Dirty Chase: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Brooklyn Brotherhood Book 2) (25 page)

I
come
to and see Sergey pointing the gun at Elle.

And then he pulls the trigger.

Before I can get up, move, shout, anything—nothing happens. The gun. It's out of bullets.

"Fuck," Sergey growls. He tosses the gun behind him and lunges for Elle. She tries to run but he catches her, overpowers her easily, pushing her backwards and against the wall, just five feet from me. He pushes her upper body backwards, wraps his hands around her throat.

I roll over onto all fours. Two of Sergey's bullets hit my bulletproof vest. But the third is burning fire near my throat. I can't tell what's been hit, but it's bad. I test my arms; they're working. Barely.

They've got to fucking work.

If it's the last thing I do.

I force myself to rise. I can't quite seem to walk in a straight line. The wound near my neck is cold now, not a good sign. I raise my hands to my throat, and when I can focus my eyes again and look at myself—I'm covered in bright red blood.

Not yet
, I think.
If I have to die, not yet. Give me three more minutes…to save her life
.

I stumble toward the wall, but I miss Elle and the fucker on top of her. He's still got his hands wrapped around her throat. He's grunting while she's struggling, her feet kicking wildly between his legs. I don't have the strength to fight him. I don't have a gun.

I look down at my red, dripping hands.

Red Christmas lights twinkle underneath me, tacked to the building's eaves, a strange dissonance: blood and murder and mayhem and…Christmas lights.

I can barely stand, or see through the black fog rolling in on my vision.

I lurch toward Sergey's back. Elle's feet are no longer moving. I can do this. One more push. One more kill. The most important kill of my life.

My movements are stiff, jerky. The pain in my neck is fading, and a cool numbness is spreading throughout my body.

I hear someone calling my name. More than one person, but they're so far away. They're somewhere else, beyond my darkening vision, beyond the numbness creeping slowly through my body.

I lunge at Sergey's back, my left hand grabbing Elle's arm, my right hand pushing Sergey hard—out, out beyond the roof's wall—out into nothingness.

He turns, roaring, and I watch as Elle rolls back to safety, lands hard on her knees, then turns to me. Those pretty summer-blue eyes.

But I didn't push Sergey hard enough. He's still hanging on—onto me. I fall heavily on him, my feet still touching the roof, but barely. Our bodies lean out toward infinity.

Sergey's brown eyes and smooth face are contorted into a mask of fury. He puts his hands on my throat, choking me. I lean in. I let him. I don't have much longer. It reminds me of his son; the intimacy of dying next to someone.

"I'll kill you," Sergey sneers. He begins to speak in Russian. Just like his fucking son.

"Not this shit again," I growl. I'm blacking out, though I think I hear voices. Declan? Gray? Must be my life passing before my motherfucking eyes.

"Then I'll kill your little American whore—"

Without thinking, I surge forward. He grips me, tightly, sneering, snarling. I'm losing strength. I'm losing blood. I'm no longer strong enough to throw him over the wall.

But I can fall. I can fall like dead weight.

And so I push us both over the wall, into the clean, pure air.

I
can't forget watching
Chase die.

Every night I relive that moment—in my nightmares.

I wake, gasping, covered in sweat. I dig the palms of my hands into my eyes, as if I press hard enough I could erase that image. In my dreams, I still see Chase as he pushes Sergey off the roof—using his own body as a weapon. The ultimate weapon.

To save me. To save our child.

Then just as Chase pushed Sergey over the wall's edge—his own wounded body beginning to topple after him—I raced to the wall and grabbed Chase. On my own, I wouldn't have been strong enough to stop his fall. But Declan and Gray and an army of Frenchmen had been pounding across the rooftop, shouting at Chase to stand down. They'd followed Chase to the roof, but been held up on the second floor by a gunfight with the last of Sergey's men.

