Chapter One
Fuck Bygones
Childhood Sweethearts.
Even way back then, I despised the term. There was nothing childlike about what I felt for her. Even less was the implied sweetness of our connection. But we let them smile and label us as they pleased. All the while knowing and relishing our truth. She was pure sin, and I was the devil intent on gorging myself on her iniquities.
I lived for it. For her. The sexy, hint-of-sandpaper voice that could bring me to my knees. The limpid blue eyes that paralyzed me. The killer curves that made me want to kill every other boy or man who dared to look at her sixteen-year-old body.
At nineteen, I was fully cognizant of my obsession, was aware that it was a live grenade destined to blow me apart one day. But I was ready to die the first time I looked into her eyes. As long as I died in her arms.
I should have known my end would come the day she called me by her special name.
My Romeo.
She called me that the day I took her virginity beneath the stars on the beach of our families’ joint Connecticut property.
My Romeo. As if she knew we were doomed. Perhaps she knew I was. Perhaps she’d known of the plan all along. Or she hatched it the day my father enrolled me at West Point.
The irony was that I was the only fool in the piece. I may have accepted my role as Romeo, but her name wasn’t Juliet.
No, the devil’s siren went by the name of Cleopatra McCarthy.
And when it came right down to it, Cleopatra McCarthy was only too happy to watch me burn in the flames of my obsession. Happy to watch me die.
Childhood sweethearts. Fuck that.
Whatever we felt for each other was as old as dirt, filthy as sin. What I feel for her now is…too fucked up to name.
So now I watch her. She watches me.
Strangers. Enemies. Our hate sparks between us like forked lightning. Bitter, twisted. Alive.
There may be a wide dance floor between us and jazz funk blaring through the speakers inside the walls of XYNYC, my New York nightclub, but we may as well be cocooned in a little bubble of our own, merrily breathing in the fumes of our hate.
Eight years is a long time to drip-feed yourself poisonous might-have-beens. But I’m more than comfortable in my role of rabid obsessor.
I lean back, elbows on the bar, ignoring all around me except the woman tucked away in my roped-off VIP lounge. The elevated lounges means I can see her clearly without obstruction. The short black dress clings to her hips and upper thighs, the halter neckline and her caught-up hair leaving her lightly tanned shoulders, arms, and legs bare.
The glass of vintage Dom Pérignon champagne in her hand hasn’t been touched. Not a single inch of her voluptuous body has moved in time to the music, even though music is…was a great love, once upon a time. Even after all these years, I feel residual resentment that I had to share her with Axl Rose and David Grohl, watch her body twist in ecstasy that wasn’t induced by me.
She shakes her head when a waiter offers her a platter of food. When the server turns away, she takes a step toward the black velvet rope that blocks the lounge. A beefy bouncer immediately steps in front of her.
She glares at him.
Without glancing my way, she reaches into her tiny purse and extracts her phone. She sets her glass down, and her fingers fly over the screen.
My own phone buzzes in my pocket. I take a beat before I pull it out and read the message. “I’ve been coming here almost every night for two weeks. You have to talk to me sometime.”
I glance up, make her wait for a full minute before I reply. “Do I?”
Her nostrils flare lightly. “He wants an answer.”
My mouth twists, and I swear the impossible happens, and I hate her even more than I did one second ago. “What are you now, his messenger?”
Her gaze flicks up to me before she shrugs, her bare, slender shoulder gleaming under the pulsing lights. “You’ve ignored all his emails and your brothers’ calls.”
“They’re spineless assholes.”
“Are you going to talk to me?”
“No.”
“Then why keep me here?”
“I told you the terms of admittance. You come of your own free will; you don’t get to leave until the club closes. That’s in two hours.”
“This is ridiculous, Axel.”
My stomach knots just from seeing her type my name. “Then don’t come again.”
She looks up. Our eyes meet across the dance floor. Her hatred washes over me in filthy waves. I want to roll around in it. She holds my stare defiantly for a minute before she swallows and bends her head to her phone again.
“It’s not that simple. Please hear me out.”
Again my stomach clenches, but this time it’s accompanied by a crude little jerk in my pants that grabs my attention. “Please? You begging now?”
