I didn’t disagree, but my reasons were a bit more selfish; I wasn’t ready to let her walk away.
Yet, I replied, “This is a bad idea.”
Nero nodded. “I know.”
Chapter Three — Nero
We were just in time for the final train. It rumbled into the station with a deafening shriek of grinding metal. The doors rushed open to an empty compartment. Davien stepped off the platform first and I nudged Mia to follow.
“You don’t have to come with me,” she said, following Davien to the very last seats in the car.
The doors closed behind us, taking away any chance of turning back.
“You clearly can’t be trusted on your own,” I mumbled, annoyed by the irritation that slipped up my spine.
It wasn’t a fair assumption to make based on a single act of stupidity. She’d lived her entire life without me or Davien running interference, yet this decision of hers to seek us out miles from home, in the dead of night, to a bar known for things she should never have to see terrified me enough to never let her out of my sight. Eduardo would call that weakness. I wasn’t sure what I would call it. Not yet. It was a thought that would need deeper contemplation at a later time.
The seats were paired. Dav and Mia took the ones up against the back wall, leaving me to slump into the one facing them. There wasn’t much room to stretch out my legs without kicking Dav’s shins, so I folded myself up the best I could and tried not to fidget; confined spaces for a man my size never fit well.
Mia sat silently by the window but stared at her hands curled loosely in her lap. She didn’t cross her legs like most women, instead sat comfortable with both feet resting on the filthy floor. She was an odd thing, I decided, failing in my analysis of her. Everything about her warned not to touch, to taint, yet, when I looked into her eyes, passion, want … desire stared back at me. It was all bottled up inside there, just waiting to be uncorked. That theory had almost been proven correct not ten minutes before when I almost had her pussy cupped in my hand. Christ, I’d been so close. A few more seconds and my fingers would have been slipping between her lips into the liquid heat I’d seen glistening in the afternoon light earlier that day.
But it was her scent that haunted me. It was the most erotic, musky fragrance I had ever encountered. I was obsessed with it, obsessed with a pussy I’d never seen, obsessed with the gut-gnawing need to taste it, to have it smeared on my mouth, running down my tongue, covering my hands … my cock. I wanted to bathe in it. I had never, not once ever smelled anyone the way I could smell her, and no one smelled like her. Even sitting with three feet between us, the lingering potency of her arousal hung in the air around us. Maybe it was the lack of fabric between her thighs making it more pronounced, but it was thick and heavy. I could have swum in it.
“What exactly was your plan?” I heard myself ask, needing to know what on earth possessed her to waltz into my life like this and drive me insane.
Eyes the shiny gold of polished ambers lifted, and I immediately wished I hadn’t spoken when they fixed on me. “I don’t know,” she murmured. “I just knew I had to try and—”
“Were you seriously hoping we would take you to Eduardo?” Dav interjected.
She was shaking her head before he even finished. “I don’t know. Yes? I’m willing to do anything…” Her gaze dropped once more, and it was somehow worse when she wasn’t looking at me. “But sleep with him.” She peered up through heavy lashes from me to Dav. “I can’t.” I wanted to tell her that there was no reality in which we would ever give her to Eduardo or anyone else, but she continued speaking quietly. “Maybe I could make some kind of arrangement with you instead?”
I opened my mouth to tell her that was a stupid idea, that she had no idea what kind of men we were or what we would take from her if she let us through that door.
Dav spoke up before I could. “What kind of arrangement?”
I wanted to kick him. What was he doing? No one knew better than he did that we had no business with someone like her. She wasn’t like the girls we were used to. She would never agree to the thing we both desperately wanted, and if she did, we would destroy her. She wasn’t built for us both and I would lose my mind if she only picked him.
“What do you want?”
There wasn’t a power on earth more dangerous than those four words, and she had uttered them with such innocence it nearly killed me. But I had to put my foot down. I had to stop this before we were all in over our heads.
“Nothing.” I ignored the sharp glower Davien cast me, focusing entirely on the woman watching me with far more trust than I deserved. “We have already agreed to handle the matter. There’s nothing for you—”
“What does that mean?” she asked, cutting me off.
“We’re going to cover the amount between us until your father can pay us back,” Davien answered for me.
“No!” Mia snapped, anger and what may have been humiliation twin flags high on her cheeks. “I don’t know when or if my father will ever be able to pay that back.”
“We’re making an exception—”
She gave a sharp shake of her head. “We are not a charity. We don’t need anyone to—”
“It’s either this or we haul your dad off to see Eduardo,” I snapped, temper reaching its peak. “We are doing you a favor. Let it drop.”
“We don’t need your favor,” she barked back.
“And how exactly do you plan on fixing this?” I retorted, body leaning in as if to grab her and shake until sense kicked in. “Do you have the money?”
Her gaze darted away a split second before returning with hot resignation. “No.”
“Can you get the money in a week?”
This time, her chin lowered until she was studying her fingers once more. “No.”
“That is the length of time we give people,” I went on, feeling like I was finally getting through to her. “We give them a week, break their kneecaps and wish them the best. Is that what you want?”
The heartbreak and sadness shimmering across the surface of her eyes kicked me in the gut when they lifted to my face. “You know it’s not.”
“Good.” I sat back. “Let it go, Mia.”
For a second, just one, I almost thought she was going to listen.
“No,” she whispered. Her top strained across her chest with her deep inhale. “I can’t let it go. I can’t let you pay for our mistake. I can’t let my father … it’s hard enough paying Eduardo. We can’t afford to pay you, too.”
“We don’t want—”
“We’re not a charity.” The bite returned to her tone, to her eyes. “We don’t just accept free things, and no one does anything from the goodness of their hearts.”
“Maybe they do,” Davien stepped in. “Maybe we’re feeling … giving.”
“Why?” She rounded on him, breaking me from her spell. “Why would you do that? You don’t know us.”
Davien looked to me. His features were blank, but I hoped to God he wasn’t waiting for me to answer that. I had absolutely no idea why we were making this exception when we’d never done anything like it in fifteen years. If I set aside the lie I was telling myself, I knew it was because of Mia, because we didn’t want her to suffer, but I was a liar and all I could make myself believe was future leverage if we needed it, which, I guess, made her point.