Declan groans, and I realize that he hasn’t said a word since his brother – his twin brother – dragged him out of that warehouse.

I’ve never seen a man get that angry. The second he saw what Vince was about to do to me, it was like a switch got flipped inside his mind. I saw the madness descend behind his eyes, and I saw what he would have done to Vince if Kieran hadn’t been there to stop him. It was breathtaking; it was terrifying; and it was actually kind of sexy … just thinking that a man could change like that … for me…

“The fuck, Casey?” Declan says, and I shake myself out of my head. I shouldn’t be thinking about his abs, his biceps, and where I want him to lick me, not now.

I fucked up, and I fucked up bad; so bad he had to come rescue me. I’m so far away from having my big girl pants on right now it’s not even funny. He says it again, shaking his head as if he’s still baffled by what I did.

“The fuck?”

“I’m sorry, Declan,” I whisper. I feel tears prickling at my eyes – not of sadness, but embarrassment. I blink them back. I don’t want to be the kind of girl who cries to get her own way. I deserve every ounce of anger that the Irishman in front of me is about to throw my way.

“What were you thinking?” He asks.

I try to answer, but I haven’t one. He’s hit the nail on the head. The truth is, I wasn’t: thinking, that is. If I hadn’t been blinded by my own sense of importance, my stubbornness, my desire to get my own way, then I’d never have gone back to that warehouse. I’d never have put myself in the kind of situation where someone would have to come save me.

“I wasn’t,” I reply honestly. “I’m so sorry. I never should have left this place, I never should have –”

“I don’t want your apologies,” Declan grunts, silencing me in an instant. He has an incredible presence, this man. I’m drawn to him, and left hanging on his every word. When I’m around him, if he asks me to jump, I don’t ask why, I ask how high. It’s only when he let me off the leash that the problems start.

I jolt guiltily back to the present. “I don’t want your excuses,” Declan continues, his gruff voice smoldering, “all I want to know is this: Why. Did. You. Leave?”

For a man who seems like he would be more comfortable in a boxing ring than a courtroom, Declan has an uncanny ability to cut right through the crap when he talks to me. I don’t know what to say. Everything that crosses my mind sounds like an excuse. Every word that dies unspoken on my tongue – an apology.

The silence stretches out between us. It’s uncomfortable, long, and awkward, but Declan never breaks eye contact with me.

I crumble.

“You want the truth? All of it?”

Declan nods.

I pause, struggling to find the words to express my pain. I’ve never told anyone what I’m about to tell him. Not because it hurts too much – though it does, but because no one has ever bothered to ask.

“You know how I came to owe the Morellos all that money?” I ask. As the words leave my mouth, I have one of those moments that everyone fears – that I’m suddenly the awkward kid at school again, launching into a story and no one’s listening. But that’s not Declan. He’s alert, hanging on my every word – even if his clenched jaw shows exactly how furious with me he still is.

“The usual? Gambling? Drugs?”

I flinch at the word. I shouldn’t. I know it’s silly, but I do. It still hurts. I don’t think it’ll ever stop hurting.

“He was twelve when the car crash took them.”

Declan’s jaw softens. As he speaks, his voice is soft and lilting. If I closed my eyes and listened to him, I’d picture a songwriter, or a bard: not a gangster. “You mean your parents?”

My eyelids close, and I breathe out deeply. It’s a little trick I taught myself. It stops the sadness from closing my windpipe and scrunching my stomach: mostly. “Yes,” I whisper.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I say firmly. “They didn’t deserve to be parents, neither of them. Dad beat us bloody with his belt, and mom let him, and there’s nothing worse in my book than a parent who stands by and lets something like that happen.”

Declan raises his eyebrow, like he wants to comment on something I said, but nothing comes out of his mouth.

I breathe.

“Luke always was an angry kid. He never forgave the world for treating us the way it did. We had some good years, us two. I was a few years older – old enough to take care of him by the time they passed, and CPS let us stay together. It wasn’t all visits to the principal’s office, or the emergency room – though there were enough of those.”

I fall silent. I feel that telltale weakness clutching at my belly, and I try and push it away.

“But…”

Strangely, Declan’s intervention helps. It pushes me out of my head and lets me focus on the story, not the way it makes me feel. “But,” I agree. “But troubled kids find other troubled kids, and they get into trouble – don’t they?”

I look at Declan with a challenge in my eyes. The way he acts, I guess he probably was one of those troubled kids, but to … but to my surprise, he doesn’t flinch, or look away.

“They do,” he intones in his deep, baritone voice. “What happened?”

He knows what happened. We both know what happened. But the words start to flood out of me. It’s cathartic: a release.

“Drugs happened,” I say, my voice hard and bitter. “Coke, heroin, ecstasy… Anything he could get his hands on, he took. Once he learned that there was a whole world out there – a world of chemicals that could transport him away to wherever he wanted to be – he never looked back. He was still the same sweet kid on those weeks he managed to pry himself away from the powder, but that never lasted long.”

This time I fall silent for good. It hurts too much to give life to the story, and I figured Declan must have got the picture by now.

