Page 75 of Brazen Obsession

“You married?” He lifts her left hand and looks at her ring finger.

“N-no.” She furrows her brow at me.

“But if she was?” I need to gauge if just knowing Natasha is already married would make him give her up.

Alexander tips his head and studies me. “Husbands are easy to deal with. Widows make for loving brides. Three days, Mr. Young. You can arrange a setup where Natasha comes willingly or unwillingly with me. It doesn’t matter which. She was promised to me. I always take what I’m owed.”

Negotiating with this man is definitely outside my paygrade. I search Noelle’s eyes and she gives me a little nod. At least she’s willing to be this man’s captive while we get this sorted. Until we can figure out how to work this so no one is Alexander’s hostage.

“Three days or Noelle gets the wedding night of her nightmares.”

Chapter 25

Markdown

Dante

Based on the moans coming from Finn’s room, he’s busy. While this is important, there’s not much we can do about it until the morning. I go to Wyatt’s door and knock. When after a minute he opens it, I say, “We need to talk.”

He nods and glances at Finn’s door.

“Leave them. We need to talk to Tom too.” I walk down the stairs with Wyatt behind me. Tom doesn’t need to see his sister like that. Freshly fucked. And I doubt Sara wants Tom to see her that way either.

Drew comes up from the basement with a rumpled Tom behind him. He must have already been asleep. We head into the kitchen and I start the coffee machine with some decaf.

“Where’s Finn?” Tom asks, running a hand through his red hair.

I roll my eyes.

Wyatt says, “Do you really want an answer to that?”

Drew opens his mouth, but I cut off whatever insinuation he had in mind.

“He’s with Sara,” I say. “We’ll catch them up to speed in the morning at breakfast.”

We need Tom receptive to what we’re saying. He’s gotten better about the little PDA we do, but he still doesn’t want to think about us fucking his sister, and I don’t need to rub it in his face.

Tom sighs, but at least we have a whole floor between us and them.

We sit at the table with our cups of coffee and Drew lays out what just happened at the club. It’s not very complicated, but the moves we have to make to make this work are.

“We have a timeline, which means we need to get our ducks in a row.” Drew leans on his elbows and runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t think Noelle is in serious danger yet. He gave us three days.”

“We can’t hand him Natasha.” Tom looks paler than normal.

“No, we can’t.” Wyatt puts his hand on Tom’s arm. “But we do need to make sure what we have for him will be enough that he never comes after Natasha again. Or tries to use Sara to get to you.”

“Can our business handle us being wrapped up in this for the next three days?” Tom asks.

“It will have to.” I scrub my hand down my face. Part of me wishes we were all sleeping in the big bed tonight so I could pull Sara into my arms and hold her.

The ease with which Alexander took Noelle hostage is terrifying. Drew reviewed the footage before we left. She definitely went into that room without hesitation, but we don’t know what Alexander said to her.

“It’s possible that Noelle is just a plant.” Drew blows out a breath. “She’s been to Peter’s house. Alexander knows her and she went with him. She said willingly.”

“I never went to Peter’s house parties.” Tom looks into his coffee cup. “The one he had while I was working with him, I called off so I could spend time with Natasha.”

It’s not surprising. But it would have been helpful to have an inside view.