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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

NASH

“What the fuck did you do to her?” Axel barks, but I’m not in the mood for a cross-examination.

I’m not in the mood for anything.

“She’s not our queen,” I seethe, “so she’s not your business.”

“Fuck you,” he hisses back.

We’re in his opal black Jaguar E type. It makes me huff an ironic laugh. Vale would say it screams class and money, not crime and mafia, and she’d be right.

“It’s our business,” he says, “when what I just saw back there risks it all.”

Axel saw the bite bruise I left on Vale’s neck. It’s darkened to a sickening purple with sallow yellow edges.

“You broke her heart,” he fumes. “She ran away crying, and now she’s a liability.” He takes the interstate exit to the old Navy yard in North Charleston. “What if she tells Alena? What if she tells anyone?”

“That’s exactly why I broke her heart; we won’t be able to hide it from Alena.” I confess, “Fuck, I could barely hide it back in that shop. Vale’s so goddamn breathtaking, and it would kill my daughter if she saw how I’m looking at her best friend.”

Axel silently seethes, but he doesn’t argue.

We know I’m right. We know I’m fucked either way, but at least this way, only Vale and I suffer.

And trust me, goddammit, I’m suffering.

Thoughts of Vale own my mind, even in my sleep. I dream about our nights together. Then I spent the day wide awake, sick over how I left her. Every minute, I worry about her.

I left her crying and broken-hearted.

Does it make it any better that I feel the same? I’m sick over it, too.

I went to Delta’s the next day, hoping I’d see her, hoping Vale would show up and tell me to go fuck myself. Which I do, thinking about her.

I’d rather her fight me than give up on herself.

On the fourth day, Jace told me, “You look like shit, and if she comes in here and sees you, it’ll wreck her, too, and everyone will know. You need to leave.”

I did, but not before I texted Alena, telling her I was worried about Vale’s absence from work.

If I can’t take care of her, at least my daughter can.

Axel parks his car outside of a nondescript three-story brick building. After the Navy left North Charleston, this former complex of buildings, officer’s residences, barracks, warehouses, and more is becoming one of the trendiest spots.

It’s the perfect place to hide an exclusive sex club. There’s no sign above the lone black steel door we open, just a keypad beside it, ready for our code to enter. Once inside, we’re greeted by a security team in a discreet front vestibule.

Here, you show your identification, surrender your phone, and get patted down as you hear the strict rules. If you break them, you’ll leave with broken bones.

Nadine Faye, the owner, will make sure of it.

But Axel and I walk through security unchecked. We show no IDs. We keep our phones. We don’t get patted down; of course, we’re packing.

The sight, once we swing open the black, leather quilted door to the club that greets me, could almost stir my cock.

Two nude women are on the stage. They’re side by side and riding their men. I recognize them. Silas and Eily Van de May are partnered with Redix Dean and his wife, Cade Bryant.

Yes, it’s a small, kinky world we live in.

But they don’t know me. Few here do.

Silently, Axel and I move through the large room of areas for lounging and others for sex and play, all opposite a long, sleek bar that serves no alcohol.

At the door at the end of a long hallway, Axel enters another code. It beeps open, and we take the stairs.

They lead to a large, elegant seating area at the top of the landing with plush, amethyst velvet sofas, and sapphire velvet curtains framing a large window of one-way glass overlooking the club below. Seated behind a gleaming walnut desk with ornate golden legs sits The Queen, Nadine Faye.

“Mom.” Axel leans down, greeting her with a kiss on each cheek.

I do the same. She is like my mother. I haven’t seen mine since I was four.

“What do we know?” She gestures for us to sit. I do, while Axel aims for the gold and glass bar cart.

He pours three neat shots of vodka and serves his mother first, then gives one to me before he takes his.

Silently, we toast before we toss it back in one shot. Russian is never spoken in this building, our meetings, or even our homes. We can’t risk the exposure. Though inwardly, we say it, “Vashe zdorovie.” For your health.

It’s custom. It’s how you show respect to your elders.

“He’s been moving product through Beaufort.” Axel settles on the sofa across from mine. “They’re using I-95, the Intercoastal, and the rivers. We need to find his base there.”

She nods. “How are we sure?”

“Nash got the lead from his asset, and my interrogations confirmed it.”

Axel’s interrogations usually involve the loss of fingernails. Then teeth. One. By. One.

In Turner’s case, I took his eye first and made him look at it with his other while I sneered, “This is for looking at my woman with disrespect. Lucky, I’ll take your lip and not your tongue for how you spoke to her, too.”

“Asset?” Nadine raises her groomed brow at me. “You mean Ms. Monroe? Vale?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I answer, shifting uncomfortably under her stunning stare.

