Meet me.

Go fuck yourself, Frankie responded instantly. A smile twisted the corner of Anteros’s lips, but he quickly rubbed it out so the Wolves didn’t catch it. Not contacting Frankie for over a week after they’d met at the church had been unavoidable. The car bomb was just the first in a series of attacks by Lucia. The docks were hit, then their stockpile of weapons. They’d been on defense and searching for a way to hit back all week. Through all of the shit, he’d had to find time to heal as well.

Still, he’d been enjoying the consequences. Each time Frankie denied him, it only made him want to work harder for the reward. Each time she cursed him, it only made him want to coax sweet words from her lips.

“We’ve finally found our one up on Lucia.” Anteros shoved the phone into his desk as Pretty Boy spoke. The Wolf sat across from him on the quilted leather couch, one leg crossed over the other, arms behind his head.

When he didn’t elaborate, Anteros said coolly, “Are you building some kind of dramatic effect?”

“The Catacombs,” Little O supplied.

“As in tombs?” Anteros turned to the Wolf whose massive body was nearly bursting from the velvet wingback. “Will one of you fuckers just get to the point?”

Levi came forward and placed Polaroids on his desk. Since saving his life, Levi had been at every meeting, but the only time he spoke up was to offer something of value. Levi had used his sources at 72 to learn of the attack at the docks—it didn’t stop the attack, but it curtailed it. So Anteros was immediately intrigued by the pictures. He sifted through them, fingers sliding along the shiny plastic edges as he examined them. They were blurry and there weren’t many, but as he got to the last one he thought he saw Lucia Pavoni.

Anteros pushed the pictures aside and put a finger to his temple, focusing on Levi. “These don’t tell me shit.”

“We don’t really know what The Catacombs are,” Levi admitted. “They could be a place for stockpiling money or even bombs like the one used for your car or at the docks. The chatter is all over the place, but the consensus is it’s Lucia’s and it’s important.” Anteros had heard tales of catacombs back in Italy, but he had no idea any existed in America. In Italy, The Catacombs were synonymous with the famous ones, but they held Family secrets more than they held bodies. Anteros shook his head with an exhale. He thought he’d uncovered all the secrets, but then Lucia showed up, reminding him how in the dark he still was.

“I pulled these blueprints from 72 after I heard some officers talking about it.” Levi went to a corner, pulling rolled up papers from his bag. He laid them on Anteros’s desk. Pointer finger to paper, Levi denoted the different areas on the map. “This is the old New York subway line. If we follow this track”—he slid his finger along the paper—“it will lead us to wherever The Catacombs are.”

Anteros studied the blueprints for the sealed up tunnel. “Are you sure?”

Levi stepped back, hands behind his back. “Yes.”

“With the leak out there, and this intel coming from 72, you can’t be sure of shit,” Crazy A drawled from the corner.

Levi craned his head over his shoulder, meeting Crazy A’s stare. “I’m sure.”

“I don’t know.” Pretty Boy rubbed his lower lip. “We don’t even know what the fuck this place is.” With an exhale, Anteros tousled his hair with two hands. He shared their concerns, and then some. They didn’t know where this went, didn’t know what the fuck The Catacombs were, and something in his gut said it was too easy.

“Pretty Boy’s right, we don’t know what’s inside here.” Anteros tapped the blueprints. “It could be nothing. Could be fucking storage for Lucia’s dresses. But…” Anteros paused. “It’s the best shit we’ve got.” They could either take it or sit back and stay on defense.

“We’ve been getting railed all week,” Little O conceded.

“My ass is sore from all the pounding. I would like to return the favor.” Pretty Boy rubbed his chin and nodded, as if thinking about the possibilities. Crazy A was silent but didn’t disagree.

“Let’s draw up some plans,” Anteros said. “We’ll have Nikolai double-check the blueprints, be sure that what we’ve got here is actually concrete.”

“Nikolai?” Pretty Boy’s brows crinkled. Though he would never say it aloud, Anteros could see the question in the lines growing on his smooth forehead. Why would Anteros trust such an important task to a slave?

“He will either prove himself or fail.” Anteros didn’t leave room for argument. “We’ll need to do this soon,” Anteros continued; at the same time, the phone in his desk vibrated noisily. “Before Lucia realizes we have the map.” He waved them out, signaling the meeting was over.

Anteros studied Levi as he gathered the blueprints up from his desk. Levi had consistently given Anteros good intel, had saved his life, and Anteros had been without a right hand since Rhys was murdered. Maybe Levi could fill the spot.

