PUSH: Ultra Alpha MMA Badboy Mafia Romance (Southside Brotherhood Book 2) (3 page)

Then, six months ago, he held his hand out and helped me up off the front steps of this dark palace.

We both felt it, and every day since I understand what it is like to want. To feel—and I hate him for it.

After the maids came and scrubbed the blood out of the ivory silk of the antique rug, Lilly had filled her crystal glass to the rim and had spent the next hour ingesting the magical liquid that would allow her a few hours of dreamless sleep.

Now, the sun was up and the rhythm of the locks told her who was here.

No surprise. The surprise was that he had waited this long to come. She wrapped her wanton curls into an even more wanton bun on top of her head.

He hates my hair this way. Time to smile and let the games begin.

Black suit, white shirt, silk tie the color of money, hair straight off of Bela Lugosi’s Dracula and the soulless eyes of a shark.

His demeanor felt more like a mortician than a fiancé checking on his future bride. The temperature in the room chilled as he stepped inside.

Colin licked his lips and shoved his hands into his pockets as he stared out the window and kicked the door shut behind him. He hadn’t yet met her eyes; he looked like a man who had come into a room to be alone.

His spicy cologne was overwhelming. Lilly’s stomach lurched already threatening to spasm in dry heaves, and his smell only added to the sick.

“Do I not give you everything you need? Certainly more than you’ve ever had.” Colin spoke toward the window.

“I don’t know what I need. Therefore, I cannot answer your question.” Lilly felt her heartbeat slow.

She should feel fear, but she gave up that luxury long ago. It was an insufferable emotion. More useless than most.

“You are ungrateful, Lilly.”

“Am I?”

“Yes. Don’t be a child. As you can imagine, I am in no mood.”

A soft knock on the door and in walked Colin’s other offspring.

“Hello, Gideon.” Lilly smiled sweetly, her words dripping with saccharine.

“Quite a night?” Gideon rose another few inches above his father’s six feet. A younger version of what would be considered a stately, handsome man by most that didn’t understand what lay beneath.

Gideon flashed his wicked smile and his father’s same dead-looking, black eyes toward Lilly.

“Yes, it
was
. It’s turning into quite a morning. So exciting to have you both visit me so early. Surely you are both here to check on my wellbeing. To be certain I was not harmed or emotionally traumatized by the—”

“Shut up.” Colin still spoke toward the window, as if looking at her was offensive. “Gideon, did you deliver the message?”

“Yep. He’s all stitched up and back in that shit hole of an apartment.”

“Were you scared to see him die?” Colin finally turned to look at the Lilly.

Lilly smiled back. “Nothing scares me; you should know that.”

“I don’t believe that. Everyone has a weakness, something they’re afraid of losing, and I think your something is my bastard son. Otherwise, why did you let him live?”

“Because, he reminds me of you, my love. How could I let them kill your own son? I knew how devastated you would be.”

“Wow. She’s itchin’ for a lesson in manners.” Gideon curled his lips in something close to a smile while his eyes lit from behind at the thought of what he hoped would be the start of a good pre-breakfast fireworks show.

Lilly thought of luring them both onto the balcony in order to throw them into the pool two stories below.

Eight months ago when her mother came to her with the news she'd be moving to a mansion in the United States, her matrimonial destiny sealed, even her nightmares had been better than this.

Hit me. Please, just hit me, then you’ll leave me alone for a few days. It’s worth the pain to have some peace.

The sound of a soft squeak coming from the bathroom where the breeze blew the leaded glass window with the hinge still hanging loose drew Lilly’s eyes.

“Yes, of course,” Colin said. “Family is everything. However, Flynn does not seem to understand his precarious position in our family. I made it very clear to him the last time. Following rules is not one of his strengths. He always needed a heavier hand than his brother.”

“I’m the good son.” Gideon flashed a contemptuous smile.

“So, what do you want? I assume my duties today are the same as every day. Why don’t you guys move along and let me get dressed.”

Her brain flailed against the gnawing worry. Where was Flynn? Was he all right? Was he, in fact, still alive?

The vision of the knife cutting across the hard flesh of his chest etched into her memory like an old photograph. The blood had come immediately and in large quantity as Thing One stood on Flynn’s left arm with both feet while Thing Two slowly drew the knife across.

The air in the room had turned to ice as Flynn took the pain in stoic silence, his eyes never leaving hers. Lilly had felt like someone was squeezing her heart in an iron grip, her gut filled with a swarm of buzzing, angry bees as she watched, knowing he was about to die right there on her bedroom floor.

It’s his eyes. It’s always been his eyes. From the moment he looked down at me on the front steps, drowning in my own astonishment, it was his eyes I remember.

“Lilly!”

“What?” Her head snapped up to see Colin standing next to the bed.

“Marriages like ours have existed since there was marriage. You should feel thankful you have something to offer, something that will bring our two families together.”

Lilly drew one corner of her mouth to the side, curling her nose in the process.

Colin loved telling her how lucky she was. It took a great deal of will not to roll her eyes, knowing that would get her a knock to the head.

Give me a slap or a face shot any day, but I hate when he slams my head. That ache lasts all day.

“As much as I appreciate the visit, can we please wrap this up?” Lilly needed a shower and a tall espresso to clear the Johnny Walker cobwebs.

Looking from Colin to Gideon, Lilly realized that for most women, either of these male specimens would elicit a swoon-worthy response. They were tall and lean with classic, sophisticated features that would put them both in an Armani ad or on the cover of GQ even on their worst day.

But, when she looked at them, she felt nothing. No natural instinct to mate with the powerful alpha. Their arrogance gained not by their worthy achievements but by endowment and oppression and cruelty.

A stripe of clear morning sunshine stretched through the diamond beveled shapes on the windows, striking Colin’s just graying hair at the temple—impeccably trimmed around his ear and above the pressed collar of his shirt.

