From the way in which Anthony Bart had asked his question, it became clear to Brianna that the man who had entered her bedroom, gun in hand, really didn’t work for the mob boss.
Then who the hell was he?
He’d told her his name was Felix—Bart had also given him the surname of Kingston just now—and he’d claimed, of all things, to be a financial consultant.
She knew she’d made light of the latter at the time, but she really wanted to know why in hell a criminal like Anthony Bart would need the services of someone with Felix Kingston’s qualifications.
She doubted it was so that Bart could submit his yearly tax accounts for review to the applicable government agency.
But even if Felix Kingston was telling the truth about his profession, he also seemed perfectly at home holding a gun in his hand.
“Well?” Bart snapped his impatience with their silence.
Brianna looked at Felix, then at Bart, easily noting the increasingly angry glitter in the latter’s pale gray eyes.
Aged in his midfifties, Anthony Bart was still a handsome and muscular man in his perfectly tailored suit. His dark hair was liberally streaked with gray, his features hard and chiseled, giving him a dangerous attraction.
But Brianna had only to look into his remorseless pale eyes to know that he was a cold-blooded killer.
As she had also now belatedly realized that, although Anthony Bart might order one of his men to beat her for her continued resistance, she very much doubted he would have issued the order to have her killed.
She might not be close to Connor and Liam, but she was still their half sister and a Doyle, and killing her would bring the wrath of the Irish Mob down upon Anthony Bart and his men.
Her family connection to the Doyle brothers was, she had already surmised during her long hours of being locked in this room with nothing to do but think, the only leverage she currently had for remaining alive.
She also knew that whoever, or whatever, Felix Kingston was, Bart’s question had revealed him as also having been brought here against his will.
As such, he was the first person she’d met since arriving in London who might want to help her escape from here.
With that in mind she was the one to answer Anthony Bart. “He’s in here because I heard shouting out in the hallway and banged on the door for someone to let me out.” She sensed Felix’s surprise at the lie as he slowly turned to look at her.
“And your white knight magically knocked down the door and came to your rescue,” Bart taunted.
“He unlocked the door, he didn’t knock it down,” she derided. “But it does tell me your other reluctant guest is suffering from rescue-the-damsel-in-distress syndrome.”
* * *
Felix had no idea what Brianna Doyle was doing by deliberately turning Bart’s ire in her direction with her sarcasm, but he couldn’t allow it to continue. “I disarmed and knocked your man out because I wanted to know who or what was behind the locked door,” he answered the mob boss.
Bart raised a challenging brow. “And now that your curiosity has been satisfied?”
Felix was far from feeling satisfied with any of this situation.
But…it was too soon to alert Bart to the fact he wanted—and would—take Brianna out of here at the first opportunity.
There were too many of Bart’s men outside and inside the house for him to just point the gun at the older man and demand he release Brianna. No, Felix needed an iron-clad plan to be able to do that successfully, one that would no doubt need the assistance of his family to succeed.
“I’m happy to leave the room and relock the door,” he stated calmly, knowing he wasn’t “happy” about a single damn thing Brianna Doyle had told him she’d been through in the last three days.
Nor, aware Brianna had been brought here and incarcerated against her will, did he have any intention of leaving her here any longer than he had to. Once Felix was able to leave here, he was going to get Casper to find out all that he could about Brianna Doyle, her half brothers, and this proposed marriage between her and Terry Bart.
Then he, Casper and Sinclair, the only brothers currently in England, were going to come up with a plan to safely extract Brianna from this situation.
If they could find a way to make it look as if the Doyle brothers had changed their minds and taken their little sister back, all the better. It would put the Irish and the London Mob at each other’s throats, and so keep them too busy to look for Brianna.
Not that she would be anywhere they could get to her. Felix intended to make sure of that.
But first he knew he had to make himself leave Brianna here when every part of him was crying out for him to just throw her over his shoulder and carry her away from this situation.
“Then you’d better go ahead and do it, hadn’t you,” she snapped, the perfect bow of her top lip turned up in disgust.
“My, my, Kingston, you seem to have upset my future daughter-in-law with your lack of empathy for her situation, when it had looked as if you might have come to her rescue,” Bart mocked, obviously falling for the ruse.
Felix could only hope that Brianna knew that was exactly what his words had been: a ruse.
As for Bart and his fucking mockery, Felix just wanted to knock the man’s perfect white teeth down his throat. Far down his throat. Far enough that the fucker ended up eating his own entrails.
