“What are you thinking of, dove?”

I turn my gaze from the white tile next to the tub. Memories of our first night together are still vivid in my mind and body. Schooling my expression to disinterest, I reach for a washcloth and bar of soap.

“The first time we fucked.”

Liam grunts. I don’t look at him, but I know he’s wearing an expression that’s all too common where I’m concerned. Mingled amusement and surprise.

“Miss the rope, do you?” he murmurs.

“No,” I lie. It’s my favorite of his toys, and he knows it.

Ignoring his smirk, I build suds on the washcloth and drag it down each of my arms. My movements are economical, artless, but I hear his breathing deepen.

The knowledge that he still wants me doesn’t change anything. I still want him, too, but the once-bright space between us is now twisted and dark.

“Why do you think Maddoc wants to find… Elizabeth?” I’d almost said my mother, but she isn’t. Not really. I have a mother and she’s in Oregon, likely worried out of her head about me.

Liam drops back onto the plush bathroom mat, propping himself on an elbow to watch me. He’s hard behind his zipper, pressed tight against the material of his slacks. It must be uncomfortable for him, but from his implacable expression, he’s not about to admit it.

“I don’t know. Perhaps she took something of his. That’s the simplest explanation.”

I wash my armpits. “Like what? Money? Drugs? Seems a little greedy when he has more than enough of both.”

“Spoken like a woman with no earthly idea of the world she just stepped into.”

My hand with the washcloth stills. “And whose fault is that?” I snap.

His eyes narrow. “Not mine. If it were up to me, you’d still be blissfully in the dark.”

I scoff and lift a leg onto the side of the tub, scrubbing roughly at my skin. I don’t even know why I’m washing—I showered this morning—but can’t seem to stop. To avoid psychoanalyzing myself, I think about the woman who birthed me.

Elizabeth Sharpe.

“Do you know anything about her? What she was like?”

“A little. She was gone by the time I came to the city, but people would talk. Especially in front of a boy they didn’t think was smart enough to listen. If you take the word of gossipy women for fact, their love story was a fairy tale. She was nineteen, beautiful, from an unremarkable background. He was thirty when he first saw her, with a growing empire, good looks, and Irish charm.”

Washcloth forgotten, I stare at him. “Where did they meet?”

“A jazz club. She was a cocktail waitress. Story goes he swept her off her feet, showered her with everything money could buy. They married within six months. You and Alexis came along two years later.”

Eyeing the tension in his shoulders, I ask, “What are you not telling me?”

Liam sighs, falling smoothly onto his back with his arms folded behind his head. Candlelight flickers along his tall frame; I notice he’s not aroused anymore.

To the ceiling, he says, “Maybe he hit her. Abused her. No one knows. But there was talk about how she changed in the months prior to your birth. She’d withdrawn from her usual social circles. Some thought it was merely a difficult pregnancy. There were other rumors, though, that maybe she could no longer stomach the life her husband led. The payment extracted for all her creature comforts.”

“And what kind of payment is that?” I ask, wanting the answer as much as I don’t want it.

Instead of answering, he says, “Did you know that until Maddoc came to Los Angeles, the city was known as the Gang Capital of America?”

“What? Isn’t it still?”

He gives a short, humorless laugh. “Looking in from the outside, maybe.” Sitting up, he meets my questioning gaze. “There’s only one way a man becomes what Maddoc now is. He knew his history, knew that the Irish had failed in New York, Chicago, and at home because of lack of organization. He changed things. Took a page from La Cosa Nostra, ruling with order and an iron fist. Maddoc’s road to power was paved in the blood of his enemies. Enough of them that his interests are respected—sometimes even protected—by other branches of organized crime in this city.”

My heart beats wildly in my chest. “That’s what you meant, isn’t it? When you said he’s not a boss, but The Boss?”

“Yes. Maddoc doesn’t give orders to say, the Crips or Bloods, but when he calls meetings, they’re not ignored, either.”

I stare at the cracked nail polish on my toes, peeking out of the water. “Holy fucking shit,” I breathe. “What am I going to do?”

“You’re going to stay with me,” he says gently. “I’ll never let anything happen to you, Eden.”

My gaze jerks to him. “And who the hell are you? Why would the so-called most powerful crime boss in Los Angeles give a shit about what you think or say?”

“Politics,” he says rigidly.

I frown. “What?”

Liam shakes his head and without another word, rises and leaves the room. The bathroom door closes softly behind him. I sink back into the cooling water, fear and confusion playing ping-pong in my head.