Though her body was fully sated and wanted nothing more than rest, Callie was plagued by her disturbing thoughts. She found it impossible to sleep. Certain that Vin wouldn’t wake, Callie slowly and carefully got out of bed to get dressed. Silently, she picked up the food tray from earlier and tip-toed out of Vin’s room. Downstairs, Callie spotted Ella, with a few other women, folding extra clothes and bedding. “Hey, anything I can help with?” Ella looked up from where she was folding a shirt, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “Well, that took a while,” Ella remarked, a knowing smile gracing her face. Callie had no idea how much time had passed since she’d brought up Vin’s food, but it must have taken a little longer than necessary—okay, a lot longer. The singer could only manage a sheepish smile. “Whatever you’re thinking… it didn’t happen.” “Hmm, if you say so,” the doctor replied, but her little smirk told Callie, she didn’t buy it. “Just leave that tray over there and gra
The city looked like it came straight out of a movie. Debris littered the streets, charred and broken, a grim reminder of the lives that were lost to the fire. It was a ghost town, and the overcast weather wasn’t helping. Thunder roared in the distance, a warning of what was to come. Vin sent out word to the residents when the fire was put out. The Tomb was a refuge and the residents were free to take shelter there and food will be provided, but most of those affected preferred to stay in their homes. The mafia boss wasn’t very pleased with that. With his men already spread thin between hunting down Cullen Reich and protecting the Tomb, he had to put out extra security around the city as well. After everything that happened, he couldn’t leave his people vulnerable. The trip to the South didn’t take long, and about an hour of driving later, Vin pulled into a gated community. “Your friend lives here?” disbelief and amusement laced his voice. He slowed the car to a halt in front of a
Angry was the last word Vin would use to describe how he felt. He was enraged. He was so royally pissed that one could see it in the way he gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. It was in the way the muscle in his jaw ticked alarmingly. His body buzzed with energy, with aggression that he needed to get out. You don’t mess with the Baros family and get away with it scot-free, but Reich was about to, for the second time. That wasn’t something Vin would take lying down. On top of that, Callie had disobeyed him. How hard was it to stay inside the car? And how hard was it to drive off at the first sign of danger? He needed to drill her in self-defense as soon as possible. “Where are we going?” “I didn’t say you could speak, Callie.” In his peripheral, Vin saw the singer visibly stiffen at the sharpness of his tone. Even more frustrated with her fear response, he floored the accelerator. Fear was not an emotion he wanted from Callie, at least not fear of him, he re
“Callie!” She jumped at the sound of her name that thundered from Vin’s lips. What happened to low-key? Without taking her hand off the counter, she turned around to face the crime lord. She had seen Vin angry before, but he’d never raised his voice at her, not like this. With his hands fisted in anger, Vin stepped into Callie’s space, crowding her into the marble countertop, ignoring her little protests. “I left you alone for five minutes!” he raged, fuming. He grabbed the tumbler from her hand and slammed it down on the countertop with a horrifying crack. “Don’t drink this shit.” But Callie smirked, her body buzzing with false warmth from the alcohol. “I wouldn’t call it shit. The stuff was pretty good.” Vin let out a groan of frustration. He wanted to wring Callie’s neck for her disobedience, but seeing her half-lidded eyes made him want to wrap his hands around her neck for a completely different reason. “How many did you take?” he asked, nodding towards the bottle of white
Beautiful. That was the only word Vin could come up with right now to describe Callie. He had only known her for a couple of weeks, but Callie had wormed her way into his life without effort. She intrigued him, and like a starved man, he wanted to know everything about him. He wanted to solve the mystery that was Callie Moore. As he carried her up the steps to the bedroom, and even as he cleaned her up, his mind was filled with this beautiful woman. In a hushed voice, he left Z a voice message to come and meet him in the safe house as soon as he could. “Keep the men close, Reich may be around, still.” Vin stayed with Callie, quietly staring at her sleeping form until his phone vibrated with a message from Z telling him he was downstairs. With one last glance at Callie, Vin reluctantly left the room to talk to his man. When Callie woke up, it was to an empty bed but a delicious soreness between her thighs. He must have carried her from the living room. A blush crept up and colored
“God, you feel like heaven.” Callie smirked, preening at the praise. She had always loved it when her partner was vocal, she needed to hear how good she was doing. Call it a praise kink or whatever, Callie thrived with it. She rode him slow and deep, wanting to feel him, to feel every inch of his cock buried inside her. “Fuck, your cock is amazing.” Snickering, Vin’s eyes popped open. “Can you come just like that? From my cock and nothing else.” Callie hummed, knowing she could, and was close to falling over the edge. “The question is can I make you come from my pussy and nothing else?” “Fuck, songbird. You don’t know what you do to me.” Sitting up, Vin reached for her neck to pull her in for a kiss, but Callie stopped him with a finger poised gracefully on his chest, before shaking her head. “I have a pretty good idea,” she countered. Sinking fully down on his erection, Callie leaned back before resting her hands behind her on Vin’s thighs. The angle was just perfect. She has
