“Well, obviously, the Kildare family stands with this family,” Callie says fiercely.
“And I know Castle knows how much we appreciate that,” Ares says in a measured tone. “But it’s like a bad game of dominos: if we get involved with a war, and then drag the Kildare family into it, that’ll drag the Reznikov Bratva into it through their alliances. And now we’re talking about World War Three in the streets of Manhattan.”
“So what’s the plan?” I growl.
Ares spreads his hands. “I’m working on one. But in the interim, we need to make sure no one in this family gets into any sort of bullshit or entanglements with the Italians. At all.”
My jaw ticks.
Yeah, no. Too late.
It’s not just about what happened the other night with Bianca. It’s that it was no accident that it was her I matched with on the Club Venom website.
I orchestrated the entire thing.
It all started when I found the two pieces of shit traffickers I’d been hunting trying to attack her in that alley. On the plus side, I stopped those two fucks from brutalizing her that night. But on the bad side?
Well, let’s just say she caught my attention.
All of it.
After that night, I did what I always do when something pulls my attention like that. I dug up. I sliced open. I unearthed every secret and hidden place, trying to dissect Bianca Sartorre.
What she was doing in the middle of a drug deal that night is no real mystery. I know now that the two other girls who fled that alley and left her to the wolves are Alicia Houghton and Irina Lenkova, both also dancers in the Zakharova Ballet. It took about four seconds of digging to put together that they’re not really friends with Bianca, because she doesn’t have many friends. It took another two whole seconds to figure out that Alicia’s dating Grisha Lenkov, a mid-level Chernoff Bratva wannabe thug who also happens to be Irina’s cousin.
That explains the drugs. It also explains why Bianca was there, probably seeking approval from two girls who’ve historically snubbed her, plus why they ditched her as soon as things went bad.
But it doesn’t explain the way that mix of innocence and darkness in her eyes—of fear and excitement—captivated my attention.
More importantly, captivated my beast’s attention.
After that, it was just a matter of time. Especially after I hacked her phone that very first night in the alley.
Since then, I’ve been in her pocket, next to her bed, and sitting on the bathroom vanity while she showers. I’ve read her emails and texts. I’ve enjoyed watching the dirty videos she’s viewed in incognito mode.
….And I’ve watched her log into the Club Venom web portal as “BrokenBee”.
I know for a fact Bianca’s not really a member of Venom. Dante and I aren’t close, but I know him well enough to know there’s a snowball’s chance in hell he’d ever allow his little sister to become a member of his playground for dangerous deviants.
I’m not a member either. But Xavier, a hacker I frequently work with when hunting down monsters, got me into the Club Venom system. Once inside, armed with a new profile, I could force the match between her profile and mine, as well as make sure no other profiles could even see hers.
And the rest, as they say, is history. The sort of history I’m still thinking about, constantly.
The fear and the excitement in her eyes as I chased her like a maniac. The intoxicating scent of inexperience and innocence when I caught her.
The deliciousness of her cries and the heat of her tight little virgin pussy. The willpower it took not to fuck her in every sweet, wet hole she had until she was my perfectly broken little toy.
After Ares wraps up the meeting, when I’m heading down the elevator again, I pull out my phone and bring up the tracking app Xavier helped me install on hers. The willpower I exerted the other night when it comes to Bianca does have its limits, after all.
My lips curl slightly as I watch her phone’s location ping like a little blinker, down one Manhattan street and up another, before it moves into a larger building: the Mercury Opera House, home of the Zakharova Ballet.
She’s at rehearsal, blissfully unaware that I’m watching her every move.
Hunting her every step.
Still tasting her sweetness on my tongue.
I scowl as my phone buzzes, a text popping up and ripping my attention away from Bianca’s location.
Taylor
We need to meet. Now. Usual room at The Standard.
My teeth grind.
Fuck.
Ares may want to minimize our “entanglements” with the Italians to make sure things don’t get more fucked up than they already are. The problem is that it’s not just my hidden darkness and secret nocturnal activities my family doesn’t know about.
They also don’t know that shit is already more fucked up.
Extremely so. Catastrophically.
And something tells me, as I glance at the text from my lawyer, that it’s about to get way worse.
9
KRATOS
