Precious Legacy (The Notorious Legacy #1)

Chapter 38

THIRTY-EIGHT

“ I love you, Presh.”

Lani laughs, and it shouldn’t be the sweetest fucking sound I hear in response to the declaration, but it is. Her smile is wide, but she’s silent, like she’s thinking about her next words carefully. But I don’t want the calm, controlled Alanis Bonanno. I want the wild, unfiltered, unapologetic Alanis who stole my heart and invaded my thoughts from the moment I understood what I actually felt for her.

“This is where you say it back,” I growl, a feral undertone scoring my words.

Hooking her leg through mine, she somehow musters the strength to roll us over, until she’s got me pinned beneath her. “I’m not saying something I don’t mean,” she retorts. Though her words are there to deter me, she still runs her nose along mine,

“You just did.”

She nips my bottom lip with her teeth, her playful side peeking out. “I don’t hate you.”

My chest thumps a heavy rhythm as I gaze into her green eyes. Her words are everything and more. “I know,” I rasp.

“But I should,” she confesses, and those words bring back a whirlwind of thoughts I really don’t want to think about. But I understand it all now. The hatred, the animosity, the toxic way we collide whenever we’re together.

I smile up at her, admiring the vulnerability in her eyes. “But you don’t, and I’m the luckiest fucker in the world that you still can’t after all this time.”

“Asshole,” she mumbles, and I can’t help but smile wider.

“Now that’s more like it,” I grin, wrapping my hand in her hair and tugging her to my mouth.

She moans against my lips and my dick twitches inside of her. As much as I want to show her just how much those words mean, we should probably address a few things. Like what she considers working together, because I don’t think she means assisting my torture sessions with every single enemy.

Alanis must have the same idea because she rolls away from me, sighing quietly. She runs a hand through her raven locks, eyes anchoring onto mine. “Will it ever get easier?” she asks.

“Probably not,” I reply honestly. “But we’ve never done things the easy way.”

“True,” she chuckles.

We lull into silence for a moment, losing ourselves in our thoughts. I can tell she’s thinking about what she said before. If she’s going to fight for her place in the academy and eventually graduate, that means a lot is about to change. Proving she has the morals to differentiate what we do versus the NYPD is important to her, but I also sense she recognizes that not everything is black and white. We have to make sacrifices; decipher wrong from right and sometimes choose the less desirable option.

Like today, Alanis probably did us all a favor. Sure, I’m pissed that she was even there, but more than that she undermined not just me, but her brother, too. I’m conflicted as to how I’m supposed to react. My initial emotion was anger, but deep down, I know why she did it and I can’t fault her for it.

Prescott is the enemy, there’s no denying that. But Alanis is right; our worlds collided today, and I did something that could have an impact on her future.

“Do you have a plan?” I ask, turning my head back to her.

She looks so effortlessly beautiful with her just-fucked hair, soft green eyes, and plump lips that I could kiss forever and never need air again. Smeared blood has dried all over her mouth, jaw and neck, and when my gaze tours her body, I realize there isn’t really any part that wasn’t marked by me when she made my nose bleed.

Tucking into my side, she traces the lines of my tattoos; one in particular that I don’t think she’s realized the meaning of yet. It's a crown that descends into whirls of smoke above the Genovese emblem. It doesn’t stand out against the others, so it’s not obvious. But if she asked, I’d tell her that I got it as a reminder that she’s forever marked on me. She’s embedded into me, just like the ink and I’ll never letter go.

“Not yet,” she says, breaking through my thoughts.

My fingers automatically stroke down her spine, and she shivers against me. “He won’t be a problem,” I tell her. “If Prescott knows what’s good for him, he’ll recognize what you did for him and leave you alone.”

Alanis sits up, her brows furrowed with worry. “And if he doesn’t?”

Reaching out for her hand, I link our pinky fingers together. “Then he’ll lose more than an eye the next time I see him.”

She rolls her eyes, but just when I think she’s going to scold me, she crawls over my body. She straddles my hips and leans down to lick a path over my throat, from collarbone to ear. “Such a romantic,” she teases.

In one move, I throw her off me and pin her to the mattress with her wrists either side of her head so she can’t move. “You’re a difficult woman to please,” I growl back.

“Are you complaining?” She raises a brow in an attempt to challenge me, but all it does is turn me the fuck on.

