Page 43 of The Queen's Game (Ruthless Games 1)

THIRTY-SEVEN

GIANCARLO

“I got you, Becca,”I said, lifting her off the carpet after she collided with me.

Breathless, she looked at me, then stared at my hand on her waist. “Yeah, you got me all right.” She pulled away. “I believe that’s what you said to me the last time we had sex.”

Wow, she’d pieced together that when I had her ass in the air and vulnerable, I came up with my mastermind of a plan. A plan I now regretted.

“What are you doing up here?” She pushed that silky dark hair back behind her ears. “Gil!”

“He’s downstairs. What’s the matter?”

“I told him I’d be a few minutes. How did you get past him? Where’s Vale?”

“I told them I was coming up. And not to get in my way.”

She turned red. “This isn’t your club, Giancarlo. You don’t call the shots in my house.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but I pushed my chest into hers. “I miss those nights, Rebecca.”

Her throat worked, and I also missed coming in her mouth, watching her swallow my cum. I wanted nothing more than to bury myself deep in her pussy, right here, right now. Forget the play. Forget this fucking game.

I’d heard what Anthony did to her last Saturday night, and fell even more alarmed at how unphased people were by it. Sebastien, Anthony, and I seriously misjudged the shock factor all of this would have on the people around us.

Rebecca stood taller and prouder than ever.

“Is that what you’re wearing?” I stepped back, giving her a once-over. “We’re going to a Broadway show. Not an afternoon tea party.”

“Sorry you don’t like it.” She crossed her arms, defiant.

“I love it. You look amazing in everything.” I strutted into her bedroom.

“Excuse me?” she said, sounding shocked.

“Where are your clothes?”

“You’re seriously going to pick something else out for me to wear?”

“Yes. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Fucking alphas.” She shook her head. “Considering you know where my mother is and have five goons watching her, waiting to pounce, I have to do whatever you tell me.” Narrowing her eyes at me, she said, “By the way, I mean no offense to the evil genius you want to be when you grow up, Giancarlo, but was sending guys to the Maldives your father’s idea? That has Boston Byrne evil written all over it.”

My blood heated. “When I grow up?”

She dipped her head back. “You know what I mean. Take it as a compliment, I don’t think of you as the guy who wants to kill someone’s mother.”

“There is one thing you have right. That plan has Byrne written all over it. I learned a lot from my father. To answer you...” I stepped closer, and she backed up to the wall. “If my father knew what was going on, you’d be dead. While Anthony Sr. is looking for his dick and Sebastien’s father is figuring out how to rig blackjack tables, my father would put a bullet between those pretty eyes of yours. The NYPD harbor patrol would be pulling your lifeless body from the East River.”

She shook visibly. “You’d let him do that to me?”

Fuck no, came at me so fast I couldn’t speak. I wouldn’t let my father kill her. I would have to stand up to him and claim I love her, which I sort of already did.

“Gian?” Her sweet voice cut through me.

What the hell was I doing?

“My father works quick, Becca. I’d try to stop him. That, I promise you. But he runs my family. Not me.” I exhaled.

“I know.”

“I’m sorry if you don’t like our plan.” A plan that put her mouth around Sebastien’s cock and landed her in Anthony’s bed. Good one, asshole. “But I want you alive.” I leaned my hips into hers. Yeah, those pants had to go. I needed access to her. To her pussy.

“Why?” She pushed me away, but I didn’t let her. “You’ll never accept me as your queen.”

I took a breath and stepped back. “That’s why I may be your best marital option. I would accept you. Because of my mother. She would have made a great queen.”

“She didn’t think so. She didn’t think she had what it took.”

I felt myself frown. “Really? She said that?”

“I didn’t believe her, either.”

“Let’s find something else for you to wear. Seriously, that pants suit is too matronly and I’m insulted. I saw what you wore for the others.”

“Why? Do you plan to throw me down on a table too?”

I pushed her back against the wall, dying to kiss her, dying to taste her lips again. “And what? You don’t miss my cock filling you?”

Her eyes said yes, even if she didn’t voice it. “Something tells me your mother would smack the crap out of you if you disrespected me like that.”

“You’re right.” I laughed, going through her closet until I found something that made my heart pound. And not from lust. I knew she’d look beautiful in this dress. She’d feel comfortable and elegant. Respected. That was the woman I wanted to parade around as mine. “Here. Wear this. Trust me.”

*

“REBECCA, DARLING,”my mother cooed when I helped Becca into the limo.

She’d changed into a raw silk burgundy dress with an asymmetrical neckline and delicious slit showing off enough of her thighs to make men jealous of me without making her look like a tramp. I loved that she let me watch her put it on and zip her into the dress. How her eyes closed when I kissed her shoulders.

Goddamn it. I’d fallen in love with her. For all the reasons a man couldn’t help but love a woman. Besides her beauty and her brains, it was how she handled me, and how deep inside, I knew she’d fallen in love with me too.

Marriages in our world were strategic, and love, if you were lucky, grew over time. I’d seen everything my life could be with her as my wife. That included how I would bring my family back on the throne and how Becca would choose me because she believed the Biancos deserved to be there.

For that, I loved her.

“Mrs. Byrne?” Becca’s voice cracked from the surprise, all while narrowing her eyes on me.

The final reason I loved Rebecca. My mother. She would love Rebecca like a daughter. For years, she’d whispered hints to me at events:

Look at Rebecca. All alone. Such a shame, Sebastien dumped her. Anthony Jr. will never convince her to marry him. A smart girl like that, strong and independent, she’ll tell Anthony Sr. and her father to fuck off.

