Page 153 of The Contract

Probably both.

My money’s on both.

My gaze flicks from the glass to his smug fucking face. I hold, letting the silence grow brutal, painful, deafening.

When he doesn’t take the hint, I exhale slowly, voice a flat blade.

“I’m good.”

“Are you, son?”

His hand clamps onto my shoulder, and my reflexes snap—like they always fucking do around him.

In the blink of an eye, Pom’s switchblade is in my grip, the razor-sharp edge pinning his thumb hard with it.

“I’m going to release your hand,” I say, deadly calm. “And you’re going to remove it from my shoulder before I slice off every fat fucking finger you have and shove them down your throat—starting with this little piggy.”

The blade kisses skin, just enough to make a point.

He hisses sharply as blood beads along the steel edge, his entire body coiling with tension, but the bastard doesn’t flinch.

When I finally ease up, he smartly steps back, making the first good decision he’s managed all night.

Then he chuckles—low, cracked, fucking deranged—the way only assholes and sadists do.

I retract the blade with a slick click, sliding it back into my pocket.

“I brought a girl here tonight,” he drawls, swirling a finger slowly around the rim of his drink. “Goes by Riley Luciano. Though you might know her better as Riley Mullvain. Perhaps you noticed her? Pink dress. Big mouth, fuckable ass. Just begging to be broken.”

My expression flattens. “Sounds like your type. Desperate and imaginary.”

“Strange, though—” He takes a slow sip, lips curling into a tight grin. “She walked in wearing a necklace. Now?” He shrugs. “Seems it’s vanished.”

My jaw ticks, tension winding razor tight.

He keeps going. “Those necklaces are reinforced with titanium and an impenetrable lock for a reason. They don’t come off.”

That’s because too many women have torn their own throats bloody, desperate to rip them off the second they realize what the fuck they mean:

They’re owned.

Toys to break, ruin, trade, and discard…destroy.

And no one owns Riley.

No one but me.

“Whoops,” I say flatly, pulling a cigar from my pocket and lighting it with steady, unaffected fingers.

Andre’s low growl of irritation scrapes along my nerves, music to my fucking ears. But he isn’t murderous.

Yet.

I cock my head slowly, a cold smirk edging onto my lips. “If you’re gonna have a heart attack over this, let me FaceTime my brothers. They won’t want to miss it.”

He taps his chest once, jaw locked tight. “I sponsored her. A half-million-dollar necklace is missing, Dante. One the Keenans will gladly go to war over.”

I hold his stare, unblinking, and blow a slow, deliberate cloud of smoke directly into his face. “Sounds like a you problem.”

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