Marrying the Mob Prince
2-19

KNOX

Why would anyone hurt Indie? Who was behind this?

In the weeks following the attack, I discovered no answers. Only more questions. Andrey's online presence evaporated. His father's investment firm stopped listing him as the VP of Sales on their website. His social media accounts disappeared. I expected an uproar from Alexei Kozlov once he noticed his son had vanished. At the very least, a missing persons report. But nothing ever became of Andrey's disappearance. The more thread I pulled, the bigger the spool seemed to get. Someone-or someones-knew Andrey was dead.

I couldn't figure it out.

So I broke into his house on the North End.

Floorboards creaked as I stepped into a home with zero personality. Abstract art hung on gray walls. Black furniture. A shag carpet sat under a cappuccino table. It had the pristine look of a place that was barely lived in.

I rifled through racks of Boston Bruins regalia. I glanced in his fridge. I searched through his laptop. After I'd copied his hard drive, I pored over its contents by the graying light of dawn. Andrey didn't strike me as the brightest bulb. He didn't use two-factor authorization for his bank accounts. A deep dive of his financials revealed little-the connection between Andrey, Indie, and me remained elusive. The SIM card from his cell gave me nothing. Untraceable numbers. Whoever these people were, they were organized.

I needed more information. I had to be overlooking something.

My fists clenched as a white-hot fury lanced through them. I slammed a drawer shut and glared at his desk.

What the hell is that?

Fleur-de-lis cufflinks rolled beside his mug. I picked them up, frowning. An odd piece of jewelry for a guy with sports jerseys in his closet. I had no clue about precious metals, but I knew someone who would-Tony Costa's wife.

***

T: We're five minutes out.

I clicked off my phone.

Smartly dressed couples packed the black-and-gold restaurant. White dishes pooled with the blood-red sauce of Sichuan chilis. Indie sat at my side, impossibly gorgeous in a navy satin cocktail dress. She sipped her second glass of Chardonnay. She'd put a bare minimum of effort into getting ready but somehow outclassed every woman here. Several weeks had passed since the introduction of rules, which she had taken to perfectly. Somehow, I'd resisted the overwhelming temptation to bury my cock inside her. I'd barely savored the victory from winning her submission.

But something was missing.

I just couldn't put my finger on what it was.

Her eyes centered on me, and something shifted in my chest.

"What is it, Indie?"

"I don't understand why we're here," she deadpanned, balling her napkin in her fist. "Don't you feel exposed?"

"No one's out to get me."

Indie paled. The ceramic teacup clutched in her fingers trembled. I'd never met a more sensitive girl. The day after the murder flitted into my mind. Indie was in a state, crying over a man who tried to rape her. Honestly. She had too much empathy for her own good.

I took her wrist, and pink flushed across her cheeks like a sunset over snow. "I am one of the most influential men in this country. Everybody's dirty laundry is at my fingertips. Nobody will touch you when you're out with me." "That's a hell of an assumption."

I longed to seize the curls bouncing on her shoulders and drag her protesting mouth over my cock.

"You can sulk until Tony and Evie arrive. But if you can't lighten up..." I grasped her bowed shoulder, sliding to her neck. I caressed her silken skin. My thumb pressed in deep, relieving the tension knotting her muscles. "I might have to replace some other way to make you relax."

"I don't always need sex, Knox."

"But making you come is the only way I know how to keep you quiet, at least, once you're done screaming my name."

"And then what?" She lifted her chin in defiance. "You conquer me again. Get off on the thrill of it. And then we pretend it means nothing?"

My mouth tightened. "You think it means nothing that I prioritize your pleasure?"

"Pleasure means squat if there's nothing more to it. Sometimes a girl needs to be swept off her feet before the ankles go behind her head."

I mulled that over, mentally compiling a list of romantic gestures I'd gleaned from popular culture. Women expected things in a relationship. Did Indie want roses on Valentine's Day? Would that make her look at me with a smile instead of a furrowed brow?

I straightened as an olive-skinned man and a girl wearing a leather jacket over a dress weaved through the tables. "Here they are."

A grim-faced Tony reached me first, pounding my back. Evie's grin widened when her gaze landed on me. She wrapped her arms around my middle and squeezed. "Knox! How are you?"

Nausea pitted my stomach. I gritted my teeth and fought the urge to rip her hands off me.

"Fine. You?"

"Great. Tired. We've been so busy with Baby T." Evie drew away, and my hackles lowered. "You should come over and see him. We'd love to have you."

I had no intention of going to see her kid, but Tony's forbidding glare warned me to be polite. I flashed Evie a charming smile I'd perfected over the years in front of mirrors. "Sure. Let's do that."

"Take an evening out of your crazy schedule and stop by, or Tony will kidnap you." She dropped her glower as she turned to Indie, beaming. "And you must be his girlfriend!" Indie held out her hand. "Yes. I'm Indie Starling."

"Starling? Wait, you're the reporter that wrote the profile! The one about Knox! Aren't you?"

Indie gave her a sheepish smile. "Guilty."

