Page 36 of Dangerous Men (Fortune City Mafia #1)

ASHTON

It’s past midnight by the time I hear the roar of Sebastian’s motorcycle tearing up the driveway of our compound.

Finally .

There’s an art to making protein smoothies that don’t taste like compost mixed with human waste.

An art I’m still perfecting. I love my sweets, and I love food, but sometimes you need to feed your body the right fuel to keep it running properly.

I’ve just finished prepping all the leafy greens and measuring out just the right amounts of everything when the front door opens and Sebastian walks in.

“Hey, Doc!” I have to shout over the sound of the blender. Not that it matters. Sebastian doesn’t answer. He just drops his helmet and laptop bag at the door and hangs up his jacket without so much as a hey brother, how’s it hanging?

Rolling my eyes, I pour my smoothie into a fresh glass and rinse out the blender in the sink, leaving it for the cleaning staff. Not even sparing a glance in my direction, Sebastian walks to the fridge and opens it, grabbing himself a bottle of water .

I slide into one of the dining chairs, setting my smoothie down on the table in front of me.

Our compound has a formal dining room—a massive one with a table big enough to seat at least twenty—but we’ve always eaten in the kitchen.

The little wooden table set up here seats us all comfortably enough, and most of the time we eat on our own, anyway. Especially lately.

“I figured you’d come home right after the shop closed,” I muse, looking at the clock. The second hand moves slowly around the face, inching the time closer to twelve thirty. “Where have you been all night?”

Sebastian pauses, the bottle of water almost at his lips.

“Francesca’s,” he says finally.

Ooooh . I grin. Good for him. About damn time he found someone to spend some time with.

“Well. Hope you had fun.” I chuckle.

Sebastian doesn’t answer.

“So…” My leg bounces under the table, and I rub my hands together, eager for any bit of news. “What’s the report? How’s our girl doing?”

Sebastian gives me a sideways glance. “Go there yourself if you want to know.”

Yeah, okay, I should have figured he’d be a dick about it. When is he ever not?

“Yeah, I would if I had the time, believe me.” I run a hand through my hair.

“I don’t know how Alec handles all of this stuff, you know?

It’s meeting after meeting after meeting, and that’s just the Sterling Enterprise stuff.

I had to go to two different clubs tonight, you know that? Anthony is making a fuss again, and?—”

“What are your plans with her?”

I blink hard, a little surprised at the ice in his tone as Sebastian leans against the fridge and narrows his eyes at me.

“With Sydney?” I ask, trying to recalibrate to the sudden turn in the conversation. “I mean… there’s a carnival coming in a few weeks, I thought I could?—”

“What are your long-term plans with her?” Sebastian interrupts. He threads the cap back onto his bottle of water, squeezing it a little too hard as he does so, the crinkle of plastic loud in the quiet of the kitchen. “What the fuck are we doing here, Ash? Why ask me to watch her?”

I let out an exasperated breath. “Look, I told you, I would do it if I had the time! But when Alec’s gone, someone has to go to these stupid meetings. They don’t even want me to say anything. Do you know how boring that is? I just have to sit there while they talk and talk and fucking talk!”

Sebastian glares at me.

“Once Alec is back, you can back off. And I can?—”

“It’s not going to work,” Sebastian says. “What you’re planning.”

I hate this. Every fucking conversation with him is like having two different conversations at once. I run my hands over my face and let out a frustrated grunt.

“I’m not planning anything,” I say through gritted teeth.

“When are you going to tell her about all of this?” he gestures around at the compound with his bottle of water when he says it. “When are you planning to tell her what we do ? What we really do?”

“I haven’t thought that far,” I admit.

A muscle in his eye twitches. “Of course you haven’t. You’re lying to her. You get that, don’t you? Maybe Sterling more than you.” He pins me with a glare when he says it. “But you’re both lying to her. And she will find out.”

“ I’m not lying to her!” I insist.

“You two can be so fucking stupid, you know that?” Sebastian shakes his head. “You think this is what she wants out of her life? You think this is what she’s spent her life dreaming of?”

“We can ease her in slowly,” I say, already forming the plan in my mind. “You know, bit by bit. And she doesn’t have to know about all of it, right? She doesn’t have?—”

Sebastian stalks toward me and slams his water bottle down on the table, leaning over it to stare at me.

“We’re not her happy ending, Ashton.” He hesitates then, something flickering in his eyes, before he corrects himself. “ You’re not her happy ending. You think you can give her the things she really wants? What if she wants to get married?”

Oh Christ, that shouldn’t get me hard, should it? But fuck it does.

“I could get married,” I say, the words tumbling out of my mouth too quickly. I have to reach under the table to adjust myself, imagining it. Sydney in a white dress, Sydney with a ring around her finger, marking her as ours. Oh fuck . “You… you think she wants that?”

The look in my little brother’s eyes could be pity. Or it could be disgust. It’s hard to tell.

“This life? This would break her.” He stares at me for a beat. “You get that, don’t you? You get that she’s too fragile for this?”

I shake my head quickly. “No. No .”

“What are you going to do when Viper finds her?”

“Isn’t that your job?” I ask, raising my voice. “Keeping him on a leash?”

There’s no mistaking the pity in his eyes this time. “No one can hold his leash forever, brother. Not even me.”

“You can be…” I stutter, stumbling over the fear and anger and just… general shittiness he’s making me feel. “You can be such a dick sometimes, you know that? ”

The insult rolls right off him, like always. He doesn’t even blink.

“She’s not made for this. For our world. The sooner you realize that, the better, Ashton,” Sebastian says. He walks away then, leaving his bottle of water behind on the table. “And the sooner we can all go back to doing the shit that matters.”