Whoa.
The intensity of his emotions really was a revelation after a lifetime of easy charm that ensured he usually got what he wanted with little effort.
But he had never wanted anything as much as he wanted Brianna Doyle. Never felt this strongly about any woman before her. Or known this burning need inside him to not only protect but to claim her.
Now it, and she, was all he could think about.
He wanted to touch every single inch of her. To kiss and caress her and learn what gave her the most pleasure. He wanted to taste her. Her silky-smooth skin. The creamy nectar between her thighs. As much as he wanted to protect her so that she never knew another moment of pain at the hands of the callous Doyle brothers.
But before he could do any of that, Felix first had to sit and listen to why Bart wanted to talk to him.
Felix deliberately kept his expression a mask of apathy, when inwardly he felt angrier than he ever had before. He had always hated any form of violence toward women, and Brianna currently looked as if she might have gone a couple of rounds in the ring with a professional boxer.
And those bruises had been given to her by her own fucking half brother!
Not that Felix thought Bart and his men would have treated her at all gently either after she’d been delivered to them.
His fists clenched at his sides. The list of people who were going to feel his wrath once he’d secured Brianna’s release and ensured she was safe was getting longer and longer.
“I think you should give me the gun now,” Bart instructed.
“This gun?” Felix deliberately lifted the pistol and pointed it at the mob boss’s chest, finger poised on the trigger.
The impulse to just pull that trigger and end this fucker’s life was overwhelming!
A nerve pulsed in Bart’s jaw. “You really don’t want to piss me off, Kingston.”
Felix’s hand remained steady as he kept the gun leveled on the other man. “I don’t?” At this point in time, with the signs of the brutality against Brianna evident on her face, he really didn’t give a damn who he pissed off.
Scornful humor quirked the mobster’s lips. “I can admire someone being ballsy, but stupid, not so much. Tell me, which one are you?”
Felix paused as if giving the question some thought.
This situation, being brought to Anthony Bart’s house at gunpoint, along with discovering the battered and bruised Brianna being kept a prisoner here against her will, was as delicate as it was complicated.
As delicate as he sensed Brianna’s emotional state was beneath all that bravado.
She looked so young. Yes, she’d been born into a high-ranking family of the Irish Mob, but she hadn’t given the impression she’d been living with that family when she’d been taken captive and brought to England.
Underneath her defiant exterior, she must be terrified of the future her half brothers had planned for her.
As long as Felix didn’t actually pull the trigger and end Bart, he wasn’t too worried about his immediate safety. If Bart had wanted him dead, then he had no doubt the other man would already have issued the order. Felix was pretty sure, once Bart had told him the reason he’d been brought here, that at the moment, the other man’s plan was to release him at the end of the evening. Felix needed him to continue to feel that way.
Later, he would be able to speak to his brothers about this situation, and the three of them could put together a plan to end it.
Even if the thought of leaving Brianna here, even for the small amount of time Felix hoped it would take to formulate the plan to rescue her, made his stomach clench.
“I have an idea.” He straightened, having made a decision he hoped might give him more time to help Brianna realize he wasn’t the unfeeling bastard she must now think he was. “I’ll hand over the gun if you’ll have your chef prepare the dinner for us that I missed out on earlier this evening. Brianna will join us, of course,” he added softly.
If Bart agreed, Brianna would be able to eat at last and the delay to Felix leaving might give him an opportunity to somehow convey to Brianna that he was coming back for her.
Win-win.
* * *
Brianna stared at Felix Kingston, inwardly sharing Bart senior’s opinion of not knowing if the other man was ballsy or just plain stupid.
His suggestion that the three of them sit down and eat dinner together implied the latter.
The shrewd and calculated glint she discerned in those piercing blue eyes assured he was the former.
She couldn’t deny that the thought of eating again after days of not daring to do so made her stomach ache. But in the situation Felix had described, the two men would be eating exactly the same food she was, ensuring it wasn’t drugged.
Deliberately so? To reassure her that the food was safe for her to eat?
If that was the case, she had no idea what could have prompted Felix Kingston to go head-to-head with a man who was known to be a cold and ruthless killer. Especially when, minutes ago, it had seemed as if Felix was more than happy to just abandon her here to her fate.
She might never have been a part of her father’s and now her brothers’ world, but her aunt had ensured she knew who all the players were. Anthony Bart was known for both his viciousness and cruelty. His son was known for being even more of both those things, because he was a psychopath. She also now knew—unfortunately—the two men liked to sexually share women.
