Ronan
Itwasprobablythe hardest thing I had ever done: walking into a room, and looking everywhere but where she was. Even without staring head-on, I knew she was the most stunning creature in the building, without a doubt. The dress I picked out fit better than I could have predicted and it took every ounce of restraint I had to not stand there drinking her in. So, I faked my attention at the others, earning a few coos and awes from them as I made my way to the couch, sitting on the furthest side of it, away from her.
Yup, this is exactly where I wanted to be, with three fucking blondes in between the bronze goddess who ruled my soul and haunted my every waking moment. There was so much tension in the air I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it or if my brothers could feel it as well, but the rest of our guys were clueless and enjoying their well-deserved party to celebrate our successes this year.
Tonight most, or hopefully all three of the blondes would sign their agreement into the Black Crows and we could begin making use of their knowledge and possibly take down the Russian’s trafficking ring this time. We’d never nabbed two girls from the same stash before and this year we took a risk with the Russians that Santo was sure would pay off as soon as they started spilling secrets. The weight in my chest pulled me down like an anchor though, and I couldn’t focus on anything but the woman who had already signed herself to us.
Once they signed, we let each girl decide who they wanted to be responsible for them for the next few months. We’d take care of them until a certain rapport was created between us, fostering trust while something of a relationship was built. It was always business for us, though more than once I’d seen Kane and Santo catching clingers before we were ready to turn the girls out to freedom.
It was shitty to do this to these girls, I knew it. It was the double-edged sword I swallowed gladly knowing that at the end of the day, all of the cruelty, fake love, and mistrust they experienced at our hands would be the ticket to freeing possibly hundreds of women out of the Russians human tracking market this year. Yeah, maybe we worked them too fast and too hard, but we didn’t have the time to lose, and we needed to be efficient; it’s how we were able to keep doing this without any of our rivals getting on to us. These fuckers spent years brainwashing these women before bringing them to the United States so we had to break the loyalty to the assholes they somehow felt a need to protect even though they would have thrown them to the wolves for a fat stack of cash.
I was pretty convinced the Asian girl, Chiyo, needed more time in the kennels, but I worried that with the other two being ready this would create a sense of jealousy. Any small feelings could tip the scales in the work we were doing and we needed the utmost of trust established.
We never got picked by the same two girls because we picked our type before we even broke them, offering them kindness and warmth at every chance so they thought they were picking us, but the reality was we were picking them. If by chance they picked wrong, we had rules in place for that too. The other could challenge the selection made and they would spend however much time it took convincing the captor that they should rethink their choice. That only happened once when a Cuban got confused and thought I was cozying up to her, when she should have chosen Álvarez instead. Poor bastard had to spend three weeks going the extra mile with neck rubs and shopping sprees while she was getting the cold shoulder from me before she realized she needed to choose again.
Throwing a fourth into the mix was definitely going to screw things up, but Cecilia didn’t know the rules of the game, and as far as I was concerned, she wasn’t a player. Yes, she signed herself away to me, but for different reasons and I wasn’t going to let the situations mesh no matter how much Álvarez was convinced I was.
Time passed, the drinks flowed freely, and I avoided the Demoness to my far right like she was Medusa, and a single glance would turn me to stone. It already felt like it anyways, guilt weighed me down in reflection of the man I had become in attempts to seek the truth out of her lips. There was a sense of urgency that tugged at me, that told the most inner part of me that she was in big trouble, and I would do whatever it took to get the answer.
If protecting her meant she would hate me, I would take that hatred tenfold.
Because If death is what waited for her outside of my doors, I would keep her locked away inside until that death came knocking, and even then, it would have to cut through me to get to her. But for the sake of my own men, and the people that followed us we had to find out what was coming, we couldn’t take the chance that this was some small-time bookie coming for a debt or a drug dealing ex-boyfriend on her tail she’d likely stolen from and took off during the night again.
I was hurting her, to protect her, but I was hurting her for me too. Every time I threw her in that box, I was breaking open a piece of me that I shut away and covered with the hard exterior I built in my time serving our country. I wasn’t a patriot like the rest of them, and neither was Kane. We were misguided youths with no future left, who enlisted to get out of the clutches of our past and our mistakes. Every person I killed, every choice I made to hurt someone was made for me, not for freedom or the illusion of it that was promised by our superiors. There was nothing about us that even whispered red, white, and blue. We knew the truth about war and the cost of it, and we didn’t buy into it at all. At the end of the day, it was just a means to an end for both Kane and me.
The party was in full swing, a mixture of guys and women throughout the room, some of the women our own soldiers and some were the plus ones of our higher-level guys. Almost everyone lived here in the high-rise, some floors meant strictly for business, and some for living quarters.
There were some older members of the Black Crows with full families, they chose to live away from the high-rise to keep their family and work life separate and we respected the hell out of that too. Shit got messy sometimes and we knew what could wash up on our doorstep if anything we did caused blow-back, and maybe we weren’t making announcements about where the Black Crow HQ was, but I doubted it would take much if someone really wanted to find out. It was clearly easy enough for Cecilia to do it.
The one named Anya kept crawling closer and closer to me where she was almost perched on my lap, my attention was on Fletcher and even though I wasn’t completely paying attention to the words coming out of his mouth, I was at least giving him the fantasy that I cared. Fletcher was a damn good right-hand man, and I never took him for granted, but sometimes he just talked too damn much about shit I really didn’t care about. “Yeah man, I trust you to deal with it.” I said and his eyes widened with surprise, and he thanked me for the confidence in him.