Anteros slid his desk drawer open casually and, keeping the phone in his desk, opened the message.

A photo.

He would recognize the cunt anywhere. Frankie had two fingers inside her slit, glistening. Anteros gripped the desk, instantly hard.

He was fucking done with texts.

But when Anteros lifted his head, the Wolves and Levi hadn’t moved an inch.

“There’s just one more thing.” Pretty Boy shifted.

Anteros eyed the Wolves, all tense. “Spit it the fuck out.”

“Lucio Pavoni has died.”

* * *

Anteros slowly slid the drawer shut, regarding the Wolves’ solemn faces with interest. That wasn’t exactly news—Lucio Pavoni had been crawling toward death for years—but it did mean the stakes of the war had just gotten official.

“He was poisoned,” Pretty Boy clarified. Anteros threw his arms behind his head and leaned back in his chair, leather squeaking. Now that was news.

“Someone took time out of their day to poison a dying man?” Anteros asked. The why the fuck would they do that? went unsaid.

“No,” Little O replied. “The autopsy revealed his cause of death to be poison, not dementia as we thought. He’s been slowly poisoned for years.” Someone had murdered Lucio Pavoni?

“So that’s where we’re at,” Pretty Boy said, retaking his seat on the sofa. “What are we thinking? A disgruntled De Luca?”

Anteros rubbed his jaw. There was only one person who came to mind. One woman wicked and brilliant enough to kill the head of the Pavoni Family. He voiced his thoughts aloud.

“But that’s her brother,” Levi said. His eyes widened and for once his stoic countenance broke. He looked around the room, arms out as if someone would jump out and say it was all a joke. “She wouldn’t kill her brother.” Anteros nearly laughed at his naiveté.

“What are you thinking?” Little O asked when he’d been silent for some time.

“We need to test the poison,” he said. Anteros knew if it was the same poison used to try to kill him, it all but proved Lucia’s involvement.

“You really think Lucia would kill her own brother?” Levi asked, tone oddly frightened.

Anteros sat forward, elbows on the desk, and locked his bluegreen eyes with Levi’s nervous hazel ones. “Don’t ever underestimate the cunning of a Pavoni.” Levi looked distraught at the revelation, throat swelling with an obvious gulp. In the same instant, the phone in his desk buzzed. Anteros wound his fingers behind his neck nonchalantly, leaning back in his chair.

“Let me know what you find.” Anteros ended the meeting for a second and final time, hoping to get them out before anyone questioned the vibrating in his desk. Little O, Pretty Boy, and Levi piled out, but Crazy A lingered at the door.

“I’m getting closer to the slave,” Crazy A said. “She’s kept on the second floor. Her room is the last one, shoved into a corner. There are cameras, but I don’t really give a shit if someone sees me killing her.” Anteros nodded, keeping himself level. Anyone else wouldn’t pick up on something so light as a jaw tick or a throat swallow, but Crazy A saw everything. He would notice that just the idea of Frankie dead had him tense.

So he had to be loose.

His phone buzzed again and Crazy A zeroed in on the desk. “You need to get that?”

Anteros returned his glare. “What the fuck do you think? How are you going to get to her?”

Crazy A thumbed his lip. “Workin’ on it. Shouldn’t be too long though.” Anteros suppressed his exhale. When Crazy A figured out how to get to Frankie, that’s when the game changed. Like chess, this game couldn’t be won by planning. You had to watch your opponent and then make your move.

Anteros nodded. “Good work.” Thick, spiny silence fell. Crazy A stood off the wall, eyes still on Anteros, and then left the room with a slight nod. The phone vibrated once more, but Anteros stared at the empty spot the Wolf had left, memories rushing through him.

Unlike Beast or the other Wolves, Crazy A was from good Italian stock. He was born Alcide Scarsi, but that didn’t mean he would have stayed a Scarsi forever. Like all De Luca men before him, he had to come from somewhere, and every Scarsi in his family had become a De Luca by marriage. Like all the Wolves, Anteros had blackmailed Alcide in the beginning. He’d had an affair, and Anteros had capitalized on that. The only difference was Alcide hadn’t stopped the affair when they’d agreed to work together.

“If this comes out, it will ruin everything. End it.”

“You knew this about me. You already knew,” Alcide responded. “You wouldn’t have worked with me if you weren’t okay with it.”

“I don’t give a shit who you want to fuck,” Anteros said. “I give a shit when it fucks with business. End it.”