They were running away from armed men, but Vin’s mind was filled with the way Callie was clutching onto him. He was surrounded by her scent, and he had to mentally scold himself for even thinking of taking her there on the forest floor. Callie was incredibly light, but he knew they wouldn’t get far on foot. He needed to find a vehicle for them as soon as possible. Thankfully, Vin knew this forest, and he knew that about a mile from where they were was a diner that bikers frequented. “You can let me down, I can walk,” Callie muttered under her breath, embarrassed and shy about her position. But Vin merely hoisted her up higher onto his back as he continued on the path. “You’re not walking on that foot. Stay still.” Callie knew to shut up then. She didn’t understand what the hell was going on, but she wasn’t stupid enough to believe that Vin wouldn’t take his frustrations out on her if she said the wrong thing. Just as he’d thought, the diner came into view a few minutes later. He
Sensory overload was something Vin dealt with on the daily, but that was nothing compared to what he was going through now. Vin couldn’t filter the noise anymore. At his side, Callie flinched and screamed with every bullet that hit the old metal of their borrowed truck. Outside, enemies yelled and fired their guns at them. Engines roared over the scratch of tires against the loose gravel, and each sound grated at Vin’s senses. He couldn’t think, and to top it all off, his thigh had started to hurt. Just his fucking luck. Then, as if the gods were really against him, one son of a bitch got lucky and blew out their back tire. The car spun out of control, skidding across the dirt road, faster and faster until Vin managed to turn the car to the right. “Hang on!” he yelled over the noise right before they hit the trunk of a massive tree. Callie moaned, her head pounding, and her ears ringing. The last thing she remembered was the gunshots, the car spinning out of control, and Vin, shie
Fresh out of the bath, Callie softly called out that she was done.The woman who had prepared the bath for her entered with a white fluffy towel draped on one arm, and a salve resting in her other hand.“Thank you…” Callie started when the woman handed her the towel.“Nabi,” the woman answered, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear.“Thank you, Nabi. I’m Callie.”Nabi offered a small smile as Callie slipped into a fresh white robe, then she led the singer to sit in front of the vanity.“I’ve heard your name before,” said Nabi as she pulled one drawer open to grab a brush. Slowly, she took a section of Callie’s hair and started to brush it.Callie didn’t ask her to elaborate. Somehow, people knew her name by her association with Vin, and every time, nothing good came out of it.They stayed silent even as Nabi pulled the hair dryer out of another drawer and started to dry Callie’s hair. The blonde brushed and pulled sections of Callie’s hair and pinned them away from her face in
Callie’s ears rang with Cullen’s howling of frustration but her mind remained on the memory of Vin. His words, no matter how hurtful, his touch no matter how brief.She couldn’t look him in the eyes, feeling disgusted to put on display like that to a man who threw her out once. But she caught glimpses of him. His tired eyes, the downward curve of his mouth, the way his shoulders sagged a bit, these were details only Callie noticed. To anyone else, Vin was a picture of a bored man, but Callie saw through the façade. She saw the darkness that ringed his eyes, his pale skin, and sunken cheeks. Her stomach twisted with worry that he hadn’t been eating well.Maybe he’d changed his mind. Perhaps he’d come to save me, Callie thought earlier. But Vin’s words cut too deeply to be fake. She was a passing plaything. And she will never be more, because Vin had cast her aside for the second time.Callie’s empty stomach tightened as she swallowed the bile that threatened up her throat. Disgust cra
Vin drummed his fingers onto the tabletop of Cullen Reich’s private game room. The wait was pissing him off. He had a clear idea why Cullen ever so politely invited him into his territory and into his private establishment.“He’s going to gloat,” said Soren during their earlier meeting. “Callie will be there, that’s given. But we have no news whatsoever after her location was confirmed. We don’t know if…”“We don’t know if she’s alright,” Vin finished for him. “She’s alive. That much, I’m certain. He wouldn’t call me out like this otherwise.”The date of their meeting came. Two full days after Callie left, no, since Callie was taken.Vin reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved a small flask. The whiskey burned down his throat, but it did nothing to ease his nerves.On the outside, he was a picture of calm, but the storm in his eyes betrayed his exterior.Callie was somewhere in Reich’s territory. The plan was already in place, he only needed to set a few more pieces on the board