As soon as the smoke cleared, they'd race to help Chase, but he'd been so far gone he hadn't heard them, calling to him.

The two men grabbed him, pulled him to safety. I stood there, watching as they laid him on his back. His eyes were closed. He was bleeding so much from the wound in his neck…

Then I turned to my left and I was the only one who saw Sergey fall, arms waving, his wildly outstretched fingertips just grabbing the Christmas lights that lined the roof's ledge. He caught a strand in his bloody fist, held it like it might save him. But it didn't. He fell, and I stood there, frozen, as his body plummeted to earth.

I didn't watch the body land. But I'll never forget looking away, to see the string of lights—the lights Sergey held onto, all the way down—go
pop-pop-pop
as he pulled them from their moorings. And then the lights stopped moving, and there was an awful sound from below. I didn't look. I didn't want to see any more bodies.

But then I turned and watched the love of my life bleed to death on a rooftop in Paris.

"Bad dreams, Princess?"

The shadows next to me fade, morph, and change into my beautiful husband as Chase sits up in bed. The light from Brooklyn's streetlamps filters in through our curtains, just catches his tattoos, his smile, his eyes on me.

"Chase." I lean against him, inhaling his scent. I run my fingertip lightly over the scar on his neck. Such a small wound, and yet it almost took his great, big, amazing life.

"I keep seeing you on that rooftop. I keep seeing you die in my dreams."

Chase sighs and holds me close.

"Darlin,' my heart barely stopped. I was dead for like
a minute
. That's nothin'. I know men whose hearts stopped beating for an hour, and they're still giving their wives shit eighty years later."

I laugh despite myself. "Well, it felt a lot longer than one minute. And you were so pale. There was so much blood."

Chase falls back in bed, pulling me with him. "I've had worse," he mutters, running his fingertips up and down my back. "And I had a reason to live. Two."

He lays a hand on my belly. It's still flat, but I know it won't be for long. This week, at the doctor's office, we heard our baby boy's fierce, fast, wonderful heartbeat.

The ambulances had arrived on the rooftop just as Chase was pulled back to safety. The emergency medical technicians had surrounded him. I'd heard them—heard them clearly—say they'd lost his heartbeat. That he was technically dead.

"Technically, my ass," Chase liked to say.

They'd carted him away from me before I knew if he would live or die.

Gray and Dec and I had raced to the hospital, but we hadn't been allowed in to see him. All we knew was that he was in surgery. Five brutal hours later, we were told he was alive, but critical. None of us were allowed to see him, because we weren't family.

Three days after his surgery—when Chase finally woke up from an induced coma and discovered I hadn't been allowed in the rom—he raised hell and demanded a priest be brought in immediately. And then we were married in the hospital room, so no one could keep as apart. Our witnesses were Chase's doctor and an old woman named Helene who looked suspiciously familiar.

I curl into Chase's tattooed chest. Now that we're back in Brooklyn, Paris feels like a dream during the day—but I wake up tortured every night.

"Princess, you cured me." Chase's voice is rough and husky against my ear. "You made all my nightmares go away. Now, what can I do to cure you?"

I look up and trace the planes of his face.

"Well, I can think of one thing you can do to distract me…"

"Just one?" He kisses me gently, then deeper. I feel my body flare to life, like it always does with his touch.

"Mmm, maybe a couple."

"You sure it won't…hurt the baby?"

I smile. For a big, bad hitman who fears nothing, Chase is surprisingly terrified about my "delicate" condition.

"It won't hurt the baby," I say, sitting up and pulling my T-shirt off. I toss the covers off his gorgeous body, and run my hands down his abs and over his hardening cock. "And it will make the baby's mother
very
happy."

"If Mama ain't happy," Chase says as he lifts my hips and helps me straddle him, "Ain't nobody happy."

I can't respond, because now I'm sliding down his shaft, and he's filling me. So sweet and so deep I can barely move.