Colin dropped his hand to twist a wayward curl from Lilly’s face with his manicured fingers. She could smell his cologne and the scent of turkish coffee, he was standing so close, his breath from above coming slow and steady.

“Get dressed. The car will be downstairs in forty-five minutes. You are behind on your deadline. The code should have been in beta testing last week.”

“I know but these things do not always follow your artificial timelines.” Lilly pushed his hand back from her face and lurched up and out of bed.

She wore the white Irish lace and linen nightgowns her mother had made for her. Colin hated the provincial nature of something so homespun, but Lilly loved wearing them because they reminded her of Abigail.

“Be careful.” Colin spoke toward Lilly as she brushed by. “Stay away from Flynn. I am not going to ask more about your involvement with my son, but I want to be sure you understand. You are to be my wife. I will not wed a whore.” He grabbed onto her arm as she moved toward the bathroom, leaning down to sear the words into her ear. “Trust me, my darling, if you are not a virgin on our wedding night, I will invite every Irish fuck I can find to have a go at you. Your mother was a whore and look what that got her.”

Lilly wrenched her arm away. His fingertips twisting into the soft skin on the inside of her arm would most likely leave purple marks as they had so many times before.

“I’ll volunteer,” Gideon added from the corner. “And, I’m a good Irish fuck. You’re a little generous in the ass for my taste, but I’ll still have a go.”

“Well, this has been delightful.” Lilly gave them a bright, sweet smile.

“See you downstairs in twenty minutes. You get 200 calories for breakfast.” Colin gave her a glance up and down, swallowing his disdain for her less-than bony frame. “And, I want that section of code finished today.”

Colin nodded to his younger look-a-like, and finally they were gone. Lilly looked around the room. She may as well have stepped into a royal country estate in Ireland. How could a room so beautiful house such sorrow?

Such a waste. If Jane Austen had an evil twin, she would have written this little love story.

Chapter Four

O’Leary’s was a time capsule. Topher MacGuire held court there every day, including holidays, standing next to his father from the time that he was old enough to ride a bike.

Since then, Topher had turned the back alley gambling and illegal alcohol business into a thriving empire. He was as brutal and ruthless as his father, yet held onto the old school ways of building relationships and staying entrenched in the old neighborhoods of Southwest Detroit.

The bar had certainly seen its share of fights settled with one body being dragged out the back door. Topher had sat at the same table for going on forty years. The enormous mirror behind the bar reflected back the worn, carved wooden booths and neon Guinness sign.

Leonard, who’d stood behind the bar from the beginning of Topher's reign, was as much a fixture as the .45 Magnum under the counter by the register. His starched white shirt and black bow tie were as ever present as the cigarette that dangled from the corner of his mouth. His rolled-up sleeves showed off a tuft of the dark hair on his arms.

Flynn shook off the drops of early fall rain from his hair as he made his way down the back hall with its flickering, buzzing fluorescent light. He walked toward the clinking of glasses and voices talking of remember-whens and guess-what’s.

As Flynn rounded the corner, Topher raised his head and gave him a half-smile, showing off the brownish-yellow teeth behind his swollen lips. His half-full bottle of Chianti sat in its place at the right corner of the four seat table with his worn brown leather ledger open in front of him.

“You’re early. Must be anxious to get started.” Topher waved his hand toward the chair next to him, and Flynn took his place in silent resignation.

“How you feelin’?” Topher chewed on the nub of a cigar in the corner of his mouth.

“Hundred percent.” Flynn blew out a breath as he tapped his fingers on his knees.

“You’d be all right, you'd stay away from my daughter.” Topher gave him another smile as the wet cigar nub wiggled as he spoke.

“So, what’s the deal?” Flynn didn’t hide his impatience.

Fuck if this asshole is going to tell me shit about her. Fuck all of them. Just give me my orders, and I’ll see if I’m going to breathe another day. ‘His daughter’ — fucker’s never done shit for her until he realized she could make him bank. Left her to rot with that fuck of a stepfather in a shack with barely enough food to feed a cat.

“The
deal
is, you need to be useful. If you are of no use, then you are unnecessary, and you must know what happens to unnecessary things, don’t you? Your father’s had enough of you, so here you are. Ready to help out your soon-to-be family.”

Flynn cracked his neck and fought off the urge to throat punch the fuck.

Topher’s bloated face smiling at him lit the fire already rising in his gut. Several of Topher’s soldiers sat in a booth about five feet away, taking quick sidelong glances at Flynn every few seconds.

“Just tell me what you fucking want. Either kill me or spit it the fuck out.”

“Fine. You’re going to fight again. First you heal, and then you go here—” Topher slid a scrap of paper across the top of the worn walnut table. “See Roger; get training. Keep your eyes and ears open. I want to know how many fighters they have, who’s coming up, anything they have going on. I’ve got an investment I need to keep my eye on there. Then, when you’re back, you’re going back in the ring. When and where we tell you. Just like before.”

Flynn felt his gut turn. He blinked and drew a breath, slow and deep through his nose. His fingers tapped faster on his knees.

“Fuck you. All of you. I’m not taking no fucking fall again... getting my ass handed to me when I know I could have knocked that fuck out. I won't do it again; I won't take a fall.”

“You’re not so smart.” Topher leaned across the table, losing the smile, and poked one sausage finger deep into the throbbing, stitched flesh on Flynn’s chest.

Flynn fought the wince, but heat radiated out from where Topher’s finger dug in.

“Do as you’re told or that knife is going to find your fucking heart next time. Do as you’re told, stay away from her, and you get to see another day. Fuck up again and even your blood won’t save you. You must know your father will make that call. Do as you’re fucking told. Now get the fuck out.”