Kidnapped by the Werewolf Mafioso

Chapter Nine

GIANCARLO

The lobby reeks of gunpowder and terror, but beneath it, something else—jasmine and ozone, the scent of my mate's violence. I watch her move through the aftermath, blood-soaked and magnificent, directing cleanup with the easy authority of someone born to command death.

Her yokai fascinate me. They work with impossible efficiency, the briefcase swallowing bodies whole while frost patterns spread across walls, erasing evidence. The twins pull shadows from corpses like taffy, giggling at some joke only they understand. Through it all, Akiko stands at the center, a conductor orchestrating supernatural cleanup.

"Tetsu, the weapons." She speaks in Japanese, not realizing I understand every word. "Hanzo, check the perimeter frequencies. Make sure none of them called for backup before dying."

The electricity spirit salutes and vanishes into the building's wiring. I feel him moving through circuits, a presence that makes the lights flicker in patterns that spell reports only she can read.

"Efficient."

She turns at my voice, still high on adrenaline and death. Blood patterns her face like war paint, none of it hers. The bond pulses between us, raw and electric. Her pupils dilate slightly—involuntary response to my proximity that sends heat straight through me.

"The convent didn't teach me about yokai. But they've been mine since birth, apparently. Waiting."

"For?"

"For me to stop being drugged into submission." She watches the ice-woman—Noriko—freeze blood before it can stain. "Seventeen years of suppressants kept them at bay. Your bite broke those chains."

My bite. The claiming mark throbs on her neck, mostly healed but still visible. I track the movement of her hand as she unconsciously touches it, fingers ghosting over raised skin. The matching wound on my throat aches with phantom pain and something darker. Want. Need. The urge to pin her against the nearest wall and finish what we started on that platform.

"Boss." Eddie materializes from shadow, his massive form blocking the ruined entrance. "Perimeter's clear. Tommy's got three survivors in the sub-basement. You want them breathing?"

"For now." I don't look away from Akiko. Can't. She's magnetic like this, covered in evidence of her lethality. "Have the were-raccoons document everything. I want Harrison to know exactly what his fifty million bought."

Eddie melts back into darkness. Around us, the building settles into post-violence routines. Residents emerge to survey damage, children peek from behind reinforced doors. They stare at Akiko with something between fear and awe. She shifts under their attention, the movement making her shirt cling to curves usually hidden beneath loose clothing.

"I should clean up."

"My office first. We need to talk."

She follows without argument, surprising us both. The elevator ride thrums with tension—not hostile, something else. The space feels too small, her scent overwhelming in the confined area. She stands close enough that I feel her body heat, see the rapid pulse at her throat. The bond sings frequencies that make my wolf pace beneath my skin.

My office still carries FBI stench under expensive cologne. She notices immediately, nose wrinkling in a way that shouldn't be attractive but is.

"Federal agents?"

"Agent Rodriguez. Lost his son to supernatural violence. Thinks we're all monsters who deserve extinction." I pour scotch, noting how her eyes track my movements. "Not entirely wrong, from his perspective."

She accepts the drink, fingers brushing mine in the exchange. The contact sends electricity up my arm. "The convent taught us that humans fear what they can't control. That's why they need us—weapons they can aim."

"Is that what you were meant to be? A weapon?"

"Sister Evangeline's weapons, specifically. She ran a subsection within the convent. Special novitiates trained for wetwork." She finally tastes the scotch, tongue darting out to catch a drop on her lower lip. My focus narrows to that small movement. "We were very expensive."

"How expensive?"

"Ten million for a standard contract. More for complicated targets." She sets down the glass, moves to the window. The dying light silhouettes her form through the blood-stained shirt. "But I was never for sale. Not really."

"Because of what you are."

"Because of what my stepmother feared I'd become."

The word stepmother carries venom that could drop a dragon. She shifts, and I catch the line of her throat, the way her collarbone creates shadows I want to trace with my tongue.

"Tell me."

Silence stretches between us, taut as wire. When she speaks, her voice carries old pain wrapped in sharper anger. "Vivienne Rousseau. French. Beautiful. Completely human except for her appetite for power. She was Father's mistress for years before my mother found out."

I move closer, drawn by invisible threads. She doesn't retreat, though her breathing quickens.

"My mother tried to leave. Take me and disappear. But Vivienne had already started poisoning her. Small doses of something that attacked kitsune specifically. Made her weak, confused. Made her tails unstable." Her hands clench on the windowsill, knuckles white. "When Father finally killed her, Vivienne had weakened her enough that he could. Otherwise, a nine-tailed kitsune would have torn him apart."

"Your mother hid the ninth tail."

"Before she died. Somewhere in me, between heartbeats." She turns from the window, movement bringing her within arm's reach. "Vivienne spent the next seventeen years making sure I stayed suppressed. The convent was her idea. Keep the monster locked away until they could figure out how to extract what my mother hid."

