Page 23 of With This Kiss
Dad stood up.
It felt as if they were trying to crowd me into a small corner, even though I knew that wasn’t the case.
“No one said he is getting a free pass,” Caine tried to reason.
I shook my head. “No? Then what do you call this? Would you have sat around and done nothing if it had been me and not Etta?”
Caine’s eyes hardened at the possibility.
And I had my answer.
“I miss her,” I said, feeling as if I were breaking from the inside out. “Every moment of every day. I just miss her so much. And it just hurt so much, yet there is nothing I can do about it. Do you know how that feels?”
“Sweetheart…” Dad made a move toward me. I backed off until I was against the door.
“Save it. There is nothing you can say that would make this any better. There’s nothing you can do… at least nothing you’re willing to do anyway. You’re just going to let the Bratva walk all over us.”
My lips curled back in disgust, and I turned and ran out of there, ignoring them when they both called out my name.
It was a waste of time.
I should have predicted that, but I still came here, throwing away my last Hail Mary, hoping,expectinga different outcome.
There was only one thing left to do.
If Dad didn’t want to react because he didn’t think Etta was significant enough to go to war with the Bratva, I’d give him a better reason.
I was going to make Reign Mahankov fall in love with me.
5
REIGN
It only took the little princess two days to set up a date, but fuck if I wasn’t excited about it.
I looked at myself in the mirror before leaving the apartment for our so-called date. My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see Rose’s name flashing on the screen.
Dad would have approved of Rose.
More specifically, he would have approved of her parents, especially her father—a greedy, shoddy, egotistical politician who had been in the game more years than I had been alive.
On the surface, Rose was a good girl.
Virginal.
How fucking amusing. The girl wasn’t even a virgin when I fucked her for the first time, even though she pretended to be one by feigning pain and cutting her finger in the middle of the night to stain the white sheets we had been sleeping on.
Did she think I was easily fooled? Like one of those frat boys she used to play around with? The thought was fucking laughable.
I sent her call to voicemail and left the apartment, taking the elevator down to the lobby and heading straight outside.
A car was already there, idling silently.
At least she was punctual.
I walked over to it and knocked on the passenger side window until I heard the lock disengage.
I opened the door and climbed inside.
