The Boss’s Runaway (Possessive Kingpins)

After dropping Hana off at her home, we sat through the most uncomfortable dinner I’d ever attended in my life. The upside was the hug Dami gave me at the end for delivering myself to my brother to help Hana.

“Of course, I would. She’s my family now, and Jae loves her. More than anything, she’s an innocent young woman, and there aren’t many left in our world,” I told the former matriarch of the Song family.

Dami held my hand tightly, and I had an inkling I might have secured a place in her capricious heart, even if it was tiny. I could work with that.

Jae was quiet the entire way back to the penthouse. His face reminded me of that blank, freezing mask he’d worn when I’d first met him.

As soon as we stepped into the apartment, he kicked the door shut and grabbed me.

“What were you thinking? Sneaking off after everything I’ve done to keep you safe?” he demanded hotly.

His icy mask had dissolved into pure fury. I basked in the heat of his anger. Fuck, it felt good to be the woman he cared about enough to break through his walls.

“Konstantin is my brother. He’s my responsibility—”

“And you are mine,” Jae roared, one hand hitting the wall in a fist.

I was startled by his frantic energy. He quieted as I raised my hand to his cheek. It was like gentling a wild predator. He tensed as my skin touched his, but after a moment, the tension flowed from his shoulders.

He leaned in, resting his forehead against mine. “Mine, Katya Song. You are my everything.”

My heart swelled silently at that sentiment. “You think I didn’t expect you to come for me?” I teased quietly. “I knew you’d come. You save me. That’s what you do.”

He let out a long breath, and his lips whispered across my forehead. “You’ve aged me ten years in the last few hours. Don’t run away from me, Kat, or put yourself in danger. I’d die a hundred times before I experience that again.”

I nodded, making him a promise with my eyes.

Jae muttered, “Here, we forgot something at the ceremony.”

He took a ring box from his jacket pocket and opened it. Matching wedding bands lay inside. There was delicate Korean lettering scrolling around the inside.

“What does it say?”

“If I were to live a hundred lives, I’d find you every time.”

He slipped it onto my ring finger. I blinked, awed and in love. How could everything come together the way it had? It had started with a desperate look in a crappy basement room. Jae Han’s world had never shocked me because it was my world. His brutal ways, dangerous men, and the power he wielded had never frightened me because I grew up around all that. He was a man in the way I’d been taught men should be, yet more than I’d dreamed of. He was powerful and strong, a terrifying don in his own right, yet there was honor beneath his deadly exterior.

If there was such a thing as a hero in our brutal world, Song Jae Han was it.

“You tell me you’re not my white knight, yet your actions prove otherwise, again and again.”

“I’d storm a castle for you anytime, so maybe I can be a knight of a sort, but not a good one, just… yours. For you only. Your personal knight in bloodstained armor.”

I raised an eyebrow at him as he pulled me into his arms and walked purposefully toward the bedroom. “My personal knight? I like the sound of that.”

We reached his room, and Jae shouldered inside, laying me on the bed. His hands went to my ankles, and he tugged me to the edge, dangling my legs off the mattress. Slowly he knelt before me as I tangled my hands in his hair. I felt like a queen being worshiped by her loyal guardian.

“Good, because like in the stories, I’m not giving you a choice. I’ve saved you, and now I’m keeping you. That’s this fairytale’s end.” Jae’s dark and delicious grin melted the worry and pain of the day. The problems with working alongside Konstantin could wait until tomorrow. I was a newlywed, madly in love with her husband, and I was going to make the most of it.

“You forgot something…” I trailed off as his hands pushed my thin white dress up my thighs, and his hot mouth followed. “The happy ending.”

He grinned against my skin. “I didn’t forget it. I’m getting around to it.” His mouth pressed against the lace between my thighs. “Tell me when you get there.”