Marrying Cia Malone turned out to be the best decision I made in a long time. Fucking her proved to be a promising bonus and well worth the investment and headache caused by claiming her. Forcing Merrick to accept that I was his sister’s husband was one thing, paying off a debt his father owed to Harte was a different beast.
One I could handle but also a debt that would force me into a position I hadn’t desired to be in. Harte didn’t want to cross me but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t employ all his resources in complicating my life for cutting off his reach to Cia.
He wanted her, I had her, and there wasn’t a chance in hell I would be handing her over to him,ever. Refusing to do so meant I owed him or I had to kill him. Getting rid of Harte would upset the balance of power and force me to level things out.
Being in the middle of crime family business wasn’t a space I desired but that was where I was. Luckily, absorbing the debt now owed to Harte meant the Malones owed me. Merrick would assume marrying Cia cleared the debt, but he would be wrong.He’d learn just how wrong eventually. I hadn’t yet decided what I wanted.
“It’s nice in here.” Cia was tucked in the corner of the sofa wearing a thick burgundy robe that emulated the color of blood. She had no idea how dangerous that was to a killer. The color against her soft brown skin had my dick thickening. Even after having been inside her for the past couple hours, I was ready to take her again.
“It’s a suite.”
She grinned behind her glass. “Not the suite, the decorations.” She pointed to the tree and the glass panels that took up one side of the living room. “Merrick knows how much I love Christmas and marrying me off on Christmas Day is just about as bad as using me to pay a debt I didn’t accumulate.” She frowned and rolled those beautiful brown eyes.
“It’s just another day,” I rasped after pouring a drink at the bar then joining her on the sofa. I sat in the center, body spread wide, extending one arm across the back while balancing my glass on my thigh.
“Then I guess that answers my next question, you didn’t ask them to do this?”
I snorted, lifted my drink, and enjoyed the warmth of the brown liquid as it smoothly glided down my throat. “No.”
“Not a holiday person?” she teased with an arched brow.
“No.”
“Why not? Everyone loves the holidays.”
“Not everyone,” I countered, finishing what was left of my drink. I leaned forward, placing the glass on the custom wood table that also held the overbearing presence of Christmas being two days away—garland circling three massive white candles next to snow globes filled with a snowy forest.
“Even if you don’t love the holidays, your family must.”
Years of being a loner for reasons beyond my control prepared me to control my reaction when others inquired about my family. A family that didn’t exist.
“No family. Just me.” Our eyes met and hers narrowed in confusion before she offered a simple response that felt so damn weighted I found myself explaining right after it left her lips.
“Oh…” Cia finished what was left of her wine. I confiscated the glass, placed it next to mine, and dragged her into my lap. I groaned, feeling the warmth of her pussy as she shifted, rubbing against my lap trying to get comfortable.
“I’m an only child. My mother died two years after I was born. I don’t know the story because my father never explained, but to my understanding, she was found in their apartment, badly beaten and the place was vandalized.”
“And your father?” Her brows pinched.
“I killed him.” My gaze didn’t falter and her lips parted on a gasp.
“You…”
I nodded. “He was a heartless man. I knew from an early age that it would be him or me. When I was sixteen years old, I learned that he was the one who killed my mother. So the decision was made…him.”
One drunken night, when he admitted that he should have killed me when he’d killed the bitch that made me, cost him his life.
“Is that why you ki…do what you do?”
I smirked at the way it bothered her. Her father and brother were no more ethically sound than me. Even if I was the one following through with the task, it was by orders they commissioned and paid for. She viewed them differently because of the love she shared with them. The thought shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. In her mind, my actions fell beneath the moral compass of theirs.
“No.”
“Then why do you ki…”
“Kill people?” I arched a brow and she frowned, nodding. “It pays extremely well. If not me, someone else will take my place. That’s how the world works, Little Flame.”
“No it doesn’t.”
