Vow to Protect by J.L. Beck
Adrian
The only thing I hate more than parties are parties where everyone is considering the best way to kill me.
I can almost see the yearn to maim and dismember in their eyes as they pass me with little dips of their chin. Every single one of us is a liar. And the party to open the season makes us all a hundred times worse.
This year, it’s my turn to host the opening gala. As if sparkle and glam could negate the blood that would hit the streets in short order. Likely before the first guests leave for the evening.
The heavy weight of a palm clamping my shoulder makes me tense up until Kai, my second, comes around into my field of vision. “Ready for this, old man?”
I wince. “Cut out the old man shit. I’m only a few years older than you.”
He grins, all gleaming white teeth. “But about ten years older than all the little girls these mommies and daddies are throwing at you. I hear whispers they want to find you a queen.”
And not a single one of them will know I’m looking for one myself. Otherwise, I’m vulnerable to both preying mothers and scheming fathers on all sides. Until I secure a bride, my father’s empire won’t officially be mine in the eyes of these people.
“Keep your eyes and ears open, Kai. I have a bad feeling about tonight.”
His hand tightens on my shoulder. “You have a bad feeling about every party we go to, boss.”
He isn’t wrong.
A pretty little blonde makes eyes at Kai from across the room. Then when her gaze slides to mine, she loses her nerve. “Someone wants you,” I point out to him.
“Who doesn’t?” he parries.
I shrug him off my shoulder. “Don’t get distracted. You and the men need to stay alert.”
He gives me a wink and saunters toward the blonde. Despite his nonchalance, I know he won’t let his guard down. His ease has always been an act he uses to play a role, so they don’t realize what he really is until it’s too late.
My other five closest soldiers, six counting Kai, have spread out throughout the room to listen, watch, and guard my back. But it will take a lot more than their presence to put me at ease here. At least this year, I decided to host it on neutral ground. The Holland Hotel, owned and operated by an anonymous, unaligned individual, is the site for all inter-territory meetings. So it makes sense they would host the gala too. And this year, I won’t find someone trying to sneak their way past security or hack my computer networks.
As I watch each person walk past me, I can’t help but see the lies spewing from their mouths. Each syllable spoken in sweet smiles, all greasy with every untruth, turns my stomach. If I’m going to kill someone, I have the decency to at least tell them outright.
The neck of my perfectly tailored tux feels too tight, like a noose around my neck.
“Scowl any harder, and people will start running for their weapons,” a sweet voice says as she approaches. My fifth wears red satin tonight, cut so low that I would be about to see her belly button with another inch. Another weapon my soldiers employ effortlessly: their beauty.
“Andrea.” I scan the crowd. “Where’s your twin?”
She rolls her neck, her black hair sliding over the bare curve of her shoulder. “Oh, he’s around here somewhere. Probably getting himself into trouble.”
“Shouldn’t you be joining him?” I say, keeping my gaze on the slow amble of the people around me. I half wish someone would start something so I could get the hell out of here.
“I will soon enough. See anyone I should keep my eye on?” Her focus returns to the crowd as well now.
I shake my head. “Not yet. I’ll let you know if I see something. Go play and be nice.”
She saunters back into the fray, and I snag a passing glass of champagne. I don’t usually drink because I feel out of control when I have too much. And no one can see me like that. But Andrea is right. If I continue scowling from the fringes of the ballroom, it won’t help me find the woman I need to turn into my wife.
But I’m not the only one who’s counting the seconds until it’s socially acceptable to leave. A young woman in black with a mass of barely restrained curls stands near a table with someone else I don’t recognize. Which is impossible since I know every member of our little twisted society.
Then I catch sight of Sal squeezing through the crowd, not even bothering to be sly at the way he ogles the women he passes.
When he reaches the table, the girl in black stiffens and shifts away from him but then allows the fucking dickhole to drag her by the arm to his side again. And he isn’t gentle about it either. I’m three seconds from grabbing his threadbare tux and allowing Andrea to escort him out. She loves nothing more than showing a man like him what she thinks of his kind.
So he succeeded in buying himself a family name. And by the size of the rock on Rachel—Royal—no, I can’t remember her name, her daddy had to buy it for her fiancé to propose. Sal and her father, Victor, have been in business together a long time. When word started to spread about his engagement to Novak’s daughter, I thought they were sampling their own product. Now, seeing the way he handles her as though he owns her, I believe it.
And I want to fucking kill him for the way he’s touching her.
For the sadness I see that isn’t quite masked by her bright smile.
