The Brother I Was Never Supposed to Want

Chapter 40

Morning arrived without softness.

Ava woke alone in the large bed, the sheets still carrying the heat and scent of Nathan’s body. The space beside her was already cool. For a long moment she simply lay there, listening to the distant sound of rain still falling beyond the windows. Her body ached in the most intimate places, a lingering reminder of how desperately he had taken her the night before. The memory sent a slow flush across her skin.

She found him in the study.

Nathan stood over the long table, shirtless, dark sweatpants hanging low on his hips, a detailed map of the city spread beneath his hands. Fresh bruises marked his knuckles. A thin cut had opened along his left forearm, deep, but new. He hadn’t bothered to bandage it yet. The muscles in his back shifted as he leaned forward, studying something with the same cold focus he used in boardrooms and back alleys alike.

He looked up when she entered. The sharp edge in his eyes softened the moment they landed on her.

“You’re supposed to be resting,” he said, voice still rough from lack of sleep.

“So are you.”

Ava crossed the room and took his injured arm carefully in her hands. The cut was clean but raw. She could feel the heat of his skin, the solid strength in the muscle beneath her fingers. Without asking, she reached for the small first-aid kit on the side table and began cleaning it.

Nathan watched her in silence. The quiet between them felt charged, heavy with everything unsaid.

“You’re not going to ask what I did last night?” he murmured.

“Would you tell me the truth?”

“Yes.” His free hand lifted, fingers brushing a strand of hair behind her ear with unexpected gentleness. “But you might not like the answer.”

Ava finished taping the gauze and looked up at him. “I already know the answer. You’re going after him harder. And I’m still here.”

Something dark and hungry moved through Nathan’s expression. He cupped the back of her neck and pulled her in for a slow, deliberate kiss, the kind that promised more than comfort. When he finally released her mouth, his voice was low against her lips.

“Good. Because I need you close today.”

-----

The first message from Rossi arrived just after noon.

It was not a note this time.

It was a video.

Nathan played it once in the study with the door locked and Ava standing beside him. The screen showed a quiet street near one of his legitimate properties. A black car idled at the curb for exactly forty-three seconds. No one got out. No weapons were shown. The camera simply lingered long enough to make the threat unmistakable, then cut to black.

Rossi was done being polite.

What unsettled Nathan more than the video itself was the timing.

The property in the footage had only been added to his active security rotation three days earlier, after the kidnapping. The list of people who knew that change was extremely short.

Marco noticed it too.

“Someone’s feeding him information,” Marco said quietly once Ava had stepped out of the room. “Not everything. Just enough. The kind of details that only come from inside.”

Nathan’s jaw flexed. “How short is the list?”

“Very. You. Me. Two of our senior men. And anyone on the legitimate side who still has access to the updated security schedules.”

The implication hung in the air.

Richard’s people.

Possibly Ethan.

Nathan didn’t speak the name aloud, but the thought settled like ice in his chest.

Marco hesitated, then added, “There’s something else. The way Rossi is moving… it feels familiar. Years ago, before you fully took control, there was a crew that tried to push into the lower docks. They didn’t get hit with guns. They got hit with leaks. Financials. Personal secrets. Their own people turned on them until there was nothing left to fight for. Rossi’s name never appeared once. But the pattern was his.”

Nathan’s eyes darkened. “He’s doing it again. Only this time the target is me.”

-----

His response to Rossi was immediate and absolute.

By late afternoon, two of Rossi’s remaining mid-level operations had been quietly dismantled. No bodies left in the open. No public spectacle. Just absence. Pressure. A message written in the language both men understood.

When Nathan returned to the safe house that evening, rain still clung to his coat and hair. The cut on his arm had reopened slightly. There was a restless, dangerous energy under his skin that Ava recognized now, the aftermath of violence barely restrained.

He found her in the bedroom.

The moment the door closed behind him, the air changed.

Nathan didn’t speak. He simply crossed the room, took her face in both hands, and kissed her like a man who had spent the entire day holding himself back. The kiss was deep, almost rough, tasting of rain and adrenaline and something darker. His hands slid down her body with possessive intent, gripping her hips hard enough that she knew she would carry the faint marks tomorrow.

“I need you,” he rasped against her mouth. “Right now.”

Ava answered by pulling his coat off his shoulders.

Clothes came away in a frantic rush. Nathan backed her toward the bed, mouth never leaving hers for long, until the backs of her knees hit the mattress. He followed her down, settling between her thighs with a low sound of pure hunger. One hand shoved her shirt up and off; the other dragged her underwear down her legs with little patience.

There was nothing gentle about the first thrust.

Ava gasped as he filled her in one deep stroke, her body stretching around the thick length of him, still sensitive from the night before. Nathan groaned against her neck, one hand fisting in her hair, the other gripping her thigh and opening her wider.

“f**k, you feel that?” he growled, already moving in hard, deliberate strokes. “This is mine. Every time I walk back into this room, this is what I come home to.”

He set a relentless rhythm, the wet sound of their bodies meeting filling the quiet room. Ava clung to his shoulders, nails digging into his skin as pleasure coiled tight and fast low in her belly. Nathan’s mouth found her breast, teeth grazing the sensitive peak before he sucked hard enough to make her arch beneath him with a broken sound.

“Nathan…”

“Say it,” he demanded, hips snapping deeper, angling to hit the spot that made her see white. “Tell me who you belong to.”

“You,” she breathed, voice shaking. “Only you.”

He rewarded her with a sharper thrust that dragged a moan from her throat. One of his hands slid between them, fingers finding her c**t with practiced, ruthless precision. The dual sensation, the thick stretch of him inside her and the relentless circles of his fingers, pushed her over the edge hard and fast.

Ava came with a cry, body tightening around him in pulsing waves. Nathan followed her down almost immediately, burying himself to the hilt with a guttural sound as he spilled inside her, forehead pressed to hers, breath ragged and hot against her lips.

They stayed locked together for a long moment, both shaking.

Eventually Nathan rolled to the side, pulling her with him so she rested half on his chest. His fingers traced slow, absent patterns along her spine, but the tension in his body had not fully eased.

“He’s getting information from somewhere,” Nathan said quietly into the dark. “Details he shouldn’t have. Someone close is talking. And the way he’s applying pressure… it’s not new. He’s used this method before. Slow. Precise. He turns people against each other until the target has no one left to trust.”

Ava lifted her head to look at him. “Do you know who?”

“Not yet.” His jaw tightened. “But the circle of people who could give him this kind of access is small. And some of them share my last name.”

She pressed a kiss to the center of his chest, tasting salt and rain on his skin. “Then we’ll face it.”

Nathan’s arm tightened around her. “We will. But tomorrow I’m moving you again. Somewhere even Rossi’s people won’t find easily. I won’t risk another seven seconds. Not with you. Not with Alex.”

Outside, the rain continued to fall in a steady curtain.

Inside, the war had already shifted into something far more personal, and far more dangerous.

And somewhere in the city, someone who was supposed to be on Nathan’s side had already chosen a different loyalty.