"Goddamn, Princess, what a sight," Chase growls. He reaches up and holds my face between his hands, a gentle touch while he fucks me from below. I moan and try to hold on. He's so big I can barely ride him, barely take him this way.

"When I was in the hospital, it hit me that I had one life goal I hadn't achieved. So let's cross this one off the bucket list." Chase holds my hip tight with one hand, keeping me on him while his other hand reaches for his nightstand.

He pulls out the tiara, from the night we first met.

"I thought we lost that!"

He places it on my head. His fingers run through my short hair and his eyes darken for a moment. I know what he's thinking. He doesn't care what my hair looks like, but he can't forget watching that knife cut it off me.

"Chase," I say. "Chase, it's over. We're safe now."

He nods, but his face is still tight. "I'm going to make sure you—and our son—will never be in danger again."

I'm about to respond when he grabs my hips and starts to roll his own, taking control and fucking me even though I'm on top.

"Aren't I supposed to be in charge up here?" I moan.

Chase smiles and puts his arms behind his head. "Take over, Princess. I like to watch."

I lean slightly forward, trying to balance on his chest, my breasts falling in his face. He can't hold back for more than a second; he grabs them and begins to suck, hard.

"These are getting bigger, sweetheart."

I moan and rock my hips, his cock filling me so deeply I'm impaled.

"Move that ass, darlin'. I wanna hear you moan."

And I do, riding him faster and faster, unable to be quiet now. Every move hits all the right places, and soon I'm coming, crying out his name.

And then I'm flipped over, on my back, and Chase is pounding into me, lifting my knee up over his shoulder and rocking me to my core.

I'm about to come when Chase suddenly stops moving. He stays deep inside me, but holds himself over me, watching my face. "I forgot to tell you. I talked to the boys, and I've decided I'm going to quit freelancing."

"What?" I moan, panting under him.

"I'm retiring. I've got enough money saved to last three lifetimes. Figure I'll stick around, spend more time with you. And the kiddo."

Tears fill my eyes. "Chase. Thank you."

He leans down and kisses me, moves tenderly inside me.

"Of course, I still might do some contracting work for Gray now and again."

I grab his hips and hold him still. "And what is the difference between being a
freelancer
and being a
contractor
?"

He smiles. "Contractors can charge twice as much and don't have to do the dirty work."

"Seems like a bit of a dirty trick," I laugh. Then he twists his hips and makes me moan.

"You know me, Princess. I don't mind a little dirty work." He puts his hand on my clit, strumming it until I'm humming. "In fact, with you, I prefer it."

And he spends the rest of the night exploring new ways the two of us can get very, very dirty.

"
T
he baby's asleep
," Elle whispers as she makes her way into the farmhouse's living room and sits down next to me, in front of the roaring fire. I pull her in for a kiss and run my hand over her shoulder-length hair and ample curves, which have only gotten more luscious with time.

There's a Christmas tree in the corner, a fire in the fireplace, and snow falling all over the fields and forests outside our door. And I've got three amazing Christmas presents to give Elle—one for each year that she's transformed my life.

"Darlin', Aiden isn't a baby anymore. He's two and a half, and he's almost as tall as you are."

Elle grins. "He's not that tall—yet. But he'll always be my baby. Well, one of them." She runs my hand down my cheek; she's always loved my beard. "Would you like
your
Christmas gift now?"

I caress her full breasts through the adorable, ugly Christmas sweaters she insists on wearing. "Mmm, do you have it on you?" I grab the neckline and look inside. "Maybe I should explore…in the bedroom. Wait. The dining room. We haven't made love in the dining room yet."

Elle bats my hand away. "We need to stop having sex in every room in this house. I don't think the Alloways imagined you marking your territory when they agreed to let us rent this place for the holidays."

I pull her closer and grab her ass. "I like the sound of that—marking my territory. But I don't think the Alloways will care where I fuck my woman." I take her first gift from my pocket and place the small black box in her palm. "Not anymore."

