Savage Queen (The Dark Elite 3)

She smiles softly in her sleep, the warmth of her body rolling closer to mine. She’s still asleep, so I doubt she actually heard my words.

But it doesn’t matter. I said them for me as much as for her. Speaking them out loud solidifies them, makes them feel real.

Seeing her like this, vulnerable and peaceful in my bed, fills me with a sense of purpose. I meant what I said, and I intend to keep my word. I’ve fucked up so much in my life, ruined so many things, but this, right here, will not be touched. I don’t care if the world burns around me, but as long as she’s alive and I’m alive…

I will protect Grace Weston with everything in me.

That begins with protecting the power of the Novak Syndicate. With taking Camilla and the Rooks down. As long as Camilla and her minions are alive, Grace isn’t safe. As long as the power dynamics in Chicago are out of balance, none of us are safe.

So I have to fix it.

And then… one of these days, when all of those fucking problems have been fixed, I’ll enjoy a morning where I don’t have to pull myself away from her.

Where I can stay in bed, buried inside her, until we’re both so fucking sated and exhausted we can’t move.

Untangling myself from her body is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Leaving her warmth for the chill of the room, I remind myself that the sooner I fix this, the sooner we can build a future worth living for.

I quietly make my way across the room to the adjoining bathroom and shower quickly, then get dressed.

Throwing my jacket over my shoulders, I adjust the sleeves and walk back toward the bed where Grace still sleeps. I can’t help myself—she’s always drawn me in, even all the way back when we were fucking kids, and a feeling of rightness washes over me at the sight of her naked in my bed.

Where she belongs.

Camilla may be downright evil, psychotic to the core, but more than that—she’s cunning. She knows how to cover her tracks well. Despite our recent efforts, we’ve got absolutely nothing on the Rooks. Up until recently, we didn’t even know she was a member of the organization that’s been giving us so much trouble. She managed to keep her involvement a secret for years.

But she hasn’t been idle all that time. She’s been working diligently, laying the groundwork for her attempted takeover of Chicago.

And we need to find a way to fucking stop her.

The men are getting antsy, restless. I’m getting restless. My father always told me that restlessness was a plague to be avoided—a plague that killed, because when you’re restless, you jump at anything, you grasp at strings that shouldn’t be pulled.

We know Camilla is planning a war against us. But there’s only so much we can do to prepare for war when we don’t know how she’s planning on attacking. I’ve covered all the usual bases, but there is nothing about Camilla that’s normal or predictable. This woman doesn’t play by the books, and I don’t have any way of anticipating her moves other than sending my men out to run surveillance.

And not even that has worked.

Nothing. We don’t know shit about their endgame. We got more information from Leland when he was alive than we’re getting now, and we got hardly anything from him.

I lean back in my chair, wiping a hand down my face. “Fucking hell. The Rooks were a problem before we knew Camilla was one of them. Now? They could fucking end us, Ciro.”

He’s the only other person in my office right now, which is the only reason I speak my dark thoughts so bluntly. The rest of my men don’t need to hear my worries. They only need to hear my strategies, my plans. Shit they can act on, not just doubts stirred up in their minds.

“We’ll find something.” He stretches his legs out as he goes over a report. “She’s been building her organization up too fast, and now she’s moving even faster. You grow that quickly, and there are bound to be a few cracks in the foundation.”

“I fucking hope so.” A knock sounds at my office door, and I glance up. “Come in.”

“Hale, we’ve got word on something.” Lucas enters with Zaid right behind him. They’re followed by a few of my other men. “Something that could be good.”

I straighten up in my seat a little, my eyebrows lifting as Ciro looks up as well. “Yeah? What have you found?”

Lucas doesn’t waste time, cutting to the chase. “We got possible intel on a deal that the Rooks are putting together from one of our undercovers. Better than that, we’ve got a time and a location.”

“Well done.” I allow myself a grin. I’ll take anything at this point, but if this intel is good, it could give us a chance to see deeper into the Rooks’ operation. “When is this deal going down?”

“One hour from now, southwest side of town.”

He names an area that we don’t do business in very often because we haven’t been able to fully secure it. Vicious anger cuts through me as I shove my chair back from the desk. Of course Camilla would find that weakness in our network, in our control of the city, and exploit it.

But she’s about to find out why every other gang in town knows better than to fuck with the Novaks.