Álvarez stood and gathered all three of the blondes to take to the other side of the living area, and Dez quickly picked up his briefcase and followed. There was a guest room in the back that we kept mostly empty aside from the bed in it. He would explain to them the rules extensively and present them with the contract to go over. Once they agreed to sign, he would tag them with a tracker and then bring them out of the room and announce it to the entire party where the rest of the guys would cheer and make a huge fuss about the whole thing while they signed in front of them.
“What’s happening?” I heard Cecilia ask Kane and he moved from the chair opposite her and sat down next to her to explain in a hushed tone.
My skin prickled at the thought of him so close to her, but I knew my jealousy had no ground here. I still hadn’t turned my neck to acknowledge her presence and it was quickly killing me to pretend like she wasn’t here, or that she wasn’t constantly taking up all the free space in my mind. I didn’t want her here tonight, nothing about having her next to me made it easy for me to convey an image of power, but I was outvoted and the fuckers I called my brothers kept bringing up the damn contract. The woman made me completely weak, from the way she looked to the intoxicating scent of coconut and vanilla that seeped out from her with the flick of her hair. I knew it, and my brothers knew it.
She was my beginning and my end.
Anya came out first and sauntered over from across the room with a cat-like gait that would have been sexy had it been anyone but her doing it. She was too skinny, and her arms hung long at her side awkwardly. Her face was pretty, but it wasn’t the first face I’d look for in a room. I could see she had her eyes set on me as she continued to prowl her way over. Before she had sat down the door opened again and the other one, Oksana, followed suit almost identical to Anya. I began to notice their similarities for the first time since they had been here and as I stared at their matching cheekbones, and eye shape I began to wonder if the similarities ran deeper.
Fuck.
They were definitely sisters.
That was going to complicate everything, what the hell was Santo thinking when he nabbed these two? He was so proud he took more than one from the Russians, but to me, they looked more like a package deal, than an accident.
I rubbed my temples at the thought of how messy everything felt this year. It was because of her. I hadn’t been thinking straight since the moment she walked back into my life, and every decision I made was somehow corrupted by the ghost who wouldn’t stop haunting me. Anya squeezed in on my right side and Oksana sat on the arm of the sofa pressing against me and I sighed impatiently at the obvious gestures.
Álvarez opened the door one more time and stood at the threshold, he made eye contact with Fletcher and with a subtle motion of his chin he beckoned him over. I dismissed him from the one-sided conversation and like a good little soldier he headed over to Santo and closed the door behind them. Something was happening, but he was clearly trying to keep it discreet.
Shit.
I knew she wasn’t ready yet.
Anya muttered something in a heavy accent about me being tense and started pawing at me through my clothes, sliding her hands all over my thigh and letting them creep up. I arched an eyebrow at her and leaned back with my arms resting on the sofa, wondering how far she was willing to take it.
Getting my dick sucked by her before she signed in a room full of our guys would be a full-on win against Kane and Álvarez. We always had a big betting pool going every year of who would be the first chosen, and who would be the last chosen, and I didn’t plan on losing this year again, just because they were all blondes, I’d fake my way through it if I had to.
The mood changed drastically, the lights dimmed, and the music played a loud and heady tone. Some people were going at it in the corners without much regard for privacy, but it was nothing out of the average for one of our parties. I was wondering if my little flower was starting to feel out of sorts and embarrassed, but when I stole a glance over her way, she was only looking at one thing, one person, him. They were fully enraptured in conversation, but it was as if the daggers in my eyes cut through him because Kane met my gaze and rolled his eyes at me.
The fucking nerve.
Finally, Fletcher and Álvarez appeared in the doorway of the guest room and hurriedly sneaked Chiyo past the foyer and through the elevator. They made their way through the doors to take her back downstairs without a single other person noticing, except for Kane who caught my gaze again and we had an entire conversation without words. This year was different, and I wasn’t the only one who was nervous.
Oksana was rubbing my shoulders with her knees straddling one of my legs while her sister started to fumble with my belt buckle. For the life of me I didn’t know why but I turned my head to see Cecilia belly laughing at something Kane said, not even bothering to look in my direction, and contempt ran its course through me. I looked down to see Anya reaching into my pants and I tilted her chin up to force her to look at me.
“Are you sure sweetheart?” I asked her and without a beat she answered in that thick accent, “Let us help you relax.” She pushed my chest so that I was once again leaning back on the couch. I wasn’t hard yet, there was nothing she was doing that could get me there, but if I closed my eyes and imagined the raven-haired beauty on the other side instead, I could make it work. I allowed my eyelids to shut heavily in anticipation of the feeling of her hot wet mouth on me, but it never came.
Instead, I heard a smash and a scream and I opened my eyes to find Cecilia slamming Anya’s face into the concrete coffee table over and over. Oksana lunged off of me as she tried to get to her sister, but I held her back and shouted “Kane!” Who was apparently mesmerized by the whole situation and took three or four seconds to register what was happening before he pulled Cecilia off of Anya. Cecilia cackled loudly like a drunken witch, and my cock eagerly twitched awake at the entire scene.