“You can’t blame yourself,” Declan says. The way he looks at me, it’s like he understands the pain I’m going through – but I don’t know how that can be the case. He’s still got his brother, his twin, while mine’s been stripped away from me. He hasn’t faced that loss, nor faced the pain it brings.

“How can I not? I am – I mean, I was his sister. I was supposed to keep him safe from the world, not let it snatch him up and spit him out like so much trash.”

“It’s not your fault, Casey,” Declan says with feeling. He leaps off the couch he was lying on and closes the distance between us, grabbing my hand and holding it in his. It’s warm, comforting, and I like it. “I can’t imagine how much his death has hurt you. If something happened to Kieran or worse…” Declan closes his eyes and breathes out heavily, as if he’s scrubbing his mind of the thought.

“It’s not worth thinking about. You weren’t just a sister to him – you were a mother, too. That’s twice the love… and twice the pain.”

My voice cracks. I’d never thought about it like that, but when I hear Declan say it, it’s so obvious. I didn’t just love Luke like a brother: I loved him like a son. I raised him, put food on his table, and tucked him in at night. “It is.”

“And Vince Amari sold your brother – Luke, I mean – he sold Luke the drugs that killed him?”

I nod, and this time I don’t bother holding back the tears singeing the corners of my eyes. “Yes,” I say bitterly. “Sold them, sure – and then came after me for the debt when he died.”

Declan gathers me in his arms, and my hot, wet tears stain his chest. He’s still wearing the same shirt he was when he rescued me from Vince’s clutches, and it’s covered in dust and splinters from when he blasted through the window, but I don’t care. I feel safe here, as crazy as that sounds. I feel, for the first time in weeks, like no one can hurt me while I’m in his arms.

He pulls me onto the couch and we lie like that for, hell – I don’t know how long. A rumbling in Declan’s chest alerts me that he’s going to say something. “You know, I meant what I said,” Declan says, his voice black as thunder. “Vince Amari is a dead man.”

I lie silently on his chest. They are words I’ve waited to hear ever since I first learned Vince’s name, but I was in the same truck as he was on the way back from the warehouse. It didn’t take a genius to pick up on the vibes Kieran was throwing out. Declan’s twin wasn’t at all pleased at the risk his brother had run to save me. The brothers were clearly from a rival mob family – and Kieran, for one, wasn’t spoiling for a fight with them.

On the other hand, Declan is no cream filled Twinkie either: all sweet looks, but no substance. He’s the man who purchased me, and expects me to follow his rules. He’s not a good man. Hell, for all I know he sells drugs as well. I shiver at the thought.

“You never told me you had a brother,” I say, moving the conversation onto safer ground; softer ground; ground where the words escaping my mouth don’t plow up fields of hurt.

“Four, actually,” Declan smiles, stroking my upper arm.

“And are they all as…” I whisper, picturing a loose semicircle of six foot plus Irishmen ringing the foot of my bed. I close my eyes to clear my head. One tattooed mobster is more than enough danger for me, thank you very much. At least, for now…

“… good-looking as me?” He laughs, pushing me backwards. “Not even close. I mean, you’ve seen Kieran. He kinda drew the short straw…”

“That’s no fair!” I protest as my back flops against the couch.

“What isn’t?” Declan growls. His growl isn’t anything like Vince’s – it’s low, and dangerous, but it provokes waves of longing inside me. Declan’s hands are roaming my body now – not comforting me, but toying with my every nerve ending.

He’s like the conductor of an orchestra, and the different parts of my body are the different sections of the band. His fingers build towering pillars of pleasure at my nipples, before knocking them aside and moving on. He never lingers long enough for the crescendo to build, or break, and wash over me with sparks of pleasure. He knows what he’s doing better than any man I’ve ever been with until now.

Not that there’s a long list. I never had time.

“You,” I groan, closing my eyes and biting my lip to stay present, “this… all of it. You’re playing with me, Declan, and I don’t like it …”

“Oh?” He whispers, raising his eyebrow. He’s leaning over me and his face fills my entire sphere of vision. I drink it in – his black, stubbled face, and the lines on his forehead: all of it. “Because the way I see it, Casey – nothing’s changed.”

He scrapes his nails across my belly, and it tickles enough to make me clench all over. It’s a delicious, fiery touch, and I can’t decide whether I want him to stop or redouble his efforts.

“What do you –”

“Mean?” Declan says, taking my ear lobe in his mouth and nibbling at it. “I mean exactly what I say. You’re still mine, Casey: every inch of you. So the way I see it, you have two choices: you do exactly as I say for the next few months; or you find a way to pay me back; every penny.”

I shiver. His tone is laced with warning. Every time I let myself think that he’s a man like any other, Declan finds a way to remind me that he’s not. He’s a predator –disguised by a hundred watt smile and cover-model looks – but a predator nonetheless…

“So, which is it, Puss?” He asks, scraping his stubble against my cheek and allowing his fingers to walk across my pussy. My breath is ragged inside my chest, and it takes everything I have to focus on his words.

“Well,” I gasp as his palm scrapes across my clit, “I guess when you put it like that…”