Page 13

CHAPTER 12

LAKE

T he computer screen blurred, and I rubbed my knuckles against my eyes. Fuck.

My phone chimed with Gio's burner number. I'd managed to avoid him in the week we'd been back. It was a miracle to have the break.

I set the privacy so the message didn't scroll across the screen, but I did catch the time.

9:07 a.m.

I hadn't slept in twenty-six hours.

I needed to crash soon, but I couldn't. Not until I knew that no one was going to break down the doors and fuck with my family.

We were doing a damned fine job of tearing ourselves apart from the inside out. All except Atlas. He was cheery as he followed Beasty around like a goddamned puppy.

Kim and Joaquin though? Both in the trash.

Joaquin had drank so much alcohol, anytime I passed his room, the fumes about choked me. Kim was so depressed all he did was either take sad pictures or stare at the floor.

I had no idea what was going on at Snatched, nor did I give a fuck all.

My biggest concern was squashing any threats. Which was hard when you couldn't see them.

That was what got to me. For months, I'd had my eye on Parker, watching for the Pescis, even making statements left and right to warn away any other player who'd messed with us, including Valentina. But none of it mattered.

The person who abducted us wasn't even on my radar.

My phone chimed again. Picking it up, I squeezed my fingers around it until the material seemed to give, then stopped. I wasn't going to fuck this phone up too. I'd already destroyed a different one.

These at least had GPS on them, allowing the phones to be tracked whether they were online or hell, even off. A needed step up from location sharing.

Just one more security tool to keep us safe. Laughable, considering we’d been kidnapped by our own man.

Red washed over my vision as I used my thumb to open Gio's messages.

Gio

Call me.

We need to talk.

You're on my shit list.

What the fuck ever. Like hell would I pander to this fool. But I was cranky enough and angry enough that I wanted the fight.

Hitting dial on my phone, I put it on speaker.

"It's about time," Gio growled down the line.

"We're home. We're doing good. Thanks for asking. Oh wait, it's no thanks to you." I sneered, stretching back in my chair, grabbing the headrest, and swiveling right to left.

There was a pause. "I am glad you're home. Parker's going to want details–"

"It wasn't the Pescis." But he knew that already. He had to. They tracked the Pescis like it was their calling in life.

Gio cleared his throat. "We realized that after Beasty ran."

"You mean after she escaped your crazy asses? You weren't trying to find us. You were trying to pin the Pescis and using Beasty to do it." I waited, daring him to deny it.

"We were trying to find you. You sent a fucking head back to Donnie! How were we supposed to believe anyone else would have taken you?" He was losing it. I didn't care.

I sat forward, my chair creaking as I placed my mouth close to my phone. "Don't fucking lie to me. You don't care about us. I don't even hold it against you. You saw an opportunity to use Beasty to get to the Pescis, and you took it. Maybe you would have tried to find us afterward. Maybe not. Who fucking knows? But you definitely wouldn't have found us within twenty-four hours the way that Beasty did after she fled from you."

The other end of the line was crickets.

"If she would have stayed with us–" There was a curl of fury in his tone.

"You don't get to blame Beasty for this. She's so far removed from your sights, you can forget her name. I never want you to speak to her again. Hell, I don't even want you to speak of her, got me?"

Gio huffed, not impressed. I didn't give a shit about that either. "We're your handlers when it comes to Parker. We're going to run into her."

"Fuck that. We're done with Parker too. He can kiss my ass when we buy him out."

A bright laugh echoed from my phone speaker. "Good luck with that. You know who he is and what he's a part of. No one walks away from them. Don't forget, your attorney on those fucked up charges is a direct referral from his wife."

The phone clicked as Gio hung up.

I stared at the screen as I remembered that tidbit. Fuck!

I forgot about the charges. Tapping a few buttons on the screen, I dialed Ms. Chen. Eventually, her receptionist answered and placed me on hold. That was a good sign. If she was at court or out of office, they'd have just sent me to voicemail.