Anteros exhaled at the memory, still locked on the empty wall. A normal person would have shown some sort of emotion after ending an affair, but Anteros and his Wolves weren’t normal.

He hadn’t thought to question it.

He should have. Maybe if he had, he and Crazy A wouldn’t have ended up here.

* * *

The phone buzzed in his desk again and this time Anteros slid open the drawer. Three more pictures, all just brief glimpses, teases—a hand over a breast, her legs spread open with her palm covering her pussy, the side of her showing the beautiful S curve of her body. The second the last photo came through, he was dialing her number.

She picked up on the first ring.

“Meet me,” Anteros growled before Frankie could say anything.

“I’m busy,” she replied but just as she finished, he got another message: a picture of her legs spread so wide it hollowed the muscles of her groin. There were no fingers inside her and, fuck, seeing her open like that just made him want to fill her. He undid his fly, pulled out his cock, and started stroking himself.

“Then I wonder why you answered,” he ground out.

“Maybe I’m also bored,” she said, but her words were breathy.

Anteros laughed darkly. “The longer you make me wait, the worse it will be.” The distance was fucking brutal. When she’d sent a picture of a man kissing her neck, he’d just had to sit and take it, couldn’t punish her, couldn’t fuck her until she screamed.

“What will you do?” She sounded breathless, needy.

“Take my time…punish you. You remember what it was like.” She made a high whimpering sound and he threw his head against the wall, letting the pain clear his thoughts.

“I miss it,” she said on an exhale. A grin twisted his cheek and he gripped his dick, pumping.

“What do you miss, Frankie?” When he’d had her at the penthouse he could punish her with multiple toys. Now all he had was her mind, but he liked the challenge. He was pretty certain it could be better than toys because he was pretty certain Frankie’s mind had dark areas that if he got her to explore, would make her explode.

“I miss. I miss…” Breathing was the only sound for a few minutes, hot, husky, stuttering with uncertainty.

“Be a good girl, Frankie,” Anteros coaxed.

“The knife,” she admitted. “Like when I cut you, only…” Her sentence vanished in a sigh and a slow grin spread across his face at her confession. This was a new turn-on, and he looked forward to torturing her with it.

“Dirty girl,” he purred. “Do you have a knife with you now?”

“No, I lost my only one after…” After Big O. Anteros reached down and pulled the knife out of his boot, placing it on the table.

“I picked it up that night. I have it with me.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, and if you were here, I would teach you a lesson about teasing me.”

“What would you do?”

“I’d slide the knife along your skin.” He slid the knife on the table, making it scratch loud enough so she could hear.

“And th-then what?” she stuttered. Anteros closed his eyes and stroked his cock, letting her sighs be his soundtrack. He could practically see her little hands spreading her pussy in his mind.

“Are you touching yourself right now?” Anteros grated.

“Yes,” she gasped.

“Stop.” When the only answer Anteros received was more panting, he said, “Maybe I should hang up.”

She groaned, but whimpered, “Okay, fine, I stopped. Will you tell me what you would do next?”

“I’d put the blade at your ankle, stroking your flesh until I reached your inner thigh, stopping just short of your cunt.” Musical, halting whimpers came through the phone, making him grip his cock so hard it was almost painful. “Send me a fucking picture,” he barked. “Get on your knees and show me your ass and cunt.”

“What would you do next?” she responded instead, voice wobbly.

“Send me a goddamn picture and I’ll tell you.” Voice coarse, Anteros rubbed the grooves in the blade handle, trying to clear his head. A minute or so later, picture came through, and all hope of a clear head vanished.

“Fuck,” he hissed. Frankie was on her knees as he’d instructed her, ass and pussy glistening. He wanted nothing more than to be behind her, licking her up, making her come until she cried for him to stop.

Then he would keep going.

Fuck.

He gripped his cock harder.

“Tell me,” she begged.

“I would slide the knife handle inside your pussy until you came all over it. Until you were dripping down my wrist. Then I’d clean the blade with your cunt juices. Even if you didn’t want it, you’d get fucked.” Anteros paused as Frankie’s dulcet sighs flowed through the phone. He focused on his own breathing, needing to get control before he shot his load.

After a few moments, he continued pumping his cock and said, “When bad girls get my knives dirty with blood, they don’t get a say in how I choose to clean them. I’d slide that handle into your tight cunt and force your orgasm.”

“Please let me touch myself,” she begged. “Please.”

“You can fuck yourself,” he allowed, “but only with one finger, and don’t touch your clit.” Frankie groaned, but seconds later her fast sighs and sweet, staccato moans echoed through the line. “Is your finger deep inside your cunt?”