My mother may very well have been sizing her up to marry Salvatore. Didn’t change how she felt about Rebecca. Now she could be mine.

“Call me Francesca already.” Mom patted Becca on the lap when she took a seat. “Oh, my phone. I have a call. Hello, darling.”

My mother called everyone darling. It was like living in a fucking Gatsby novel.

“Your mother, really?” Becca whispered to me.

“Now you know you won’t be bent over a table.”

Becca snorted a laugh and when I slipped my hand in hers, she squeezed it. The way she looked at me killed me. Ripped me apart. “And what is your plan for me?”

“Take you out on the town and treat you with some fucking respect, to start.”

“So says the man who has my parents under the eye of five hitmen.”

I gripped my tie and swallowed hard so the flaw in that plan didn’t show on my face.

Giovanni wasn’t my kill to decide. I had my men positioned in the event my father made the call, assuming he’d go through the tribunal. I couldn’t voice that though, without betraying my family. Betraying Anthony and Sebastien.

“What are you doing?” I twisted to face her. “I realize you can turn the tables further and put hits out on the three of us.” This game became a complicated chess match with so many pieces and intertwining, overlapping, and even conflicting goals and motivations.

Me?

I wanted Becca as my wife. Killing her mother was the quickest way to send that wish up in flames and smoke.

“And then you can put a hit on me.” She dragged a finger down my cheek.

I grinned at her. “Sounds like you read up on how to be a good hostage. Seduce the hostage-taker.”

She gripped my tux lapels and brought her lips to mine. “Is it working?”

Yes.

I licked my lips, wanting her so badly. “No.”

“Liar,” she breathed, her eyes batting. “I would say my plan is working just fine.”

“If you mean, you’ve been a good girl throughout all of this, so we’d soften to you...” I gasped, seeing right through her scheme, considering how she handled herself after Bastien and Anthony humiliated her. Letting them get away with it... “Sounds like you want all three of us loving you.”

“I already have an army working in the bowels of this city to protect Domenico Holdings’ interests. I could use three princes to—”

“I don’t need to share my woman with anyone.” I choked on a laugh. “And I wouldn’t get into that kind of bed with Anthony and Sebastien.”

“Afraid Anthony will finish Sebastien and then bend you over?”

I glanced at my mother going through a date planner while speaking on her phone, oblivious to our conversation. “You enjoyed watching them, Becca, didn’t you?”

Her neck turned red. “I did. You wouldn’t join them?”

“No. That’s not for me.”

She sat back and pinched her skirt, dragging it further up her thigh. “Too bad.”

My heart jumped. “Did the three of you make some kind of deal the other night?”

“Maybe.”

“Liar,” I rasped in her ear. “You wouldn’t be here tonight if you had. Wait... You really want all three of us to love you?”

“Why not?” She stared at me again. “My brother shares his fiancé with two other men.”

My brain scrambled for the last thing I looked up about Nate Domenico and who he was dating. “I’m sure they’re just having fun.”

“He bragged about it to my father,” Becca said pointedly. “If that was something casual and had no meaning, he wouldn’t have used it as the plank he walked to jump ship.”

“You think all four of us could have some kind of relationship?”

“For centuries, queens took many men as lovers. Why should I be denied?”

“Because organized crime isn’t the British court.”

“What are we talking about?” my mother asked, tucking her phone back into her purse.

“History. Queens in particular,” Becca answered. “Francesca, you agree a queen is powerful enough to do whatever she wants?”

Funny how Rebecca left off that she wanted to fuck three men every night. Only, when I really thought about it, another side of my passion emerged hot and strong. The power and strength and confidence it took to let another man fuck your woman. I remembered watching Bastien’s cock slide into her mouth, feeling rage, but not jealously. The burning hunger made me hard as steel because the part of my brain that controlled my dick was only thinking one thing:

I want her next...

While I mused over these lurid thoughts, my mother prattled on. “I agree, a queen is entitled to everything she wants. I also agree and I told you this, Rebecca, a queen needs a king. A strong, handsome one.” My mother winked at me.

Subtle-much?

“I have a lot to consider.” Rebecca pushed my hand away from creeping into the slit of her skirt.

We arrived at the theater and a concierge manager came out of a side door and escorted us in through a separate entrance. A narrow, carpeted staircase led to my mother’s private box of eight seats to the right of the stage. It had two rows of two seats divided by a skinny aisle. A server quickly introduced himself and said he would bring us whatever we wanted.

I didn’t trust anyone to bring me or my mother, or now Rebecca, a drink.

“I’ll get us a bottle of champagne.” I tapped Rebecca’s lap and left.

My mind couldn’t stop thinking about Rebecca wanting three lovers. That image again of her and Bastien festered in my brain. As I made sense of it, I remembered the lust in her eyes taking his cock in her mouth. I knew that look because she’d made herself come while going down on me. I knew how it turned her on. Shit, I really wanted Rebecca to have everything.

I got to the bar, and the server came right up to me. “Yes, sir?”

“Bottle of champagne. Chilled. Unopened. And I need a shot of scotch, single malt, whatever is most expensive. Bring the bottle. I pour it.”

“Yes, Mr. Byrne.”

Everyone fucking knew me in this city. I had the right to be a king as much as Anthony and Sebastien. My brother was gone. I was all my parents had to restore the Bianco dynasty.

Time to turn up the heat...

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