Five minutes later, she came on the line. "Mr. White, I'd love to say it's a pleasure to hear from you, but in my line of work, when clients reach out, it usually signifies more trouble."

If I wasn't so razzed and sleep-deprived, I'd have chuckled. She was a dry ball buster if I'd ever met one. "Ms. Chen," I greeted, but my voice sounded like gravel. She probably thought I was in lockup again. "I'm not in any additional trouble. I wanted to check on the progress of our charges being dismissed."

"That takes time, Mr. White. First, we have to know exactly what evidence prosecution has. They're dragging their feet on the indictment, which means they’re dragging their feet on discovery. Second, I have to convince the judge that this is an excessive abuse of the system. At best, this will take months."

"We don't have months. I want this done by the end of this week," I growled.

"Are you threatening me?" Her voice grew eerily quiet. "I assure you, that is not the path you want to take."

I groaned, picking up my phone and rocking back in my chair. "No, that's not what I'm doing. I just need this case dropped. Tell me what you need, and I'll make it happen." There was still Sonia. I needed to touch base with her too.

"Hmm." She sounded a little less offended. "In a perfect world, you could prove that the source of the evidence, which in this case we know are the Pesci brothers, has an ulterior motive. If you can provide information that this is circumstantial at best, that would help, although I've already gotten my own P.I.s on the case. And of course, anything on the judge would be helpful too." She laughed like that was a joke.

"I'll get all of the above and deliver it to your doorstep by Friday morning. Have a nice day, Ms. Chen." I hung up, dropped my phone in my lap, and stared at the bookcase.

There was so much to do. I'd get it done.

There had to be a way, only I was going to crash soon, and there was no time for fucking sleep.

Snatched needed checking in on too. I opened the calendar on the computer screen. It had been seven days since Beasty rescued us and I hadn't stepped foot in the club once.

I scrubbed a hand down my face. There was a good chance it was burning down.

Gossip rags were probably having a field day with all the ways we were fucking up. I should check the news, but I couldn't. I didn't want to see that fucked up video of Atlas again. I also didn't want to know if somehow our abduction had been leaked.

Yet, I couldn't hide forever. That was impossible, and it also wasn't my style.

"Knock, knock."

I snapped my eyes open as Beasty stepped into the study with food and a drink.

She was radiant.

What did she have to be so fucking happy about? The only person who wanted her here was Atlas, and she refused to leave. This was her chance, what she'd been dying to do since I brought her back.

"Why are you here?" I barked, then winced as it hurt my own ears.

She stiffened, stopping on the other side of my desk, a sandwich in one hand, a glass of water in the other, and heartbreak in her eyes.

"Don't look at me like that!" I snarled, turning away from her. Did she think this was fun for me? That I wanted to hurt her?

"You need to get a grip on yourself." It was said with such calm, it shocked me.

I expected Beasty to fight back. To hurl the sandwich at my head. At the very least, I expected tears and screaming. Not this level of disinterest. That wasn't the right word.

Dismissive. Like I hadn't just hurt her.

I curled my fingers against my thighs, digging my nails into the tender skin.

"Stop that!" she snapped. "You want to hurt yourself with sex, fine. But not just to hurt."

"It's not your choice." I sucked in a deep breath, and the skin over my ribs twinged with pain from the healing scabs pulling tight.

"I know what my choices are, and I'm taking a page out of your book. I'm not leaving. I don't want to, and more importantly, you don't want me to."

I spun, sneering at her.

Beasty was unamused as she set the water and sandwich down on the side of the desk. Planting her fists on the desktop, she leaned close to me. "What? What do you want to say to hurt me? To push me away?"

Shoving out of the chair, I towered over her, and she straightened back up. "You don't want us. Not the real us. You said yourself that you don't even know us. You want to run and live your own life? You have accounts filled with enough cash that you could disappear in Thailand if you wanted to. Get the fuck away from us. We're not good for you, and you know it!"

If my words hurt her at all, she didn't show it. Her eyes narrowed as she stared me down. "Are you done?"

