Finding a dish towel on the counter next to the stove, I used it to wipe my now buttery and warm fingertips.
The next few moments I was quiet, watching him use one of the oven mitts to pick up the pan, tilt it, and slide all the rolls into the bowl like he was a seasoned chef. The moment he mentioned doing what his parents raised them to do, I’d gone to that place I hated. The place where the girl who didn’t want the life planned for her went to hide.
“Do you take everyone there?” I asked quietly. “Everyone that you kill.”
He set the pan down on the stove and faced me. “Most times, yes. Cremating the bodies obviously ensures they’ll never be found. But sometimes, when a bigger message needs to be sent, we do things differently.”
He took the dish towel from my hands and set it on the counter. Then he held both my hands in his, staring down to examine the fingers on my right hand.
“Different like cutting them up and delivering them in a FedEx box?”
His gaze moved slowly from my hands to meet my eyes. “Ask me what you want to know, Dakota.”
“You’ll tell me the truth?” It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him. In matters of was my heart safe with him, would he always be there for me, I trusted him implicitly. But where his job—the illegal one—was concerned, I wasn’t sure how many details he wouldgive. Even though I worked with the club, I never knew anything beyond the clean-up. No details, no explanations.
“I’ll never lie to you,” he said, lacing his fingers through mine. “If you ask a question and the answer won’t endanger your life or your freedom, I’ll always answer you honestly. So, I don’t ever want you to think there’s anything you can’t ask.”
I swallowed hard. Cade never gave me details. If there was a job, he called me to come and do it. But there was never a recon later where he gave me all the details of how the body that had been beaten until identification was impossible, or the participants of a poker game had ended up with their brains splattered over the walls and poker table, came to be that way. It was just me doing a job and him paying the invoice. The same went for the Platinum Ryders. Usually Rafe, or someone from his team called with a job. Me and my alpha crew—I called them that because they had been carefully vetted, bonded and the NDAs I had them sign were tighter than the braces I’d worn for three of my teenage years—showed up and did the job. The invoice was paid. Well, there wasn’t really a physical invoice for these jobs. The Ryders as well as Cade knew my rates for each job ranging from the number of bodies and the method of death. They all paid in cash. And that was that.
But I’d often gone home after one of those jobs and thought about the details. The timeline leading up to the moment I donned my protective suit and went in to clean the scene.
“Two months ago, a plastic surgeon’s hands were delivered in a box to his wife,” I continued. “The city was mortified. The chief of police and the mayor swore the killer would be found … along with the rest of the surgeon’s body. So far, there have been no answers.” His thumbs moved over the back of my hand. I loved the connection, the warmth that always spread through my body at his touch.
His brow lifted as he waited for my question.
“I remember the surgeon. He was at your casino one night when I was there. Drinking and gambling just like everybody else, until security came and forcefully removed him from the Blackjack table.”
“The only thing I hate more than a liar is a thief,” he said as calmly as if he’d just given me the time of day.
I watched him, watching me. In addition to being fine as hell, Fabian could be cold and as mean as a bull. Mo was right, I knew his reputation long before ever coming face-to-face with the man. I knew he was a vicious killer wrapped in a delectable package.
“He stole from you?” I asked.
“Missed a loan payment, then was dumb enough to walk into my casino, fuck one of the cage cashiers, and steal twenty thousand to make said payment.”
Tilting my head, I asked another question, “Loan payments are twenty thousand?”
He shrugged. “Depends on the loan.”
“And the punishment for missing a payment is getting his hands cut off?”
He shook his head slowly, then brought my hands up to his lips to kiss the back of both. “The punishment for missing a payment is a bullet to the head.” He kissed each hand again. “The punishment for coming into my casino with the bullshit was a bullet to both kneecaps. The fingers that were inside my employee’s pussy and ass that night being delivered to his wife were the repercussions for cheating. Delivering the entire hand to her instead of just those specific fingers was a courtesy.”
I blinked as he stared at me, his lips only a whisper away from my skin. Then the corner of my lip lifted. “I guess that makes sense.”
He grinned. “The more I get to know you, the more I’m starting to believe there’s so much more to you than anyone knows.”
There was so much truth to his words. His eyes searched mine, waiting for an admission I couldn’t give. It stuck in my throat alongside the fear of being judged and possibly hated for something that had reserved a space in the forefront of my mind for so long I could barely recall being without it.
What would he say if I told him? Would he look at me differently? Regret marrying the woman he didn’t really know? Those questions only exacerbated the fear so I swallowed them, like I did all the others of this sort.
“The rolls are getting cold,” I said and eased away from him.
CHAPTER 10
DAKOTA
An hour later we were on the couch, the show playing on the television. Fabian sat stretched out on the long portion of the sectional. I lay in the fetal position my head tucked in his lap. The yellow blanket Aunt Lorraine crocheted for me was thrown over my legs. She’d made each of the East Coast girl cousins one and I loved not only the look and softness of it, but the fact that it also matched the dark mahogany and burnt orange color scheme of this room. I’m pretty sure Aunt Lorraine considered that when she picked the color and pattern, knowing that I favored all shades of yellow.
