Page 33 of Room One Hundred and Six

“That was freaky. Let’s get out of here before something else comes out of the darkness.”

“Harlon is a lot of things and freaky is one of them. He took over Genesis back in Chicago and he’s recently opened up a branch here.”

“I’ve never heard of it.” I move the loose stones around in my palm a million ideas of what to do with them running in my head. I’ll need to get that list from Ivy for starters. I don’t have a photographic mind, but I do have sticky fingers if she can’t find a way to part with the names.

“It’s a club for bad guys is the easiest way I can describe it. But we can talk about that later.”

That is Shayne. He hasn’t let me out of his arms and from the look on his face he doesn’t have talking at all in mind.

My men take me back to the elevator and press the button that lands us a few floors below Club Sin.

“Where are we headed?”

“Our place. We have a lot of talking to do.”

Voss tilts my chin up and kisses me while his brother holds me to him. “But first let’s get you out of those shoes.”

Voss grips my ass and lifts me up, using the back wall of the elevator as support for my back.

“Mm, sounds nice.” I kiss him, and tap the ends of our noses. Shayne is on my left and Jasper calmly comes to my right. I’m surrounded by men my father never wanted me to know, but I have never felt safer in their presence.

I hold my hand up and unclench my fist to show the diamonds. “Quick question, do you guys know of any good fences?”

The laughter they release soothes my soul and tells me I am right where I need to be. I don’t know if it was my father who guided me to them from the other side knowing I needed help or if fate placed me in their booth tonight. Does it really matter? I learned a lesson over the past few hours.

The enemy isn’t always who you think it is. Sometimes you are your worst enemy.

It’s okay to ask for help and the biggest one of all is you can’t steal from the Ambrose brothers. They’ll get their revenge and what they take from you will always be more than you knew you had to give.

In my case, they took my heart and I don’t think I ever want it back.

Epilogue

Luna, six months later

“You have a shield around your heart and I’ve wanted to shatter it into pieces from the first night we met.” Voss links his hands together at the base of my back and pulls me in until our bodies are fully flush from breasts to knees. It’s my favorite place to be. His hard arousal presses into my midriff and is a sinful tease of what is coming. But his words are just as alluring.

“Mm,” I moan. “You know how I love a man with a smooth tongue.”

He places a kiss to the tip of my nose before moving to my neck. I cradle him close allowing myself to be in the moment and not worry all the time. There is no need to rush to one of my shitty jobs. There’s no need to panic-call the hospital over a due bill or worry about the ones on the way in the coming months. I push my fingers through his soft hair, our body heat twining together.

“Please go on, lover. What would you do after you break this shield you speak of? Would my heart be safe in your care? Or are you a roguish brute who wants to ravish me and then fade into the sunset?” I know what he is going to say, but there is a selfish part of me that needs to hear the words.

Voss’ warm laugh is low and rumbles over my senses. “No, my jungle flower. I’ll never grow tired of ravishing you. When all those jagged edges are broken and fallen away, I want to wrap my love around your heart and make you whole again. Protected. You’ll never be alone again for as long as I live.”

“We, brother. We want to make you whole again. And for as long as we live.”

Shayne leaves me in Voss’s arms as he comes to stand at my right. He silently lowers his lips to mine, never taking his eyes off me. Our breath mingles. His touch to my cheek is gentle and completely contrasts the ferocious hunger in his eyes.

To my left Jasper reaches over and stops the elevator mid-lift to the thirty-seventh floor of the Centennial.

I turn my eyes to him to find his usual scowl nowhere in sight. In its place is a look of love and awe. The night I stole their diamonds I set all of us on a new path. We spent that night in their apartment a few floors below Club Sin talking and making love until long after sunrise.

I told them everything about me and my sister and they told me everything my father said about us. I spent a lot of time thinking my father loved me and my sister, but wished he could have had sons. Apparently, I was wrong. He wanted his girls to be as far away from the life he led as possible.

He wanted to give us normal lives and worked endlessly to make that happen. Sadly, he didn’t have the chance before he was taken away from us all.

“Make no mistake, my little moon. You’ve given us something we didn’t know we were missing. You’ve entrusted us with your body. If you give us your heart, I will personally pick each jagged piece of that shield off the floor and one by one put it back together with so much love it will blend with your blood and with every beat of your heart you will feel the devotion and love I have for you.”

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