I dig under his arms, and he lets out a very un-mobster-like squeak.

  “Oh my God, the deadly dealer of secrets is ticklish!” I squeal. “You are so screwed.”

  Someone snorts.

  “Ren, shut up.” Elias bats my arms away, pinning them behind my back.

  Ren shakes his head, and seconds later, the partition rises with a soft hum, giving us privacy.

  Elias’s breaths puff against my face, a lock of hair falling over his forehead. The air sizzles between us, and it’s then I notice the hard bulge under me, which grows with each second.

  Awareness thrums through my blood, my skin sensitized, breasts heavy. I gnaw my lip and his eyes snap to the motion, pupils flaring.

  He slides his hands over my backside, digging his fingers into the tender flesh.

  “You drive me crazy,” he groans, nose dipping to my neck.

  “Elias.” His name escapes in a whisper as I arch to his heated kisses.

  “Utterly, fucking crazy. Losing my mind.” Soft suctions, hard nips, then gentle licks. “You barrel past all defenses, smash them like they’re made of air.”

  My hips move on instinct, my mind melting in a haze. Wetness seeps out of me as I grind my pussy over his hard cock through the fabric.

  “Fuck.” Masculine grunts rip from his throat. He bobs me up and down his length. “I want to fill you up so you’ll drip with every step you take.”

  I gasp. My core clenches.

  “Shit. You like that. My dirty wife.” He bites my ear. “And then I’m going to do it again tonight. I’ll make you keep your legs up after, so none of my cum leaks out of this perfect cunt.”

  Elias’s cock hardens even more as he thrusts against my pussy. I moan and claw at him.

  “Elias.” I whimper when he bites my nipple through my dress.

  “Then I’ll do it again. And again. And again. Breed you until I get a baby inside you.”

  His words push me to the edge, every cell inside me primed to detonate.

  “Yes, yes, yes.” I throw my head back and cling to him as my muscles tense.

  “You want a baby right, Lana?”

  The sudden seriousness of his tone forces my gaze back to him. There’s a hint of vulnerability within the lust.

  I’ve always loved children. Always wanted some of my own. And now, I can only see little dark-haired kids with green eyes running around.

  “Yes, Elias.” Tears prickle my eyes. “I want them. I want everything with you.”

  Eyes flaring, he grips me tighter with one hand, his other hand snaking between my dress and dipping into my panties.

  “Soaked,” he growls. “If we weren’t minutes away from—”

  Glass explodes. Blinding white light flashes from the side. Tires screech along pavement.

  Bullets pelt the car, shattering windows. I scream.

  Elias plows into me, pinning me to the seat.

  “Down!” Ren shouts. “Incoming SUV. Shit!”

  The car swerves. I’m thrown off the seat, but Elias catches me in time.

  “Stay down, Lana. I got you,” he rasps. “Whatever you do, don’t get up.”

  Fear crashes into me as he cocks his gun and bolts upright.

  Eyes crazed with fury, he fires off round after round out the window.

  Something explodes outside. Safety glass powders my hair. I cover my ears, a high ringing sound needles my skull.

  Burned rubber fills my nose. The car swerves again.

  Elias swaps mags without looking, slams it home, and fires again.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, afraid to look. This is what I signed up for. But it’s one thing to know and another thing to go through it.

  “Go, go, go!” He drops, covering me with his body again.

  I clutch him tightly, unable to speak.

  Ren maneuvers the car, tires screeching as we speed off.

  My heart thunders, the gunshots still ringing in my skull. The car jolts, then silence, except for our ragged breathing.

  “You’re safe.” He gathers me up, his hand brushing down my back. “Shhh, Lana. I’m here. You’re safe. Nothing will ever happen to you.”

  The rest of the ride home was filled with tension. Elias held me against his lap while he spoke on the phone—calls to the Berishas and to others in The Syndicate.

  I fell into an uneasy sleep.

  When I woke up, he was carrying me up the stairs toward the bathroom.