“Yes, but it’s not enough.” Her words were stretched thin by longing and Anteros laughed low as he imagined her fucking herself, trying to get release with just the one finger. “I want you, Anteros,” she groaned. “I feel so empty.”

His humor vanished, replaced by carnal hunger as he imagined Frankie spread out for him on the four-poster bed. Her fingers would open her glistening pussy, show how ready she was to be fucked by him. The image was enough to have him clenching his teeth so hard his jaw ached.

“If I was there I would fill your cunt,” he growled. “Feel you tighten around my cock. You’re always so fucking hot and wet, fucking begging to be taken.” Frankie groaned long and slow at his words, and Anteros stroked himself faster to the sound, gripping the blade handle with the other. His dick was so hard it could punch through a wall. “Are you ready to be fucked, Frankie? Ready to take my cock like a good girl?”

“Yes,” she responded, the word disappearing in her gasp.

“I wouldn’t be gentle. I’d fuck you until your throat was sore from screaming. Until my cock bottomed out in your tight pussy and you lost your words because the pleasure was too fucking intense.”

“Anteros I’m—I’m—” She couldn’t finish, words seized by a sweet, breathless cry as she came. It had him shooting his load into his hand like a fucking teenager. Even after he’d finished, hands sticky and wet, Anteros didn’t move. He listened to Frankie’s heavy sighs as she came down, imagining her glazed expression and flushed face—the way she got when she was utterly sated.

Then he reached for a tissue from his desk and wiped himself up as he growled, “Put your fingers in your cunt right now.”

“Okay,” she said in that lilting, submissive tone she got after he’d thoroughly fucked her.

“Now put them in your mouth and tell me how you taste.”

“A little salty,” she said. “Kind of…sweet.” Anteros groaned, all at once turned on and pissed that he couldn’t taste her.

“Will you send me a picture?” Frankie asked. “Please, Anteros. If you can’t be inside me I want to see you.” Anteros focused a minute on taking a good picture—not some shitty downward angle popping out of his jeans cock shot—then sent it. It was maybe a few minutes before Frankie said anything, and Anteros wondered if the connection had died.

“Frankie?”

“I miss you,” she said. The lust in her voice was gone, seized by a hollow sadness. The way she wobbled when she spoke wasn’t because she was trying to contain her desire, but because she was trying to hold back her tears. Anteros had been telling himself it was still just games between them, that the war didn’t matter, but hearing her choked voice exposed the lie. He couldn’t hold her or comfort her. There were no words to assuage the distance between them. He was powerless.

He fucking hated being powerless.

Anteros quickly shoved his cock back into his pants and, with a cough, changed the subject.

“Who helped you escape?” Silence met him on the other line. Up until then, Anteros and Frankie had been keeping their worlds separate. She lived with Lucia, wanted her as family, while Anteros was determined to destroy her and Lucia was determined to do the same to him. Once they opened up that line of communication there was no going back.

“Answer me, Frankie.” Anteros could hear her breathing on the line, like wind through an old house.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“How did you escape the hotel?” he pressed, ignoring her lie.

“Why are you asking me now?” she whispered. Anteros wasn’t sure what to say. Opening up—sharing his fucking feelings—wouldn’t change a goddamn thing. They would still be at war.

“Typical,” Frankie sighed on the other line. “You want everything from me but if I want something in return, you stonewall. What if I asked you to tell me why you killed Dubois? Why you sent that box to Lucia?”

“That was for you and you fucking know that,” he snarled. “But he’s dead because he betrayed me, and if someone betrays me, they die. Simple.” Silence followed. Breathing. He placed a hand over half his face, rubbing his closed eye, cheek, jaw…waiting for her response.

What the fuck was taking so long?

“I can’t,” Frankie eventually said. She sounded so pained that Anteros sat up in his chair, dropped the hand from his face. A few seconds later she amended, “I just…I mean…it was someone I don’t know. Lucia sent him.”

“What did he look like?” Anteros asked.

“I guess…long black hair. I met him at the party.” Anteros remembered the “journalist” he’d met that night. Something had been off about him; he’d been too lethal. It made sense.

Leaning back into his chair, Anteros asked, “Was that so hard?”

Frankie laughed. “Fuck you.”

“When I see you again you’re going to regret speaking to me as you have.” He actually loved the changes he saw in Frankie. She was showing him the truth she’d kept hidden at the penthouse. Her clothing, her unabashed swearing and sarcasm, it was what he’d been wanting—to get deeper, to burrow into her soul. He wasn’t driven to break her as he’d originally thought. He wanted her mind the way it was—sharp, lethal, cutting. He wanted her unbroken, only broken to him.

