Stepbrother's Lust: A Forbidden Mafia Romance

Reagan’s POV

I lowered the phone from my ear. "Get the cars ready."

My right-hand man looked up from across the room. "Sir?"

"We’re leaving."

He nodded immediately and reached for his phone to relay the order. I slipped mine into my pocket and looked toward the men gathered around the study. Nobody spoke. They’d all heard enough from my side of the call to know something had changed, and the room felt heavier than it had a few minutes ago.

I’d spent most of the night putting pieces together, and the picture I was getting wasn’t pretty. The sedan had been seen around several of my old man’s businesses over the past few days. Warehouses, restaurants, one of the offices. It never stayed long, never did anything obvious, and somehow always disappeared before anyone could get close enough to question the driver. The cameras hadn’t helped either. There were blind spots, too many of them, and whoever was behind this knew exactly where our security couldn’t see.

Someone knew how we operated.

That bothered me more than the car itself.

I walked toward the door, my right-hand man following behind me.

"Sir," he said after a moment, "do you have any suspects?"

I stopped and looked back at him. A slow smile pulled at my lips, amusement spreading across my face.

"Maybe."

He waited.

I turned toward the door again. "Or you’ll know soon enough."

He gave a small nod and said nothing else.

The drive was quiet. I sat in the back seat, staring through the window while the city passed by, but my mind kept returning to the same thing.

The plate.

We’d traced the unusual numbering and found the registration leading back to a slum district on the outskirts of the city. That alone would have been suspicious, but everything about it was too convenient. A car being used for surveillance, appearing around my old man’s businesses, carrying a plate designed to stand out just enough for someone like me to recognize, and somehow leading straight back to one of the poorest areas in the city?

It was a trap.

I knew it.

The only question was what waited at the other end.

When we arrived, several of the men were already gathered around a table with the information spread across it. One of them pointed at the report.

"So the plate is registered there?"

"Yes, sir."

"And the vehicle?"

"The same sedan we’ve been tracking."

A younger man frowned. "Then why would they use a plate registered in a place like that?"

Nobody answered.

One of the newer men looked genuinely confused, but the veterans didn’t. Neither did my right-hand man. We all knew what it meant.

Someone wanted us to find it.

Someone wanted us looking in that direction.

I picked up the report and scanned it again before letting out a quiet laugh.

"This will be fun."

My right-hand man glanced at me.

I dropped the paper onto the table. "If we take the bait, what’ll happen?"

I wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular, but everyone heard me.

A few men shifted uneasily.

One of them cleared his throat. "Sir..."

I looked at him.

He swallowed. "I think it would be best if we waited for Sir Devon. You know... your father."

My expression didn’t change.

He continued, his voice already losing confidence. "We were advised not to take action without his approval. This could be dangerous."

The room went completely still.

Nobody moved.

Nobody even looked at me.

The silence stretched until I could hear someone swallow.

Then another.

I stared at the man for a few seconds.

"You think I need permission?"

He immediately shook his head. "No, sir. That’s not what I—"

The first punch landed before he could finish.

His head snapped sideways. He stumbled, and I caught the front of his shirt before driving another fist into his face. He hit the floor hard.

I followed him down.

One punch.

Then another.

Then another.

Someone said my name, but I didn’t hear them.

The man’s hands came up desperately. "Sir, please."

I hit him again.

"Please!"

Another.

He curled in on himself, trying to protect his head, but I grabbed him and hauled him partly upright before striking him again.

My mind had gone strangely quiet.

There was no thought behind what I was doing anymore. No speech running through my head, no careful calculation. Just anger, raw and hot, pushing everything else aside.

He had questioned me.

He had reminded me of my old man’s orders as though I were some inexperienced boy who needed permission before breathing.

And somehow, that was enough.

The man’s begging grew weaker.

His body eventually went limp.

I still didn’t stop.

My fist pulled back again.

A hand caught my wrist.

"Sir."

I turned sharply, ready to swing.

Then I saw who it was.

My right-hand man.

He didn’t release me. He simply looked at me, calm despite the tension in the room.

"That’s enough, sir."

For a second, I wanted to tell him to get the fuck off me.

My chest rose and fell heavily. I could feel the pulse beating in my neck, and my fist remained clenched beneath his grip.

Then I slowly lowered my hand.

He released my wrist.

I looked down.

The man was unconscious on the floor, blood running from his mouth.

I stared at him for several seconds before finally stepping back.

"Dispose of him."

Two men immediately stepped forward.

"Yes, sir."

They dragged him away.

The door closed behind them, and silence settled over the room again.

Nobody spoke.

I wiped my knuckles against my palm and looked back at the report on the table.

The slum.

The plate.

The blind spots.

The surveillance.

Everything had been deliberate.

They wanted us to follow the trail. They wanted us to believe the answer was sitting in some forgotten part of the city, waiting for us to walk straight into it.

Which meant they already knew something about us.

Maybe they knew how we’d react.

Maybe that was the entire point.

My jaw tightened.

Someone was playing a game with us, and I hated games when I didn’t know who was holding the cards.

I picked up the photograph again and studied the sedan.

The same vehicle Rose had seen.

The thought crossed my mind before I could stop it.

Had they seen her?

Had they been watching her?

My fingers tightened around the photograph.

I didn’t like where my thoughts were going.

I put it down.

There was another problem.

My old man had given clear instructions.

No action without him.

I laughed quietly.

Not because anything was funny. The realization itself was almost ridiculous.

"So the old man is giving my gang instructions now."

I ran a hand through my hair and shook my head.

Fuck.

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