REDEMPTION | MAFIA ROMANCE | SMUT

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Liam

The champagne flute imploded in Alexa's hand. Blood-stained shards of glass fell to the floor in crimson droplets. Her pale face blanched as Flamur and his wife, Zamira, absconded from the building with their loyal subjects preserving their penetrable shield.

I stared at the dispersed wine streaked in crimson on the ground and pondered whether or not Alexa's clumsiness was the result of another anxiety attack.

"You should go," said the scrawny manager, and I side-eyed him. "It's for the best, Mr Warren. I would hate to take precautionary measures." Condensation frosted his spectacles. "Will you still donate, though?"

Brad's toothpick wedged between gritted teeth. "You kick the boss out the door and then demand handouts."

His ungroomed eyebrows shot up. "It's for charity."

"Give him the cheques," I ordered, and Brad extracted two white envelopes from his inner suit jacket. "No need to be dramatic." My shoulder clipped the manager as I barged past. "I was just leaving."

Alexa discerned the blood on her hands in belatedness. Her thumbs swept the depthless cuts on her palms. Frowning at the shattered glass on the floor, she tried to understand the unexplainable.

I sidled to her side. "What happened?"

Her eyes seemed lighter.

"Alexa?" My hand fell to her lower spine, and she squirmed as though the contact repulsed her. "Your hands." I gripped her wrists and jerked her into awareness. "Breathe."

With a sharp exhalation, she squinted at me.

I searched her eyes. "Where did you go?"

Her pallid face expressed exhaustion as she leaned onto the roman column.

"Nate," I said, and the man stepped into my peripheral. "Bring the Bentley around. I will meet you outside so that you can examine her hands."

Nate's head dipped. "Sir."

"Is she having another episode?" Brad's question was unapologetically tactless. "Too many glasses of wine, perhaps."

"No idea." I picked up Alexa's clutch purse on the table, took her elbow and headed outdoors. Light rain and mistiness fogged the streets of London. I removed my suit jacket and draped it over her shoulders as we strode down the red carpet to the parked Bentley.

Nate rose from the driver's side door. "Are you good, Alexa?"

Alexa is immersed in thought.

I popped a cigarette to the corner of my mouth. "What's the damage?"

"It ain't too bad." Thoroughly cleaning her hands with sterile wipes, Nate inspected the minor cuts, uncapped skin glue with his teeth and closed the wound along the underside of her thumb. "I'll wrap them in bandages for tonight."

Brad fumbled with the first aid kit that's laid open on the passenger seat. "Won't the dressing stick to the glue?"

Nate's eyes visited the sky. "Obviously, I will wait until the glue dries, Brad." He unpackaged tweezers and unearthed wedged shards from the inner surface of her fingers. "This should hurt," he said to me, perceiving the woman's unresponsiveness. "Well, get over here and help."

Brad unwrapped two rolls of cotton gauze and handed one to Nate. They worked as a team to tighten the tourniquet around her palms while bickering over the most trivial of subjects—late-night takeout. As much as they fight like cat and dog and disagree with each other more often than not, they forged an unbreakable bond when joining the syndicate. They are the founding members of The Brotherhood. No number of disputes will rupture their long-standing friendship.