Page 14 of The Queen's Vow (Ruthless Games 2)

AFTER POLITE CONVERSATIONand a few drinks, I caught Lacey staring at her phone, occasionally typing and smiling. Texting one of her other lovers, no doubt. How she must miss them. Glancing at mine, I couldn’t imagine being away from any of them at the moment.

“Nate.” Lacey’s eyes also looked tired. They’d come right to my townhouse from the airport. “I’d like to get checked into our hotel.”

His Midtown Manhattan penthouse was vacant and up for sale, so Giancarlo set aside a suite for them at the Warwick hotel where he lived.

Giancarlo drained his glass of scotch and took out his phone. “I’ll bring you to the hotel. My car is outside.”

I glanced at my brother. “We should talk.”

“Right,” he droned on an exhausted exhale.

“I’ll get us settled.” Lacey gently kissed him on the lips. “Stay here with your sister.”

“Giancarlo, thank you for putting us up.” Nate shook his hand again. “And for bringing Lacey to the hotel.”

“My pleasure.” Giancarlo, never one to be shy, marched up to me and kissed me on the mouth. “Call me later. I’ll come back if you need me.”

“I always need you,” I whispered. “But I have to talk to my brother.”

“I understand.” He brushed the back of his hand across my cheek and kissed me again.

“We’ll be outside getting air.” Anthony shook Nate’s hand and he kissed me as well.

On the mouth.

I caught Sebastien give Nate a glance, who I didn’t dare make eye contact with yet. I nodded to Sebastien and he took me in his arms. His cologne soothed me, easing me for a difficult conversation I had to have with my brother.

After a heated kiss, he looked Nate dead on. “I’ll be outside with Messina.” He swaggered out and my front door clicked shut.

Vale appeared under the archway. “I’ll be in the security room.”

“Thank you, Vale,” I said to him.

“My pleasure. Welcome home, Nathaniel.”

When we were alone, my brother’s face had reddened considerably. “Wanna tell me what’s going on?” Although, I think he added shit up quickly enough to have that reaction.

“Besides our father being dead.” I played dumb. “Mom is planning the funeral of the century. I’m the CEO of Domenico Holdings and for all intents and purposes, the queen of this city when it comes to his other business dealings.” The ones you wanted no part of.

He reached for the bottle of Macallan and poured another drink for himself. “All that means little to me, except, I’m proud of you for taking control.” He tossed back the scotch and after hissing out an Ahhhh, he said, “Did I just see three men kiss you on the mouth?”

I folded my arms and arched an eyebrow at him. “Yes. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Do I have a problem with three different men pawing at my baby sister? You bet.” He exhaled and rubbed his temples. A few strands of his long blond hair had loosened from one of those hip man-buns. “That makes me a pathetic hypocrite, doesn’t it? Why Sebastien, of all men? He broke up with you.”

“It’s kind of a long story how it all happened.”

Nate stared at me, looking embarrassed. “Please don’t say that me confessing what I had with Lacey, Jaxson, and Aidan gave you the idea that you could... That you should...”

“Let three men have their way with me at the same time?”

“Shit.”

I capped the scotch bottle to have something for my hands to do. “In a way, yes, you’re a hypocrite. But I called Lacey to understand what I’d been feeling for them didn’t mean I was crazy. It may also go deeper than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you find it odd we’re both in this kind of relationship?” I shrugged. “Perhaps because of how we grew up. You pushed away from Dad. That left him broken and cold. Mom smothered Cami and Chrissy. That left me...” I choked up.

“Oh, Becs.” Nate held me. “Was I a shitty brother?”

“No. Not at all. You had your life. You weren’t responsible to give me the love and security Dad was supposed to.” I loosened myself from his embrace. “I won’t make excuses for falling for Anthony and Giancarlo. I wish I could say it just happened, but it didn’t. We had a falling out of sorts.”

“And you settled your differences by giving yourself to them?”

“Yes.” I held my head up high. “I had evidence against their fathers. They tried to shame me by making me look like I was sleeping with each of them. I turned the tables on them and tried to make them fall in love with me.”

Nate grinned. “Looks like you won.”

“We all won,” I said proudly. “I am completely in love with each of them.”

“I have to believe you,” he said, nodding, but still looked skeptical. “To think you couldn’t love three men means I have to question if Lacey truly loves me the same as Jaxson and Aidan.”

I found myself wanting my brother’s approval. Even drenched in heartache for so many years after Sebastien broke up with me, I knew eventually I’d marry someone. And would have wanted my father’s approval. What I hadn’t known at the time was my father had promised me to Anthony Jr. And that led to Sebastien breaking up with me. Because he had to. His father wasn’t as powerful as Anthony Messina Sr.

“Let me leave you with this one last comment,” Nate said, approaching me with a harsh look on his face. Despite the long hair coming out of the man bun, my brother looked powerful and imposing. “I know how I feel about Lacey. I know in my heart what love and respect I have for her. Me.” He slapped his chest.

“Meaning, you don’t trust what my men feel for me?”

“Exactly.” He arched an eyebrow at me. “I’ve been in enough meetings with you and Pop where you referred to Anthony Jr. as a psychopathic manwhore.”

I tried not to laugh, remembering uttering those words. What I hadn’t known at the time? Much of that bravado was for show. “People change. And sometimes what you see isn’t always what you get.”

“Fair enough.” He stepped back and eyed me and up down. “You did it, huh? You’re now in charge.”

“I am.” I stood up straight again.

He glanced around. “Pop had several guards circling our house. He traveled with Kato, that animal who pummeled me. Can you see why I’m worried about you?”