"But they couldn't."

"No. So they decided to sell me instead. Let someone else deal with the problem." Her laugh tastes bitter. "Except the traffickers grabbed me first. And then you—"

"Claimed you."

The words hang between us, heavy with implication. She moves closer, drawn by the bond or her own curiosity. This close, I can see the gold flecks in her dark eyes, the way her pulse flutters beneath skin I want to mark again. The air between us crackles with unspoken hunger.

"I have sisters." The subject change feels deliberate, like she's pulling back from an edge. "Half-sisters. Claudette's twenty-one, Sophie's eighteen. Vivienne's daughters. Perfect, human, trained to be trophy wives for supernatural nobility."

"You care about them?"

"I've never met them." But something in her voice suggests complicated feelings. "Vivienne kept us separated. Couldn't have the monster corrupting her real daughters."

Real daughters. The wound there runs deep. I want to trace that pain with my fingers, taste it on her skin until it transforms into something else.

"My mother was sixteen when my father bought her." The words spill before I consider them. "Anastasia Sokolova. Siberian white wolf from a bloodline older than memory. A Russian pakhan owed my father money, offered her as payment."

Akiko's attention sharpens, and she leans forward slightly. The movement makes the shirt gap, revealing the edge of my claiming bite. My mouth goes dry.

"Bought her."

"Different times. Though not so different, considering." I pour another scotch, needing something to do with my hands before they reach for her. "She gave him five children. I was the oldest. Marco you've met. Rafael's pregnant with a vampire's child. There's Pietro in New York, runs our eastern operations. And Lucia."

"Lucia?"

"The youngest and only female. She joined a convent in the Pyrenees when she turned eighteen. Said she'd seen enough blood for one lifetime." The irony doesn't escape either of us. "Mother killed Father when I was sixteen. His own sword, took his head clean off in the garden. Very theatrical."

"Why?"

"Because he tried to sell Lucia. She was only twelve, but she'd presented as omega. Some British lord offered twenty million." I remember the blood on white roses, the way Mother stood there calm as winter while Father's head rolled. "That was her line, apparently. She could endure being property, but not her daughters."

"What happened to her?"

"Banished. Uncle Gregorio took over the family, sent her back to Siberia. Haven't seen her since." I pause. "I killed Gregorio when I turned twenty. Took what should have been mine by birth."

"Because he banished her?"

"Because he was weak. But yes, partly that."

She processes this, the parallels not lost on her. Mothers who died for their children. Fathers who saw daughters as currency. Violence as inheritance. The shared understanding creates an intimacy that has nothing to do with bodies and everything to do with recognition.

"Vivienne won't stop." Her voice drops lower, unconsciously sultry. "She's spent too much time and money on controlling my mother's legacy. Now that I'm free—"

"She'll come for you."

"For what's in me. The ninth tail." She touches her chest, the gesture drawing my attention to the rise and fall of her breathing. "I can feel it sometimes. Like a second heartbeat. Getting stronger."

I close the distance between us, careful not to crowd. She doesn't retreat. If anything, she sways toward me, caught in the same gravitational pull.

"What do you need?"

The question surprises her. "What?"

"To be ready. When she comes. What do you need?"

She stares at me like I've spoken in tongues, lips parted slightly. The bond floods with her emotions—confusion, suspicion, and underneath, a tentative hope she's trying to strangle.

"Time." The word comes out breathy. "Training without suppressants holding me back. Understanding of what I actually am." She pauses, tongue wetting her lips. "And when she comes, I want to be the one to kill her."

"Done."

"Just like that?"

"She tortured your mother. Sold you to nuns who carved suppressants into children. Orchestrated your auction." I let winter creep into my voice. "She's earned death several times over. The least I can do is let you deliver it."

Something shifts in her expression. The bond warms with an emotion I can't quite identify. She steps closer, close enough I can feel her heat through blood-stained clothes. The scent of her—jasmine and violence and something uniquely Akiko—floods my senses.

"Why?"

"Because you're mine." My voice roughens. "And I protect what's mine."

"I'm not—" She stops, frustrated. "This bond doesn't make me property."

"No. It makes you pack. Family. Mate." I risk touching her face, thumb brushing dried blood from her cheek. Her eyes flutter closed, and she makes a sound that goes straight to my groin. "There's a difference."

She doesn't pull away. If anything, she leans into the touch, tilting her face up. The bond sings between us, harmony instead of discord for once. Her lips part, and I can feel her breath against my mouth.

"I should still shower." The words ghost across my lips. "I'm covered in Serbian."

"Use mine. It's closer."

Her eyes snap open, pupils blown wide. "Giancarlo..."

"Just a shower. Nothing more." My wolf howls disagreement, and from the way her pulse jumps, she can feel it through the bond. "Unless you want more."

