Page 6

CHAPTER

FIVE

Cam

"She's not just some hot, fuckable virgin you can deflower," I tell Cormac Donegal, who is four sheets to the wind and practically drooling to shove a boner in Paigelynn.

"But she is that," he says, tone lazy, wisecracking.

His brother Ian barks out a laugh but their father glares at them both.

I've been summoned to Old Donegal's office, which is essentially HQ here on the island.

The Donegals own the entire place, all nine square miles of fortress off the coast of Spain.

The Donegals are the law here, and having nothing but ocean surround us is daunting.

Which is just how Niall Donegal likes it.

"You found one of the only women on the planet who is a perfect match for our family and you bought her for your mother," the old man says in a deadly voice, eyes locked on me, his lazy, spoiled sons cackling as they lounge on leather sofas.

"One kidney. The heart. The rest is up for grabs," I remind him.

"I'd like to grab me that ass and have some fun. Her hips are nice and lush. Handles." Ian mimes exactly how he would rut. It looks like bad porn.

Extremely bad porn.

Niall Donegal clears his throat, the phlegmy sound gross and, well... old . Really old. The guy's pushing eighty but sounds like he's a hundred and ten. Ian and Cormac are in their early forties, older than me, and this meeting shouldn't be happening.

But lots of things shouldn't be happening these days.

Like Paigelynn's imprisonment.

"You're a smart young man, Mario," Niall says, eyes casting my way as he pours himself a cup of tea, the hot water hitting the leaves in the strainer ball, turning the water a dull brown. "Smart enough to get someone to lend you a billion dollars."

"You assume it was lent to me."

"Who did you suck off to get someone to give you a billion?" Cormac asks, the question not serious. Ian brays and sputters afterward, trying to drink whiskey and laugh at the same time.

"Maybe I earned that billion."

"On your knees?" Ian's joke is fucking hilarious to the younger Donegals, who haven't changed a bit since the last time I saw them a few years ago. They're stupid jackasses who wouldn't survive a week in the real world.

Niall waves a gnarled old hand toward them. "Ignore them."

"I am."

"Good. And I don't give a shit how you afforded the virgin. I want to know what you want for her."

"Want? You're offering a price?"

"I don't think you’re looking for money. You want something else."

"Like what?"

"Revenge."

"Revenge?" I laugh, controlling the part of me that's screaming. "If I wanted revenge, I'd have used my billion to enact it. Or never brought her here in the first place."

"Buying the girl is part of your plan."

Fuck.

"No, Niall. Buying her was a smart investment. She's an outstanding match for both families." And maybe, all three, I don't add.

All three .

"You really do plan to breed her, then? I can see how it would play into revenge.

Delay your mother's heart transplant. Maybe even the kidney – can't have a healthy incubator with only one functioning kidney.

Too valuable. You elevate the breeder above Angelina, but make it look like community service to the pool of families.

Clever, Mario. I always thought Dominic was smart taking you in, after Gaia fell and Angelina went to prison. He raised you right."

The mention of my foster father makes my skin turn to electric anger.

I hide it.

Niall's nothing like his spoiled, soft sons. The only similarity is meanness.

Cold and calculating, he climbed up the long ladder of wealth the old-fashioned way.

By killing people.

You don't fuck around with mafia, whether they're Irish, Italian, Russian – hell, any ethnicity.

Twenty years ago, Niall Donegal watched as his goons flayed his own brother alive.

On his orders.

The guy's a legend.

Which is why I have to keep Paigelynn far, far away from the Donegals. Ian and Cormac will fuck her up while knocking her up, enjoying every moment of inflicted pain.

They get off on it.

I wouldn't put it past old Niall here to want a turn, though word on the street is that he can't get it up. Bad liver, bad kidney, and a vascular system so damaged it might as well be a bunch of Jell-O shots floating around in overstretched balloons.

"I'll always appreciate what the Luisi family did to teach me," I say carefully, walking a very fine line. "Buying Paigelynn has nothing to do with them."

"It has everything to do with them, and you know it. You sniped her from us all, with money that isn't yours. Who're you really working with? Or for?"

"Me."

"I've done some digging," he says sharply. "No Bitcoin. No secret artifacts you sold on the black market. No Silk Road sales."

I can't help but laugh. "It's been a long time since Silk Road."