I thought about that. “Dad had four children and a wife in a thirty-thousand-foot mansion to protect. I have two guards and three men with their guards. I feel incredibly safe.”

“Where do I fit in now?” Nate shoved his hands in his pockets.

I’m the fucking firstborn of this family. The only son. I’m carrying on the Domenico name and that gives me rights.

Those strong words he’d said that terrible day my father had him attacked echoed through me. I ruled in a male-dominated world. My brother had an absolute right to challenge my authority.

“Where do you want to fit in, Nate?” I stepped back and crossed my arms. Willed the pure love for my brother away momentarily to take in whatever the hell he would say with caution. “Actually, hold on before you answer. Excuse me.”

While I hadn’t asked Sebastien to be my official consigliere, considering Domenico Holdings had a GC, I needed to keep the firewall between the legitimate side of DH separate from what happened underground.

I felt a little out of my depth as far how to deal with Nate asking where his place in the family was.

I stepped toward my foyer and my body heated up seeing the outline of Sebastien’s wide shoulders on the other side of the mercury glass. When I opened the door to the vestibule, he turned around and opened the front door.

Would he ever stop taking my breath away? “Yeah, honey?” His words killed me.

“Can you come in here, please?”

Anthony, who had been leaning on the railing smoking a cigarette and out of my view went to follow Sebastien. “You need me too, angel?”

“Not right now, Anthony. Can you please keep an eye out?”

“No problem, angel.” He took a drag and winked at me.

“Something wrong, Becca?” Sebastien asked me with his hand immediately winding around my waist.

“Just join me with Nate, please.”

“Okay.” He led me back into the living room.

Nate cocked his head. “What is this?”

“You’ve asked a legitimate question, Nate.” I took a seat in a white wingchair and crossed my legs. “There’s a dividing the line between what we do on the surface and the...not so pretty side of what we have to do to survive. I managed Dad’s books. He got into trouble and I stepped up.”

“Because I wouldn’t.” Nate stared at me.

“Because you didn’t want this,” I corrected him. “A crime organization run by a reluctant king would put too many people at risk.”

“What are we talking about?” Sebastien folded his arms.

“Nate is asking where he stands now with our underground business dealings. I don’t want to diminish his role as the head of the Domenico family. Even if he doesn’t want any part of the business. Can I keep the two separated?”

“You’re talking about me like I’m not in the room, Becs.” Nate looked around.

“I’m making sure you’re safe.” I stood, feeling the weight of what I had to do to make sure my entire family was protected. “It’s not just you anymore. You’ve made your relationship with Lacey known publicly. And the others.”

“What others?” Sebastien asked, and I’d bet he thought I was talking about other women. The shocked look on his face was warranted because Lacey was breathtakingly beautiful, only an idiot would cheat on her. Oh right...

“My brother—”

“I can speak for myself,” Nate jumped in, then swore under his breath. “Now that I know what’s going on... It seems my sister and I have something in common. You and I as well, Seb.”

“Bastien. I go by Bastien now.”

Bastien the Bastard in our world.

“Bastien.” My brother bowed his head. “Lacey has two other lovers.”

“No shit.” Sebastien peered at me.

“He has an extended...family,” I clarified. “How do we make it clear, they are not to be touched?”

Sebastien ran a hand through a mess of silky chocolate curls. “Anthony and Gian and I have actually been talking about that. Becca, your father ruled with an iron fist and a protection network that struck enough fear in our world that no one would dare to touch your mother, your sisters, or Nate.”

“Just me.” I shivered, remembering being run off the road. “But I worked for him. That had to have been the link when I was threatened.”

“Anyone ever find out who did that to you, Becs?” Nate had rushed home to be with me in the hospital dealing with a concussion.

“Yes. Dad found out. And the person was...punished. It was a rogue actor trying to get to me to improve his own standing. His people had profusely apologized.”

“Oh,” Nate said, nodding. “Good.”

“Anthony, Gian, and I have been making sure those reinforcements are holding.” Bastien paced in front of my fireplace. “Going after family members is a huge no-no in our world right now. No one is immune to having the same thing done to them. Plus, once it’s known, the kind of alliance we’ve formed with Becca, it would be utter suicide to move against her. They would be moving against four families at once.”

“Nate,” I called out to him in a soft voice. “Do you want a role in the family business?”

Sebastien looked from me to Nate, and rubbed his chin. “Rebecca?”

“He’s the only son, Bastien. He has rights.”

Nate stared at me, and his jaw jumped. It may have been easy for him to tell our father to fuck off when it looked like Dad’s rule would go on for decades. A rule that went unchallenged and with little to no real bloodshed.

Now, Nate stared at me, his sister, who he no doubt felt the need to protect deep in his gut. His phone beeped from inside his coat on a nearby chair. He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers into his forehead. “Sebastien, you fucking promise me you’ll keep her safe?” he said through clenched teeth.

“Abso-fucking-lutely,” Anthony said from the hallway.

“I’ll kill anyone who even breathes a threat in her direction,” Gian, who’d returned from dropping Lacey off said, stepping out from behind him.

In a moment, they had surrounded me. Sebastien. Anthony. Giancarlo.

I didn’t want to isolate Nate though, so I stepped away and hugged him. I didn’t want to spend this new life of mine afraid of people. Especially my own family.

My brother held me in an iron grip. “I love you.”

“I love you, Nate. I always will.” He kissed me goodnight and left.

The next few days would be hard, burying our father. Right now, I just wanted to lose myself to my men. I wanted to be fucked hard. Fucked everywhere.

Queens always got what they wanted.

---