Annoyance flickers across her features. I see her thumb hover over the screen for the longest time. Then my phone buzzes. “Yes.”
I didn’t expect that. The Cleo I knew never begged. My mind trips over why she would do so now. A few crazed seconds later, I decide it’s safer for my sanity not to know, and I settle back into sublime hate. “Too bad the first time I hear you beg has to be via text. Answer’s still no.”
“Axel, this is important. Let bygones be bygones and hear me out. It won’t be more than five minutes. Please.”
I’m doubly pissed off that I can’t hear her say that word. I’ve waited a long fucking time to hear it. I’m even more angry that I can’t cross the distance between us to ask her to repeat it. I put everything into the two words I text to her. “Fuck bygones.”
It may be a trick of the light, but I swear she feels my new level of rage. A tremble seizes her as she reads my reply.
She turns away and stalks to the private bar in the lounge. The waiter looks up and nods when she murmurs to him. He slides a shot glass across the counter and reaches for the premium tequila sitting on the shelf behind him. He pours, and she picks it up, turning and raising the glass to me before she downs it in one go.
I stride to the edge of the dance floor, my lips curled back in a sneer as I struggle not to think of the consequences of what she’s doing. Breathing deep, I remind myself that it’s been years since I witnessed Lightweight Cleo topple over after one shot of tequila.
All the same I watch her, narrow-eyed, as she downs another shot before heading for one of the velvet sofas. There is the tiniest little weave in her walk, and I have to clench every single muscle to stop myself from charging across the space between us.
The simple, undeniable truth is I can’t.
Because of Cleopatra McCarthy, my life exploded in a billion little pieces. Pieces I didn’t bother to put back together again because I knew the exercise would be futile.
So for eights years, I’ve lived with this new, permanently-altered-for-the-worse version of myself. A version I’m not in a hurry to reassess or remodel. A version that keeps me steeped in the obsidian fury that fuels my existence.
And I stay on my side of the divide because to come within touching distance of her is to succumb to the carnage raging inside me. After eight years, I should have enough of a hold on myself to smother the compulsion.
I don’t.
But even worse than the control I sorely lack is the fact that I’m a glutton for punishment. Hell, it’s the reason I run the highly successful and exclusive Punishment Club. In the eighteen months it’s been open, I’ve made over twenty million dollars in membership fees alone. Who the fuck knew there were crazies out there like me seeking to be exposed to the very thing they hate the most?
I derive a little perverse satisfaction in the fact that I’m granting them an outlet, even while I’m unable to find one for myself. I accepted my fate a long time ago. What I have can only be cured one way—the moment I stop breathing.
“Macallan. Triple. Neat.”
I reel back my thoughts and turn my head at the sound of the deep, raspy voice.
Quinn Blackwood.
He’s not exactly a friend but there’s mutual respect and acceptance of the otherworldliness inhabiting our blackened souls. It was why we gravitated toward each other when we found ourselves in the same group at West Point. Although Quinn never served, we kept in touch and ended up owning several nightclubs together, XYNYC being one of them.
Like me, he doesn’t need the income. Like me this place is one of many outlets for the demons that haunt us. I make sure Cleo is still seated and retrace my steps back to the bar.
I watch Quinn knock back the large drink in one ruthless gulp.
“You know there’s a better blend in your VIP room, right?” I say.
He slams the glass on the counter with barely suppressed violence. “Too far,” he replies.
We’re roughly the same height so, when he shoots me a glance, I’m well positioned to see the hounds of hell chasing through the icy landscapes of his eyes. I don’t flinch. I welcome the horde like kindred spirits. Our souls have endured more than enough to last us several lifetimes, and we both know it. “That bad, huh?”
His jaw clenches as he takes a breath. “Worse.”
“Need any help?”
A harrowing shadow moves over his face, and he shakes his head. “It’s done. I have what I need.”
I don’t press him for more information. Ours is not that kind of friendship.
