By seven o’clock, not only is my hair sleekly flat-ironed, it’s a shiny, gorgeous brown that I think might just fit that “love” bill. Since Kayden has yet to arrive and I’m nervous, I decide to go ahead and get dressed. I start by putting on a long black Valentino dress, but the sparkle in the gown doesn’t quite feel right and I change into a sleeveless, knee-length, velvet Gucci gown. Once I’ve zipped myself into the snug silhouette, I decide the exposed horizontal seams and yoke lace neckline, which matches the lace of the hemline, delivers a look that is elegantly sexy and understated, and I love it. The outfit is completed with Gucci heels and a small evening bag, both also lace-trimmed. Regrettably, the bag isn’t large enough to allow Charlie to join the party, but Kayden will be with me, and I have no doubt he’ll be well armed.
Next, I need to put on the bracelet, but I really want to wait for Kayden and tell him what it means to me. I set its box on the bathroom sink next to my purse, hands on my hips. Okay, then, I’m done until Kayden arrives. I walk to the bedroom and it’s ten minutes until eight. Obviously, we’re going to be late to the party, or just not go. My cell phone rings from inside my new purse on the bathroom counter, and I answer quickly.
“Hello.”
“Are you ready?”
I glance at the velvet box. “About three minutes from done.”
“I’m waiting in the center foyer.”
“Oh . . . okay. I’ll be right down.” I end the call. Why didn’t he dress here with me? He’d literally have to have showered and dressed elsewhere. I’m confused and I feel upset, and I tell myself I’m overreacting. He had important business today. Where he got dressed shouldn’t matter, and I stare at the velvet box. Inhaling, I open it, staring down at the striking diamond-studded hawk in the center. So much for the romantic, dramatic proclamation I’d wanted to make when I put it on.
I reach for the bracelet and put it on, and it fits perfectly, as does the band, the hawk so like the one Kayden has etched into his wrist. He fits me perfectly, and in my heart and soul, I know that no past life will change that. I reach down and trace one of the diamond-studded wings, and this is truly the most unique, stunning piece of jewelry I’ve ever seen. The butterfly was gorgeous, but this is . . . Wait. My brows knot together. The most unique, stunning piece of jewelry I’ve ever seen. I smile with the realization that I know this to be a fact, when up to this point, most things have been uncertain. There was no “the best I ever had” or “the favorite thing I’ve ever done or seen” before this moment. My mind is shifting, opening up. I feel it, and suddenly my mood is lighter, and I am optimistic.
Eager to share this news with Kayden, I pick up my purse and walk into the closet, retrieving the Gucci dress coat I’ve chosen for the night before hurrying from the bedroom and down the hallway. At the bottom of the stairs, though, I am suddenly nervous about him not dressing here, wondering if I’ve read him wrong about where we stand. This idea has me pausing before opening the door separating me from the central foyer, where I know Kayden is waiting. Lifting my arm, I stare at the hawk on my wrist. I read it as a sign of a growing bond, but maybe it’s really only about protection. I’ll know when I see him, I decide. But I still find myself shifting my coat to cover it before pressing the button to lift the door.
I step to the center of the archway, waiting for the door to lift and reveal the main castle foyer. Seconds tick by, feeling slow when they are fast, and within a few breaths the barrier is gone, and Kayden is standing directly in front of me, a perfectly fitted tuxedo hugging every tall, broad, perfect inch of him. He owns it just as well as he owns denim and leather, like he owns everything around him. Like he does me—and that is trust. A deep, complete trust that my past says I should have for no one, yet I have it for him.
I want to tell him this, but all that comes out is, “Hi.”
Those pale, pale blue eyes of his answer with a fast, intimate sweep up and down my body, before he snags my hips and pulls me to him.
“Hi,” he replies, aligning our lower bodies and removing more than the space between us. I know now that we are not separate, but together. “You,” he declares, his voice low and silky, “are breathtaking in every way.”