Nadine Faye laughs at fifty-eight years old. She looks like timeless elegance, with her sable hair swept into a French twist and her bright blue eyes that could burn a hole through a glacier. She always wears Chanel, never indulges in the freedom of her establishment, and it’s impossible to escape her scrutiny.

It’s aimed at me.

“You and Vale,” she chides, “are about as covert as a buzzing vibrator on a church pew.” Axel chuckles while I clench my jaw. “What did I tell you about her?”

“To be careful,” I answer.

“And yet,” she scolds, “when we were at Alena’s fitting, you had Vale Monore glowing like a Catholic nun in a Greek orgy.”

Again, Axel chuckles, and I snort. I can’t help it. If Nadine Faye doesn’t shoot you with the Hellcat pistol she hides, strapped to her thigh, her Southern sayings will get you. She does everything to blend in.

You’d never know she used to be Nadia Kholodov, a Russian Bratva princess.

“We have a situation,” Axel coughs, trying to collect himself. “Nash loves her. She loves him. And?—”

“And you’re not breaking my baby’s heart before her wedding,” Nadine fusses at me about Alena. It’s a common occurrence. “But after the wedding, you’ll tell her. Yes, Alena will be upset, but she’s strong. We raised her that way. She’ll learn to accept it because I’ve watched you deny your love for Vale Monroe for too long. You stand up here like a rabid wolf, watching her, so get it over with and make her your queen.”

“He’s fighting it,” Axel interjects.

“I’m not fighting it,” I answer, “because it’s not happening. She’s not my queen.”

“Son,” Nadine calls me, “you are one sandwich short of a picnic if you think there’s any other woman who is.”

I’m not sharing her.

It’s my fight with Axel, but I won’t say it aloud. It’s disrespectful.

To Nadine, it’s sacred. All queens have two kings. All wives have two husbands, a primary and a second. And all kings protect their queens, while the queens give us a future worth fighting for.

It’s how Nadine escaped Moscow with her six sons—her primary husband, the head of the Russian Bratva, was sadistic and violent, but her second husband, one of his men, truly loved her. He got them out.

Nadine studies me. Axel, too. I keep my face stoic and my mouth shut. I may fight Axel, but not his mom. Not after everything she’s done for me, Alena, and her mom, Lainey.

“It’s only one night.” Nadine reads my mind. “One night, one ceremony, and then she’s all yours until the day you die, and when that happens, she will always be safe and provided for.” She grins tenderly. “I can already see the pretty babies you two will make.”

That punches my heart so hard I have to stifle my inhale.

To make a baby with Vale? To have a family with her? I’ve dared to dream about it.

Nadine points her brow so high. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? To grow your family with her?”

“Ahem.” It hits too hard. “It’s just a dream,” I reply.

“Well, darlin’.” She gestures to the window behind her, to the muffled music and moans below. “It’s my business to make dreams come true; for my sons, it’s my mandate.”

Rising in her blush skirt and jacket trimmed in black with gold buttons, she’s taller than the average woman and still more beautiful than most. You can see why, tragically, an evil man kidnapped her at age fourteen. He forced her to marry him and did every brutal thing to her, but she was tougher. Nadia Kholodov survived, and love made her Nadine Faye.

She tents her French-manicured fingertips over her desk and lowers her honey voice, aiming her tender glare at me.

This woman has given life and proudly taken it. She’s raised her sons and me to do the same. We aren’t evil. We kill evil.

I believe in her. I’m loyal to her.

“Hear me now,” she commands me. “I gave you one of my sons. You know our bond. So you will make Vale Monroe your queen, and then you will tell Alena after her wedding. That’s my mandate.”

Guilt crushes my bones, humility flooding my veins, loyalty pounding my chest. Nadine’s family has given me everything, and we’re about to be bound by blood even more.

It’s the ultimate insult to her, what she endured, and what she fights for now if I break a vow my brothers have made to me.

Yes, one of her sons has given me the ultimate gift. I’m lucky it’s what he wanted, but still, he was willing, so why can’t I be? Why can’t I, for one night, form a bond that will protect Vale? Why can I see a future with her and a family, too, if I’m willing to do this?

Once.

For the first time, I can see how I can finally be happy. I can have the woman I’ve always wanted.

“Nash?” Axel gets my attention. He tents his tattooed fingers, like his mother, but his icy eyes glow warmly. It’s rare. “You’ve always loved her, and now you can have her. Do it. Be happy. Make her yours. Trust me, Alena will understand.”

Something softens his tone, his heart, too. Yes, he has one; he just hides it. It’s all Axel has known: hiding.

But I’ve known him for too long. He’s telling me something about Vale and me.

Or him

… and who?

I want to ask who has claimed his heart, too, but his phone chimes. It’s Grant. I know his unique tone.

Axel reads the text from him, and I know the sudden look on his face.

Trouble.