Page 2 of The Ties That Bind

“Claude’s hardly a baby,” I reminded my brother. “He’ll be 10 next month. Think about what you were doing at that age.”

“That was different. I was being groomed to take over the business. If something happens to me, this all goes to you. Claude’s a non-entity where this family is concerned,” Jayce pronounced with finality.

Sometimes my brother’s shortsightedness could be startling given how successfully he ran St. John Enterprises. His unwillingness to see reason, or to look beyond his own nose, often made me wondering if he was actually the person making day-to-day decisions for our family’s many holdings. Then again, I couldn’t imagine him taking anyone’s advice so that wasn’t a likely scenario.

So then how does he manage not to fuck everything up? I wondered, not for the first time … nor certainly the last.

I stifled a sigh and tempered my tone. I’d been literally and figuratively biting my tongue so frequently it was a miracle I had one left to bite at all.

“If something happens to you or me, this all goes to Nicolette, who will pass it on to Claude. And Claude’s father isn’t exactly a nobody. Shit, the kid’s probably got more targets on his back than you and me combined. The Russian’s do not fuck around.”

When she was only seventeen, our father betrothed our sister to Sergei Konstantinov, a “business associate” of his. The wedding was supposed to happen the day after her eighteenth birthday, but things went to hell in a hand basket when Nicolette fell in love with Sergei’s son, Maksim. Regardless, our father tried to force her to marry Sergei to solidify the deal with the him, but Nic and Max managed to get one over on both our parents by disappearing. When they re-emerged following Sergei’s rather suspicious death two years later, not only had they gotten married, they were also the proud parents of a bouncing baby boy. Max took over the Konstantinov family business and eventually went legit, but I didn’t trust things to stay that way. More so than even the Wilsons or the St. Johns, the Konstantinovs had long memories and if anyone decided to challenge Maksim for control, the first thing they’d do was go for Nic and Claude. We might fuck around with warehouse fires and broken kneecaps to settle our petty squabbles, but the Russians went straight for the jugular. Jayce would do well to remember that.

“The Russians can suck my cock,” he proclaimed arrogantly.

“If some of them get wind of you saying that, they might try to feed you your cock. Or theirs,” I added.

One of Sergei’s former henchmen had turned merc for hire when Maksim took the family straight, and he was the scariest motherfucker I’d ever come across. His contract always included a “spoils of war” stipulation that made my stomach turn. My job was to protect Jayce, but some jobs weren’t worth going up against Aleksei Vasilyev. I might have been a cold-blooded killer, but Aleksei was a fucking lunatic. While I could turn off my emotions to get the job done, Aleksei took great joy in the kill—the more gruesome the better.

“They wouldn’t dare,” Jayce responded smugly.

I shrugged. Far be it from me to try and convince him otherwise.

“Besides, this isn’t about the Russians. This is about Royce Wilsons and how we’re going to put a stop to him once and for all.”

“I’m happy to take him out, so long as you understand this isn’t something that’s going to be done by the time you wake up tomorrow. That sort of shit requires planning and finesse and I know how impatient you can get.”

His impatience was why Teagan was laid up in a hospital bed instead of buried six feet under. I guess my guys could have shot him just as easily as they beat him, but it was a lot easier to make a beating look like a mugging gone wrong than it was to make a shooting appear accidental.

“You’ll do what I tell you and when,” he growled.

Running my hands through my hair as I bit back a frustrated groan, I leveled a glare at my twin. “Goddamnit Jayce. You know fuck all about how this works. How many times do I have to tell you? You call a hit and I’ll execute it, but it’s done when and how I say. I don’t tell you how to launder money; you don’t get to tell me how to put a bullet in our enemies.”

Jayce stood and, buttoning his suit jacket, stepped around the other side of the desk—his position of comfort and power. Leveling his own glare my way, he said, “That’s where you’re wrong Xander. I’m in charge and you’d be wise not to forget it. You do what I say, when I say, or I’ll have someone put a bullet in you. How does that sound little brother?”

So it’s like that then?

We’d never been close and, to be honest, I couldn’t stand the fucker, but I never thought he’d come right out and threaten me like that. No, I thought if he ever decided to do away with me, it’d be a knife to the back while I was asleep. It was one of the many reasons I rarely slept and when I did, it was generally with one eye open.

“It sounds like that would hurt,” I replied nonchalantly, as if the fucker hadn’t just threatened my life. “And since I generally try to avoid unnecessary pain, please tell me what you have in mind.”

I could sit here and play the part I’d been assigned, but it was becoming increasingly clear the day I’d need to step away from this life was fast approaching. While Jayce was supposedly the brains of this operation, I was most definitely the muscle and the team I’d put together was loyal. When I left, they’d come with me. Unfortunately, that’d leave my brother to hire his own mercenaries who wouldn’t care who I was or the role I’d played in building the family’s empire. I needed to stay one step ahead of Jayce. Since I hadn’t had time to formulate my plan yet, that meant I’d continue taking orders from him and carrying them out.

For now.

Jayce pulled an additional folder from his desk drawer and like the first, slid it my way. When I opened it, my blood ran cold. Staring back at me was a black and white photo of Arabella Wilson, Royce Wilson’s daughter. The one woman in all the world who had more power over me than anyone else, including the man sitting across from me.

“I want her dead,” I heard Jayce say through the drumming in my ears. “Royce might not give a damn about what happens to that shit head nephew of his, but burying his precious Arabella will make him think twice about fucking with me again.”

My face an unreadable mask, I glanced up at my brother and studied him. We were twins, yes, but there were stark differences between us if you knew what to look for. The biggest distinction was something that was below the surface, something you couldn’t see no matter how long or how hard you looked: Jayce hated women whereas I adored them. I could kill a man with my bare hands but when I touched a woman’s body, it was with reverence and awe. And there was one woman who I worshipped above all others.

Arabella Fucking Wilson.

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