“And you,” I say, flattening my hand on his chest, feeling his heart thundering the way mine is, “really are beautiful, Kayden Wilkens.” I search his face, finding starkness in his eyes that I want to erase but know I cannot. “How bad was it with Enzo’s mother?”
“Bad enough that if you and I could be fucking it out of my head right now . . .”
“And yet you dressed somewhere else.”
“I wasn’t in a good place, and tonight, before this party we need to attend, was not the time for you to see that part of me.”
“Is there ever going to be a time you show that part of yourself to me?”
“Yes. Or you wouldn’t be going to this party with me.”
“Promise me, Kayden.”
“I promise you, Ella. Just not yet.”
“I’d reject that answer, but I know we have a party to go to, so I guess we’re just going to have to stick to the plan.”
“And that would be what?”
“There’s going to be some fighting before we get to the fucking.”
He wraps me in his arms and presses his cheek to mine. “And what if I don’t want to fuck you? What if I want to make love to you, Ella?”
I lean back to look at him, and in his eyes, the starkness of moments before is now tenderness and passion. There is an open door I needed so damn bad tonight. “Can we do both?”
“We will do both.” He brushes his lips over mine, a whisper of a touch I feel everywhere, and I wish he were touching me now, not later. “Many times,” he adds, seeming to reluctantly release me, before inching up his sleeve to check the time. But this time, instead of seeing the watch, it’s the Hawk beneath it that has my attention, reminding me of the bracelet yet to be revealed.
“We need to get moving,” he says, draping his arm around my shoulders and heading toward the main foyer. “Chief Donati will be there tonight and I don’t want us to miss him.”
“Please tell me Gallo won’t be there, too,” I say as we cross the foyer.
“He won’t,” he says, opening the door leading to the garage and allowing me to enter the stairwell and start down the narrow path.
“This event is by VIP invitation only,” he adds following me down, “and mostly high-ranking politicians, elected officials, and all their cronies.”
“Does that make us their cronies?” I ask over my shoulder.
“That makes us their biggest wish they’ll never get.” He catches up with me and opens the garage door for me. “And that’s power, sweetheart. You’ll see that at the party.”
On that note, I enter the surprisingly warm, well-lit garage and see the ridiculously expensive shiny blue Pagani Zonda that ironically, considering the statement he just made, was given to him as payment for a job. “Why is the police chief’s presence tonight so important?” I ask when he steps to my side. “Is it about the favor you owe him?”
“It’s about the favor he won’t get if he doesn’t keep Gallo away from you. Which car, sweetheart?” he asks, indicating the four F-TYPE Jags lined up on the opposite side of the garage.
“I love the ice blue,” I say, “but black feels very James Bond, like you in that tuxedo.”
He laughs and walks to the rack of keys on the wall. “Just call me 007, sweetheart. And since we’re talking cars, we need to get you one of your choosing soon.”
“No, thank you,” I say as we walk toward the black Jag. “I don’t want to drive on roads the size of sidewalks, in a car worth more than some people make in a year.”
“If you scrape it up, we’ll fix it,” he says, dismissing my concern.
“Jags are not meant to be scraped up and fixed. And I know these cars are your pride and joy.”
He opens the passenger door for me. “I couldn’t give a flying fuck about these
cars. They’re metal. They’re replaceable. And they are not you. I’ll put a driver on call for you until you change your mind.” He opens the passenger door for me. “Then you can come and go as you please without the confines of what’s walkable. Let me put your coat in the trunk.” He takes it from me, already clicking the key chain and moving away.
But I’m not thinking about the coat. I’m not thinking about cars. My mind flickers with a memory, and I flatten my hand on the roof of the car. I know why I’d been tied to that bed for two hours, why I’d been punished, and it shakes me to the core. I’d gone shopping without permission. Who was I then? Why would I allow anyone to treat me like that?
