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Romeo takes a seat at the large table, his suit as crisp as it was the night before, his hair as fucking shiny, too. He’s well put together, nothing like the other brother I killed. This man is poised and he’s professional. I doubted him when he approached for the first time, but after meeting his momma, I can see he’s different to the rest of Aviana’s family. That’s because he had nothing to do with them.
“Thanks for calling me over,” he tells Aviana, who is sitting beside me, her hand firmly clasped in mine.
Holding her last night, feeling her body pressed against mine, it felt fucking good. Exactly how I always imagined it would feel. Being with her makes something inside me feel right again, and it terrifies me, especially knowing that she’s going to be risking her life in a matter of days.
I lost her once, not fucking sure I can do it again.
“Thanks for coming by,” Avi tells him, shifting in her chair. “I’ve thought about what you said, and I’d like to accept your offer. I’ll sign the business over, but it has to be done legally. Then, I’d like you to take the club members to the people who want to hurt me and have that sorted out.”
Fucking yeah we’ll sort that out.
I have wanted to get my hands on those fuckers since I found out what they wanted from Aviana.
Their day has come, and I’ll be the one taking them down.
Romeo nods. “I accept your terms; I can have it drawn up with my lawyer. You can accept whatever terms work for you. What percentage of the annual turnaround you’d like.”
Aviana glances at me, then back to Romeo. “I want twenty percent. The rest is yours.”
Romeo nods. “Done. Anything else?”
“There is something, actually.”
Romeo raises his brows, staring at her. “Please, state it.”
“I want to get to know you better. I don’t have any family left, as you know, and considering you’re my brother I’d like to have some kind of relationship with you, and your mother, if you’ll allow that.”
Romeo smiles. “I’d like nothing more. Consider it done.”
Aviana’s smile could just about light up the fucking room. “Well, then we have a deal.”
The two of them reach across the table and shake hands.
Romeo looks to me. “Can we schedule a meeting with your president to discuss how and when we will deal with the other problem?”
I can’t see Romeo as the kind of man to deal with anything, but he knows where these men are, and he knows how we can get to them. If he shows us the way, we can take it from there. I can’t imagine him getting his hands dirty. Doesn’t seem like the type.
“Come around this afternoon, we’ll discuss,” I say to him.
He nods and then stands. “I have to get to work, thank you both for speaking to me. Aviana, I’ll be in touch.”
She gives her brother a smile and when he’s gone, she turns to me. “How’d I do, boss?”
I snort. “You did better than I thought. You didn’t attack him once, or scowl, or call him a name.”
She laughs. “What sort of person do you think I am?”
“The feistiest one I’ve met.”
“Well,” she says with a grin, “I guess family might just soften me a little.”
“Not too soft, I hope,” I growl, taking her hand and putting it on my hardening cock.
Her cheeks grow red, and her smile grows devious. “You know, there’s a restroom here we could go sneak into. If you’d like to fuck me right now, that is?”
She squeezes my dick and I’m standing and moving before she can say anything more. I take her hand and pull her toward the restroom out the back of the café we’re in. The moment we get inside I have her against the wall, her skirt up, her panties aside, and my cock so fucking deep in her I can feel her warmth covering every inch. Her moans fill the small space and, fuck me, if it isn’t the best fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my life.
I want her more than she could possibly understand.
She drives me fucking wild.
“Fuck me harder,” she gasps, tangling her fingers into my hair.
I do just that, fucking her until her moans turn into screams and the sounds of our skin slapping together can be heard echoing over and over again. She cums with a cry that makes my dick swell. I follow less than a minute after, growling her name as I find my release inside her. Fuck me.
Nothing like spontaneous sex.
Especially with a girl as wild as her.
I let her down when my cock finishes pulsing and she smiles up at me, her cheeks flushed. I love seeing her like this, looking like a fucking angel. I cup the side of her face without realizing. The gentle gesture makes her face harden, just a touch.
“What is it about me touchin’ you that makes you look at me like that?”
She swallows, and then looks away. “Fear.”
“Fear of what?”
She meets my eyes once more. “Fear of getting hurt again. I want you, Cohen, but I’m still holding some pain about what happened. I don’t want to ruin something that could potentially be good because I rush into it.”
“Get that,” I murmur. “We’ve got time.”
She nods. “Yeah, we do.”
