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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

VALE

“They’re all sourced locally,” Alena tells me on our video chat. “Magnolia leaves, eucalyptus, white roses. I want simple wildflower bouquets.”

“They’re beautiful,” I tell her, admiring the sample bouquet she’s showing me. The florist sent it to Alena’s ranger office in Pisgah Forest.

“Let me see.” Blair pops up from her chair. She’s in a good mood. I don’t know what’s gotten into her today, but it’s not Beau Bronson, so I’m not complaining. “Oh!” She claps when she sees it. “I high key love it!”

“I think they’ll look great with your dresses, don’t you?” Alena asks like I wouldn’t wear a garbage bag for her while I proudly carry a bouquet of used tissues.

“It’s going to be the perfect day,” I tell her. “ Your day.”

“I agree,” Blair answers. “And I promise, I’m getting out of my fuck funk. I got my dress fitted yesterday. It just needs more room for the girls, but it looks gorgeous. It made me feel human again. Thank you. I love the sage green you picked.”

Alena beams. “Vale, did you get your dress, too?”

“Yes, I got a message from the shop. I’ll go by in a day or so to get fitted.”

“Perfect,” she says. “Is my dad there?”

“Uh…,” I stammer.

“I need to ask about his suit.”

“Yes.” I clear my throat, sitting up straight. “He’s here. He’s our accountant. He’s just auditing the mess I made of the books because I suck at math, and the software confused me and?—”

“Okay, well, can you put him on, please?”

Alena doesn’t care as I overthink and overexplain, trying not to sound guilty.

“Sure. Here he is. We’re just at my desk. We’re just doing the accounting and?—”

“Give me that,” Nash mutters, gently taking my phone away.

“Hey, sweetpea.” He smiles at Alena on the screen, telling her, “Don’t worry. I have a tux. I have two actually and?—”

“Dad, I don’t want you wearing a tux. I don’t do formal stuff. I want the men in navy suits.”

“Navy?” He resists, “That’s not my style.”

So, I snap, “Uh. Whose wedding is it?”

Nash smiles at me, licking his lips before he tells her, “According to your maid-of-honor, I’ll be wearing a navy suit with a smile.”

“Dad,” she laughs, “you know better than to fuck with Vale.”

If I had coffee in my mouth, I’d spew the desk with it.

Instead, my eyes get wide and flooded with guilt as Nash sits up, clearing his throat. “Yes, well,” he rushes. “Whatever you want. It’s navy suits for all.”

For all?

Suddenly, I’m curious. I haven’t asked who the groomsmen are. Alena said Loch has brothers. If it’s them, okay, but I still haven’t met them. And that’s still sketch.

The wedding is in July. It’s May. So, when Nash hands my phone back to me, I ask her, “So, who’s the lucky man walking me down the aisle?”

I glance over to find Nash glaring at my question.

“Since I don’t want anything big or fancy,” Alena answers, “and I only want you and Blair in my bridal party; Loch said he can’t pick between his five brothers, and he never knew his father, so my dad and godfather will be the groomsmen.”

“Your godfather ?” I’m puzzled. “When did you get one of those?”

“When she was nine,” Nash answers for her. “When she was baptized. Her mom and I didn’t do it when she was an infant, but Lainey wanted it done before she was deployed and…”

He trails off. I know the rest of the story.

“And the pastor who baptized me will marry us, too,” Alena adds.

“Okay.” I shrug. “Who’s your godfather?”

“Michael Cummings,” Alena answers. “He’s my dad’s best friend. I don’t think you know him. Not yet, but the service will be simple and…”

She goes on about the ceremony as I fight so hard to keep my face straight when I’m dying to whip my glare at Nash and make laser beams shoot from my eyes until his head explodes.

Michael Cummings? Mr. Not-Mafia-Mafia, who has a forbidden meeting room on our third floor, is Alena’s godfather ?

Holy, I’m gonna kill him.

Who?

Yeah, him and Nash.

“That’s nice.” I stomp on Nash’s foot under the table. He doesn’t flinch while I feel like a ticking bomb. “I guess we’ll all meet and be one big happy family at your rehearsal dinner.”

“Yeah,” Alena adds. “We’ll rehearse, then have dinner at the club. It’s just family and the wedding party. You can meet Loch’s brothers, too. Some will be there.”

Good . Maybe Loch’s brothers can beat the shit out of Michael Cummings and take his evil ego down a peg.

“Car fifteen to base,” Alena’s radio squawks, so she says, “Gotta go. Call ya tomorrow.”

She ends our video chat, and I stare ahead, seething and wondering how I can kill Alena’s groomsmen without ruining her wedding. It’s impossible. As impossible as me not losing my shit over this.

But I don’t get a chance to rip Nash’s head off because a swarm of women burst into the store.

“We want penises!” One shouts while the others laugh.

“Let me guess.” Blair laughs, too. “A bachelorette party?”

“Yes.” Ms. Penis Lover laughs. She’s about three mimosas into her day. “It’s a pool party tonight, and we want dicks everywhere!” She turns to Jace. “Well, hey there, big, handsome fella. Aren’t you hotter than blue blazes? Can we buy you and take you home, too?”