I raked a hand through my hair and swayed. I was going to crash out.

"Lake!" She ran around the desk and wrapped her arms around me in a tight hug like she could actually hold me up if I fell. Unlikely.

Grabbing her shoulders, I shoved her away–not hard, but enough to dislodge her from my body. " Leave! That's what you've wanted this entire time! You want your own life? Go! Live it! We're not going to hold you here!"

Beasty made an angry noise in the back of her throat as she knocked into me hard enough that I sat down in the chair. Dropping my head to the desk, I groaned. I needed sleep, but my brain was wired with all the things I needed to be doing right then.

I needed to call Sonia. I needed to engage a number of other sources to make sure the charges were dropped, and soon. I needed to liquidate funds to buy Parker out and collect leverage against him and his brothers so that he'd actually let us walk. I needed to look into why Valencia was taken and if there was any chance her arrest could come back on us.

While doing all that, I needed to comb through Gates' life and mark every fucking person he'd come into contact with and make sure we were never caught off-guard like that again.

As long as I still walked the Earth, I'd be damned if I was trapped under someone else's thumb like how Gates had locked us away.

I was about to become the biggest, baddest, motherfucker on the board so that never happened. Again.

It hit me. That was how we got Beasty to leave.

"Are you okay?" Her slender hands touched my shoulders with feather-light touches.

Finding a random burst of energy from some-fucking-where, I managed to grab her, pulling her down to straddle my lap. She cried out in surprise, but when she realized what I was doing, she didn't fight me, instead, settling her hands on my chest.

I scooted down, just enough to place her over my hardening dick. She sucked in a breath as I massaged her hips.

Could she feel how much I wanted her? I couldn’t control myself if I tried as the only woman who would ever mean anything to me sat on my cock.

"I have news for you, Beasty," I started, and she watched me expectantly, even as her face flushed so prettily. "Getting locked in that basement, chained up while that fucker had us at his mercy–which he almost got to Kim, did you know that?"

Her brows jumped up in surprise, and she dropped her gaze to my chin. She didn't know. How could she? None of us wanted to talk about those few dark hours and how it fucked with us.

"We watched him straighten out Kim's legs as the disgusting tent in his pants grew. It was sheer luck we were able to goad him into leaving Kim alone." My words were harsh. I wanted to shock her. Push her away even as I pulled her close.

She released a breath, relaxing back into me as if it was all okay. It fucking wasn't.

"I'm never going to be raped again. I'm never going to watch one of my friends be raped again ." My voice started to rise and my fingers flexed against her. "I'm never going to watch them be chained up, without the power to do anything. I'm never going to be chained up again and powerless. Never! " I screamed in her face as she cried out.

"You're hurting me." She pulled on my wrists, and I loosened my grip.

"Never again, Beasty. Never fucking again. And do you know what I'm going to do to ensure it doesn't happen?" I leaned forward, brushing my nose against hers. Her breath whispered across my lips, and I started rubbing circles on her lower stomach with my thumbs.

"What?" she whispered, raising her eyes until we locked gazes.

"I'm going to become the villain. I'm going to be the biggest threat so no limp dicked asshole thinks he can just steal us from the street again, from our very own fucking vehicle. I'm going to be everything you're afraid of. If nothing else, that should make you run for the hills, because as long as you stay here, you're going to become just. Like. Us."

I expected Beasty to balk and gasp, to scramble out of my lap. Instead, she molded her chest to mine as she rolled her hips. Shifting so her lips brushed my earlobes, she kept working in my lap in what was the best lap dance I'd ever gotten, and I'd had my fair share in the seedy underground clubs.

"You're trying to scare me away, but you don't realize what that did to me either."

"What? Us getting taken?" I rasped.

"Yes,” Beasty breathed while continuing to dry fuck me over our clothes. “When I woke up in a parking lot, my face pressed against the asphalt and a headache from hell, I realized something."

She settled her weight over my raging dick, and I tipped my head back against the chair as she lightly bit my ear. Not enough to spark any pain, just a little tease.