Elle gives me a warning glance—she told me to stop buying her jewelry after I got her an engagement ring and earrings to match her tiara. But when she opens the lid and sees a small, pink key inside, she shoots me a questioning look.

"The Alloways won't mind that I fuck my wife in every room of this house, because the Alloways aren't the owners anymore."

"Chase Masters." Elle's mouth drops open. "What. Did. You. Do."

"I bought my Princess her very own castle."

Elle shouts, then claps her hands over her mouth so she won't wake the baby.

"You bought the farm? The entire farm? But we don't know how—what—do you even know how to mow grass? What are we going to
do
?"

"Well, I was thinking I'd keep the foreman and farmhands that already work here. They’ve got acres of certified-organic fields. And Rafe tells me the hot, new thing in the restaurant world is to locally source your food. So we'll be supplying organic produce to the world famous Il Duca restaurant. And, I know you've been wanting to get out of the classroom but still work with kids, so I figured we could bus students from the city up here, have a—what did you call it when you took some kids to that other farm?—a
learning classroom
in the fields. Maybe sponsor a camp for underprivileged kids during the summer. Nice shit like that."

Elle's eyes are filling with tears. Fuck. I thought she'd at least
smile
.

"Jesus, darlin', I didn't mean to make you cry. If you want to stay in Brooklyn, fuck it, we'll stay in Brooklyn."

And then she launches herself into my arms. I catch her and pull her close.

"I love it!" Elle whispers, kissing me all over. "I love you!"

I can't stop the smile from spreading across my face. After years of having to mask my emotions, it's a strange, wondrous feeling to be so open with Elle. No secrets between us. Well, except for the one—okay,
two
—wrapped and waiting for her.

"I'd throw you down and make love to you right now," I say. "But it's kind of life-or-death that you open your last presents right away."

"Life or death?"

I grab the large box hidden behind the sofa and push it toward her. "Maybe I shouldn't have wrapped it. Though there
are
holes in the box."

Elle starts to shake her head. "Chase. What else did you do?" She rips off the red paper, pulls the cardboard lid off, and gasps. Inside are two tiny Siberian Husky puppies, a brother and a sister, nestled onto each other and sleeping on an old plaid blanket.

Elle shakes her head, tears streaming down her face as she watches the little creatures gently snore. And then Elle smiles.

And when she smiles, I do the same.

"So—you're happy?"

"I'm happy," she whispers. "I'm just a little hormonal lately. But I think I'm overwhelmed—with joy. I'm married to the sexiest, sweetest, strongest man in the world. And now we have a farm, two kids and two puppies. That's a lot of work." She smiles at me and blushes prettily. "Good thing I've got an energetic husband with a lot of time on his hands."

"That's right, Princess—wait. Did you just say
two kids
?"

Elle kneels between my legs. "Merry Christmas, Chase. We're going to have a baby girl."

That feeling in my heart expands and expands until I think I'm gonna burst. I think I'm finally getting used to it. I think it's called pure happiness.

"Princess, that's the best Christmas gift you could ever give me." I pull her to me and kiss her, deeper and deeper, while running my hand over her slightly rounded, perfect stomach. "And here I thought I'd have the most kick-ass Christmas gifts this year. But you beat me by a mile, darlin.' You win."

"It's not a competition." Elle bites her lower lip and tries not to grin. "But that'll teach you to get cocky."

I laugh and flip her over—gently—so that she's spread out before me on the thick carpet. I pull her sweater over her head and her pants down her legs. I watch the firelight and shadows mix all over my wife's perfect, beautiful body.

"You love me when I'm cocky," I say, kissing my way down her body. "Do I need to prove it to you?"

"Why yes," she whispers, laying back as I spread her legs and take a deep, delicious taste of my love, my wife, my savior, my Princess. "I think you should prove it to me a couple times in a row.
Darlin
.'"