Besides, I have more than enough to deal with tonight. I catch movement from my lounge, and my gaze zeroes in on my nemesis. She’s risen from the sofa and leaning against the railing once more, the untouched glass of champagne again in one hand. The bodyguards are once more alert, and a few of my errant brain synapses attempt to be amused by the glare she sends their way. “If you need anything else, let me know,” I say absently, unable to take my eyes off the woman whose presence looms as large as the Sphinx before me.
I sense Quinn following my gaze, then returning to me. “Looks like you have a situation of your own that needs taking care off.”
“Yeah.” My voice emerges in a rough rumble. “Fucking tell me about it.”
He doesn’t nod or smile. Quinn Blackwood rarely smiles. But then, neither do I. Another thing we have in common.
He asks questions that bounce off the edge of my consciousness.
I shrug. I nod. I respond. But throughout, my senses are attuned to the other side of the room.”
I barely register him stalking away. I click my fingers, and Cici, one of my waitresses, sidles up to me with a smile. I relay instructions and refocus to see Cleo raising her nearly empty glass to her lips. My jaw clenches when I realize that somehow I’ve missed her drinking the champagne. Added to the two shots of tequila, I’m uncertain what the result will be. So I grant myself permission to open my senses wider, sharpen my focus with an even more vicious blade. Everything falls away as I saturate myself with her presence.
Every breath. Every blink.
I catch the moment her hips sway, ever so slightly, to the throbbing rock anthem.
The move resonates through me like the cuts of memory’s blade. In an instant, I’m thrown back to my bedroom in the summer house I claimed for myself the day I turned eighteen. It was the single thing I requested when my mother asked me what I wanted for my birthday. The need to distance myself from my father had grown into a visceral, unbearable ache. My mother saw it. She granted my request, despite my father’s firm refusal. It was most likely what earned her the black eye two days later.
I don’t know because I didn’t ask. It would’ve been useless to do so anyway. She would’ve lied. And I was too selfish, too thankful for the mercy of not having to live under the same roof as my father, to rock the boat.
So I claimed my tiny piece of heaven in hell. And it was there that Cleo danced for me for the first time. Where we celebrated a lot of firsts.
That particular memory flames through the charred pits of my mind. I don’t fight it. Like the fleeting moments of pleasure and pain, it would be gone in an instant, devoured by the putrefying cancer that lives within me.
Sure enough, it’s gone from one heartbeat to the next, and I’m left with rotting remnants of what once was.
“All taken care of, boss.”
I snap my head to the side. Cici is standing next to me. Her gaze slides over me from head to toe before it settles on my face. She’s wearing that special do me smile she’s worn since she started working here six weeks ago. I made the mistake of fucking her as part of her interview process. I shouldn’t have. I could pardon myself by basking in the excuse that her presence in my office that day coincided with the first call in three years from Ronan, my oldest brother.
Like one hundred percent of our interaction, that call hadn’t gone well. So I needed an outlet. It was either a fist through a wall or my cock in a pussy. I chose pussy. I refuse to make excuses for that choice. Because what’s the point of having a black soul, of making choices that leave your hands permanently soiled in evil, if you don’t fucking own it? But I do admit to a modicum of regret. She’s not the first employee I’ve fucked, but usually I’m a little more circumspect with my choices. My black rage prevented me from seeing that ill-disguised, you-fuck-me-I-own-you light in Cici’s eyes until it was too late.
Now, irritatingly, ever since our one encounter, the ever-growing stench of possessiveness has clung to her every time she’s in my presence.
She sidles closer now. “Is there anything else you need?” she says in a low, intimate voice. “I couldn’t help but notice that both you and your friend are wound up tighter than a drum tonight. I…I can help relieve your stress…if you want?”
In the next minute, she’ll find an excuse to touch me. I’m slammed with the smell of cheap perfume and shameless arousal. Because my senses are wide open and raw, I take a deeper hit than I normally would. Which makes me direct more anger at her than I know is warranted.
“Cici?”
“Yes, boss?” she responds with a breathy eagerness.
“Fuck off and do your job,” I snarl.
She recoils from me and turns red-faced to face the bar.
“Jesus, twice in one night. I must be losing my touch,” she mutters under her breath as she busies herself collecting a drinks order from the bartender.
