Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 132791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
I popped my finger into my mouth, rubbing the residual nectar of her cunt on my gums like it was high-end coke. I’d never sampled the shit I sold—hard drugs were a red line—but there was no point in denying it. I was a junkie. Addicted to my wife. There wasn’t a low too low for me to stoop to in order to get my next hit.
We both stared at the possessive word for a long moment before she spoke again.
“If I weren’t pregnant, I’d tattoo over your handwriting to keep it there forever.”
“If I wasn’t made too jealous by the prospect of a tattoo artist laying their hands on you, I’d let you.”
I considered hopping into the shower for exactly one second before remembering that (a) smelling like the Ferrantes’ baby sister’s cunt was exactly the kind of punishment her brothers deserved, and (b) I, myself, took strange comfort in smelling Lila on my skin.
“I have to head out in the next ten minutes. Just texted my driver to round up the car.” I strode over to my walk-in closet, tugged a fresh shirt from a hanger, and buttoned it on my way back to the bedroom. Lila covered herself up with her dress and sat on the bed, staring at me through tear-coated eyes.
I’d rarely seen her cry.
She was braver than all of my soldiers combined.
I didn’t miss my other eye often. But when I did, it was because it took me twice as long to watch every atom of my wife’s existence every night. To count each of her thirty-three beauty spots—yes, including the one behind her ear. Her fourteen freckles, all of them peppered across her celestial nose. All the twenty shades of yellow and silver in her hair.
“There is something I want to give you before you go.”
She reached for her nightstand and took her sketchbook, tearing a page and handing it to me. I tugged it from between her fingers and flipped it.
It was me.
A portrait of me, to be exact.
Much like the one she drew of Tate, but somehow…better. Sharper. I looked more alive in the drawing than I did in real life.
It looked like I was forged through marble and flames.
And it was the first time I stared back at myself and liked what I saw.
I swallowed hard, loathing how vulnerable this made me feel.
I leveled my gaze at her. “Cheers.”
God, did my voice just break? Good thing she couldn’t hear it. Only I didn’t mind her knowing.
She shrugged, downplaying it. “You were so touchy about the Tate portrait; I couldn’t send you off without letting you know how I feel.”
Dangerous, now. There was a difference between playing house and fucking one’s delectable wife and actually falling for her.
“And how do you feel?” I asked anyway. I wasn’t normally a reckless cunt. She brought that side out of me.
“I…I think I love you,” she blurted out.
Our gazes clashed.
There were two instances when I never believed someone’s words—when they had a gun pressed to their head or when they just had an orgasm. Lila just had three.
She stared at me wildly, searching my face, her eyes so big, so blue, so heavily lashed, my heart skipped a beat. How easily this unassuming creature had undone me.
“Please don’t go,” she added with a choke.
I said nothing.
“No. I won’t let you leave,” she tried another method, punching the bed.
I was going because I wanted to return.
And I wanted to return because I wanted to be with her.
The only way out was through. I could never live with myself if I let her stay by my side without settling the score with the Rasputins. The code of honor cemented that women and children were beyond the scope of retaliation, but my entire existence attested otherwise.
I’d broken the code myself several times. I wasn’t putting my trust in anyone else when it came to her.
Rolling my nightstand drawer open, I produced the cross pendant Lila had gifted me, securing it around my neck. She stared at me through tear-curtained eyes, and it hurt so fucking much I actually contemplated closing my eye so I wouldn’t have to see it.
I leaned down, cupped her cheeks, kissed her forehead, and stared into her eyes.
“Don’t follow me.”
_______
The drive to the private airport was silent. The journey from the car to the airplane on the tarmac a haze. The sketch burned a hole in my front pocket, and all I wanted was to stare at it until my eye bled, because she drew it.
I was met with stoic Luca and pissed-off Achilles on the plane. The rest of the soldiers were already in Vegas.
Luca plucked a red grape from a charcuterie platter, going over the blueprints of the warehouse we were going to raid. Achilles sprawled across from him in a recliner, thumbing through his phone with a frown.