“Who says you’re going to see me again? Maybe I’ve moved on. You’d probably like him. He’s called Monster and has an unnatural fetish for tank tops in winter.”

A smile came to his face and just as Anteros was going to say something in response to her insolence, the door to his office burst open. With cool ease, Anteros hung up the phone without another word. Everyone—the Wolves, Levi—stood in the doorway.

“You’re being accused of murdering Lucio Pavoni,” Levi said somberly. “People are calling for Emilio to take your place.”

* * *

“Emilio is a little busy losing his reelection and getting high,” Anteros said smoothly.

“We are losing what little De Luca support we had,” Little O hedged. Anteros stood up and leaned against the wall, inky strands of hair falling over his eyes.

Before Anteros, Emilio had been a useless, visionless, bag of blood. A skin sack of nothing but thoughts of sex and spending money earned by others. With the help of Rhys, Emilio became a senator. With Rhys dead, Emilio had fallen back into his old habits. Now people wanted that fucker to take Anteros’s job? Anteros was the one who’d turned the Pavoni Family into an empire, made the name into something fearsome. He’d be fucking damned if he lost that because his last name wasn’t Pavoni.

Anteros couldn’t help but think of the complete hypocrisy. The way Lucio had gained the seat of Don in the first place was by killing his father-in-law. He wasn’t surprised, though. Lucio had already been family when he cut the crown, and no matter how many years he spent in the Family, he would always be estraneo.

“Is this legitimate, Boss?” Pretty Boy asked.

“Would it matter?”

“Not to us,” Pretty Boy quickly answered. “I wouldn’t give a fuck if Princess Di herself rose from the grave lookin’ to be Boss.”

“I would care about that,” Little O said. “I will always choose hot zombies.”

Ignoring that inane comment, Anteros continued to think. He had no doubt that they would choose him as their Boss. Hundreds of legitimate Pavonis could come out of the woodwork and they would still choose him. Like Anteros, Pretty Boy and Little O came from shit blood. They saw no reason to pledge fealty to a monarchy they could never hope to influence.

Crazy A was different. If the Pavoni mafia was truly a monarchy, then Crazy A came from noble blood.

“I don’t give a shit,” Crazy A’s cool, callous voice drifted back.

“This needs to be dealt with immediately,” Anteros said. He couldn’t fight a war on two fronts. He thumbed his lip, meeting everyone’s concerned stares.

Emilio would have to be killed.

There was just one problem.

“How do we get to Emilio up in DC?” Little O asked. “We don’t exactly have anyone to spare.” Yeah, that. He was already stretched on all sides. War was not conducive to running a business.

Anteros exhaled and walked to his desk, pressing the call button. A short few minutes later, Nikolai’s shaggy, titan gold curls popped into the room.

“Boss?”

“Call a soldier off the docks,” Anteros said. “Doesn’t matter which.” Anteros wasn’t thrilled about the idea. He needed the docks guarded, especially with all their shipments being hijacked by Lucia.

“Is that the best idea?” Little O asked, as if on cue. “We need the docks guarded.”

“The Institute is threatening to pull out if another shipment is hijacked,” Pretty Boy added.

“A soldier can’t pull off this job,” Crazy A mumbled.

“I’m all ears for a better fucking idea.” The silence thickened as everyone realized there wasn’t one.

“I can do it,” Nikolai said, breaking the quiet. “I’d like to prove myself.”

“You’ve got enough on your hands checking blueprints,” Pretty Boy said. Anteros almost agreed. It was one thing to have the boy double-check blueprints, another thing to give him a hit. He had been much younger than Nikolai when he decided to start proving himself, though, and as far as Anteros was concerned, Nikolai had proven himself the night at the hotel. In his clear, green eyes Anteros saw eagerness, confidence, a willingness to prove himself—all things he’d had at that age, but Anteros didn’t want to make the same mistakes as Lucio. If Nikolai wanted to be in the Family, then he could be in the Family.

“Have it finished by next weekend,” Anteros said.

“Yes, Boss.”

The door closed behind Nikolai and Anteros looked out the two-way painting into his club. Anteros had waited his entire life to be Boss, but maybe he’d had it wrong. Maybe he shouldn’t be Boss of the Pavoni empire, but Boss of his own fucking empire.

Lucia could have the Pavoni Family; when he was through with them, they’d be nothing but ashes.