17. Tessa

17

Tessa

T he moon is bright tonight, casting shadows through the half-open blind. Harry lies on his tummy next to me, legs splayed out, and snoring softly. He's worn out from this afternoon's adventures. As is Chloe. She's tucked up in her crib.

I'm tired too, but my hormones are in overdrive and I can't sleep. There have been no opportunities to scratch the itch caused by Cin's blatant appreciation for my post-pregnancy body. And besides, it's been so long since I had an orgasm, my body probably doesn't even remember how it's done.

Sad, but true.

The last decent orgasm I had was in the early days of seeing Enzo, when he still bothered to make an effort. The minute I fell pregnant with Harry, he stopped giving a shit.

Any sensible woman would have walked away at that point. But not me. I was determined to make it work with Enzo.

I lie in bed for another hour, listening to the kids breathing. When the clock on the nightstand hits 2 AM, I decide I've had enough. Everyone else will be asleep, so I may as well go make a drink. Perhaps then my brain will do me a solid and switch off.

The long tee I borrowed from the closet in this bedroom hits me mid-thigh. Since it's still warm, I don't bother pulling on a pair of pants. I'll make a drink and then sit on the deck for a bit.

The house is silent as I make a drink and then open the sliding door to the deck. Moonlight paints the trees silver and highlights the deep shadows. I've watched a lot of horror movies over the years, but strangely, I'm not scared of what's potentially lurking out there.

Kade tells me I'm safe here and I trust him.

I know very little about Madden and Cin, but I trust them, too.

My tea steams gently as I let my thoughts wander, but they keep circling back to Cin and the way he looked at me this afternoon. With heat in his eyes, like I was the most beautiful, sexy woman he'd ever seen.

I curse my stupid hormones. Thinking about that sexy man won't help me sleep. Almost without me realizing it, my fingers slide lower, resting at the juncture between my thighs.

Nobody would know if I touched myself to ease the insistent throb. My legs part and my fingers press south. Excitement builds even though I'm wearing panties, and I can feel how wet I am. My heart rate spikes and my nipples pebble in the warm air.

I picture Cin staring at me, his dick hard. And what a dick it was. The man is fucking huge.

The more I think about Cin and his monster cock, the hotter I get. I'm almost panting when the sliding door opens and someone clears their throat to let me know I'm no longer alone.

Embarrassment at being caught with my fingers between my legs sets my cheeks on fire. We're lucky the entire forest hasn't exploded in a raging inferno, given how hot I am right now.

"Everything OK?" Kade says. His voice is tight and I wonder how much he saw before he opened the door. Fuck, I'm mortified. I can't look him in the eye again.

"Can't sleep," I reply in a strangled voice, unable to look at him.

I hope he'll pick up my vibe and leave, but nope, he walks out and takes a seat beside me. Both of us sit with this weird tension between us, staring out into the darkness. Thank fuck the moon has slid behind a cloud and my red cheeks are invisible.

"It's OK to be scared, Tessa," he tells me after a few torturous minutes have passed. "Nobody's judging you."

Phew. He's misinterpreted my weird behavior.

"I'm fine." It's a complete lie, but hiding my true feelings is a habit so deeply ingrained now that admitting how I feel is impossible. And he's right. I am scared. Fucking terrified that what happened to my mom will be my fate, too.

"Madden and Cin are more than capable of protecting you once I've left."

It occurs he's not told me why they are qualified to be my babysitters. I'd have expected Dad to have me under lock and key at his estate, but that didn't happen. Why?

"How come you didn't take me to Dad's?"

"Because it's not safe there." I suppose he has a point. They took Mom from her bed, despite all the security in place at the time. Although I imagine Dad has learned from his mistakes.

"I thought the place was harder to breach than Fort Knox these days." The last time I went there, just after I turned 16, there were armed guards everywhere.

"It is, but we have a traitor in our ranks, and until I know who that person is, we can't risk taking you there."

"Traitor?" I thought my father's men were all loyal to him. He treats them like family. More so than me, or that's how it felt when I was growing up, banished to a different country.

"I have my suspicions, but I can't prove it, so until I know for certain, it's too risky for you to stay there." He sips from a glass I hadn't spotted. The scent of liquor teases my nose, and it makes me wish I'd poured a glass of whatever he's drinking rather than making a cup of chamomile tea.

"How is my dad?" Until Enzo threw me under the bus, we hadn't spoken in years. Not since the fight when I was 16, just after I found out he'd hidden a half-sister, Marie, from me.

"He's OK. Worried about you, obviously. He thought you'd be safe living your life well away from him." There's a pause, and then he says, "How did Enzo find out Alberto is your father? Did you tell him?"

"No, of course not. The only people who know are Marie, obviously, and my friend Stella and her guys. And that's only because Harley's father's on the board at Ridgeview College, so he knew who paid for my place there." I found out a few months into my course that the scholarship I thought I'd won on my own merit was set up by my father. He guessed I'd never accept his dirty money, so he came up with a different way to pay for my college place.

"And you trust them?"

"Of course!" I'm affronted he'd question my friends' loyalty. Stella is my ride-or-die. The only reason I didn't run to her and the guys when Enzo tried to have me kidnapped is that it would put them in danger.

