The Kiss Thief

“Stop fighting your fate. You’re not doing your father any favors. Even he wants you to submit.”

“How do you know that?”

“One of his Magnificent Mile properties caught fire this morning. Fifty kilograms of cocaine straight from Europe—poof! Gone. He can’t contact the insurance until he cleans up the evidence, and by then, they’ll figure out he tampered with the scene. He just lost millions.”

“You did that,” I accused, narrowing my eyes at him. He shrugged.

“Drugs kill.”

“You did that so they’d tell me off,” I said.

He laughed. “Sweetheart, you’re a nuisance at best and entirely not worth the risk.”

Before I slapped him—or worse—I stormed outside, my anger following me like a shadow. I couldn’t leave the house since I didn’t have a car or anywhere to go, but I wanted to disappear. I ran out to the pavilion, where I broke down, falling to my knees and bawling my eyes out.

I couldn’t take it anymore. The combination of my father being a tyrant and Wolfe trying to ruin my family’s and my life was too much. I rested my head against the cool white wood of the bench, wailing softly as I felt the fight leaving my body.

A calming hand caressing my back. I was afraid to turn around even though I knew in my gut that Wolfe would never seek me out and try to make things better.

“Do you need your gloves?” It was Ms. Sterling, her voice soft like cotton. I shook my head between my arms.

“You know, he is just as confused and disoriented by your situation. Only difference is he’s had years of perfecting how to hide his emotions.”

I appreciated her trying to humanize my fiancé in my eyes, but it hardly worked.

“I had the pleasure of raising Wolfe. He was always a clever boy. He always wore his anger on his sleeve.” Her voice rang like bells as she drew lazy circles on my back, like my mom used to do when I was young. I kept quiet. I didn’t care that Wolfe had his own baggage. I’d done nothing to deserve his treatment.

“You need to weather the storm, my dear. I think you’ll find, after your adjustment period, that you two are so explosive together because you finally met your challenges in one another.” She sat on the bench above me, removing traces of my hair from my face. I looked up and blinked at her.

“I don’t think anything can scare Senator Keaton.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised. I think you give him a healthy dose of things to worry about. He did not expect you to be so…you.”

“What does that mean?”

Her face wrinkled as she considered her next words. Seeing as Wolfe had obviously hired her because he felt attached to her after raising him, I at least had the hope in believing that one day, he’d warm up to me, too.

She offered me her hands, and when I took them, she surprised me by pulling me up and standing up at the same time, drawing me in for a hug. We were both the same height—tiny—and she was even scrawnier than me. She spoke against my hair.

“I think your love story started off on the wrong foot, but it will be magnificent precisely because of that. Wolfe Keaton has walls, but you’re already starting to break them. He is fighting it, and you. Would you like the secret to disarming Wolfe Keaton, my dear girl?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that. Because a part of me sincerely feared that I would tear him to shreds given the opportunity. And I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing I’d hurt someone so profoundly.

“Yes,” I heard myself say.

“Love him. He will be defenseless against your love.”

With that, I felt her body disconnecting from mine, and she retreated to the glass doors, the vast mansion swallowing her figure. I took a deep breath.

The man had just destroyed a building in which my father processed drugs. And half-admitted it to me. That was more information than my father ever offered or admitted to. He also let me go to school. He also allowed me to leave whenever I pleased.

I glanced at my wrist watch. It was two in the morning. Somehow, I’d spent two hours in the garden. Two hours Wolfe must’ve spent reading through every message I’d ever received.

The late-night chill was seeping into my bones. Dejected, I turned to head back into the house. When I’d made my way back inside, I spotted Wolfe standing on the threshold of the open door. He had one arm propped against its frame, blocking me from getting in. I took measured steps toward him.

I stopped when I was a foot away.

“Give me my phone back,” I said. To my surprise, he reached into his back pocket and tossed it into my hands. I clutched it in my fist, still reeling from our latest fight but also oddly touched by the fact he stayed awake and waited for me. He started his days at five in the morning, after all.

“You’re in my way.” I rustled, trying to keep my teeth from chattering.

He stared at me blankly.

“Push me away. Fight for what you want, Francesca.”

“I thought that’s what made us enemies.” A vicious smile found my lips. “Because I want to break free from you.”

It was his turn to smirk.