I grind my hips and watch her mouth part slightly. Dipping down, I lick her lips. “Not. One. Bit.”

I t’s been a week since we had Prescott screaming while I extracted his eye, and there hasn’t been any retaliation from the Russians. That should serve as confirmation that they’re backing down, but even I know that they won’t go down without a fight. They’ve retreated, probably planning their next move. Whatever happens, I’m certain we’ll be ready.

“So Lani is really going through with it?” Haldon asks dubiously from behind his desk.

I look out at the dance floor below that’s teeming with patrons. The Ravenite has always been my favorite club of Gambino Enterprises. It’s got this hypnotic morbidity about it that I’ve always been drawn to. The music is always good, and it’s one of the more tasteful clubs Haldon owns.

“Yep,” I reply, popping the ‘p’. “She said she still wants to be a cop, but it’ll also help us.”

“How so?”

I turn to face him, leaning back against the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the club’s interior. “Because she’ll be handing us our enemies.”

“So she helps us with weeding out the rats, and in return…?”

“We take them out.”

It’s a win-win situation; one that crossed my mind a long time ago. I just never had the balls to suggest it because Alanis was so hellbent on her other motivations. Now I know she’s accepted that she can never escape who she is, it’s opened more doors for us.

Primarily, I know it’s her brother that she’s looking out for. She would never allow anything to happen to Varo, and apparently, I’m now someone she doesn’t want to lose, either. That thought brings a smile to my face, and Haldon notices.

“So much for fucking her out of your system,” he comments, rounding his desk to join me by the window. His gaze is fixed on the dance floor, observing the bodies swaying to ‘Good for you’ by Selena Gomez.

He seems on edge, which is unusual for Haldon since he’s always so calm. He’s the friend we turn to when we want the mood lightened, but his features are etched in worry.

“You okay?” I ask.

He nods, but it’s not as convincing as he might think. Before I can ask more, the door to his office bursts open, the wood slamming against the wall as an angry-looking Varo storms inside.

He makes a beeline for the liquor cart, pouring out a heavy glass of whiskey. The silence that fills the room is like a ticking time bomb; one wrong move and we’re all bound to go up in flames.

Haldon and I keep quiet as we watch our friend’s rage simmer. Varo is such a moody bastard that we can get away with teasing him about it most of the time, but now decidedly isn’t the time. His dark brows are creased together, his green eyes hardened as he throws back the entire contents of his glass. Only when he’s finished does he close his eyes and take a deep breath.

I glance at Haldon, and he’s wearing the same curious expression as me. When I avert my gaze back to Varo, I notice the red mark surrounding his eye. “What happened?”

“He’s a fucking traitor!” Varo snaps, turning around and pouring another measure of whiskey into his glass.

I have an idea of who he’s referring to, but with the way he’s acting, I need to tread carefully. I pace towards him, taking the glass out of his hand before he gets wasted. This isn’t like him at all, and we need to know what’s got him so wound up.

“Explain,” I demand.

Varo darts his gaze between me and Haldon, his jaw grinding with irritation. “It’s Kyrovsky.”

“What is?” I ask. He can’t be talking about the mole, because not only was my uncle very clear on that, it also doesn’t explain the black eye.

“Here,” Haldon says, appearing beside me with a glass of ice.

Varo takes it, pressing it against the side of his face where the bruising will no doubt appear soon enough. For a tense few seconds, he doesn’t say anything. His breaths are still erratic, like he’s continuously battling the rage inside. We have no choice but to give him a minute to calm down before we can get to the bottom of whatever has happened.

We all move to the couches and wait patiently for Varo to start talking. I hand him the glass of whiskey still in my possession, and he takes a careful sip before reclining into the leather.

“I got into a fight with Milo,” he announces, still clutching the other glass to his face.

I nod because I kind of expected that much. I’ve never seen anyone get under Varo’s skin quite like Milo does.

“What was it about?” Haldon asks.

Varo groans, rubbing his hand over his face and wincing slightly. “I confronted him about Prescott.”

“And?” I push for more details because the vagueness is starting to irritate me. Varo is never this closed-off about shit, but I know the complicated situation he’s found himself in. I don’t know how deep they’ve gotten themselves into, but I do know that fighting the attraction was always going to end badly.

“He was right…Milo’s a cop.”