Page 5 of At Your Mercy
I raised an eyebrow at his reaction. “I wasn’t saying that,” I promised, pulling my hands out of his shorts. Ro’s jaw was tight as he looked at me warily. Rubbing his hips gently, I said, “I would never call you that. I promise.”
“It’s fine. You don’t even know me,” Ro said, voice steady but softer now, as if he needed to convince himself more than me.
“No,” I agreed, leaning back against the couch, calm as a loaded gun. “I don’t. And you don’t know me.”
Then, with deliberate grace, he slid off my lap, smoothing his sequined top back into place.
He lingered a moment longer, an unreadable expression on his face, then turned for the door. His hips still swayed, sharp and seductive, his heels clicking against the floor, but I’d seen the tremor beneath his cool exterior.
He paused for a second, his hand on the door handle. Without looking back, he said, “I’ll get to know you better next time, Wesley.”
Without waiting for my response, he opened the door and walked out, letting it latch closed behind him.
2
Ronan
When I got back to my apartment, the glitter clung to me like failure. There was smudged eyeliner at the corner of my eye, and the faint ghost of perfume still in my hair. I scrubbed at myself as soon as the door closed, tearing the halter top over my head and tossing it across the room like it had betrayed me.
He wasn’t supposed to be like that!
Storming across my living room and into the tiny bathroom, I pressed both palms flat against the cracked sink, staring at my reflection in the dirty mirror. My lips were swollen, my eyes still ringed in pink from the club lights.
I looked like a whore, didn’t I?
Fuck.
Wesley fucking Cohen had seen through me, hadhandledme. And that—that wasn’t supposed to happen.
When Elias let himself into my apartment half an hour later—he never knocked, never asked permission—I was pacing like a caged animal, leather shorts abandoned on the floor, my silk bathrobe wrapped around me, a glass of whiskey in my hand.
“You knew,” I snapped the second I saw him, turning on him like a knife. “Youknewhe wasn’t ordinary! What the fuck, Elias?!”
Elias’s mouth quirked in that infuriating way, like I was a child throwing a tantrum instead of the weapon he’d built with his own hands. He settled onto my couch like he owned the place, sprawling with the ease of a man who’d never once been told no.
“Happy birthday to him, wasn’t it?” he said lazily, ignoring the storm brewing in my voice. “Fifty. I was curious to see how he’d celebrate.”
My fingers tightened around the glass. “You sent me in blind! He could’ve killed me!”
“Alive, aren’t you?” Elias shrugged. “If he wanted you dead, you’d be bleeding out in some soundproofed room right now. But here you are—in all your dramatics. So maybe I didn’t miscalculate after all.”
I stalked closer, every muscle coiled. “You swore to me—no more surprises. Yousworeyou’d tell me what I was walking into. You fucking—fuck,”I fumed.
“Mm. Did I?” Elias asked coyly, his verdant eyes glittering.
The words punched through me, bitter as bile. Twenty years. Twenty years since he’d pulled me from my family’s home and remade me into something monstrous. Twenty years of missions, blood, whispered orders in the night. And still,stillhe looked at me like I was a student being scolded.
I threw my glass at the wall, fully aware he’d mock me for throwing a tantrum. The shattered shards of glass rained down onto the ratty carpet below, and the whiskey dripped down thealready stained wall. “He knew what I was from the first second. He didn’t just see through me, Elias—he—he toyed with me!”
And I think I liked it,I left out. The shame of that was already eating away at me—I didn’t need Elias’s judgment on the matter.
Elias tilted his head, studying me with interest and amusement. “Good.”
My jaw clenched. “Good?!”
“Do you know why I want him gone, Ronan?” Elias asked softly, leaning forward, all lazy humor gone. “Because Wesley Cohen isn’t like the rest. He’s not a crooked banker, or some cartel lapdog, or a politician that can be blackmailed with the right photos. He’sindependent. He’s the sort of man who doesn’t just kill rivals—he cleans house. Every time I make a deal, build a network, expand a little further… he’s fuckingthere. Removing pieces. Killing men I’ve put on the board.”
My stomach coiled tighter with every word.