  And now, he sets me down and turns on the shower.

  “Elias? What are you—”

  “Shhh,” he murmurs. “Let me take care of you. You’re safe. Always safe.”

  He smooths a hand down my back when steam fogs up the room.

  Only then do I realize I’m trembling.

  Quietly, he undresses us and carries me into the shower, where he washes my hair with my shampoo and conditioner. Then he applies bodywash and massages my tense muscles while the hot water rinses away the bubbles.

  I slowly relax. In this small space, with the sweet roses of my products perfuming the air, I feel like I’m in another world. Away from danger. Away from gunshots and deaths.

  I’m with the only man I’ve ever loved.

  Closing my eyes, I release a heavy exhale.

  It’s then I realize Elias has stopped moving.

  Heavy breathing reaches my ears as he stills behind me, the weight of his head on my back, like he’s leaning on me.

  “Elias?”

  I turn around.

  He’s dipped down, arms bracketing me against the shower wall, water sluicing over his dark hair and powerful muscles.

  I tip his face up.

  Reddened eyes meet mine.

  “What if I can’t protect you?” His voice is hoarse, full of anguish. “What if, by keeping you with me, I’m sentencing you to death?”

  My eyes fill with tears, and I shake my head.

  “You can’t think that way.”

  “Yes, I can!” He slams his palm on the glass behind me. “You were safe in New York with your family. You had a good life. I took that away from you.”

  “Because The Association forced your hand! They would’ve never left me alone.” I cup his cheek, grazing his stubble. “Don’t you see? I’d be in danger either way. But with you, I got a shot at safety.”

  His throat works, but he doesn’t reply.

  “Because I know you, Elias. You’d protect me.” Slowly getting on my tiptoes, I curl my hands around his neck and kiss him. “I trust you with my life.”

  With an anguished groan, he clasps my face and deepens our kiss.

  Our teeth duel, our tongues clash. He drinks me in like I’m the only sustenance he needs to survive. My heart pounds as he hoists me onto the bench and spreads my legs wide.

  He drags his lips over my eyes, my nose, my mouth. Then to my ears and my neck.

  “I worship you.” He presses his mouth over my heart.

  “I adore you.” He suckles my nipple before nibbling it.

  Wetness slicks out of me and I pull in a strangled gasp as he continues moving down my body.

  “I love every fucking part of you.” He presses that talented tongue on my pussy and swipes it from my hole to my clit before inserting two fingers into my tightness.

  “Elias,” I moan, my hips already moving to the rhythm of his thrust.

  He grunts and when I open my eyes, I see him gripping his thick, dripping cock, pumping it up and down.

  An orgasm barrels in from nowhere, but before it can crest, he hauls me up and slams me onto his cock in one thrust.

  “Fuck, I’m coming,” I cry when the pleasure detonates into ecstasy. My eyes close as I surrender myself to the intense shockwaves.

  “Yes. Let me feel you milking my cock.” Slamming me against the wall, he pistons harder, wilder, his movements holding no finesse but all passion. “Become part of me, Lana. Let me be a part of you.”

  Then his dick thickens and throbs, bursts of cum pumping out of him as he roars my name.

  The sounds of our lovemaking echo in the shower. My heart and body feel full to the brim.

  I cling onto him as his movements slow, our rough, panting exhales joining the water pelting against the glass and marble.

  “I’ll protect you if it’s the last thing I do,” he says.

  My eyes flutter open, my gaze finally meeting his emerald ones, and my breath catches in my throat.

  Because aside from the love I see in his eyes, I also see…

  Fear.

  Chapter 47: THIEF OF FUTUṚES

  February twenty-eighth.

  I’m locked down tighter than Fort Knox on my thirty-fifth birthday. Other than a basket of cookies from my Aria and Scarlett, who were understandably freaked out when security patted them down at the door, I haven’t gone out or received visitors.