Brianna gave an inward shudder at the thought of being at the mercy of two such cruel men.
She still had absolutely no idea where Felix Kingston fit into that violent world.
“You really don’t want to miss out,” Felix encouraged as he obviously saw Brianna shudder and misunderstood the reason for it. “I’ve heard that Mr. Bart has a chef in his employ with two Michelin stars.”
“You heard correctly,” the older man drawled. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to waste his valuable time cooking for the two of you.”
“The three of us. Oh, come on,” Felix cajoled when the other man looked about to dismiss the idea of joining them. “Feeding us and playing host is the least you can do if, as I suspect, you brought me here with the intention of asking me to do something for you?”
“I don’t ask, I tell,” Bart answered predictably.
Felix snorted. “I’m sure that approach works with most people you encounter, but I’m going to require a politeness you wouldn’t normally think of using if I’m even going to think about considering your request.”
Felix’s brain had been churning through scenario after scenario for the past few minutes. The only answer he’d been able to come up with for Anthony Bart having him brought here was in relation to the situation his twin, Darius, had unwittingly found himself in with this same mobster a few weeks ago.
A situation that had included the death of Bart’s previous financial advisor and accountant.
If that was the case, then Anthony Bart needed Felix far more than he needed to genuflect to the other man or be afraid of Bart’s penchant for violence.
Besides, Felix wasn’t in the habit of placating men who committed or turned a blind eye to brutality toward any woman or child.
“Well?” he challenged the older man.
Bart shook his head as he chuckled. “Whichever you are, ballsy or stupid, I also find you amusing. For the moment,” he added in a hard voice. “Because of that, I’ll grant your request for the three of us to have dinner together.” His gaze became icy as he turned his critical gaze on Brianna. “Terry doesn’t like his women scrawny, anyway.”
“But I’ve heard he does like them battered and bruised,” Felix taunted. “Which means he should be more than happy with the way Brianna looks right now.”
“Neither I nor any of my men are responsible for that,” Bart snapped.
“I don’t give a fuck who’s responsible,” Felix rasped. “It should never have happened.”
The older man gave him a pitying look. “The woman you were intending to have dinner with this evening…?”
“Yes?” Felix prompted warily.
“She likes being fucked by two men at the same time after being spanked and slapped about.”
A wave of revulsion rose up in Felix’s throat at the thought of so nearly having gone to bed with a woman who had obviously previously been shared by the two Bart men.
Although the fact she had gotten up from the table and left the restaurant after hearing Bart’s name implied she hadn’t been as willing a participant in that encounter as the older man was saying she had. Intimidation and threats were a great incentive for most things, including sex.
“Everyone is entitled to their sexual preferences,” he dismissed, making a mental note to check in with the actress regarding her future safety. “But Brianna didn’t choose to be hit by a member of her own family.”
“My, my.” Bart eyed him speculatively. “The two of you seem to have become very friendly in just the few minutes you were alone together if you’re already swapping family secrets.”
Too late, Felix realized he’d been goaded into sharing more than he’d meant to.
Fuck!
* * *
Brianna saw Felix’s expression of self-disgust when he realized he’d been tricked by the older man into saying too much. But he really shouldn’t feel bad about that. If he hadn’t volunteered the information, she was pretty sure Anthony Bart was more than capable of extracting it by less civilized means.
“Dinner sounds good,” she said lightly.
Bart’s nostrils flared, his gaze narrowed on both of them as he obviously rethought the pros and cons of allowing her out of this room to eat dinner with him and Felix Kingston. He had to be aware she might take advantage of that opportunity to share even more of her current situation with the younger man. That she might even ask him to help her escape.
Just the hope of that burst inside Brianna for a few brief seconds. Only for it to as quickly dissipate at the realization Felix Kingston, whoever he was and even if he should want to help her, which she had no guarantee he did, couldn’t even begin to match the weight of Anthony Bart’s power and influence.
Brianna knew that even if Felix did help her to get away from the mob boss and the forced marriage to his violent son, there wasn’t a place on earth Felix would be able to hide where the Barts wouldn’t find him and make him pay for daring to defy them.
She couldn’t ask that of him, or anyone else.
Whatever Anthony Bart saw in her expression—defeat, probably—he now gave a satisfied nod. “The two of us can talk while Brianna is taking a shower and putting on clean clothes,” he told Felix.
