ass will show where several dozen handprints that match my own have turned her skin rosy and heated.

Dom sits on the other side of my desk, having witnessed her punishment, though from the way she moaned through every swat, wriggling enticingly on my lap, I wonder if we shouldn't have called it a funishment instead.

For now, she sits quietly while a muscle in Dom's jaw ticks at an intermittent albeit increasing rate.

"I thought we talked about this," he said finally. "Cyprus was a one-off event."

I smile. "That seems like an eon ago."

Even though Willow isn't supposed to break her silence—part of her penance for crawling between me and a bullet during a gunfight—she makes a little mewl of agreement. I cup the back of her head and massage her scalp deeply.

She whimpers and nuzzles into my hand, her shoulders sloped gracefully, her nipples pebbled tight. A sweet blush fans across the top of her breasts. I tap her knee with my shoe, and she slides her knees apart, displaying her glistening pussy, blooming with heat and ready to be fucked.

Dom swallows and keeps his eyes fixed on me. "Sounds like your pet agrees with me."

"She does." I keep touching her fondly, loving her response to a situation that would cower a lesser woman. "Her birthday is coming up. Now we're through with punishments, I'd like to arrange a special night for her."

"You call this not a punishment?" His hands fist in his lap. "I made an oath, Rafe. I won't break it to her."

I nod, having suspected as much. "I'm not offering you to fuck her, brother," I stress the word, knowing Dom's felt out of place since the showdown he missed.

Which is the same reason he sat across the desk and witnessed Willow's punishment. Not because he wants to fuck her—we've already been there, and Dom has his own little problem to deal with—but because I need to remind him who rules our world. Despite my love for the man, these last weeks could have ended with us all dead for the distractions he has let take precedence over our work.

"I know," he murmurs, finally looking at Willow. "It's not that you're not beautiful, you're stunning and I know you know that." He swallows again, still holding her gaze. "But I've promised Thalia—"

As if summoning the demoness healer, my office door rattles. A moment later the previously locked door swings open, a slim bladed knife embedded in the keyhole. Thalia's face reddens as she stares between Willow who smiles and waves from her kneeling position at my feet, back to my face where she emanates disgust, and to Dom … and that's where her expression hovers between distrust and disappointment.

Silence reigns as he keeps his back to her and stares at me, self-loathing written all over him.

When they've stewed enough I give him a slight nod. "Impressive. Will you see about a new lock after?" I ask him cordially.

"After what?" Dom's teeth grate, and Willow winces.

I frown at him. "After you've fixed things with Thalia. Get your head in the game, man," I admonish him, fighting my own smile.

Dom shifts so fast in his seat his actions are almost a blur. "Fuck," he swears, already on his feet and aiming to follow her abrupt exodus. "Excuse me." He bolts for the door, no mean feat for a heavyset man, slamming the lockless thing with the blade still embedded in it.

"That wasn't nice," Willow whispers, tilting her head to one side. "Are we still on punishments? Or can we move onto what we need?" Her eyes glow with desire, and my cock responds as she traces her lips with the tip of her pink tongue.

I lean down to capture her mouth with mine and slide my palm between her thighs until her liquid core coats my skin. I push two fingers deep into her, loving the way she contracts on my hand. "Perhaps if you come for me before I count to twenty, we can find out how you fit across my desk."

"Oh God," she pants, rocking her hips in time to my gentle thrusts as they grow harder. I work my fingers faster to her cries. "Yes, please, Rafe."

"Good girl." I kiss her languorously, taking the time to taste and savor her. "Now sit there and come prettily for me so I can blow across these pretty lips while you moan my name."

Spoiler: she doesn't make it to double figures before she ruins my carpet.

I watch her drip, and wipe my fingers on her stomach. Fuck, I love this woman. "Perhaps we have time for a little more punishment after all, Wife. Ass in the air, tongue on the mess you just made."

Willow pants at me, swaying as she slips down to the carpet, licking the wet spot like a kitten. I grip her ass and trace my fingers around her dark hole.

"See if you can keep quiet while I spank your cunt until you orgasm, and I promise I won't fuck your ass first," I whisper, leaning down to lick along her spine.

Willow cries out at the contact, and arches.

Too easy.