  I did get on a call with my girlfriends and sisters in New York, where they updated me on things at Fleur, how their new head of PR wasn’t nearly as good at her job as me. They mentioned flying here to visit and to help Rex, who begrudgingly stepped in to do some PR work, including the press junket with Chicago Memorial.

  I told them I wasn’t in the city most of the time, but I’d booked a flight back to New York in the summer after my exotic trip to Antarctica.

  Frankly, I think my cover was blown a long time ago, but Maxwell and Rex must’ve said something because the girls didn’t push me on it.

  And then there’s the motley crew downstairs.

  Sofia, Elias’s steel-spined sister, dressed in all black, picked at her red-manicured nails while watching the news.

  Aleksei, buzz-cut and wild-grinned, promised me he had me covered with his mad hacking skills.

  Another suit in a silver mask, Sebastian, known as the psychopath, sat at the dining table, aloof and cold, but there was a flicker of interest when I caught him staring earlier.

  Ren said I should ignore him.

  Even the priest who married us joined a video call with Elias. Rafe—that’s his name.

  Elias’s family. The Antihero Syndicate.

  After the attempt on our lives a little over a month ago, Elias spent most of his time in the house with me. He tried to distract me with romantic overtures like candlelight dinners in the backyard with him as the chef, or looking at the stars in my indoor garden until I fall asleep. There was sex, lots of mind-blowing sex, and exotic chocolates imported from all over the world.

  He assured me we were safe inside his fortress, that I had nothing to worry about. But based on the hushed calls in his office—one time I even heard him yelling at the Berishas—the danger was far from over.

  Worst yet, I don’t think he knows who’s behind it.

  Now, Maxwell and Rex stare at me through the computer screen as I hold up a folded sheet of paper.

  Mom’s letter—a photocopy Elias made before he gave the original to the Berishas.

  “No more secrets,” he murmured this morning in bed. “Happy birthday, my Elise.”

  I pull in a deep breath, my fingers shaking.

  “You don’t need to read it,” Maxwell says. “It doesn’t matter what’s inside. Your safety’s most important.”

  “But fuck it. That’s why she needs to read it,” Rex mutters. “Don’t you want to know what Mom’s hiding and why those freaks want her?”

  Part of me is afraid to find out—afraid it’ll ruin the image of Mom I have in my head.

  After all, she has something The Association desperately wants, and no one involved with them is ever good.

  “No. I’m not running from the truth.”

  Mind made up, I unfold the paper, the brittle page crinkling under my fingers.

  My Dearest Lana,

  My darling daughter, happy thirty-fifth birthday.

  I hope you never have to read this letter. Because if you do, it means I’m no longer there, and that breaks my heart because I love you so much.

  But know this: I’m watching over you from above, and you and your brothers are my pride and joy.

  I have no regrets other than not being there by your side.

  Tears blur the looping script. My fingers trace her words.

  Sometime today, you’ll get a delivery, and it’s important you don’t tell anyone about it.

  As you probably know by now, the world is a dark place. Those with old money and power will do anything to keep themselves on top.

  I expect you know about The Association. I’m sure they haven’t left our family alone.

  You see, the original intent when your grandfather and his friends started it wasn’t to take over the world.

  I gasp, my hand flying to my chest.

  The original sixth family. That was us?

  “What?” Rex asks. “What is it, Lana?”

  I hold up a finger and keep reading.

  It was a beautiful vision—combining our wealth to make the world a better place. No more wars, no more starvation, pooling our funds for medical research.

  But your grandfather told me things went horribly wrong. An argument broke out among friends, and one of them was killed.

  Your grandfather was a witness. He had photos, letters, and incriminating evidence showing it was all premeditated.

  Five families against one.

  He withdrew, disappeared from the spotlight, but he kept the evidence.

  Just in case. Insurance to protect us.

  It was his biggest regret not stopping The Association before they grew too powerful. When I turned thirty-five, he entrusted that evidence to me.

  Leverage to ensure our family remains safe.