“I’m pretty sure I already know what you want to ask me,” the younger man taunted. “Just as I’m also aware the last person who acted as your accountant and financial advisor fell from the tenth floor of her apartment building. I’m not sure if she was dead before going over the balcony, but she certainly was once she hit the sidewalk.”
Brianna stared at him in horror.
“She stole from me,” Bart dismissed.
“And if I were ever foolish enough to consider working for you, no doubt in time you would find some reason to decide the same thing should happen to me,” Felix derided.
The older man gave a smile that was all teeth. “Then the secret is not to betray me. In any way.” His critical gaze raked over Brianna for a second time. “Do as I said and take a shower and change into some of the new clothes you’ve been given while Kingston and I go to my study and…discuss my offer in greater detail. The clothes you’re wearing are starting to smell,” he added nastily.
Brianna felt tears of humiliation sting her eyes as she gave a quick glance in Felix’s direction. He wasn’t looking at her, his narrowed and enigmatic gaze fixed on the older man.
Meaning that Brianna wasn’t able to tell if Felix was angry at the older man’s deliberate cruelty toward her or, more likely, he was belatedly annoyed with himself for putting himself in the position of having dinner with her and Bart rather than with the woman who “liked to be fucked by two men after being spanked and slapped about.”
As Felix said, the woman was entitled to her sexual preferences. Brianna just couldn’t relate when she still ached and hurt from being hit and kicked three days ago by her own brother. She couldn’t even think of how uncomfortable it would be to have sex after that.
She lifted her chin. “I’d rather my clothes smell than wear an Armani suit yet be rotten through to my core like you are—” She broke off abruptly as two things happened at once.
Bart senior stepped toward her, his face twisted in fury as he raised his hand with the obvious intention of hitting her.
Felix stepped forward at the same time, his arm lifting to easily block the swinging arc of the other man’s clenched fist. “Not happening in my presence,” he warned harshly.
Bart gave him a glowering glare for several seconds before the tension eased from his body and a mocking smile once again tilted his lips. “Then I’ll just have to wait until after you’ve left later this evening, won’t I?” He gave Brianna a scathing glance. “Terry will thank me for ensuring he isn’t taking a rebellious bitch as his wife.”
It was the second time Brianna had been called a bitch in a matter of days, and by two different men, both of whom she utterly despised.
Her heart also sank at this stark reminder of the marriage she was being forced into with a man who obviously felt no qualms about hitting a woman. To death, if he felt it necessary.
She turned away. “Get out,” she instructed dully.
“You have fifteen minutes to shower and change your clothes before I send in one of my men to help you,” came Bart’s warning shot as he stepped out into the hallway and gave the man lying there a kick. “Get up, you lazy bastard, and stand guard outside this room, and then escort Miss Doyle to the dining room once she’s ready—I don’t give a fuck about your arm. Do as you’re fucking told, before I decide to shoot you and put you out of your misery,” he threatened harshly. “You will come with me, Kingston,” Bart added coldly.
“Brianna—”
“Is none of your concern,” the other man warned.
She really wasn’t, Brianna acknowledged heavily.
Anthony Bart had also just made it very clear that Felix Kingston’s life would be in danger if he didn’t do exactly what Bart wanted him to. Even if Felix’s expression said he would rather beat the other man to a pulp.
“Just go,” she told Felix wearily. “I’ll shower and change and then he will bring me to the dining room,” she added with a contemptuous glance at the heavyset man slowly getting back onto his feet, one of his arms cradled against his chest as he glared his hatred at Felix.
Felix studied her for several seconds before giving a terse nod and following the other man out into the hallway. He paused in front of the man he had obviously knocked out earlier so he could unlock and enter Brianna’s room. He didn’t say a word, but whatever Bart’s man saw in his steely gaze caused the color to drain from his cheeks.
“Or maybe Mr. Kingston here will do the killing for me.” Anthony Bart laughed.
He fucking laughed!
As if this was all a game to him.
Maybe it was, the sick bastard.
“I don’t take orders from men like you,” Felix Kingston stated harshly.
Bart’s humor faded as quickly as it had appeared. “You will if you want Miss Doyle to continue breathing.”
Felix snorted. “How are you going to explain that to her bastard brothers?”
“Accidents happen,” the older man dismissed.
Brianna didn’t hear Felix’s answer as the door was closed, followed by the turning of the key in the lock seconds later.
Which was when she gave in to the sobs that burned in her chest wanting to be set free.