“Wanting and fighting are two different things. One is passive, the other active. Are we enemies, Nemesis?”

“What else can we be?”

“Allies. I’ll scratch your back. You’ll scratch mine.”

“I’m all for not touching you ever again after last night.”

He shrugged. “You might’ve been more believable if you hadn’t grinded on me before I kicked you out of my bedroom. At any rate, you’re welcome to come in. But I won’t be making it easy for you, unless you give me your word Bandini is deleted from your phone and your life.”

I got why he did that. He could have done it himself, but he wanted it to come from me. He didn’t want another battle—he wanted my complete surrender.

“Angelo will always be in my life. We grew up together, and just because you bought me doesn’t mean you own me,” I said evenly even though really, I had no intention of responding to Angelo’s texts. More so since I’d heard that he was going on a second date with the vile Emily.

“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to show some of your temper and fight me.”

“Can I ask you something?” I rubbed my forehead tiredly.

“Certainly. Whether I’ll answer or not is a completely different story.” His smirk grew more smug and mocking.

“What’s your leverage over my father? He obviously hates your guts, yet he won’t claim me back, even after I told him I’m going to college. That’d put a huge strain on his reputation as people will know that I am going against his wish. It must be quite substantial, then, if he’d rather have me in your bed than have you dish out the goods on him.”

I scanned his face, expecting him to rebuke and belittle me as my father had done earlier that day.

Wolfe surprised me again.

“Whatever I have on him could take away everything he’s worked for, not to mention throw him in jail for the rest of his miserable life. But your father didn’t throw you to the dogs. He trusts me not to hurt you.”

“Is that foolish of him?” I looked up.

Wolfe’s muscular arm flexed under his shirt. A barely visible movement.

“I’m not a monster.”

“Could’ve fooled me. Just tell me why?” I whispered, the air rattling in my lungs. “Why do you hate him so much?”

“That’s two questions. Go to bed.”

“Move out of the way.”

“Accomplishments are so much more rewarding when obstacles are in the way. Fight me, darling.”

I snuck under his arm, ducking into the house and launching for the staircase. He caught me by the waist in one swift movement, pulling me into his arms and plastering me against his strong chest. His knuckles trailed down the length of my spine, and goose bumps burst all over my skin. His lips found my ear, hot and soft in contrast to the harsh man they belonged to, his breath tickling my hair. “Maybe I am the monster. After all, I come out to play at night. But so do you, little one. You’re out in the darkness, too.”

BLOWING UP ARTHUR’S PROPERTY SLASH meth lab—and the coke with it—was just another Tuesday. The work of saints was done through others, and mine had definitely been taken care of.

The next four days were spent bending White’s and Bishop’s arms until they snapped and agreed to assign over five hundred additional cops to be on duty at any given time to protect the streets of Chicago from the mess I’d created. It was going to blow up the bill to the sky, but it wasn’t the state of Illinois that was going to shell out the money. The money was sitting firmly in White’s and Bishop’s pockets.

Money given by my future father-in-law.

Who, by the way, changed his tune from trying to coax his daughter into warming up to me and decided to repay me by throwing hundreds of pounds of trash in parks across Chicago. He couldn’t do much more than that, considering all the juice I had on him. I was a power player. Touching what was mine—even scratching my car—came with a hefty price tag and would award him more unneeded attention from the FBI.

I had the trash picked up by volunteers and thrown into his garden. That was when the phone calls began to pour in. Dozens of them. Like a needy, drunk ex-girlfriend on Valentine’s Day. I didn’t pick up. I was a senator. He was a highly connected mobster. I could marry his daughter, but I wouldn’t listen to what he had to say. My job was to clean the streets he soiled with drugs, guns, and blood.

I made a point to be at home as little as possible, which wasn’t very hard between flying out to Springfield and DC frequently.

Francesca was still adamant about having her dinners in her room (not that I cared). She did, however, fulfill her commitments as far as cake-tasting, trying on dresses, and doing all the other bullshit wedding planning I’d dumped on her (not that I minded if she showed up in a goddamn oversized napkin). I didn’t care for my fiancée’s affection. As far as I was concerned, with the exception of amending the no-fucking-other-people clause before my balls fell off, she could live on her side of the house—or better yet, across town—until her last breath.