Shot by the man he trusted.
Shot by someone I thought was, at worst, a shadow in our midst.
Shot by Elias Kent.
“I’ll kill you,” I scream.
Then, a sweet, sickly smell fills my lungs.
Darkness drags me under.
Chapter 9: THE LETTER
Fuck.
This didn’t go according to plan. Lana was supposed to trust me when I told her I needed something from her box to protect her family. If pressed, I’d reveal it was related to her SUV stalker.
She’d ask more questions, but I’d have the answers. The men with me? New bodyguards.
She’d believe me. After all, I’d saved her brothers multiple times before.
I dispatched the Albanians after the chaos and hightailed to my safe house. The bastards no doubt headed straight to the Berishas, and with their body cam footage, there’d be no sugarcoating this disaster.
I told them they’d get their precious letter—still unopened in my pocket—after I settled things with the Andersons.
No way I’d hand something so important to those bloodthirsty lowlifes who are lieutenants in the Albanian mob.
Faint traffic hums through the windows in this nondescript apartment. I pace the length of the room, the city alive while the chasm inside me swallows me whole.
Strategies rattle through my mind. Possible moves on the chessboard. Ways to get out of this.
Part one of my Rite was to steal the letter. That’s done. I don’t even know what part two is.
Fucking shit.
My gaze snags on her.
Lana. My obsession. The woman I hate because of the role she played on the day that changed my life.
I must never forget.
She lies asleep on the king-sized bed, the chloroform still holding her under. She’s clad in one of my white dress shirts. My housekeeper changed her out of her blood-soaked outfit after I carried her inside a few hours ago.
Quietly, I pull up a chair next to her bedside.
Under the afternoon light, she looks even more beautiful. Her thick lashes kiss her cheeks; her inky dark hair splayed across my white pillowcase. Her pulse flutters in her neck as she shifts on the bed, her plump lips relaxed.
A break from the nightmare she had just lived through.
She moans—the soft sound going straight to my groin.I’m a sick motherfucker.
I lean in, wanting to feel her breath on my skin, to let her roses cloud my senses until they wipe away the stench of death and destruction.
I haven’t had my twenty-eight minutes today yet.
A reprieve. I need my twenty-eight minutes more than I need air.
Releasing an exhale, I lock up my anger, hatred, the violence coursing through my veins.