He continues without comment. "No loans from Saudi princes, though I know of two who would pay a billion for a piece of meat like her in a heartbeat, and relish defiling her in front of an audience."

"I would never let that happen."

His head pivots quickly to me. "Don't tell me you did it for love." The first hint of a smile stretches his lips a bit. It's downright demonic.

Cormac finds that fucking hilarious and starts pretending to hump a pillow. "Mario and – whatsername?"

"Go away," Niall says, shooing him off. "And take that cum-stained pillow with you."

Cormac holds up the blue satin puff. "I didn't come on it."

"I meant that." Niall's pointing to Ian.

My turn to laugh as Cormac and Ian stare dumbly at their dad, stuck in the sarcasm. His joke went over their head, but Niall's not laughing.

This is how the children of the ultra-rich operate. They fall into a handful of categories: drunk/high slobs like Cormac and Ian. Driven CEOs or politicians trying to upstage dear old Dad. Out of touch socialites who trade attention for oxygen.

The ones with organ failure aren't any different.

"Get out of here," Niall says pointedly to his kids, who stumble to the door and disappear, Ian unable to stop himself from giving me a double middle finger salute, like a bad bully from a sad little direct-to-streaming movie.

When the door clicks shut, Niall lets out a sigh. "They're ruined."

"That's nothing new."

"I know. It's just a relief to say it to someone who understands."

"I don't have spoiled kids, and I'm not rich like you."

"You were raised in wealth but not of it. You're a different breed. You had to scramble. Struggle. All that stress and fear altered the chemical pathways in your central nervous system, Mario. It toughened you. I know. I'm the same way."

"You weren't raised in a cult."

"No, I wasn't. And I wasn't raised by Angelina. That alone would make anyone a bit unstable."

I say nothing.

Silence means my words can't be twisted against me in the future.

Silence also means I'll be accused of failing to defend her.

This is a no-win conversation.

And yet, I need to do whatever I can to protect Paigelynn. Niall would throw her to his savage sons in a heartbeat without a care if he thought it would give him leverage.

He laughs through his nose, then stretches back, hands behind his head as he leans back in his chair. A power pose. The man knows how to claim space.

"You're good. I'll give you that. Someone's trained you well."

"Trained?"

"Don't play games. It's beneath you."

"Clearly it's not beneath you ."

That makes his eyes narrow. "Hmmm. Luisi was smart to grab you. I thought he was nuts when he took you in. Skinny, angry twelve-year-old punk. You were smarter than you seemed. I thought you wasted all your brain cells on fury. Maybe I was wrong."

"Too late now. I'm not looking for a new daddy."

His laughter is loud and genuine, bursting out of that tight mouth, cheeks and nose going red.

"What am I going to do with you, Mario? You're playing a few sides off each other, I think. Can't tell if you're someone I need to kill or someone I need to co-opt."

"Do I have a choice in that matter? Because I choose co-opt, except I hate Ian and Cormac and want nothing to do with them."

"Is that a condition?"

"We're negotiating now?"

"Life is nothing but negotiation."

"If that's the case, then here's my offer: Paigelynn is mine. One hundred percent. Your boys don't even breathe on her, understand? I can't fuck her because of the Rh Factor issue, so I won't sully her with a bad baby. We're figuring out IVF."

"IVF? Tsk tsk tsk . Taking all the fun out of it."

"More like taking the chlamydia out of it. We’ve already had one virgin destroyed by Cormac, right?"

Niall's forehead slides back from his eyebrows as his face goes tight. Bringing up the past unsettles him. "That was a disgusting oversight on my son's part."

"Ruined all those organs."

"I said it won't happen again."

"Damn right it won't. And not just because we're doing IVF. Because if Cormac or Ian are seen anywhere near Paigelynn, you'll see revenge, all right. Just not the kind you're thinking of."

"Again, so protective – "

"Of my investment."

"Maybe Dominic did raise you right," he says in that gravelly voice of his, holding eye contact for a bit longer than usual, which makes me feel more respected.

Not that I give a shit.

"He was more of a father to me than my mother ever was a mother."

"You didn't buy the girl for Angelina," he says, stating the obvious. "Then why?"

"You of all people should know."

"I'm asking you to tell me."

"Why?"

"To hear it in your words."

"Investment. I already explained it."