My stomach roils, and I shift my focus away before I do something stupid. She isn’t mine, and interfering will only cause trouble. Seeing that look in her eyes—the same look my mother used to wear—unnerves me in a way I haven’t been in a long time.
My mother was the only truly good female I’ve ever known. Even Andrea, one of my closest friends, is a bitch on a good day.
I realize I’m staring at her again. The black dress looks a little loose on her petite frame, and she’s young. She’s so fucking young someone probably should have carded her at the door. Too young to have the weight of the world written in her gaze.
The urge to find out what color her eyes are overtakes me, and I slowly shift around the ballroom, smoothly avoiding people trying to capture my attention. When I finally make it to the right angle, the lighting is too dark for me to tell, but staring at her straight on, with Sal’s hand inching toward her ass, I can clearly see how much she hates him.
A puzzle then. Why would one of the society’s pampered princesses marry her daddy’s business partner if she didn’t like him? She, like me, should have her choice of suitors. Her hair is a thing of beauty, piled up on her head in a mass of natural curls. A flash of what all that black silk would look like spread over my white sheets starts a craving I won’t be able to quench.
No. She doesn’t belong to me. I try to shake off the longing, the stark desire that shoves its way between my ribs and nestles in deep. It doesn’t budge, especially when she delicately lifts her champagne glass, and I watch her pretty pink lips cup the rim.
Instantly, I see her on her knees, that dress pooled around her slim waist, her curls tangled between my fingers as she takes my dick down her throat. It’s an obscene fantasy. Especially because she looks like she’s never even been kissed properly. A likely scenario given her fiancé.
Fuck. I can’t stay here staring at her all night. Someone is bound to notice, and it will paint a target on her back.
I tear my eyes away and duck through the crowd, intent on putting some distance between us. If she came closer to me and I caught her delicate scent, I’d lose my fucking mind and start a war I’m not prepared to win yet. Because when I go into battle, nothing will be left standing but me and my five. She’d be collateral damage. Damage her father likely would consider insignificant if he cares so little of her to give her away to that asshole.
The balcony calls my name. It’s empty, and I spot Ivan, my second lieutenant, taking up position on the other side of the doors. The privacy after being stuck in a crowded ballroom for an hour is a welcome relief. The traffic sounds from below barely reach this high, so it’s nothing but the cold cut of the wind, which I appreciate after the stifling heat inside.
I allow myself a moment to wonder who might have followed me out here and attempted to toss me over the edge if Ivan hadn’t been tailing me. My father had many enemies, and now, I seem to have inherited them. People I barely know hate me for my father’s actions. If they only knew what having me for a real enemy would be like.
But this party opens the season, and for the next three months, every single person here must watch their back. The season-opening signals movement in society. Movement bought with blood, criminal activity, and good old-fashioned murder. Then anything goes until the final party of the season. Afterward, a mandatory nine months of peace allows the new fault lines to be drawn. Anyone who violates it meets justice at the hand of every ruling family. No one has ever survived the gauntlet.
My own father certainly didn’t. Thankfully, once they took his life, his sins washed down the drain with his blood. It didn’t matter that he’d become too old to even understand his actions in the end—they showed him no mercy. And soon, they will learn what my mercy looks like.
Almost involuntarily, I turn back to the doors and peer around Ivan’s shoulder through the glass. She’s still standing beside Sal, who is getting drunker by the minute. The other girl with her has the hard cut of fear in her eyes as she watches Sal and his fiancée. I don’t know why that fear eats at something inside me, but it blooms my own batch of fear for the innocent on Sal’s arm.
I open the doors and step back in, letting the last of the night air cool my back before closing the door again.
Ivan melts back into the crowd, and I watch her. I want to know what her voice sounds like. What color her eyes are. I want to know what kind of words she uses when she begs.
Most of all, I want Sal’s blood pooling across the concrete so he won’t ever touch her again.
I shove past a few society members, intent on reaching their table to introduce myself, but someone catches my arm. I spin with a curse and glare down into the eyes of Madeline Cerny, heiress to the biggest blow empire in the country. And by the way she wobbles in her two-thousand-dollar shoes, she’s been sampling her product.
I try to keep my tone even as I address her. “Can I help you, Maddie?”
She bats her eyelashes, or I think she does. It’s more like a wink gone wrong, but I remain the gentleman.
She, however, has lost her damn mind. I realize this when she reaches out and grabs my cock as if she has permission to touch me. As if she even has permission to speak to me.
I don’t get the pleasure of ripping her claw-tipped fingers off before Alexei, Andrea’s twin, is there, leading her away.
With disgust, I stare after them. Then I remember my mission before she mauled me. I spin to find the flower amongst the weeds. But she’s disappeared.
