I don’t have a reason to care whether he lives or dies. He’s not the only guy who’s good at fucking. The fact that the way he spoke to me, watched me, held me, did something to me shouldn’t matter. And yet… am I ready to let his life go to waste, just because it’s the convenient thing to do?
“You seemed to like that girl you brought with you two years back. What happened with that?” Damen asks with the ghost of a smile.
Smug fucking bastard.
The girl was an escort I hired for the role of my girlfriend, and I haven’t seen her since we parted at La Guardia following our return to NYC.
“I won’t settle for anything that isn’t perfect,” I say, meeting his gaze.
Mother doesn’t notice the quiet standoff and wraps her arms around mine. “I bet my Corvus will be one of those boys who really likes someone soft and gentle at home.”
I look at her and try to smile, but I don’t think I’m doing a very good job of it.
My mother’s from another big crime family, and she’s always been a carefree princess. I was raised by a nanny, and she would come to my bedroom each evening to read me a single story. I don’t think she was a bad mother necessarily, but now that I’ve grown up, I’ve had to face the fact she’s adrift without someone to guide her.
Without Father, that became my role, because I am not entrusting any of her boyfriends withanything.
Killian grins and I await the next dig. He wouldn’t be so confident around me without Damen inches away. “Remo’s taking care of Whiskers for us over the holidays, I bet he knows a lot of single cat ladies.”
Ah yes, the cousin who does his job but avoids most family gatherings. How I understand him right now.
Aspen looks me up and down and shakes his head. “Kill… This man wears black at all times. He’d be living with a lint roller. His mom is right. He needs a firecracker. Let me take you out to one of the clubs with my friends—that would loosen you up.”
I don’t think Aspen is anywhere near as aware of my sexuality as Damen, but I still hate every second of this stupid teasing. I’m twenty-eight, for fucks sake, I can handle my love life or lack of it. I am in complete control of my life and I like it that way.
The last thing I need is advice from a barely-legal psycho with half his brain on killing people, and half on tits.
“You know what loosens up people? When you cut them open taint to asshole. Or a dosage of propofol.”
Silence stretches a bit, Mom drifts off to the table with snacks, and Killian goes a little pale. Exactly what I was going for.
Aspen clears his throat. “Actually. Speaking of poison. I was hoping you’d have some cousin-to-cousin advice… I’m not planning on shooting anyone today, since I’m not actually taking part in the hunt, of course, but if say, one was to shoot, like, in self-defence, is there a poison one could put on the bolt to make the death more painful in case the shot person runs away?”
Dalton’s face, twisted in a mixture of ecstasy and pain flashes through my mind, but when I try to shake it off, the vision expands instead of leaving me be. Dalton’s half-naked, with crossbow bolts pinning him to a tree as if he’s St. Sebastian. His lips quiver, no doubt cursing me for giving him false hope when psychos like Aspen are allowed to shoot at people for no good reason, just because it’s fun.
Dalton didn’t do anything.
It’s debt.
Not even a real crime against the family.
I imagine his skull on the empty bit of wall in front of me, and it finally sinks in that I am not okay with that scenario.
I might not be willing to come out, but I do want to experience the absolute abandon of being Dalton’s bed mate again. I could tuck him away somewhere. He’d play along, of course, because who wouldn’t? He’s reasonable enough to not want to die.
I’m not done with him.
Not yet.
“Corvus?” Aspen waves a crossbow bolt at me.
“Do your own research,” I slap the bolt away and walk off with new determination.
Dalton will be my Christmas present to myself.
Chapter 6
Dalton
