Page 29 of Blackmailing Belle (The Lost Girls #4)

Chapter 29

A Shakespearean Kind of Revenge

THE BEAST OF BOSTON

T he air reeks of salt and gasoline, heavy with the promise of a storm. Rain drizzles steadily from a gray sky, coating the snow-covered docks in a thin sheen of ice. The murky waters of Boston Harbor lap at the pylons below, their rhythmic slap the only sound aside from the low rumble of a distant boat engine.

I stand with Tock and Lucien at my back, my claws twitching at my sides.

It was mere hours after the encounter with the Wolves in the alleyway that we received a message. A request to meet. On neutral territory of course.

I don’t like it, but I did kill one of their people. And married their leader’s cousin, though that was unbeknownst to me.

Tossing a quick look to the car where Isabelle sits in safety, I can’t help but think how I don’t like this. I don’t like it one bit.

But circumstances demand a meeting.

Roman’s men emerge from the fog, their silhouettes sharp against the horizon. At least six of them, but my focus narrows on the figure leading the pack, his stride loose and cocky. Roman Valentine.

Behind him is another man. Tall, lanky, and dressed too clean for the docks, his slicked-back blond hair and tailored coat stand out against the gray.

"Dominic," Roman greets, his grin wide and wolfish. "I almost thought you wouldn’t show." His features are sharp, his nose beak-like under a pair of beady, constantly assessing eyes. I search for the resemblance between him and Isabelle but I find none.

Despite the cloudy day, I’ve relegated myself to the only kind of cover I could find. I keep to the long shadow cast by the building behind us.

I don’t respond. Silence unsettles men like him more than words.

Roman is nothing more than a child, poking me with a stick.

Roman chuckles, a low, grating sound that puts my teeth on edge. "No need to be aloof and silent, I know all about the Beast of Boston now. Hiding in the shadows there, my guy, isn’t going to change a thing. I know your dirty secret."

I pause, not because I’m surprised or put off, but because I don’t care to take one step closer to this man’s proximity.

"Isn’t this a funny situation? For a long time now, I’ve been wanting to meet the Beast of Boston face to face, man to—well. . ." He trails off with a smirk.

Lucien shifts behind me. I flex my hand, a signal for the enforcer to hold though I know he’d gladly set every last one of these bastards on fire.

Roman’s insults slide off me like the rain. Let him think he has the upper hand. The truth is I’ve already won. I own this city, among others. I possess the power he so hungrily seeks. And more than that, I possess Isabelle. His flesh and blood.

"And now that we are finally meeting, I find out we’re practically family." Roman claps his hands then opens his arms wide, as if he’s welcoming me as a brother.

"I assume this meeting is in regards to the Wolf I killed," I say, my voice steady, even. "You should have trained them better."

Roman’s grin falters, but he recovers quickly, tilting his head like he’s sizing me up. Dark bangs fall into his eyes. There is something about the way he drinks in my half-shifted face that is different from most. There is a hungry kind of fascination flickering in his dark eyes. Then whatever he’s thinking is chased away by his false devil-may-care attitude.

"On any other day, killing one of my soldiers might have started a war between us," he rubs his chin with exaggerated thoughtfulness. "But no, I didn’t drag myself out here just to scold you for taking out one of my pups. She was out of line." The last sentence snaps out with true disdain.

I wonder if it’s because he doesn’t approve of his cousin being collateral damage or because she didn’t listen to her superior, who tried to call her off. Roman has rules about the chain of command in his crew. The Wolf alpha structure is taken quite seriously.

"No, I think you know why we are here," he says in that deceivingly light tone as he puts his hands in his coat and rocks forward on his feet. He cranes his neck and looks around. "Where is my dear cousin anyway?"

There’s something about the taller blonde man who’s been scanning the area, as if he’s been specifically looking for my wife. It irks me more than even Roman’s abrasive words.

I hoped his chattiness would carry on so we could leave Isabelle out of this, but Roman lays his flat gaze on me and waits.

The message is clear. We won’t continue until we’ve dragged his cousin out onto the chopping block. I suppress another growl, which makes my nose wrinkle.

My left claw twitches.

Tock moves to open the back door of the black SUV. Isabelle steps out. The black coat sweeps down around her legs, the hood pulled up but not covering her features. In the dreary gray day, Isabelle’s face brings a contrast of warmth and color. Her mahogany hair falls in those classic Hollywood waves. She’s also lined her deep brown eyes in charcoal, which makes them luminous and add an edge of danger I never noticed about her.

I almost sense she is bringing an energy, a version of herself she had shelved—quite literally—and is accessing a part of her only her family can inspire.

Her expression is implacable, and for the first time I realize another predator has entered our midst. A quiet, patient predator who has no need to roar or slash claws to establish dominance. My wife exudes a quiet kind of power, the kind Roman could never understand because it’s real, unassuming.

All the comments she’s made about having to handle people more dangerous than me, being able to discern bark from bite all click into focus. This is the world she came from and managed quite well until she cut her and her father off from it entirely. Even that was done with expert precision.

A ripple of pride goes through me, and my slacks tighten slightly against a sudden blooming arousal. I want to fuck her right here on this dock, show everyone she is mine. Set her back against the cold, damp wood slates and worship her in every way possible.

I force myself to look away and turn my attention back to Roman. I’m on edge enough as it is from the last twenty-four hours. It would take too little to unravel me, and I can’t afford that right now.

Roman’s eyes narrow as he focuses on the embroidered roses on Isabelle’s coat. They are a brand, wrapped around what’s mine. My wife. Just like the massive rose ring on her finger. This time a rumble of satisfaction ripples through me.

That’s right, you bastard. Look at what you lost with your own stupidity.

"Hey there, Belly," he greets tightly with a smile that’s too sharp. Though I detect some genuine distress, maybe even regret, pass over his eyes.