The tension crackles between us, electric and undeniable. She wars with herself, I can feel it through the bond. Want battling mistrust, need fighting fear. Her hand comes up to rest on my chest, and I wonder if she can feel how my heart hammers beneath her palm.

"Just a shower," she agrees finally, but her hand slides down my chest before she pulls away, leaving fire in its wake.

She disappears into my bathroom. I pour another scotch with hands that aren't quite steady, trying not to think about her naked in my shower, water sluicing over skin I've barely touched. The bond feeds me impressions—heat, sensation, an echo of pleasure as hot water hits sore muscles.

When she emerges twenty minutes later wearing nothing but one of my shirts, hair damp and curling, I nearly break the glass in my hand. The shirt hits mid-thigh, leaving her legs bare. She's washed off the blood but kept the danger, looking like violence wrapped in silk.

"Better?" My voice comes out strangled.

"Much." She moves into the room with predatory grace, every step deliberate. "Your shower is ridiculous, by the way. Six shower heads? Who needs that?"

"I do. Now."

She pauses, catching the implication. Color rises in her cheeks, but she doesn't look away. Instead, she moves to the couch, curling into the corner with her legs tucked under her. The position makes the shirt ride up, revealing more thigh. She knows exactly what she's doing.

"We should eat," I manage.

"Probably." She stretches, cat-like, the movement pulling the shirt tight across her chest. "But I'm not hungry. Not for food."

The admission hangs between us. I set down my glass before I shatter it, move to sit on the opposite end of the couch. Safe distance. Except she shifts, closing the gap until her knee brushes my thigh.

"Tell me about your other siblings." Her voice holds false innocence. "The ones who aren't nuns or pregnant with vampire spawn."

So I do, sharing stories of growing up Morelli while she inches closer with each tale. By the time I'm describing Marco's first shift, she's pressed against my side, her head on my shoulder. The position shouldn't feel as intimate as s*x, but it does.

The yokai shimmer in and out of perception, standing guard over their kitsune. The oni watches me with eyes that judge and measure. The twins whisper to each other, giggling at some private joke that probably involves my dismemberment if I hurt her.

"They're protective of you."

"They've been with me since birth. Even when I couldn't see them." She turns her face into my neck, breath warm against my throat. "They think you're dangerous."

"I am dangerous."

"To me?"

"Never to you." The words come out as a growl. "For you, maybe. But never to you."

She hums agreement, the vibration traveling through my bones. Her hand rests on my chest again, fingers tracing idle patterns that make thinking difficult. The bond pulses between us, feedback loop of want and need and barely leashed hunger.

"I should go to my room."

"You should."

Neither of us moves. The city lights paint her skin gold and shadow. She's ethereal and lethal, a mythology made flesh in my office. Every breath brings her scent, every heartbeat syncs with hers through the bond.

"This is dangerous." She doesn't sound concerned.

"Very."

"The bond makes everything... more."

"Yes."

She lifts her head to look at me. Her eyes are dark, pupils blown wide with desire she's stopped trying to hide. "I've never—the convent didn't allow—"

"I know." I cup her face, thumb tracing her cheekbone. "There's no rush. We have time."

"Do we?" Her hand covers mine. "With Vivienne coming? With the FBI watching? With half of Chicago wanting to collect my father's bounty?"

"Let them come." The wolf bleeds into my voice. "They'll learn what happens when they threaten what's mine."

She shivers at the possession in my tone, but not from fear. "I'm not—"

I silence her with a thumb across her lips. "You are. Just as I'm yours. The bond goes both ways, little killer."

She bites my thumb, not hard enough to break skin but enough to send heat shooting through me. "Prove it."

The challenge in her eyes nearly breaks my control. But she's been controlled her entire life. She doesn't need another person making choices for her, even if every instinct screams to claim her properly.

"When you're ready." I pull my hand back before I do something we'll both regret. "When you ask for it. Not before."

Frustration and respect war in her expression. "And if I never ask?"

"Then I'll be the most sexually frustrated wolf in Chicago." I stand, needing distance before I break my own rules. "But that's my problem, not yours."

She watches me move away, something like wonder in her eyes. "You really mean that."

"I don't say things I don't mean."

She stands slowly, the shirt riding up again. I track the movement because I'm not a saint, whatever Isabella says. "Goodnight, Giancarlo."

"Goodnight, moy tsvetok."

She pauses at the door. "Thank you. For understanding. For not pushing."

"Always."

The door closes behind her, leaving me alone with my wolf's howling frustration and the lingering scent of jasmine. Tomorrow will bring new threats—Vivienne, Harrison, the FBI, every supernatural faction that wants what Akiko carries.

But tonight, she was here. Safe. Mine in all the ways that matter and some that don't yet. The s****l tension might kill me, but it'll be worth it when she finally decides she wants more than just my protection.

I pour another scotch and settle in to wait.

I'm very good at waiting for things worth having.