I feel no remorse when she walks away in a huff. I don’t give a shit what’s got her ass in a vise or who else she’s hit on tonight. Under normal circumstances, her feelings matter very little to me. Tonight, I care even less.
When she moves away, I exhale and glance at my watch. On Thursday nights, the club shuts at 3 a.m. It’s almost one. Two more hours to go.
I brace myself before I raise my gaze.
It does absolutely nothing to buffer the potency of Cleo’s stare or the effect of the evil little smile I see playing at her lips when our eyes hook into each other.
She’s under my skin, where she’s lived for fifteen years. And she knows it.
Fifth Harmony’s “Work” blasts from the speakers. The hard beat and dirty lyrics produces a lusty, almost unconscious sway of her hips. The look in her eyes and the movement of her body are almost dichotomous. Her eyes tell me she hates me. Her body beckons me with the promise of transcendental lust.
I should retreat to my office where I can watch her from the relative safety of security cameras. Or walk the other upper and lower floors. There are a few VIPs who would love a personal acknowledgement from me.
But fuck that.
I stay put and nod tersely at a few regulars who are brave enough to breach the no-fly-zone around me. When my bartender slides a glass of scotch to me, I pick it up and down it.
We play the staring game until she reaches for her phone once more. She toys with it for a beat before her slender fingers fly over it.
My blood thrums harder as I take my phone out and read her message.
“Stop this, Axel. Be a man. Come over here and talk to me.”
My cheek twitches in a grotesque imitation of a smile. “You’re not senile so you wouldn’t have forgotten that I don’t rise to dares. Or taunts.”
“Dammit. What do I have to do?”
Those six little words send all the blood fleeing from my heart. It turns harder than stone, and my visions blinds for several seconds. I cannot believe her gall.
“You’re eight years too late with that question, sweetheart.”
Her head snaps up. She’s breathing hard. She shakes her head. I’m not sure if it’s denial or disbelief. It’s probably neither. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve attributed sentiment to her actions where none existed.
The roaring in my head continues but I feel my phone buzz again. This time there’s a single word on my screen.
“Axel.”
A whispered caress. An entreaty. A demand.
It’s a thousand other things. All wrapped in sugared poison. I push away from the bar, despising the knots in my stomach and the steel in my cock. I feel her gaze on my back as I stalk through the door next to the bar that leads to my office.
Shot after shot of adrenaline spikes through my bloodstream until dark, volatile sensation drenches me to my fingertips. My office door slams behind me, and I throw the bolt, as if locking myself in is the answer.
Already I want to tear the door off its hinges and rush back to the bar. I force my feet the other way and throw myself into my chair. Across my large office, the screens reflect the various areas of the club. My eyes zero in on where she is. I don’t even fool myself into thinking that she’s as lost as she looks. Her skin may look satin-smooth, but it’s coated with steel armor.
Deliberately, I shut off the feed to that camera and activate my phone. As I type the words, I silently urge her to accept my words.
“You’re free to leave. Don’t come back. Take this seriously.”
As I power down my phone, the reality of my weakness cannons through me.
I don’t want her to come back, and I don’t want to hear her out for one reason alone.
She’s here because of my father.
She’s here on behalf of the man I hate more than anything else in the world. The man who made sure that, at nineteen, redemption would never be an option for me.
He’s used his sentries in the form of my brothers, and now he’s pulling out the big guns. I give him kudos for sending her. With each visit, I’ve felt my edges crumbling away.
Despite everything I feel for her, I’ve tortured myself with the urge to give in. To hear that voice up close and personal. To smell her. To touch her.
Even when I know it would be the last straw once she speaks the words I know she’s been sent to deliver.
Between the two of us, we turned armies of men against one another and changed the course of our destinies.
The Rutherfords and the McCarthys.
Two dynastic families with feet firmly entrenched in underground crime. Once friends turned the bitterest of enemies.
In the family of cold-hearted black sheep, I, Axel Rutherford, am the blackest. Abundantly despised by my three brothers, actively hated by my father.
She was the golden princess. Put on earth to test every single one of my hardened edges.
And I happily burned away every last one for her.
But my reward wasn’t forever with her.
Instead she turned away from me. And crawled into my father’s bed.