Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 86168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
I step forward, grab him by the throat, grip a candle holder in my left fist, and slam it down into his face.
The room is dead silent, except for Turi’s mangled screams. He tries to fight back. I hit him again and again, the candle toppling to the floor and hissing out, wax splattering all over, the brass holder bending out of shape. Blood splatters the floor and drenches the men standing nearby. I hit him again, and again, and again, beating Turi’s face until it’s a mangled, unrecognizable mass of tissue and bone. He gurgles something pathetic. Maybe begging for his life. But it’s too late for that. I throw his body on the floor and keep beating him, drenching myself in his blood, until his skull is pulverized to gravy. Brain oozes between my fingers as I stand, breathing hard.
I turn to face the room.
“Criticism of my wife is off-limits,” I snarl at the assembled men. I toss the ruined candlestick holder on the floor. “Do you all understand?”
“Yes, Don Corsetti,” Saverino says quickly, filling the stunned silence.
“Good.” I take off my jacket and use it to wipe the blood from my face. I toss it down on top of Turi’s corpse. “Deal with this mess. In the morning, we have work to do.”
I stride through the crowd, pausing only to offer Kira my hand.
She accepts it. I expect to see fear in her eyes, but she only stares at me with a confused frown.
I take her away from here. Back through the halls, back into the graveyard. It’s cold, and the blood’s drying on my skin. I tug my wife closer.
“Why did you stick up for me?” she asks quietly.
“I won’t tolerate disrespect like that.”
“But killing him is going to cause you problems.”
“Maybe in the short term, but if I let him live after speaking like that, there’s no way those men would’ve respected me.” I pause to look at her, pulling her close around the gravestones.
“That’s all it takes? You brutally murder someone like that, and now they all look up to you?”
“No, now they know how far I’ll go, and they probably wonder what else I’m capable of.”
“You still shouldn’t have done it.”
“Maybe not, but I’d do it again.” She doesn’t understand, and I can’t expect her to. She didn’t grow up in this life where respect is everything. Turi crossed a line, and there was only one way to answer: either kill him or look weak.
“I don’t get you.” Her face screws up. She should be running terrified of me right now. She just watched me turn a human being into jelly. “You talk like you only want me because I’m convenient. But you act like you care.”
“Care about what?”
“Me. This. I don’t know.” She’s frustrated. Her hands press against my chest. “What do you want from me, Stellan? Why did you marry me of all people? I’m a problem. Even I can see that. Why me?”
I stare at her, heart beating fast, and maybe it’s the blood or the rush of beating a man to death, but for once in my life, I decide to drop my guard, or at least to let her see all the cracks.
“Your father always said you were the smartest person he knew,” I say softly, touching her cheek. I leave a bloody streak. “He always spoke so highly of you. Then I was looking for the key and decided to check in on you, and there you were. Grown up and beautiful. So much more beautiful than I ever could have guessed. I knew right then it had to be you. It always had to be you. We’re connected, Kira, in ways I don’t understand. But it had to be you.”
She tilts her chin up, mouth open. I lean forward and she meets me halfway. I planned on claiming her lips, but she takes mine instead. She kisses me hungrily, almost with a manic desire, like she knows what I’m feeling. But she can’t possibly know the half of it.
The longer we’re together, the more I want her. It’s like a sickness growing in my stomach. It’s always her, everywhere I go, whatever I do. It’s her, and I can’t stop it.
I kiss her in the graveyard, blood of a dead enemy on my face, smearing onto her pristine skin. Her soft whimpers drive me wild as adrenaline pours into my veins for a second time tonight. My tongue plunges into her mouth, circling hers as I grip her hair and make her moan against my body. She’s small and soft, but she presses back against me, biting my lower lip with a light snarl.
I pull back, breathing hard, and stare into her eyes. She stares defiantly, her lips pink from kissing and her cheeks flushed with need. The men in the church might walk out at any moment. They might hear my wife’s screams and moans.