“What are my boundaries?” I call out to Kayden, not even sure where the word boundaries comes from.
He returns and steps in front of me. “In bed or out, sweetheart?”
“Kayden. I’m serious.”
“As am I. In bed, you always have the ultimate power, no matter how much I seem to claim for myself. Out of bed, safety dictates everything.”
“Can I really come and go as I please? Because it didn’t seem like it today.”
“Today was complicated, and in hindsight, I handled it like shit and I’m sorry.”
The apology, spoken by a man I do not think apologizes to anyone, surprises me in all of the right ways.
“In explanation, not defense,” he continues, “Gallo talking trash about me to you fucked with my head. And I don’t let much fuck with my head. You are not a prisoner, nor have you ever been. You are not my captive, nor do I want you to be. But protecting you isn’t just a desire. If you’re to be here with me, it’s a need. I need you safe.” He closes the small space between us and lifts my hand from on top of the car, revealing the bracelet, but he doesn’t look at it. He looks at me, holding my stare, and letting me see the truth in his words. “This sends a powerful message to anyone who is, or who would be, my enemy. It says if they so much as look at you wrong, I will kill them. It says that you are mine, and even Niccolo will think twice before he touches The Hawk’s woman.”
“Your woman,” I repeat, heat radiating up my arm from where he holds me. “Is that what I am?”
“Not until you say you are. Not until you wear the bracelet by choice, not public need. I want nothing you don’t give me freely, Ella.”
“The bracelet tells the world that you own me,” I repeat, a tight knot of emotion in my chest. “Does it tell them that I own you?”
He pulls me to him and cups my head. “You do own me, Ella. The good, the bad, and the very damn ugly. And my worst fear is that you can’t handle that. That’s why I didn’t come to you tonight. But I need you to handle it. Do you understand? I need you to be able to handle it.” He kisses me, hard and fast, but it is passionate and deep, a short taste of torment and ecstasy, before he tears his mouth from mine.
He turns me to face the open passenger seat, his hands bracketing my waist, his mouth at my ear as he says, “Get in the car, before I pull your dress up and fuck you right here in the garage, which would be far more appealing than this party, which we can’t miss.”
I inhale on what has become his confession, and that is the trust that has me climbing into the car, breathing a little easier. And once I’m there, I look to my right, where he still stands, staring down at me, his gaze half veiled. His attention is like a warm blanket on a cold night. Heavy and addictive. He shuts the door and walks around the car, climbing inside with me, and I have this sense of us being together more than ever before. As if choices have been made, choices that will all end with us, here, tonight.
ten
Kayden cranks the engine and turns on the heat. “I have a gift for you,” he announces, unbuttoning his jacket to reach inside, and produces a small leather pouch the size of a makeup bag.
My eyes light as he hands it to me, the steely weight familiar in my hands. “I know what this is, and it’s perfect.”
“You do, huh? What is it?”
I unsnap the pouch and remove the small handgun, fitting it in my small palm. “A Ruger LCP. Small enough for a bra strap and a garter. I freaking love it. Charlie just got retired.”
“Who the hell is Charlie?”
I face him. “I remembered my father’s name today. He was Charlie, and I named my Glock after the man who taught me to shoot.” I hold up the Ruger, and right then my memory produces an image of my mother. “This is Annie,” I say. “My mother, whose name I remembered just this second.” I settle the Ruger on top of my lap. “Kayden, I’m starting to remember and it’s really exciting and scary. Just random things—like I could say, this is my favorite gun or food or movie, and know it’s right. I didn’t think like that before today.”
“Why exactly is that scary?”
“Because,” I say, my tone turning somber, “I, too, need you to be able to handle the good, the bad, and the very damn ugly if there is some. And I’m pretty sure there will be.”
“Nothing is going to change how I feel about you,” he says, taking my hand and kissing my knuckles. “Nothing, Ella.”
“Yet when I say that to you, you don’t believe me.”