"Then he had to have found out some other way." Both of us fall silent. Conversations and arguments run through my head. Have I ever mentioned my father? I know Enzo asked about my family more than a few times, and he's aware of Marie. But Marie is like me. She lives under the radar. Her mother remarried, and she took her stepfather's name, so unless someone digs deep, they won't connect her to our father.

I don't even use my father's surname. When he sent me to England, he made sure I had a different name. Everyone knows me as Tessa Radcliffe, not Tessa Valentino.

"Maybe the traitor you're searching for leaked the information? Anyone close to my father knows of my existence, even if they don't know exactly where I am these days."

Kade murmurs in agreement. It's the only explanation, although I don't see why someone would tell Enzo. He is unimportant in my father's world.

"Has Enzo mentioned anything about the Russians before?"

"No, nothing, but then he doesn't talk about his business to me. Apparently, I wouldn't understand what he does." I use air quotes to highlight how dumb Enzo thinks I am, even though I have a fucking degree in English Literature.

Not that it's been at all useful since I graduated. If I'd had any sense whatsoever, I would have studied business like Stella and Brax. Maybe then I wouldn't have ended up working in a shitty diner.

"I've been looking into his club and he's making good money, so it makes no sense that he'd end up indebted to Sergei Mashkov, unless he's using the Russians to supply drugs and missed a payment."

I know nothing about what goes on at the Pussycat Lounge. I've only been there a handful of times, mostly when we first started dating and he was trying to impress me. The last time was just before I fell pregnant with Chloe.

Not that I recall much of that night. I got horribly drunk and Enzo took me home. When I woke up the next morning, he was mad at me. Said I'd embarrassed him in front of his friends. I didn't remember what I'd done or said, but I made a point of never going back there again. Nothing good ever came from upsetting Enzo.

I wish I knew why Enzo felt he had no choice but to hand over the mother of his two children to a violent Russian gangster.

"What possible use am I to Sergei Mashkov?" I've heard of Mashkov. His name is almost as infamous as my father's, but whereas my father is a family man and he looks after his men, Mashkov is a psychopath.

"Mashkov is trying to muscle in on some of your father's established drug routes. He's looking for an in with the Cartels. Right now, they won't deal with him because Alberto has a good relationship with Horatio Vargas, but if Mashkov has you, he can use you as leverage to persuade Alberto to cut ties with the Vargas Cartel."

"So I'm a bargaining chip, just like my mother was." Makes sense. That's all women ever are in my father's world. We're pawns on a chessboard. Nothing more. It's why, as much as I hate my father for banishing me to England after Mom died, I'm also grateful he kept me out of his fucked-up life.

"In a word, yes." To my surprise, Kade reaches out and touches my wrist. "We're not going to let you get dragged into this mess, Tessa. You're the most important person in the world to your father, even if it doesn't seem that way."

"I can't be that important if he sent away a scared little girl who'd only just lost her mother."

"Your mother's death is why he sent you away. He couldn't risk losing you as well."

He's right, but it doesn't erase all the years of hurt and abandonment issues I have.

"I would have preferred if he'd put me first instead of the Family, but I guess that was too much to hope for."

"There was nobody else to take over, Tessa. Your Uncle Dante wasn't fit to run the family business and still isn't. Alberto couldn't walk away knowing it would put Dante in charge. Too many lives would have been lost."

He's right. The last time I saw Uncle Dante was when I was 16. He was at a party my father held to celebrate my return from England. I overheard one of my father's maids talking that night about how Dante had hurt a girl so badly that she needed surgery to fix the damage. Not long after, Dad and I argued, and by the next morning, I was back on a plane to London.

It's pointless raking all that up, though.

"How long have you known Madden?" It's surprising Kade has a friend unrelated to the Family. Hell, I didn't even know he had a brother until we were in the car on the way here.

I know nothing about him really, other than the bare bones, which is that my father took him in at 18 and molded him into the man he is today. He's like a surrogate son to Dad.

A son my father wanted but never got.

"Cin joined the army after he graduated from college. Madden was his sergeant in the Rangers. They served together in Afghanistan."

It doesn't surprise me to learn Madden was in the military. I can't quite see Cin as a soldier, though. He doesn't seem the type to follow orders.

"How come they left the military?"

"Not my story to tell," Kade replies gruffly. He throws back the rest of his drink and stares out into the darkness.

It's none of my business, anyway. I'll be gone soon. Hopefully .

"Madden left first, set up his company, then Cin joined him. They have a few guys working for them, but mostly it's just Madden and Cin. They take on the difficult clients. High-profile people with dangerous stalkers. Like Angelina Black."

I remember reading about her. A crazy fan tried to stab her at a movie premiere, but her security detail took him down. After the court case, the guy got sent to a secure psychiatric facility.

The incident made headlines around the world because of how famous Angelina is. Hell, the woman won three Oscars and has been nominated for countless others.

"Wow. They must be in demand after that case."

Kade chuckles. "Yeah, they have a long client list."

It occurs to me they must have given up work to take care of me. "Are they pissed about babysitting me if they're turning down work?"

"Nah, it's fine. They booked some time off. You being here makes no difference."

"I won't be stuck here for long, right?"

When I turn, he's watching me, but the shadows are dark and I can't quite read his expression. "Are you desperate to leave, Tessa?"

"Yeah. I need to get back to my life.