TRISTAN
That was the longest morning of my life. I dropped Scarlet and her constant questions off in the den with a babysitter to watch TV while I went to find the boys for a debrief on their morning events. I could still feel her thighs pushing into my hips and the soft curve of her tits on my back. She was big fucking trouble in a small package. I needed her out of this house and back with her family before she got under our skin.
The moment I had found out that she was in my city, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to grab her family by the balls. I couldn’t imagine how she thought it was smart to hide just one city over, but that wasn’t really my concern at the moment. My main concern was getting her family under our thumb. I wanted them to leave us and our city the fuck alone from now on.
“How was everyone this morning?” I asked as I walked into my office. The guys were both sitting on the couch, drinking from my personal stash. I sat down across from them.
“No issues,” Elliot said. “All the businesses paid their taxes and thanked us on our way out.” The taxes we collected were separated from anything government required. Our taxes were collected to keep our men on those businesses, making sure they weren’t fucked with by anyone else.
“How was your morning with our princess?” Sebastian was already too attached to the pretty little thing, and I really, really should’ve seen that coming. He may be the enforcer in the group, but he was also the neediest. The most affection starved.
“She’s fine. I took her on one of the quads earlier around the property to get her out of the house for a bit. Garret is babysitting her in the den right now.” Sebastian stood and started to walk out. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To babysit our girl,” he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“We have shit to discuss, Seb. Sit the fuck down. You can kiss the ground she walks on later.” My god, Elliot was a grumpy bastard. Turning his attention to me, Elliot raised his eyebrows in a question. “What’s the plan for her? When can we get rid of her?”
Sebastian whined like a petulant child at that. I sighed.
“We need to go about this carefully. I don’t want to throw it in their faces. That’ll just piss them off.” Sebastian fell back onto the couch in a huff. “And I don’t care about money…and she does not need to know that.” I gave them both a pointed look. “For all I care, she can think all she is to me is a way to make few quid. But this whole thing is about getting them to leave us the fuck alone.”
“Some serious shit went down with her,” Sebastian chimed in. “You didn’t see her last night. She was fucking terrified. You really want to send her back into that?”
Elliot groaned. “Seb, how exactly is that our problem? You literally torture and kill people on a whim, but you’re worried about sending the girl back to her family?”
“She told me today she’s pretty sure it was her family that put a hit out on her. It happened in her room, and no one came for her even though she was screaming bloody murder. And with a family like that, you know there had to be guards everywhere. So—” I took a breath. “—I believe that much.”
“They did more than try to kill her.” Sebastian chewed on the sides of his nails.
“How do you know that?” Elliot scoffed.
“I could tell by the way she reacted when I was on top of her trying to get her to wake up. And she flinched when I touched her.” He stared Elliot down for a minute. “They had their fucking hands on her.”
“And why the fuck do you care, Seb? You haven’t even tasted her and you’re already whipped.” Elliot loved to push his buttons and knew exactly what to say to do it. Sebastian’s eyes flared with anger. We were minutes away from me having to break up a fistfight.
“Alright, enough, the both of you.” I sighed and ran my hands over my face. “Jesus Christ, who knew that that little piece of hellfire would be so complicated.”
“Me. I did.” Elliot was looking smug.
“Why don’t we just use her as leverage instead of handing her back over and trusting them to keep their word?”
“What kind of leverage?” I asked. He just smiled. “You mean keep her, don’t you?” He nodded.
“Think about it. If they truly wanted her dead, we would be doing them a favor by keeping her. We keep her a secret, just between them and us. Their family gets to do whatever the fuck they wanted to do without her, push whoever they want to the forefront of the family. All the while we keep her here, keep her safe, and keep them in line. Because if they overstep, we’ve got her in our back pocket to shake their shit up.”
I could practically feel the heat coming off Elliot. This was the last thing he wanted. He hadn’t even been completely sold on the idea to go get her. But Sebastian had a good point.
“Sebastian, you may actually be onto something there. That might be a better idea than just handing her over and taking their word that they’ll behave. I don’t think your little pet is going to like that idea though.”
He just smiled and stood up off the couch again. “My pet,” he laughed and started to move out of the room. “She’s all of ours. Just give it a little more time. She’ll have all of our dicks wrapped around her pretty little fingers.”
Elliot let out a loud laugh at that and threw his drink back in one gulp.
I watched Sebastian walk out of the office. His words hit a little too close to home. I could still feel the ghost of her body pressed up against my own. And that mouth. Fuck me, the mouth she had on her. She didn’t take any of our shit, and I could only talk sense into my cock for so long.
“Not you too,” Eliot groaned, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“You can’t tell me she isn’t sexy as hell.”
“Her mouth ruins it.”
I groaned, thinking about how good that mouth would look around my cock. “Her mouth most certainly does not ruin it.”
He rolled his eyes and sat his glass down on the stand next to him. I took the opportunity to adjust myself.
“We have the party tomorrow night. What are we going to do with her?”
I had completely forgotten about that party. There was definitely no cancelling on something that important. It was a night for all the people who ran the city. Well, the figureheads we allowed to mimic running the city. They were all in our pockets, and they would expect us to show our faces.