He studies me for several moments. “I guess we both need to have a little faith in who we are together.”
“It’s hard, isn’t it?”
“Nothing worth having—”
“Comes easily.”
Approval lights his eyes. “Exactly.”
“Marabella told me she used to say that to you.”
“Marabella has said a lot of wise things to me over the years,” he says, releasing my hand to pull his sleeve back again.
This time when I see his watch, I flash back to the memory I had in the shower. A man’s wrist. That watch just below a starched white shirt and jacket sleeve. His hand on my bare arm.
“Donati should be arriving right about the same time as us,” Kayden says, shifting back into his seat.
I blink back into the moment. “You know when the police chief is going to arrive?”
“Friends in high and convenient places,” he says, hitting the remote above his visor to lower the wall behind us.
I turn to watch it slide away, in awe of this modern feature in the historical architecture. “I still can’t get over how cool that is.”
“Remind me to show you how to get to the visitors’ garage.” He backs up and turns the car toward the exit ramp, then faces the car forward as the wall slides back into place.
“There’s a second garage?”
“That’s right,” he says. “Visitors, like Carlo yesterday, have a separate parking area and entry point.”
“Some would say you’re paranoid.”
“Not paranoid enough,” he says, driving us into a cloudless, dark night. “Otherwise Enzo would be alive right now. Raul is lucky he’s not dead right now, but he will pay for what he did.”
“Good,” I hiss, remembering the moment Nathan set those paddles down and declared Enzo dead. “What are you going to do?”
“He’s a fucking drug dealer,” he says, driving toward the gate that’s now sliding open. “Once I’m done with him, I’m going to get him the hell out of my territories and make him wish he never came.”
“Are you doing a hunt for him?” I ask as he pulls onto the road and shuts the gate behind us.
“He thinks I am.” He glances over at me. “And you know what for.”
“The necklace,” I say, my throat tightening. “Did he know about me?”
“No, and as of now, he has no information to aid our search for the necklace, either. He just wants to get to it before Niccolo does.”
“Everyone wants what I held in my hands,” I say, checking the safety on my new gun. “Thank you again for this little piece of cold comfort.” I bypass the pouch and zip it inside my purse. “And the purse and clothes.”
“Don’t thank me,” he says, turning onto a narrow road lined with cars. “Every one of those things was for me.”
My lips curve. “The pur
se was for you?”
“It’s where you just put Annie, right?”
“Gucci does hold her quite nicely,” I say, stroking the lacy front. “I love this purse almost as much as I do her.”
“And you learned to shoot Annie from your father?”
“No,” I say, my brow dipping at the certain answer that isn’t supported by memory. “I think . . . it feels like a Ruger was the personal weapon I carried. I’m actually surprised I wasn’t carrying it the night you found me.”
“You wouldn’t have legally been able to carry, as an American.”
“No. I suppose not. Still, I think I had a gun.” I shake off the thought and change the topic. “Before we get to the party, Marabella told you about Gallo and Giada, I heard.”
“Yes.” He shifts gears and turns down yet another narrow road, where pedestrians force him to slow to a crawl. “And Matteo’s initial search shows no call records, but he’s digging deeper.”
“That makes no sense, Kayden. Marabella said he was holding Giada’s waist.”
“It could be that he was trying to seduce her,” he says, moving past the pedestrians and cutting me a quick look. “But I tend to agree. I have men following both of them.”
“I talked to her today.”
“Adriel told me, and it was quite the conversation, I hear.”
I cringe. “I was hard on her, and I spoke for him. I didn’t mean for him to hear it.”
“You said what I hadn’t, out of respect for Adriel.”
“And I guess I didn’t exactly respect that boundary.”
“I’m fucking happy as shit about it, too. It needed to be said. And Adriel is relieved.”
“Well, that’s interesting to know,” I say. “He’s hard to read and like I said, he hasn’t been overly receptive to my presence.”