Page 36 of Thorns of Desire
It was a peculiar comment to make, but I wouldn’t let anything deter me.
“I’ll always get you out of trouble,” I retorted. “Enjoy today, because tomorrow, my courtship starts.”
“Did you bump your head and decide to go all Mark Darcy on me?” Athena scoffed.
“I don’t know who that is, but he better not show his face around me.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s a movie character.”
I smirked, pleased it wasn’t a real person. “Well, then he might live to see another day.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Does it look like I am?” I ran my tongue across my teeth, though the tension in my body demanded I corner this woman so I could have my way with her. “I’m going to fuck the memory of every other man—fictional or not—out of your mind until you’re so obsessed with me, you’ll never leave my bed again. Not willingly, anyhow.”
Athena opened her mouth just as a glass was sent shattering across the marble floor. She took the opportunity to move away from me, leaving whatever she was going to say in the lurch.
It didn’t matter, though. I was a man on a mission. And despite how hard she worked to hide it, I could see the fire in Athena’s eyes.
Seated behind my desk, I conducted business while the moon glimmered high over Paris.
My cell phone buzzed with a message from Ghost and I slid it open.
Air whooshed out of my lungs as my eyes scanned over the information. With each read word, realization hit me in the chest like a hammer.
How was that possible?
My shock vibrated through every fiber of me. I wasn’t shocked often anymore, but this… I wasn’t expectingthis.
Alexandra Bottelli’s child.
The woman I had dated once upon a time. The woman who I learned didn’t mind using anyone or anything to get what she wanted.
I hadn’t forgotten her; she was definitely a lesson worth remembering—not in a good way either. But her mother’s identity wasn’t even the worst part. It was her father’s name that had the world tilting on its axis. Suddenly, so many things made sense.
No fucking wonder the Triads and Atticus were roaming the Omertà territory.
Granted, Paris wasn’t our territory, but we had an alliance with the Corsican mafia, both of us strictly against certain trades, the main one being flesh trading.
Slowly, my shock was replaced by anger that lashed at my insides like a whip. Maybe Athena knew and was playing me on her mother’s instruction.
I would find out, but if that was true, my littleamorinahad made a grave mistake. She had waded into a den of lions without the slightest protection, leaving herself vulnerable.
I quickly typed my thanks to Kingston—the Omertà’s ghost—then grabbed my jacket from the back of the chair.
It was time I paid a certain woman a visit.
FIFTEEN
ATHENA
Iflicked a glance down the hallway of the little apartment I shared with the girls—minus Isla now. They were all fast asleep, battling their own dreams and nightmares, while I sat in the living room with the TV flipped on to a French soap opera.
I watched it mindlessly while thoughts raced through my mind. My mother’s admissions. The conversation I overheard in Spain. The father I hoped I’d never see. Secrets I sensed were still lurking.
The silence that filled the apartment and the memories that haunted me were so loud it hurt my ears. I liked my life and loved my friends, but the fear from that night eleven years ago had been unlocked and I didn’t know where to go from here.
I hated this feeling. It made me feel like a terrified little girl all over again.