Callie woke up shivering and sputtering the water that was thrown in her face. Disoriented and cold, she was pulled from the floor and forced to sit in a wooden chair.“Tie her legs and arms,” said a voice she vaguely recognized. “I don’t want her filth touching me.”Callie’s head pounded along with the throbbing ache in her jaw. She ran her tongue across her lips, surprised when she tasted copper upon them. The slap from earlier must have left a cut. A shiver ran down her spine as she felt her wrists being bound together by zip ties, followed by her ankles.“Is she alive? Wake up, darling.” It was the same voice, deep and masculine, but it held a sinister vibe that Callie couldn’t help but shiver. Another splash.Sputtering and coughing, she slowly opened her eyes, groaning when the bright overhead light invaded her vision, worsening her headache.Memories came flooding back after she’d regained her bearings.She had been kidnapped; beaten; drugged three times with sedatives; and now
Ella stared at Vin’s back wondering what the best way to murder him was. She’d asked him—no, begged him before not to hurt Callie, and yet he still did.The doctor waited until Liam was out of earshot before she spoke, and she didn’t bother disguising the venom in her voice.“You fucked up,” she told him icily. “You fucked up big time, Vin. Callie is a one-in-a-million. No, one in a zillion!” Ella watched Vin’s shoulders straighten as he faced her, his face a mask of indifference. “You’ll never find another woman like her, and you gave her up just like that, for what?”Vin’s skull throbbed with a migraine on top of the ache he felt in his right thigh. With his hands fisted at his sides, he fought through the pain to answer Ella.“I didn’t give her up,” he replied. “I gave her freedom.”His voice sounded strained and tired, but it held a hint of doubt.“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” Ella scoffed. “You’re an idiot.”She turned his back on him and started to put away the
The air in Vin’s office seemed to thin by the minute. It had not been a day, and yet Callie’s absence weighed on him like they had been apart for years.There was only so much he could do to distract himself from the fact, but Sienna, Callie’s best friend was not making it easy for him.“How could you?” Sienna asked, disbelief thick in her voice. Vin didn’t need to look up from his laptop to know she was glaring at him. He had enough on his plate, Sienna’s outburst was the least of his priorities, but Raleigh’s presence warranted the crime lord’s attentionRaleigh was like a son to Vin, so when he looked up and saw confusion and disbelief in Raleigh’s eyes, Vin’s chest pricked.“I never question you, Vin. You know that,” the boxer said in a low, even voice. “But this is just wrong. You know more than anyone that Callie belonged here with us.”A muscle throbbed at Vin’s jaw upon hearing those words.“That’s enough,” he growled. “I don’t need any of your opinions, and I do not appreciate
Callie’s heart thudded in her ears. Nothing registered except for the pain, so much pain that she couldn’t tell what was hurting.It was like Vin ripped her heart out from her chest, dropped it on the ground, and stomped on it with heavy boots.Tears blurred her sight, she struggled to pull herself and the suitcases out of the elevator, and once the doors closed behind her, she collapsed.It was over.She hit the ground hard, scraping her knees and palms, but the pain was nothing compared to the pain in her chest.She sobbed into her hands, crying out, uncaring that a few stories above her, Vin was probably hearing her as he sipped on his drink, uncaring.The tears were unrelenting as was the stabbing in her heart. She sat on the ground, crying until no more tears fell from her eyes. She cried until she felt exhaustion wrapping its arms around her. She needed to leave before she collapsed in front of Vin’s elevator.Mustering the strength to stand was equivalent to squeezing her heart
Soren stared at Vin, worried about his friend. He had suspected that the letter would contain some kind of message from Jimmy, but he didn’t want to break the news to Vin. There was no way to make this easy for him.Vin could lie to himself all he wanted, but anyone with eyes could see that he was in love with Callie. And his reaction to the letter he held in his hands was proof of that.“Callie’s free,” Vin whispered a second before crumpling the piece of paper in his hand.The world seemed to spin around Vin. Callie had been a constant in his life for only a few months, but he knew he couldn’t live without her.Everything in him screamed not to let her go. To find an alternative. To buy her back. But another part of him, the moral side of him, knew that Callie deserved to be free.That deal was to play with her, right? Never did he think he’d be this devastated when this day finally came.Callie wasn’t a bird trapped in his cage anymore, and she deserved to see the world, as the wor
“Where are we going?” asked Liam as he sucked on his chocolate drink. Vin helped him get strapped into his seat in the back. “Home. We’ve been gone for too long.” Callie looked at Vin nervously, but she managed to plaster a smile on for Liam. “You hear that Liam? We’re going home!” she said excitedly, buckling her own seatbelt. She turned to Vin then. “You okay?” Vin glanced over at Callie as he eased the car out onto the highway. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” But Callie could tell something was wrong. Something had been wrong since the night of her attempted kidnapping. Had she said something to piss Vin off? But if she had, then he would have called her out on it already. Vin wasn’t the type of person to hold back on her punishments if she needed it. So, what was wrong now? “We’re driving straight home,” said Vin after a couple of minutes on the road. “If you need something, just let me know. We can pull over for food or bathroom breaks.” Callie’s eyebrows scrunched together