Page 28 of King of the Cage

Giada Santori was the woman my father wanted me to force into marriage. It was surreal. I supposed, considering we’d met at Renato’s wedding, it wasn’t that crazy, but still. I had vowed never to be like my father, and marrying a woman because I had been ordered to was exactly that. I wouldn’t do it. Not for Da and not for anyone. The fact that tangling with her probably spelled certain death, plus the fact that my da was so keen on it, hardly warmed my heart. Seeing as Da rarely had my best interests at heart, I needed to stay the hell away from Giada Santori.

Unfortunately, there was nothing I wanted to do less.

Cian’s voice came over the line. “I’m just getting set up to keep an eye on your mystery woman?—”

“Forget it,” I interrupted him, stubbing out my cigarette. “I don’t want to know.” I’d planned to have her followed so I could keep tabs on her and fuck with her at will. Sure, we were enemies, but that didn’t mean the chemistry wasn’t off the fucking charts. They hadn’t yet invented a way to measure the electricity created when Giada Santori glared at me, never mind when we touched. I’d never felt anything like it, and having poor impulse control and a penchant for self-destruction, I wanted to see what we could do with it. So, I’d planned on collecting what she owed me, giving her back her little knife, and going back to being rivals. If the sex was good, I wouldn’t have taken enemies with benefits off the table. For a woman like that, I’d lie, cheat, and steal any day. In the case of Giada, I’d live with the threat of her brother’s wrath, just to have a taste of her.

But marriage? As much as I might like to joke about it, I didn’t really have a death wish. In fact, marrying Giada Santori wasn’t only a death wish, it was a fucking guarantee.

Cian was quiet for a long while. “Okay,” he said slowly. “Any particular reason why?”

Fucking Cian and his intrusive questions. Him, Doc Keiran, Declan, and I had been friends since we were young. Because of that, he never felt afraid to say whatever was on his mind.

“I’m just not interested anymore,” I lied.

“I think you’ll want to know where she’s going tonight,” Cian started.

“I said I don’t want to know,” I insisted, shoving my curiosity down deep. “Let her be another pretty face on a crowded street, and we can pass by like strangers.”

Cian sighed. “You’re in a mood.”

“I’m not.”

“You need to get laid. You lost your game in prison, I hate to say it, but your love life sucks, and it has for years.”

“Maybe I switched teams inside and I’m waiting for the right time to ask you on a date… Is this our moment?” I mused and lit another cigarette.

“Very funny. This Italian is the first one to have caught your attention in… I don’t know how long. Years.”

Try… ever.

“Just drop it and do something useful. I want the CCTV from the place where Ion and Quinn were last night. All of it you can get. We have some walking dead men to find.”

“Got it, and you’re absolutely sure you want nothing to do with Giada Santori?”

I felt a sudden tightness in my chest.

“She shouldn’t have anything to do with me. It’s for the best,” I confirmed.

I wasn’t my da, and I wasn’t starting now.

I wasn’t stealing anyone’s skin.

As I stared down at the street, my phone rang again. Christ, phones and people’s propensity to use them made me miss prison.

I pulled it out of my pocket, my irritation turning to anticipation as a familiar name flashed on the display.

“Da, bratan.How’s it hanging?” Nikolai’s Russian accent made the phrase sound off, which was exactly his intent. My best friend and former cellmate had been trying to learn more American slang to keep up with his young son. It was going interestingly.

“Bigger and straighter than yours, like always,” I murmured. Despite how fucked up my life was, talking to Niko always reassured me. He was a crazy motherfucker, and there was never a problem he couldn’t solve through his creative means.

“Don’t make me jealous. What’s going on there?” Niko asked.

“Quinn got mixed up in some trouble last night, and she picked something up that was going around the club scene.”

“Is she okay?” Niko’s first question. Nothing was more important to the Russian than family, whether it was the ones you were born with or the ones you chose.

“She’s okay. She’s taking this whole thing better than I am. But this drug, man. We need to talk about it. Be on the lookout for it.”

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