“Ma’am.” I rise and politely protect him. “Let’s not take advantage of my staff, please.” Then I smile, gesturing upstairs, “But we have plenty of big toys you can take advantage of all night.”

If I had a dollar for every time Jace gets propositioned, or me, or Blair, we wouldn’t need this job.

“Come on, ladies.” Blair leads them upstairs. “When you say, ‘bachelorette pool party,’ I say, ‘six-foot penis float.’”

“Thanks, fox.” Jace winks at me for rescuing him. It’s cute. He always makes his flirt feel innocent, but…

Wait! The logic smacks me.

Jace is one of Nash’s Bratva brothers. So is his brother Grant, and so is Michael Cummings. And last night, Nash revealed something about the room Cummings rents upstairs.

“What we do in that room sometimes … It makes me hard. It makes us hard. We’re like animals…”

That’s what Nash confessed last night. Then he said it was…

“Something I’ll never allow to be done to you.”

Oh, my god, what is it? And does that mean Jace does it, too? And of all the taboos that implies, the only stupid thing I can worry about is … is Nash with other women ?

But it’s impossible. He hasn’t really left my side in almost a month.

But will he be?

When they have their first forbidden meeting upstairs, will Nash go? Will he be with other women just to keep his bond with other men? Is that what they do? And why? Why does desire flood my core, imagining their ritual?

Questions rage through me like a storm. Waves of jealousy, lust, fear, betrayal, and love drown my vision.

“Vale?” Jace asks. “Vale, are you okay?”

He’s sitting on his stool. I’m staring right at him but my mind is swept away with no answers to anchor me.

“I… uh…”

Like my dark storm conjured the devil, the bell by the door rings, and Jace opens it. Two large looming silhouettes stand, backlit by the sun, but they don’t look angelic.

“Good afternoon.”

It’s Michael Cummings. He’s walking in with a man of equal size, of equal suspicion.

“Good afternoon.” His shadow seeks me, introducing himself, “You must be Ms. Monroe.” Same dark hair. Same glacial eyes. He looks like Cummings, only a little older. “Sire Rutledge, nice to meet you.”

His big hand shaking mine is hot. Hot like he looks with dark tattoos peeking out from under his starched white collar. His touch, strong and controlling. His icy eyes intrigued, almost amused to meet me.

Like a lion leering at a mouse. At his meal.

I’m supposed to stammer and be shy and sweet. I’m supposed to listen and be spoken down to. I’m supposed to wilt in the presence of the ominous threat of Nash, Jace, Michael, and now Sire.

But remember what I said about listening to men?

“Cut the shit.” I squeeze Sire Rutledge’s hand so hard before dropping it. “You’re one of them, Monkey & Co. I get it.”

Jace tries to stifle his chuckle but sucks at it.

“Yes, Ms. Monroe. Mr. Rutledge is”—Michael Cummings starts to drone with what sounds like will be another legal brief—“my business associate and?—”

“Why don’t you go associate a ‘fuck’ with a ‘you’?” I snarl. “I know who you are and what you do, and now I know you’re Alena’s godfather, too.”

He slices his eyes to Nash, seated over my shoulder.

I glance back, and Nash has his feet on the desk, his head resting in his hands. “Go ahead, poison,” he smirks. “Fire away.”

Okay, that’s kind of sweet, but I’m pissed as hell at him, too.

I whip back and step into Cumming’s shadow.

“I swear, if you ever hurt Alena, I’ll bite your dick off. The human bite has one hundred and sixty-two pounds of pressure per inch, and it takes half that to rip your little thing off, and I can. I will. I practice on jawbreakers daily.”

Jace chuckles while Cummings glares down at me, seething, “I would never lay a hand on Alena, and anyone who does will have more than his dick ripped off. Are we clear, Ms. Monroe?”

“No, because you’re all lying to her. She doesn’t know who?—”

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” This Sire guy sounds half-holy, half-hot.

“I’m sorry, what?” I look at him, lowering my voice. “What are you? A mafia minister?”

“We are all sinners, Ms. Monroe,” Sire answers with a calm face. “You are. We are. And we all keep secrets so that our sins do no harm. Be assured we will never allow harm to come to Alena Allen. We’ve made our vows.”

My head spins. Am I surrounded by mafia, ministers, monsters, or monks?

“We need to meet.” Michael Cummings, literally the godfather present, signals to Nash to follow them. Jace, too.

“Don’t open the door,” Jace tells me, locking it. “Not to anyone until I’m back.”

“But what about our customers?”

“Distract them with dildos,” he says, not kidding, while the four men tread upstairs.

I’d be worried that this is one of their taboo meetings Nash mentioned, but I don’t get that vibe. They’re going in alone, so this is something else.

Over the den of horny women in the showroom on the second floor, I can’t hear the men disappear into their new meeting room. But I can see them on the security screen, using the camera at the top of the third-floor landing.

They’re silent. They’re serious. They walk single file: Michael, Nash, Sire, then Jace until they disappear from the camera’s view.

And I grin because Nash said I could never enter…

But he never said I couldn’t eavesdrop.