"That's your story and you're sticking to it?"

"That's the truth." And it is.

Just not the truth he thinks it might be.

"If you're planning to breed her, who goes first? And how many babies? One for the Donegals, one for the Luisis? More? If you use IVF you can implant twins each time. If you breed too many babies from her too quickly, you weaken the herd. And if you stretch it out too long, you deprive your mother of a new heart. She’s a selfish one. Your breeding plan won’t last long.

She’ll sabotage you and kill a baby in a single heartbeat if it benefits her. "

The words come out like machine gun shots, intended to overwhelm me, but I've thought of every single scenario and question.

“You think I don’t know that? I have a dead sister to prove it.”

Good old Niall actually flinches. Barely, but it’s there.

“Right.”

Nothing I'm about to say is sincerely felt. It's my cover.

"Two pregnancies total. Each twins. One per family. Twelve months apart. Time is of the essence for my mother and for you, I know. Mother can wait two years."

"Can she?"

"Her doctors say that 18-24 months is the outer reach of her lifespan as she is."

"You're pushing it."

"The needs of the wider community should prevail over one individual."

"You're so giving, Mario."

My turn to smile. "The prophecy above all."

He groans, a loud, open sound of disgust. "I can't believe we set that shit system up. And people fell for it.”

“Plus,” I add, “we already identified more virgins in the genetics database. Girls like Paigelynn are the beginning. They won’t be a scarce resource. Mother will never get desperate. An era of plenty is about to begin.”

He taps his chin. “True.” A rueful smile makes me a bit sick. “So, your billion-dollar girl. She's a rapidly depreciating asset.”

I hadn’t thought of my lie in those terms, but in his effort to outsmart me, Niall’s given me the perfect out.

“You could say that. Her babies will still be valuable.”

“But less valuable as we get more girls.”

“Right.”

“Make hay while the sun shines?”

“Something like that.”

“You really are smart.” His eyes narrow. “Too bad that’s not all you are.”

“We’re all far more complex than others can fathom.” I look at the door. “Except for Ian. Ian’s a walking reptile.”

Niall’s throaty laugh makes me almost like him. “A man can give his children every advantage and they can still be wastes of skin.” He looks at me, hard. “Or you can take someone born into nothing, forge them through trials and test them, and come up with someone like you.”

“Did you bring me here to shower me with compliments, Niall, or can I leave?”

“Now I see the Angelina in you.”

It almost works. I nearly crack. The guy is slick, always testing, ever-watchful, looking for that weakness.

I’m not that scrawny twelve-year-old boy, though.

“I’ll take that as a compliment, too. You’re full of them today, aren’t you?”

“Observations, Mario. I’m just observing.”

“We’ll all get exactly what we want if all goes well,” I tell him. It’s a lie. We both know it’s a lie.

Yet we pretend it isn’t.

“Few in our world ever fail to get what they want,” he replies. “Not the strong ones,” he amends.

“Money can buy everything. That’s what Dom always says.”

“It can,” Niall agrees. “But when too many people have too much of it, the inevitable clash over limited resources means someone loses. Zero sum games suck among powerful folk. No one in our world is a good loser.”

“So far, they’ve just died. Once a kidney goes, it goes. Once corneas are ruined, goodbye sight. Using the mainstream medical system hasn’t worked.”

“Our system does, but we’re facing obvious limitations.”

“And lab-grown organs aren’t there yet.”

“Not soon enough for me,” he grouses. The inflection, the way he drops his head – it almost makes me feel sorry for him.

Almost.

Being around him is draining, but I’m used to men like Niall. My adopted father, Dom, is like him, though the two have very different personalities. Men who are accustomed to getting everything they want, who bend the world to their will, don’t take no for an answer.

I’ve said no to him.

But I’ve done it with enough finesse that I think I am getting away with it.

Being around an angry Niall doesn’t worry me. It’s the silence that sets me on edge. When he observes, when he thinks, when he calculates – that’s when he’s at his most dangerous.

Killing me would be easy. Sending a crew in to steal Paigelynn away is feasible. I have the billion I paid to the collective, but I don’t have my own security force. Not a single person here would use a gun for me.

I’m a lone wolf.

And I can’t even howl at the moon.

Until I can find a way to get Paigelynn out of here, I have to play their game.