Page 100 of Precious Legacy

“Now that’s more like it,” I grin, wrapping my hand in her hair and tugging her to my mouth.

She moans against my lips and my dick twitches inside of her. As much as I want to show her just how much those words mean, we should probably address a few things. Like what she considers working together, because I don’t think she means assisting my torture sessions with every single enemy.

Alanis must have the same idea because she rolls away from me, sighing quietly. She runs a hand through her raven locks, eyes anchoring onto mine. “Will it ever get easier?” she asks.

“Probably not,” I reply honestly. “But we’ve never done things the easy way.”

“True,” she chuckles.

We lull into silence for a moment, losing ourselves in our thoughts. I can tell she’s thinking about what she said before. If she’s going to fight for her place in the academy and eventually graduate, that means a lot is about to change. Proving she has the morals to differentiate what we do versus the NYPD is important to her, but I also sense she recognizes that not everything is black and white. We have to make sacrifices; decipher wrong from right and sometimes choose the less desirable option.

Like today, Alanis probably did us all a favor. Sure, I’m pissed that she was even there, but more than that she undermined not just me, but her brother, too. I’m conflicted asto how I’m supposed to react. My initial emotion was anger, but deep down, I know why she did it and I can’t fault her for it.

Prescott is the enemy, there’s no denying that. But Alanis is right; our worlds collided today, and I did something that could have an impact on her future.

“Do you have a plan?” I ask, turning my head back to her.

She looks so effortlessly beautiful with her just-fucked hair, soft green eyes, and plump lips that I could kiss forever and never need air again. Smeared blood has dried all over her mouth, jaw and neck, and when my gaze tours her body, I realize there isn’t really any part that wasn’t marked by me when she made my nose bleed.

Tucking into my side, she traces the lines of my tattoos; one in particular that I don’t think she’s realized the meaning of yet. It's a crown that descends into whirls of smoke above the Genovese emblem. It doesn’t stand out against the others, so it’s not obvious. But if she asked, I’d tell her that I got it as a reminder that she’s forever marked on me. She’s embedded into me, just like the ink and I’ll never letter go.

“Not yet,” she says, breaking through my thoughts.

My fingers automatically stroke down her spine, and she shivers against me. “He won’t be a problem,” I tell her. “If Prescott knows what’s good for him, he’ll recognize what you did for him and leave you alone.”

Alanis sits up, her brows furrowed with worry. “And if he doesn’t?”

Reaching out for her hand, I link our pinky fingers together. “Then he’ll lose more than an eye the next time I see him.”

She rolls her eyes, but just when I think she’s going to scold me, she crawls over my body. She straddles my hips and leans down to lick a path over my throat, from collarbone to ear. “Such a romantic,” she teases.

In one move, I throw her off me and pin her to the mattress with her wrists either side of her head so she can’t move. “You’re a difficult woman to please,” I growl back.

“Are you complaining?” She raises a brow in an attempt to challenge me, but all it does is turn me the fuck on.

I grind my hips and watch her mouth part slightly. Dipping down, I lick her lips. “Not. One. Bit.”

It’s been a week since we had Prescott screaming while I extracted his eye, and there hasn’t been any retaliation from the Russians. That should serve as confirmation that they’re backing down, but even I know that they won’t go down without a fight. They’ve retreated, probably planning their next move. Whatever happens, I’m certain we’ll be ready.

“So Lani is really going through with it?” Haldon asks dubiously from behind his desk.

I look out at the dance floor below that’s teeming with patrons. The Ravenite has always been my favorite club of Gambino Enterprises. It’s got this hypnotic morbidity about it that I’ve always been drawn to. The music is always good, and it’s one of the more tasteful clubs Haldon owns.

“Yep,” I reply, popping the ‘p’. “She said she still wants to be a cop, but it’ll also help us.”

“How so?”

I turn to face him, leaning back against the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the club’s interior. “Because she’ll be handing us our enemies.”

“So she helps us with weeding out the rats, and in return…?”

“We take them out.”

It’s a win-win situation; one that crossed my mind a long time ago. I just never had the balls to suggest it because Alanis was so hellbent on her other motivations. Now I know she’s accepted that she can never escape who she is, it’s opened more doors for us.

Primarily, I know it’s her brother that she’s looking out for. She would never allow anything to happen to Varo, and apparently, I’m now someone she doesn’t want to lose, either. That thought brings a smile to my face, and Haldon notices.

“So much for fucking her out of your system,” he comments, rounding his desk to join me by the window. His gaze is fixed on the dance floor, observing the bodies swaying to ‘Good for you’ by Selena Gomez.