"So that's how you met? Cute. I love it." Evie yanked Indie into a fierce hug. "When I read that profile...I thought, here's someone who understands Knox! And now you're dating!"

A shell-shocked Indie disengaged from Evie, pink in the face. "Yeah...It's been five months since the interview, but it feels like forever."

There was a definite note of coolness in her tone.

Tony's mouth curled, but he said nothing.

I ground my teeth and caught Indie's eye.

Strike one.

A waiter stopped at our table and filled our water glasses. Tony waved off the cocktail menu, staring at the door as Indie ordered a vodka on the rocks. After we'd eaten our fill of Chinese, Indie spooned the last egg roll onto her plate. She stabbed it with her fork and lifted her hand.

A horrible foreboding gripped my abdomen.

Don't fucking do it.

A wintry smile flashed across her perfect lips. "Open up, sweetheart."

She touched the egg roll to my closed mouth. Heat climbed my neck as the others stared. Then I bit off the tiniest piece and she pulled away with a gloating grin. Strike two.

Evie intertwined her fingers with her husband's, grinning. "They're just like us."

"So how's the baby?"

I didn't care, but it steered the conversation from us. I zoned out as Tony launched into a long diatribe about diapers and formula.

"...always fussy after eating. He tenses up. His body gets hard, and he screams. The doctors say it's gas." Tony shrugged, bemused. "I could go on and on." "Fascinating."

My sarcasm seemed to fly over Tony's head.

"Anyway, how are you?" Tony muttered as he picked up a spare rib. "What did you need to talk to us about?"

"I need your wife's expertise."

Evie raised her brows.

I slipped the cufflink out of my pocket and set it in front of her plate. "Tell me everything you can about this."

She turned it over in her fingers. Then she grabbed a jeweler's loupe from her bag and leaned over. "The stone is onyx and the metal is rose gold. I don't have my scale, but I'd guess it's worth five thousand." "Do you recognize it?"

"No, I'm not familiar with the design."

Damn.

Tony's attention flicked to it as she gave it back to me. "Wait. I know what that is. All the Inner Sanctum members wear those things."

"Are you sure?"

"Kid, I practically lived at that club in my twenties. Blew a lot of cash there. After my cousin sold his shares, the new owners introduced this Inner Sanctum thing. The floor managers pushed me to join, but I refused. Thirty grand a month is steep for high-class ass."

"What is Inner Sanctum?"

"It's a scam." Tony made a face, shrugging. "A higher-tiered membership. Hotter women. Non-consent rooms. A place to live out your most deviant fantasies."

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So Andrey was a member of Sanctum as well.

Clearly, it wasn't your average club.

Thinking of the club conjured an image of Cainan. I barely knew him. He was under my radar so far. I'd never looked up his last name. He was only known to me as a client. A year ago, he asked me to develop software for locating human trafficking victims. His long-term goal was to undermine the one-percenter club with a stranglehold on Boston. I was all for it, given my experiences with them. Cainan and I had lost touch after running Legion out of the city, but I occasionally bumped into him at Sanctum.

Something flickered in my head. Before it kicked to the surface, it was interrupted by shattering glass. Indie's vodka tonic had crashed onto the table. She apologized profusely as Evie and Tony picked up glass fragments from the table. For fuck's sake.

I sat back in my seat, exhaling a tense breath.

"It's all right, hon," Tony grunted at Indie as he wiped up the mess. "This is better than baby vomit."

As Tony carefully mopped Evie's side, a radiant smile blossomed over her face. The warmth of it struck me like a ray from a distant sun, illuminating the hollow core inside me. That's what I'm missing.

I glanced at Indie, who was as warm as an open refrigerator door. She hadn't always been that way. In fact, she'd been reticent in the last few weeks. Silently obeying. Downright quiet. Wasn't that what I wanted?

"We should go, anyway." Evie gave me an apologetic grin as Tony grabbed her waist. "But I want you and Indie over as soon as possible!"

As Tony and Evie walked out of the restaurant, Indie watched them go with a haunted gaze.

"What's the matter with you?" I muttered under my breath. "I brought you along to liven the mood."

"That's rich, you asking me to do that." She seized her glass as though preparing to throw its contents in my face.

My chest heated. "Did you get the rule-breaking out of your system?"

"Not quite."

"Do you want me to challenge me? Because it'd be my pleasure to bang out some of this stress. Just thinking about my hand on your ass gets me so hard, I need a saw to cut through my wood." She drank more wine, blushing. Then she leaned over and kissed my cheek.

It was like a hot poker on my face. My skin burned. Her lips dragged from my cheek to the corner of my mouth. She lightly pressed into my lips. The second swell of heat wrestled with my self-control. I ached to force her on my lap and make her do things. I couldn't let her do that again. It felt tantamount to handing Indie a loaded gun.

"Stop."

She pulled away and rolled her eyes. "I will not apologize for being affectionate in a relationship. It's normal behavior."

"I'm not normal."

"No shit," she muttered.

My blood pressure reached heart attack levels.

Strike three.

I stood, grabbing her arm.