"What's that?"

"If being good gets you nothing but walked on, I don't want to be good."

I sucked in a breath and cupped her ass, pulling her tighter against me. "I don't believe you."

"That's fine." I could practically hear the smile in her voice as she reached for my belt. "Don't believe me. Watch me."

There was zero fight in me as she worked my pants open and freed my aching cock. It was red and angry, leaking precum as she squeezed me hard, stroking from root to tip. I groaned.

She climbed off my lap to strip off her own jeans and shimmy out of her panties. Some fancy piece Kim must have bought. When did she start wearing his clothes?

Then she was back on my lap, swiping the head of my cock through her wetness, and God , she was fucking soaked. When she was satisfied, her own eyes fluttering from pleasure, she sat down, taking me into her.

Beasty couldn't fit all of me inside her in one go. She had to work for it, lifting up, and rocking back down.

I reached back and grabbed the head of my chair, scooting down even further so she could ride me better.

She did. Beasty bucked and dropped on my cock like she was made for it. She was. We were both forged by our shared childhood trauma, leading us to this moment.

With her shirt pushed up over her chest, she squeezed one tit hard, like I would if I were doing more than being her pleasure prop. But I didn't. I was fucking exhausted, and I also wanted to know that she wanted this enough to do all the work.

It was a glorious sight.

Biting her lip, she leaned forward. Her pussy fluttered around me and I clamped my lips together as the white hot needles of pleasure started gathering at the base of my spine.

"Do you want me to give you any pain?" She asked breathily as she cupped my face between her hands, all while bouncing so fucking hard, I had to take back some control and buck my hips underneath her.

I shook my head. For once, I didn't. I just wanted to watch her get there while taking me with her.

She licked the seam of my lips, closing her eyes. I opened my mouth, tasting her. She was sweet, warm, and wet, against my tongue. I was fucking addicted to this taste. Like mint and cherries. She'd drank one of the cherry sodas Chef put in the pantry when we moved in. I hated the stuff, but on her, it was ambrosia.

Tipping her head, she deepened the kiss, tangling her tongue with mine in an erotic dance. At least until she cried out and squeezed the fuck out of me in hot, pulsing waves.

She was coming.

Unable to not touch her any longer, I scooped her tight against my chest and pinned her down as I fucked her from the bottom. I grunted, burying my head in her neck, as my cock swelled and jets of cum shot out of me.

Could she feel how much there was? I hadn't come in over a week.

She caught her breath in my arms, and when she tried to sit up, I jerked. I'd fallen asleep.

"Go grab a shower and go to bed," she said softly against my chest.

"No time," I grumbled. As much as I needed that–and I had–it was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, and my mind cleared some of the thorns away. There was just too much to do if I was going to keep us safe.

"You have to make time."

"No, I need to make calls, check on Snatched–"

"Snatched is fine. I've been running it with Guy. It's been going great. Better than great."

"What?"

She raised her head, and my softening dick popped out. Her eyes fluttered, and wetness dripped on my thigh.

"Snatched is running just fine. Sleep. Then we can tackle everything else together." There was a resoluteness in her expression that I'd never seen before.

Beasty was angry, insecure, sad, and on the rare occasion, happy. But I'd never seen this expression on her face. I didn't hate it.

"Nothing has changed, Beasty. You can't stay with us." Getting those words out was like ripping my heart out of my chest.

Only Beasty didn't bat an eye. "You're only saying that because you're afraid. I'm not. Let me prove it to you."

She took her time getting dressed, giving me a show as she bent over to step into her panties.

I couldn’t contain my groan when some of our combined fluids glistened on her lips.

Beasty tugged me up and fixed me back inside my pants. When she pushed me toward the door, I went.

Partly because I was confused. Had her perspective changed that much from one event?

The other reason, no matter how much I didn't want to admit it, I was ready to faceplant.

My last thought as I showered and fell into bed was of Beasty.

How long could she keep this up before she reached her limit? If there was one thing I knew about Beasty, her limit was much closer than mine.