“For what it’s worth,” I say, leaning down close, “I’ll never fuckin’ hurt you again, Aviana.”
With that, I take her hand and lead her out of the bathroom. We order some lunch and eat it, then we head back early. Tomorrow, we’ll be meeting with Benedict. Tomorrow, Aviana will put the plan into motion.
Now more than ever, I don’t like it.
I don’t like the fact that she’s going in there without protection.
She assures me she knows what she’s doing. The club assures me they’ve got her back. But if one thing goes wrong ... it’s over for her.
Surely, by now, it’s our turn for something to go right?
Fucking surely.
~*~*~*~
“YOU’RE CLEAR ON THE plan?” Alarick says to Aviana as we arrive at a new motel in the town where she is going to meet up with Benedict.
“I’m clear on the plan, you don’t have to worry,” Aviana tells him, tucking her hair up into a ponytail. “I’ll get this done. I’ll make sure we get hold of him and I’ll come out alive.”
“We’ll have eyes on you at all times, but if somethin’ goes wrong ...”
“It won’t,” she assures him.
Then she looks to me, I know my face is hard, I can feel just how tight my jaw is right now.
“It’s going to be okay,” she tells me, reaching out to squeeze my hand. “I’m tough. I’ve got this.”
“Last time we sent a girl in, it ended very fuckin’ badly ...” Mykel tells her.
“Hey!” Waverly slaps him on the shoulder. “I did good.”
He meets her eyes. “We all got into a lot of fuckin’ trouble because of that. Kendric still has to go to court and could very likely be charged if we don’t finish this now. We have to do it right.”
“We’re doin’ it right,” Kendric mutters.
“We’ll be waitin’ to back you up if you need it,” Samson tells her.
She smiles at them all, giving them the kind of look that would soften any man. “Thank you all. I’ll be okay.”
We settle into our rooms and Aviana gets herself ready for her meeting with Benedict tonight. She claims to know where to find him, and I’m certain she probably does. She hasn’t told me a lot about how she knows him, but she has told me she remembers a place he owned and was often at, especially on a Saturday night. So, we can only fucking hope that he’s there and she can manage to lure him away.
We’ll be waiting.
“Well, hey!”
I turn to see Zariah striding toward us, suitcase in hand. She was never not going to be part of this. She, more than most, has good reason to want to be there when we take this operation and fucking destroy it. She’s been on the island, she’s been used by Blanche and more than that, she is the only one of us to have met Samson’s daughter. Because of that, she’s invested.
“How’s it goin’?” I ask her, shielding my eyes from the sun.
“It’s good, Cohen. How are you?”
I nod. “Livin’.”
She smiles and then looks to Aviana. “How are you, honey?”
“I’m doing good.”
“Well, you’re doing a pretty incredible thing for us tonight.”
Aviana smiles and then lets us know she has to start getting ready before disappearing inside. Kendric comes out of his room at the sound of Zariah’s voice and, in minutes, the two of them are back in there. The way he just looked at her, tells me he’s going to be fucking her in less than five minutes.
“You good, brother?”
I see Mykel walking down the path, cigarette in hand.
“I’m gettin’ there.”
“She’s goin’ to come out of this,” he says, stopping and leaning against a pole, inhaling deeply.
“How many chances are we goin’ to get here? We’ve fucked up so many times, and so far we’ve kept everyone safe. What if she’s the end of that lucky streak?”
“You’re thinkin’ out of fear. Aviana is smart, and you have to believe she knows what she’s doin’. Gotta trust her.”
I cross my arms. “Ready for this shit to be over. Rather go back to runnin’ fuckin’ drugs and weapons. At least you always knew what you were dealin’ with.”
Mykel chuckles. “Fuckin’ A, I hear you.”
“You find much out about your parents in New York? Haven’t even had a fuckin’ chance to talk to you about that.”
“Bits and pieces, not enough to give me anything I can use. I’ll get there. Club business is more important right now.”
“How are you and Waverly travelin’?”
Mykel grins. “Fuckin’ wild, that girl, but I wouldn’t have her any other way.”
I chuckle. “She fuckin’ sure is.”
He claps me on the back as he pushes off the pole. “It’ll work out, brother. We’ve got you covered.”
Yeah, yeah, they do.
But right now, I don’t fucking know if that’s enough.
It has to be, right?
It just fucking has to be.