Ruthless Heart

NERO

I don’t sleep.

It’s not just sexual frustration keeping me up all night, although God knows I have plenty of that. It’s the damn fight we had. I don’t want to admit to myself that Lily’s gotten under my skin, but the evidence is clear.

I planned a fucking candlelight dinner. I rented a yacht.

I picked out a thousand-dollar bottle of champagne, for Christ’s sake.

What the hell are you playing at?

I ask myself the question over and over, but I don’t have a good answer. Truth is, I don’t know what I was thinking, but there was something about seeing her in front of that canvas, lost in her painting, that made me want more of that for her.

More normalcy. More good times. More of the things she deserves.

I thought maybe for one night, we could put all the fucked-up bullshit aside, and just be us again. The way things used to be.

I should have known that those days were over the minute her family betrayed the Barretti name.

The minute Lily lied to my face, and pretended she loved me, when all the while, she knew exactly what her father was doing.

Fuck.

I drag myself out of bed the next morning, cursing the day I walked into that Vegas strip club. It would all be so much easier if I’d never laid eyes on her again. Or even turned a blind eye—just walked on back to a private room, and let Lily live out her life far away from me and my dark, violent world.

Then, maybe things would be simple. Maybe I wouldn’t be risking everything at the chance to keep her alive, feeling things I have no business feeling.

Emotions that could leave me for dead or bring the destruction of the Barretti empire, an empire that I’ve sacrificed my whole life to build.

I headover to the club, to get caught up on business. My office there is a damn sanctuary compared to the loft, there’s no risk of Lily waltzing through in her yoga pants, ready to get me hard as a rock. But even though I try to distract myself with paperwork, I’m still wound too tight, ready to blow.

And when Chase strolls in like nothing’s happened, it’s the perfect storm.

“I’m busy,” I growl.

“Who pissed in your Cheerios?” Chase asks, looking completely unconcerned. He dumps a bag of bagels on my desk and makes himself comfortable.

“You want to tell me what the fuck you’re playing at?” I shoot back, my voice like stone. “What the hell did you do with Lily last night?”

Chase scoffs, rolling his eyes. “What’d she say?”

I frown. Why isn’t he answering me directly?

“She said that you threatened her.”

“So what if I did?” Chase shrugs. “I’m only looking out for you, man. That bitch can’t be trusted.”

I glare back. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

“Yeah? Well, your good judgement isn’t working so well these days, not with your dick leading the way,” he replies. “C’mon, I thought you’d see through her little Miss Innocent act by now. That woman has an agenda.”

I shift, uneasy. “She knows the deal. McKenna for her life.”

“And what if someone offers her a better deal?” Chase demands. His good humor slips, and I can see the resentment burning in her eye. “What the fuck are you thinking? If you want a tight piece of ass, go get it, nothing’s stopping you. But keeping her close? Running around all those fancy parties? The guys are talking,” he adds.

“Saying what?” I ask, controlling my temper.

“That you’re losing sight of what really matters. The business. The family,” he stresses. “All this real estate, pie-in-the-sky bullshit, when we don’t need the liability. The machine works, we already run this city—the part that counts. You don’t need to fuck up what ain’t broke.”