Page 3 of The Ties That Bind

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Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;

Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;

Being vexed a sea nourish’d with loving tears:

What is it else? a madness most discreet,

A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.

ROMEO & JULIET

I wasn’t supposedto fall in love with Arabella. Fuck, we weren’t supposed to ever be in the same room as one another, but life had a funny way of fucking up even the best laid plans.

The first time I saw her I was 10 years old and she was eight. It was at Lucrezia Bonaccorso’s funeral, the matriarch of the of the Italian ruling family. Having outlived four husbands and uniting many of the lesser Italian families through marriage, she’d finally succumbed to cancer at the advanced age of 100. As a mark of respect for all Lucrezia had achieved during her long life, the various families that made up Chicago’s underworld came together for a summit where they agreed to table their grievances for a period of 100 days.

Not to say there wasn’t an immense amount of tension at the funeral—at only 10 I wasn’t yet privy to the machinations of my father’s world, but even I could feel the tension roiling off the men gathered. But for us kids it was a chance to meet and play with new people. While the other girls clung to their mother’s skirts, Arabella threw caution to the wind and joined in on the rough-housing we were prone to. At first, the other boys wanted nothing to do with her, but soon she won them over by showing she could run just as fast as they could, jump just as high, and kick just as hard. For two hours she was part of our little gang of hellions and by the time her mother came to collect her, Arabella’s dress was streaked with mud and her knees were bloody with scrapes and cuts. As she was pulled away, her mother’s admonishments reaching my ears, Arabella turned and waved to me, hollering out, “See ya around!” before she disappeared from my life for another eight years.

When I was 14, my father pulled me out of school, cutting off any and all ties I had to the outside world. While Jayce was being groomed to take over St. John Enterprises, I was being groomed to become his protection, a cold-blooded killer. By the time I was 16, I’d already put two bullets in the back of a Wilson goon. To say that I was well acquainted with the battle raging between the Wilsons and the St. Johns would be an understatement. While I could look back fondly on that afternoon at the funeral, the little boy I’d been was long gone, and that little girl with the skinned knees was nothing more than a pleasant, fading memory. Every now and then I’d hear Arabella’s name pop up but I didn’t pay too much attention to what was being said. As far as I was concerned, she was the daughter of my father’s enemy, and that made her my enemy.

But then I saw her … and everything changed.

On the day that changed the course of my life forever, I was at the mall with Jayce and a group of friends, shopping and hanging out like normal guys. As we walked from one end of the building to the next, we came across some girls we didn’t know and, liking the looks of them, began flirting shamelessly. There was one girl though—a take your breath away, stop you dead in your tracks beauty—whose shyness and obvious discomfort intrigued me. I must have stared, wordlessly, for a good minute before I came to my senses and introduced myself.

“Hey,” I said, shoving my hands in my pockets. “I’m Xander.”

Her teeth nervously worked lips painted a shimmery pink that reminded me of cotton candy. “I know who you are,” she finally answered, her eyes scanning the area.

While my pride enjoyed the fact that this she knew who I was, I was also suspicious. The only women I got to interact with regularly were either related to me or on my father’s payroll. Sad to say but at 18, I’d never fucked a girl who hadn’t been picked out for me.

“Oh yeah? How’s that?” I asked, my eyes raking her over.

“We met once, a long, long time ago,” she replied, her eyes shifting this way and that.

I knew that look. She was afraid, which put me on edge. While Jayce was oblivious to anything but the red head with big tits standing in front of him, I was keenly aware of our surroundings. I didn’t think anything would happen in such a public place, but you could never be too sure where my father’s enemies were concerned. It’d been a few months since anyone had tried to move against us, but it was only a matter of time until that relative peace was shattered.

Grabbing her arm, I dragged the girl away from the group. I expected her to yelp or alert her friends to what was happening, but she simply pressed her lips together in a tight line while those shifty eyes of hers narrowed to angry slits.

Jerking out of my grip, she hissed her displeasure. “Get your fucking hands off me.”

“Who are you and why are you acting so suspicious?” I demanded, closing in on her until she had nowhere to go.

With the wall firmly at her back, she raised her eyes and flicked them between my own questioningly. “You don’t remember me?”

I couldn’t be certain, but she sounded almost hurt.

“No,” I bit out. “If I did, I wouldn’t be asking, now would I?”

Our gazes locked in heated battle for a handful of seconds before she finally answered on a defeated sigh. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” I agreed as I bent forward so my mouth was near her ear. “And I don’t want to have to ask again.”

To outside observers, we’d look two horny kids making out at the mall, but I had her caged in so that the only way she could get away would be to take me down. And there was no way this little slip of a thing would be able to do that.

When the girl rested her hands against my chest, a jolt of white hot desire shot through my body straight to my dick. When she sucked in a breath and her eyes widened into saucers, I knew she felt it too. Suddenly her name didn’t matter and the threat of danger seemed unimportant. When she licked her lips and stared at me with doe eyes that had gone hazy with lust, the crowds and the noise and everything around us ceased to exist. It was just me and this girl and I wanted her.

“Fuck,” I whispered, as I wrapped my hand around the base of her skull and pulled her into me. I planted my mouth on hers and when she stiffened, I stepped closer and wrapped my free arm around her and pulled her flush with my body. “Kiss me back,” I commanded.

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