Page 90 of Tempest

Tempest

The numbers bluron the screen before me, and I shut my laptop with a hiss.

Even without her anywhere near, I’m thinking about Ardyn. A week has passed without exchanging a single word with her, yet I find myself staring at her profile in class, the straight line of her nose and the pillowy curves of her lips as she takes notes during Miguel’s lecture, her brows pinched in concentration.

At one point, the setting sun through the window outlined her in a lovely glow, her blond strands catching fire and her skin turning gold under Midas’s touch.

She is breathtaking, this girl, and the thought that I dirtied her up with those same Cupid’s bow lips wrapped around my cock and her swan-like neck under my hand… I nearly came in my pants twice in one lecture.

The fragility she casts is less breakable than I initially thought. Ardyn’s stronger than I predicted, but she cannot be strong enough to crumble my walls.

Her presence threatens the four years I sank into this shithole and the coup I joined Miguel in planning. I saved her life back when I had no idea what I bargained her for, and now it’s become all too clear.

What am I doing, exactly? Making her fall in love with me so she’ll willingly keep any recollections she has a secret? Turn her into an adorable sex slave who will spread for me, suck me, and moan my name whether awake or asleep?

It’s a useless endeavor. I see how she studies me when she thinks my attention is elsewhere. The softness creeping along her eyes, the parting of her lips as she reminisces on our fucks and wishes for me to take her again. I’ve piqued her curiosity, released a lioness, and fuck if I know what to do with her now.

Weakness is the worst trait I could acquire. Affection is even lower on my priorities. I cannot allow Ardyn to keep affecting me like this. I can’t keep treating her like a precious artifact I’d love to smash against the floor and put together, piece by gorgeous piece, again.

“Are his holdings that annoying?” Rio asks as he wanders into the den and sits across from me.

I push the laptop off my legs, reaching for a crystal tumbler of whiskey instead. “He’s moving money around. A lot of it.”

Rio hums his concern. He eyes my whiskey, then rises to make himself a glass. “That’s not new, is it? The laundered money must go through plenty of channels.”

“Yes, but not this much, this often.”

I don’t say what is heavy on my mind, but I don’t have to with Rio. He’s aware as much as I am that our boss, our capo, is making the type of moves one makes when he believes he’s being targeted.

“Have you notified Miguel?” Rio asks, returning to his seat, tumbler in hand.

“Not yet.”

“Think of it this way,” Rio muses. “If Marco Bianchi doesn’t know that Miguel killed his brother, he probably has no idea Miguel’s aim to take over the Outfit.”

Marco Bianchi and all his made men also have zero clue that I’m monitoring their transfer of funds daily. If you want to know what a man is planning, look at their bank account. After I was dropped off at Miguel’s feet by my father, he made quick work of my skills and demanded constant access to Bianchi’s inner workings.

Miguel worked his ass off for Bianchi, but as a man of only half-Italian descent, Bianchi made it clear Miguel would never rise in the ranks. He was good, though, too good to have around for long without worrying about Miguel’s influence over actual made men who could take over the Outfit one day. Under the guise of a mistake, of which Miguel doesn’t make any, Bianchi had Miguel ostracized to TFU, where the other lesser men and screw-ups of the mafia go to rot.

If anyone fucked up, it was Bianchi. Miguel quickly disposed of the exiled men he found useless and began training the ones he saw potential in—like Rio and me. We made a name for ourselves, and soon, Bianchi sent VIPs and other important debtors to be made examples of, and the Vultures were born.

Bianchi couldn’t very well dispose of Miguel without causing questions, so in an act of good faith (or fakery), he sent his nephew, Hunter Morgan, to be trained in the types of skills the Vultures were acquiring in “information retrieval” and disposal. Morgan, like Miguel, is half-Italian and not qualified to ever become underboss or boss. His father, however, was.

Until Miguel killed him one night—the night—under the guise of an art theft gone wrong.

Ever so efficiently, Miguel is turning the men he needs and initiating hits on the ones he doesn’t, all without Bianchi’s knowledge. When Hunter was sent here, that put a damper on things, but Miguel is never one to give up. Personally, Hunter’s presence acted like a trigger for me, fueling my desire to fuck up this underworld even more than I already did.

But when Ardyn arrived next, that’s when I became fucking concerned.

I’m not meant to be here doing this shit. My escape from Briarcliff Academy was meant to prevent any more chains from wrapping around my neck. My best friend, Chase, made it out. Why couldn’t I?

If my father weren’t so callous, so manipulative, so willing to cast off his only son into a forest haunted by witches and tainted with screams…

“Keep an eye on how much money is going to the Caymans.” Rio cuts into my thoughts. “It’s all we can do when there’s important business to dispose of tonight.”

I massage my brows. Thank God for Rio, who’d follow me to the ends of the earth if he had to. Fuck, he already has. He doesn’t have to be here. It’s only because of me.

“Yeah. I’ve told Clover we’ll all be out of town for a few nights, so she shouldn’t bother us.”

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