Page 1 of Legally Ours

Prologue

My heart is about to jump out of my body. It's going to bust through the buttons of this goddamn monkey suit and sprint all the way to New York, because nothing seems to be moving fast enough.

"David!" I bark, startling my driver. "Can't this thing drive any fucking faster?"

For a second I feel bad. David's been with me a long time, since I started Ventures and it became clear that even parking my own car was a waste of my time when that time literally equaled money. He's been loyal, kind, and more importantly, discreet. I can trust the guy with the most intimate details of my life, and I do.

So yeah, I feel bad for yelling at him. But only for a second.

"Seriously!" I shout. "What the fuck am I paying you for? Should I just drive to New York myself?"

He knows I don't mean it, that I'll apologize in the morning with a fat raise or some extra vacation time. He knows I'm losing my fucking mind. But instead of driving the hundred-plus miles-per-hour down the 93 like he knows I'd be doing, David taps on the gas just enough to appease me.

I'm really starting to hate New York. More than your average Bostonian, and that's saying something. Hating New York is in our blood.

But as far as I can tell, everything shitty that's happened to Skylar and me in the last six months has come out of that cesspool. Miranda flying down out of the penthouse we owned on Park Avenue. Janette, that sick viper. And Victor fucking Messina, whose face I swear to God I'm going to cut the fuck up if it's the last thing I do.

The thought makes me shake. My fists clench, eager to hit something.

There's a different Brandon surfacing––one that hasn't been around in a long time. I felt it the second I walked into that bar last March and name-checked my old crew from Dorchester. I felt it when I smelled the grease in Messina's hair, saw the greed and arrogance in his sweaty face. But I pushed that Brandon away, convinced that if I threw money at the problem, it would disappear, and this guy, the one I've worked so hard to lock away, would fade into the past where he belongs.

The angry Brandon who couldn't keep his emotions in check. Who used to hustle the schoolyard by day, suffer panic attacks by night, while he waited for his shithead dad to decide who he wanted to take his misery out on—his junkie wife or no-good son. The kid who had no self-control at all.

I shudder, a lightning-quick image of a bloodied salad tong flashing through my mind before I push it all away. The bastard used to grab whatever he could find. After I hid his toolbox from under the sink, he started going for kitchen implements. And you want to know something? Getting beaten with a whisk really fucking hurts.

But I can't think about those days now. It's better that I think about the guy who grew out of them––a hard-as-nails asshole with a hair-trigger temper and a nasty right hook. The guy who was the brains behind every scheme Mickey and the boys ever ran at the pool halls. The guy who was big enough to scare the shit out of some real-life gangsters in South Boston back when they still ran the neighborhood. The guy who could outsmart just about any motherfucker, and beat them senseless afterward.

I pull a cigarette out of my pocket and flip it around with my fingers. I haven't smoked in over fifteen years––not since I met Miranda and left Dorchester for good. It's a filthy habit, not one I ever missed, but I bummed one off Craig, my head of security, just before we left. I couldn't have told you why at the time, but I know now.

"David?"

David's kindly gaze flickers back to me through the rearview mirror. "Sir?"

"Pass me the lighter, will you?"

David can't quite mask the frown when he sees the cigarette, but he obediently pulls the electric knob from the front console and hands it over his shoulder. I light up, then hand it back before I open my window and hold the cigarette by the crack.

It feels good. Right. Like I'm going to be okay. The familiar scent of ash and nicotine drifts over me like a mask, like it's helping me put on this old uniform. It's a scent I associate with the street. Of the rough-and-tumble group I used to run with. Of other lowlife fuckers like Messina. Of the hard-edged kid I once was. That I might need to be again tonight.

Messina already left a message for me with Margie, and the moron didn't bother to mask the number––a LAN line somewhere in the city. It's too easy to see where she might be. An abandoned warehouse in an outer borough. Maybe there's electricity, maybe there's not. Tied to a chair maybe, or a pipe on the ground. She's dirty, cold, probably bruised all over the place, since if I know Skylar, she fought like a feral cat when they took her. Possibly passed out, or just waking up with a nasty headache, since a woman who weighs maybe a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet wouldn't have been able to do much before hurting herself more than the men who took her.

I consider what she might be wearing, hoping that will calm me down. I hope to God it wasn't that blue dress––the thing made me want to rip her clothes off in the middle of a benefit. It fit her like a damn glove, not to mention had a slit up the thigh that put some very dirty things in my head. I don't even want to think about what a guy like Messina would do if he saw her like that.

She changed, I tell myself. Into those god-awful jeans she likes to wear, maybe, although it probably wouldn't matter. She never wears a bra when she's home, which is why we can't work in the same room without me jumping her. She has no clue how beautiful she is when she's dressed like a slob, her sunset-colored hair tangled in a knot, kiwi-colored eyes clean and bright. Sometimes, especially right before bed, when she's in nothing but those Band-Aids she calls pajamas, she takes my fucking breath away. And then it goes right to my cock.

Fuck. I really hope she's wearing the jeans. But then again, my girl is gorgeous no matter what. It doesn't matter what she's wearing––you can't mask that kind of beauty. She's a work of art, and Messina knows it. The thought of what he might do to her before I get there only fuels my rage more.

My other hand fists as I take a final drag on the cigarette and flick it out the window. Yeah, I can be that guy again if I need to. And with Victor Messina? I fucking want to.

~

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