Belly? What kind of fucked up nickname is that? The need to claw his tongue out causes tension to shoot through each one of my fingers.

A soft, "Don't," hits my ears. It’s firm but low enough that only I can hear Tock’s warning to hold despite my rising ire. I hear the click of Lucien’s lighter. He’s also agitated by the nickname. My men have become quite attached to my wife, and it doesn’t settle easy for her to be disrespected.

Isabelle gives her cousin an implacable nod back. "Roman."

Family dynamics are complicated and as old as time. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Roman’s second in command, the tall blond, is no longer warily eyeing my crew. He stares at my wife as if refamiliarizing himself with her. There is an eagerness, a hunger that sparks in his eyes I don’t like.

After a few moments of his intense scrutiny, Isabelle meets his eye and gives him a curt nod. The second in command acknowledges her with a lazy, lopsided smile. It contains that patented Wolf arrogance but something more.

They know each other.

My chest tightens, heat licking up my spine. I don’t know his name, but I instantly despise him.

"How you been?" Roman asks his cousin.

Isabelle doesn’t even blink. "Good."

The dialogue is simple yet loaded with years of familial history.

"Married apparently," Roman says, his voice breaking a bit. A half-hinged laugh escapes him. "To the enemy." Then he breaks into full peals of laughter, bending over as his eyes water from the uncontrollable spasms of humor wracking him.

I meet Isabelle’s gaze. She stands between both sides. The Wolves and the Roses. I lift my chin ever so slightly, a silent command. Or maybe it’s a question. She’s softened me so much in a matter of weeks that I’m treating her with a deference I’ve never given anyone before.

Something in her eye heats, then melts. She strides over to stand by my side. However, Isabelle positions herself just a step behind me. My heart swells and strains in my chest.

Roman’s humor dries up like the Sahara.

The move is as overt as an earthquake. My little book lover understands power plays, and in that simple move she has reinforced, not only that she has chosen me over her cousin, but also that she trusts me to lead.

"I have to admit," Roman says, his face taut with displeasure now. "I didn’t see this coming. Marrying my cousin as an act of revenge. It’s got a kind of poetry, I admit. This is some Shakespeare shit." A dry laugh comes out of him as he brushes his nose with his thumb.

Revenge?

Roman’s minuscule kingdom is admittedly annoying, but it’s certainly not damaging enough to my business to warrant anything even close to revenge. The little man thinks so very highly of himself.

Isabelle snorts. "Like you’ve ever read Shakespeare in your life, cousin."

The sharpness of her tone draws his attention, and for a moment, his mask slips. An ugly, power-hungry child lays under all his false ease.

Then he smiles, slow and oily. "Ah, cousin, always the wit. Tell me, does he treat you well? Or has he tortured you into submission? Taking from our family because we took his?"

"What are you talking about?" Isabelle asks, her words coming out stiff. She asks so I don’t have to, but an icy tremor of something foreboding shivers up my spine. I feel Lucien and Tock tense behind me.

"Don’t tell me you didn’t know," Roman presses with that light laughter even as his attention volleys between the four of us, drinking in our tension. "Surely you took Isabelle because we were the ones who had your family killed."

His words drop like a bomb, echoing in the freezing air.

Time freezes the blood in my veins as my mind blanks.

Beside me, Isabelle sucks in a sharp breath. I stay perfectly still, my mind reeling. Then my vitals heat, and speed up. My blood rises to a simmer before it begins to boil in my veins, burning me from the inside out .

"Really?" Roman says, his tone shifting to incredulous amusement. "You didn’t know? And here I thought this was some grand revenge plot. Marry my cousin, make her yours, then torture her, keep her, kill her eventually, perhaps. A beast of your wrath, I expected more. This feels so. . .calculated."

For a moment, the world narrows to just him. Roman Valentine. The pebble in my shoe. A man I completely underestimated.

This can’t be right. It was anti-shifter zealots who burned down the building, who pumped my entire family with silver bullets. And I hunted each one and killed them all. Yet just as quickly, the puzzle pieces swirl in pandemonium before clicking rapidly into place.

One of them had screamed and cried as I went about ripping them from belly button to throat, that they were paid off. Hired to make the hit. I wrote it off as a desperate attempt to play me and stay among the living for at least a little while longer. I’d tasted their blood and was deaf to their claims, only hungry for their screams.

But Roman had been the architect of my family’s demise. Of my current cursed state. Of agony and grief that will forever tear me inside and out. The torturous half-life I'm trapped in.

"Dominic?" Isabelle’s voice reaches my ears, but I can’t look at her. I can’t move. If I do, I may see Roman in her face and be compelled to tear it off from her skull.

I shut my eyes, trying to get a grip, but behind my eyelids I only find the bloody bodies of my pack. Piles of them amidst the balloons and streamers. Lisette’s bullet riddled body covering our younger cousin, her blue eyes turned up, sightless. A frozen expression of horror in the open “o” of her mouth .

"This meeting is over," I hear Tock say with tight, firm authority from some faraway place. The blood boils in my ears.

"See you soon, Beast of Boston." Roman’s final words are full of awe.

We’ve both been surprised by this interlude.

I barely register the shuffle of retreating feet as the scent of Roman and his men fade.

"Dominic?" Isabelle calls to me.

I don’t answer. I can’t. My chest burns with a fury I haven’t felt in years. The storm is coming, and I need to release the fire before it consumes me whole.

"Move away from him, cher ," Lucien gives the command in a steely tone. "Slowly."

He knows what’s about to happen.

The rage I’ve been holding back surges forward like a tidal wave. My fists clench, my claws extending fully as all my rage consumes my mind and body.

There is no one, nothing, but the storm howling for release.

And nothing can stop it.