  And with regret, I do the same to you. Your brothers will be in the spotlight—they always underestimate the women in our world. My hope is you’ll never have to use this evidence, only to keep it in your back pocket should our family be threatened.

  I’m sorry I can’t explain more. I’m sure it’s shocking and terrifying.

  But my Lana, from your first cry, your little fists punching the air, I knew you were the strongest of my children. You can bear the burden.

  I love you forever and ever.

  Mom

  My mind reels. My eyes unfocused, I flip the letter to the camera so my brothers can read Mom’s words.

  I’ve always wondered why The Association stopped short of killing us when my brothers defied them in the past. It isn’t their MO to let their opponents live.

  And now I know why.

  “Fuck,” Rex mutters.

  “That’s it. We’re pulling you out. I’m sending a security team for extraction,” Maxwell says, already typing. “You’re a sitting duck. They’ll never let you live after they get the evidence. Them not getting it—or you—is our only shot.”

  “I’ll call the others in,” Rex adds, eyes flashing. “Can’t keep them in the dark anymore.” He fishes out his phone—

  “No!” I shoot to my feet. The stool crashes to the floor with a loud thud.

  “Lana!” Elias bursts through the door, eyes wild, gun drawn, Ren fast at his heels.

  “I’m fine.” I close my eyes and blow out an exhale.

  His cologne wraps around me, followed by his heat at my back.

  I sink into his embrace as his arms circle my waist and he presses a kiss on my hair.

  When I glance back at the screen, Maxwell and Rex are frozen, staring in obvious shock.

  “I’m staying,” I say, my vision blurring. “I’m not leaving my husband.”

  Maxwell’s mouth drops open. If it were any other situation, I’d laugh at my straitlaced brother rendered speechless.

  “I love him,” I whisper.

  Elias tightens his arms and murmurs, “My zemër.”

  He tells my brothers, “I’ll die before I let anything happen to Lana.”

  Silence.

  My brothers cock their heads in near-identical expressions. I can see them working through various scenarios to arrive at how Elias won me over.

  Because the man we knew for so long would never betray us, despite what happened at the vault.

  Then Rex whistles and throws his head back, laughing. “Elias motherfucking Kent. I should’ve known. You love my sister. All that forced-marriage crap and the damn heist were bullshit. I knew it.”

  “I survived,” Maxwell says quietly, understanding clear in his eyes. “Wouldn’t have if you didn’t want me to.”

  Elias freezes behind me. Then, a small nod.

  Air rushes out of my lungs. The truth I suspected all along lands heavy, but merciful.

  Elias was never our enemy.

  “I’m sorry,” he rasps.

  Maxwell waves him off. “All I care about is what we’re going to do about the situation.”

  “We need to lure them out.” Elias straightens. “Get the evidence before they claim it.”

  “How do we do that?” I ask as he faces me.

  He cups my face, gaze soft, thumb trailing my cheek. “A decoy.”

  Chapter 48: THE SURPRISE

  Lana’s pacing around the living room when I descend the stairs.

  “Sit down,” Sofia exclaims. “You’re making me dizzy.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Lana mutters. “You’re not the one with the target on your back.”

  “Maybe I’ve been through worse,” Sofia replies quietly. Something haunted flickers in her eyes.

  She flashes Lana a small, sad smile. “I’ve learned that in life-and-death situations, don’t show fear. Don’t let them get to you.”

  She taps her temple. “If you’re strong here, you’ll survive anything. Trust me.”

  “Boom.” Aleksei whistles under his breath as he strides in. “Security cameras are all clean. No bugs. Nothing unusual.”

  “So we just wait?” Lana asks, pacing again, then freezes, gaze darting to Sofia. She sighs and sits. Cece jumps into her arms and purrs as if to comfort her. “Right. Mind games.”

  “Elias is right.” Sebastian removes his mask and stares at his laptop. “Going on the offensive. That’s the only logical choice.”

  Ren signs something, then looks at Lana and Sebastian. He rolls his eyes, clearly exasperated, and pulls out his phone.