Where would I even fit in?
Maybe this is just a fling for him.
But until I know for sure, a girl can dream.
Chapter 29
Kellin
For the first time in my entire life, my dick is actually sore from fucking. Might’ve sprained it on her world-class pussy.
I slip back under the covers after my bathroom break, trying not to wake her. Maeve’s skin is pink with sleep, her lips extra pouty.
I want to take her again, but instead I decide to enjoy the moment, to absorb all the little details. I don’t deserve this—or her—but like everything else that’s presented to me, I’ll still seize it.
Claim her as mine for however long I can.
I’m a selfish prick that way.
She talked to me about her mother. Opened right up. I learned a little of her mother’s fate from the files. But files don’t reveal the pain anyone suffers. Or the quiet life of misery the woman must’ve led up until her death. Being married to a mobster’s not an easy way of life.
Files don’t tell you how her death affected her children either. Maeve’s history probably suggests susceptibility to a parasite like me. I wonder if a file on me somewhere predicts a woman like her could bring me to my knees.
Maeve is teaching me a lesson I’m not especially eager to learn. And yet, even though the clock keeps ticking, I can’t let go of her.
I’m so far off the mission, it’s not even funny. My father’s voice echoes at me from beyond the grave.
“You’re soft, boy. Like a damn girl.”
He would not approve of how I’ve been handling this situation. I try to imagine what he’d do if he were here. Would he hurt Maeve just to prove a point? Just to toughen me up?
Maybe.
Probably.
When I recall my life with him, I can’t remember happy days or a time when I wasn’t angry. When my mother didn’t live in fear like I bet Maeve’s mom did.
When I look at my reflection in mirrors, that frown line between my eyes—that faintest of scowls—reminds me of my past. But in photos from my younger years, before my father started exerting influence over my upbringing, I see a different kid. A free one.
I played baseball and wanted to go pro, or possibly grow up and own a farm with a dozen animals. Like so many other little kids, I did a lot of dreaming.
My father was a violent man. Not overly so with me or my siblings. He found other ways to shake the dreams from our systems. But he threatened my mother. Took his rage out on a string of family dogs until we learned not to bring home pets.
All in all, he was a real piece of shit.
I left the family for the Irish Kings years before he died, on the advice of Dear Old Uncle Thomas, and never glanced back.
The Kings accepted me into their fold. Became my family.
So I can’t let Finn down.
But I also can’t stop falling for Maeve.
I’m trapped in a situation I never predicted.
I’ve always relied on logic and reason, which is why cybersecurity came so naturally. I’m a man of action, someone who longs to devote my talents to a family I can trust. One that protects its own.
I’ve trained my whole life to serve as a silent infiltrator, a killer for a higher command who rids the world of worthless rats like my uncle or that idiot who almost hurt Maeve.
