The Reaper (Dark Verse #2)

by RuNyx

“I hope you don’t mind, dear Morana. Until I can trust you to be on the compound with my family, you are not to be armed.”

“Touch her without permission again,”

“and I will break you.”

“Interesting,” he murmured, a smile coming to his face she did not like one bit.

She saw the responding heat in his eyes as his hands traveled up her calves, his rough fingers caressing her skin for the

first time in a room full of mobsters. But it fit given their first time had been in a mob restaurant with mobsters outside the door.

It was a statement loud and clear. She was his.

Maroni’s lips pursed. Then, he turned to one of the goons. “Have Antria prepare the guest room.”

“No need,” Tristan Caine spoke for the first time in a while. “She stays with me.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

“She stays with me,” he stated again.

“Not possible,” Maroni refuted immediately. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, Dante took over. “If she stays at the main house, you give your word no harm would come to her?”

“As long as she doesn’t harm anyone.”

Muscles tensing, she took a step back as he bent down

and quickly removed a small knife from his sock. Without a word, he stood up and held the knife out to her.

“Why?”

“You’re with vultures now. They feed off the dead.”

“They will be activating the ears in this room soon. Stay sharp.”

Tristan: Were you wet?

Morana: You'll never find out. Tristan: Yes, I will.

Morana: I can see the lake from my window. Tristan: I can see your window from mine.

She didn’t like the insecurity that bopped its head upon seeing the beautiful

women, especially when one of them had her sights on her man. Her man?

Her man. Where the hell did that even come from?

She was his. By now, probably everyone in the mob knew. She knew. But was he her man?

Fuck yes, he was hers. For however long, damaged and asshole-d, and however he was, he was hers. And good luck to anyone who tried to come between that.

“I don’t want your sympathy. What I want is for you to keep your distance from Dante and Tristan.”

“And why would I do anything you want?”

“Because they’re the good ones and they don’t deserve the shit storm you have created, princess. Neither of them. Especially Tristan.”

“What do you know about what he deserves?”

know he’s fucked me on the regular for almost two years and Tristan doesn’t do regular.”

“Fucked. Past

tense, Mrs. Mancini. But I’m the present and the foreseeable future.”

“He will come back to me.” “Maybe,” Morana shrugged.

“Or maybe, I will destroy him for anyone else.”

What was she even trying to do? What was she doing thinking a man that

badly damaged could ever heal enough to be with her? They had ended even before they had begun. And that was a depressing, depressing thought.

Tristan Caine changing years of seating arrangements and sitting beside her in front of everyone—no big deal.

“This won’t happen again,” he warned.

“It better not.”

“She is staying in the guest room on the second floor," he told everyone. "Nobody will bother her. She is her father’s daughter, after all.”

Maroni looked around the table, his eyes coming to rest on Tristan Caine. “And nobody will touch her.” The hand on her thigh returned. This time, she let it stay.

“But you have to be careful, Morana. Accidents can happen anywhere sadly.”

“And what if I want someone to touch me?”

“Then you will get more than you bargained for, little girl.”

And throughout dinner, his hand remained on her thigh, not stroking, not moving, not doing anything except just being. Morana had never experienced it—the way a touch could anchor her.

"Let me make something very clear to you. I think you mistake me for someone you can push around, Mr. Maroni,"

"I'm not. I'm your Pandora's box. So, if I were you, I'd keep me very, very happy and very, very alive. Because once this box opens, your power, your empire, you will crumble and you wouldn't be able to do a thing to stop it."

“Look at all the dishes you want, wildcat,”

“but the only dish filling you up is right here.”