Chapter 31: Chapter 31

Our first meeting at D’Atella, Taylor and I sat across from each other, eyeing each other like enemies.

Things have…changed.

Radically.

Today, here on my island, she sits at my side, where she belongs. Her fingers are laced with mine on top of the table for all to see.

What they don’t see is my cum still leaking out of her freshly fucked pussy into a pair of sheer black thong panties I selected for her to wear under her classy, elegant Chanel skirt suit.

At the table that I’ve had set up in one of the courtyards of my home, I look around at all the family heads that make up the Iron Table.

Well…almost all of them.

“Thank you for sitting down with us today, Drazen,” Kir Nikolayev says with a nod to me.

“My apologies that I kept you waiting,” I reply, lifting the cane at my side.

It’s been two weeks since Vadik drugged Taylor and me, and tortured me. The wounds from his knives on my torso are healing well. But the slash the swine gave me on the back of my thigh has taken longer. Hence the cane, which I loathe.

The cane wasn’t really the reason Taylor and I were ten minutes late to meet the rest of them here. But I’m not going to tell them my wife was bouncing her sweet little cunt up and down my cock like a good girl with my hand squeezed around her throat and my thumb buried in her ass.

“No apologies necessary, my friend,” Kir growls solemnly.

“Obviously, this meeting could have happened over the phone, or via Zoom,” Yelizaveta says. “But we agreed that this should be done face to face.” She glances at the rest of the heads before turning her violet eyes back to me. “We’ve had a vote. Two, actually.”

I resist the urge to let my lips curl into a smile.

“Oh?”

She nods with a small smirk. “Indeed, we have. The first was whether we were ready to bring new blood…so to speak…to the Table.”

I feel Taylor’s hand grip mine in excitement.

“And I’m pleased to inform you that you, Drazen, have been voted to a chair at the Iron Table, by unanimous vote.”

This time, I do allow myself a grin.

“Unanimous with one abstention,” Nikolai Antonov grunts.

“Yes…which brings me to the second vote we held. Also unanimous.” Yelizaveta arches a silver brow as her eyes stab across the table into mine. “We are in agreement that Vadik Belov has no place any longer at our Table. Whatever business he had with you, good or bad, is between the two of you. But there’s an honor code that comes with sitting at the Iron Table. The respect our Table commands from every Bratva family on the planet depends on following that code.” Her eyes narrow. “Inviting someone to your home as a guest, and then drugging and torturing them does not fit with that code.”

“Nor does backstabbing,” Kir hisses, glancing at Yelizaveta who nods for him to continue. “On the same night that Vadik attacked you two, there were assaults on several assets belonging to various members of this Table. I had a warehouse raided by fake cops in Paris. Pavel”…he indicates the head of the Nikitin family…“had his penthouse in Slovenia attacked by a rocket-propelled explosive.”

Pavel’s eyes narrow darkly. “My daughter was staying there at the time. It is a miracle she survived.”

Jesus.

“In our investigation into your reports of what occurred at Vadik’s home, we discovered evidence that he was behind all these other attacks,” Kir continues. “As such, he’s been excommunicated from this Table. Furthermore,” he growls, leveling a cold smile my way, “you have not only our complete endorsement to do what you will to Vadik and the Belov organization…” His brow cocks. “You have our aid, should you need or wish it.”

A smile creeps over my face as my fingers tighten with Taylor’s. I bow my head respectfully to them all.

“You have my gratitude, all of you,” I growl. “I’ll be sure to let you know if I need any assistance with dealing with him.”

But I won’t. I’ll be dealing with Vadik personally.

Very, very personally.

With my bare hands…and perhaps a rusty fork.

“And you,” Yelizaveta says quietly, turning on Taylor.  “You have our thanks for helping your husband get out of that house alive. I hear it was you who found him, cut him down, and dragged him out of the house before calling for help.”

Taylor smiles, nodding. “I can’t imagine doing anything else.” Then I see her brow furrow.

“Something you’d like to add?” Yelizaveta asks.

“Actually, yes.” Taylor frowns. “I was obviously severely under the influence of what Vadik slipped us. But it really did appear that there’d been a battle of some kind at the house when I got out of the room where I was being held. There was a lot of blood, and the bodies of Vadik’s men.” She takes a breath. “When you were investigating at the house, did you find anything that would lead to answers about what happened?”

“That, I’m afraid,” Kir mutters, “is still a mystery. But we believe whatever happened is the reason Vadik himself took flight before you both were able to get free.”

“All the more reason to find him, then,” I growl. “I’ll add it to the list of questions I have for him before I cut his tongue out and feed it to him.”

I invite them all to stay for dinner before my helicopter takes them back to their respective planes at the airfield on Elba. After they’re gone, I officially tell Milos to release the proverbial hounds to find that slimy fuck Vadik.

“Alive, Milos,” I growl.

“I’ll do my best,” he hisses darkly before he leaves the island as well.

It’s late by the time Taylor and I are alone just the two of us. Out on the veranda giving off my—our—room, I join her on the loveseat overlooking the ocean. She giggles, squealing as I haul her into my lap.

“I have something for you.”

Her brows shoot up. “Oh?”

I nod. My hand slips into my pocket, pulling out the folded check and handing it to her.

“I think you should be the one to hand deliver this to the Crown and Black offices.”

She tenses as she realizes what I’m saying.

“Is that…?”

I nod. “The full amount to get you out from the debt your acquisition owes Roger Fairchild.”

“Drazen—”

“You have my permission to go back to New York,” I growl quietly.

The veranda goes pin-drop silent except for the soft crashing of the waves down below.

Taylor’s brow knits. Slowly, her eyes lift to mine, looking slightly pained.

“Oh.”

“Taylor—”

“It’s…so soon,” she says, her voice empty. “I thought our arrangement was for three months.” Her throat bobs as she swallows. “It’s only been two and a half.”

I smile. “I’m releasing you early.”

She nods, her face paling a little as she looks down. Her hand extends, plucking the check from my fingers as she swallows again.

“I, um…” She keeps her eyes downcast. “I could, uh…I could also⁠—”

She whimpers as I grab her jaw and slam my mouth to hers in a brutal, possessive kiss.

“I think you should,” I growl.

“Stay?” she whimpers, kissing me fiercely.

“Yes,” I groan, kissing her harder before I pull back, our eyes locked. “That doesn’t have to mean physically here. You have a career and an empire in New York. But I’d like it if you stayed with me,” I hiss. “I want you to stay with me.”

“I want to stay with you, too,” she whispers quietly. Her lips curl as her damp eyes stay on mine. “So you’re not ‘releasing me early’?”

“That was a joke.”

She giggles. “Oh, you joke now?”

“It was worth a shot. Don’t expect it to happen again, ever.”

She laughs as she collapses into my arms, our lips searing together in another kiss as the waves crash against the rocks down below.