“No!” Her voice was final. Cold. “I don’t want your money, I don’t want Nixon’s money, this is exactly what I’m talking about, why I don’t want Phoenix’s help either. It’s my family, my legacy, my blood, my problem, and I’m trying to do it well while men talk about me behind my back, while women refuse to even look at me in the eye because I have their husbands by the balls. I’m alone in this.”
“Funny,” Chase said in an exhausted voice. “Because the minute we got married we made a promise to each other. There is nothing you can do, nowhere you can go where I won’t follow you, where I won’t do anything to keep you alive, to keep this crumbling family of yours glued together. That’s what marriage is, that’s what a partnership is. But I can’t fucking do that if you keep pushing me away, coming home at four in the morning with blood on your hands. I can’t help if I don’t know where the body even is, Mil.”
I hoped he meant figuratively.
Dante tensed behind me, his forehead pressed against the back of my skull like he’d heard enough and was too frustrated to keep listening.
“I know.” Mil sniffed. I’d never seen the woman cry. “I’m just… this is my only shot, and I want you guys to be proud of me, can’t you see that I need to do this on my own?”
Something hit the ground and made a noise before Chase sighed. “Mil, I love you. Whatever you ask — it’s yours, just promise me you’ll be safe.”
“I had my gun.”
“And your knives?”
“I invested in another one, sharper, sexier—”
With a groan, Chase started kissing her.
There was no mistaking what they were doing.
I half expected Dante to cover my ears, instead it just made me… want.
Exactly what they had.
Dante’s breath hitched when something else went flying onto the ground and Mil’s moans filled the air along with the rustle of clothing.
I should have been embarrassed.
I wasn’t.
I also should have coughed so they’d know we were listening.
My heart raced as Dante’s breathing picked up behind me.
I closed my eyes and tried to focus on anything but the way that Chase spoke to Mil, with dirty words, promises, things that turned my insides to mush.
I’d never been spoken to that way before.
“How the hell did you get a knife wound on your thigh?” Chase moaned. ‘Never mind, don’t care, just don’t get infected — son of — yeah just like that, baby.” More clothing, and then, “Grip the countertop, yeah, love seeing your ass in my face.”
Mil laughed. “Chase, your tongue shouldn’t — yeah, yeah right there, don’t stop, I still have my knife.”
“Like I care.”
My chest heaved as I pushed back into Dante, like I needed to creep further into the shadow of the pantry.
He hissed out a curse in my ear, almost stumbling backward, and then grabbed my body and held on.
He felt.
Solid.
All man.
I gulped and prayed he couldn’t hear my heart race, or read my mind, and the way that my thoughts lingered on our kiss or the way I could feel him trying to control his arousal.
With each noise.
He clutched me tighter.
I squeezed my eyes shut and bit down on my lip until I could taste blood.
And then they were done.
Gone.
And I was so awake it felt like I’d just taken a handful of chocolate covered espresso beans.
Dante’s hands flexed as he gripped my hips. “Wait.”
I hung my head as his fingers danced up my sides, grazing my ribs, toying with my shirt, until they both slipped beneath my tank top.
I froze.
And a miracle occurred.
His hands, the hands of a killer.
Felt like the hands of a savior.
It wasn’t death I felt on his skin.
It was something else entirely.
Life.
I arched into him, felt his lips graze my neck before he sighed and dropped his hands, without once touching me without permission.
“Let’s go.” His voice was hoarse as he grabbed my hand and led me quietly down the hall.
He stopped at my room first.
I wanted him to come in.
And felt weak for wanting anything from a man who wanted nothing from me even when it was offered on a silver platter.
Russian. Whore. That’s all I was.
But for one second.
Dante had touched me like I was — more.
His eyes roamed over me before he sighed and hung his head. “Night, El.”
I closed my door and locked it, then eyed the shared bathroom and without a second thought, unlocked the door and opened it a crack.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Dante
THERE WAS NO chance in hell I could sleep after touching her smooth skin, after being so close to doing something there would be no coming back from.
The more I tried to hate her.
The more hate somehow turned into want.
Which was one of the worst ideas I’d ever had, I blamed the adrenaline from the fight and the fact that tomorrow at school — things were going to be different.
I’d killed one of their own.
Sat on their pathetic throne.
Basically showed them their asses and was given a meeting time before classes. Which basically meant I was in.
I just didn’t know what I was in.
Which meant the guys owed me an explanation because rather than get in trouble for fighting again, for getting in over my head, they basically welcomed me into the fold and gave me equal footing with family voting.
I ran my hands over my face, just as the sound of a lock turning had me jerking my attention to the bathroom.
I always left my door open.
Not because I was afraid of locked doors.
But because I heard her nightmares every night since she’d moved in with Nixon. And every night, a part of me wanted nothing more than to slay whatever monster haunted her and send him back into Hell.
But her door was shut.
So she wrestled with her demons alone while I listened.
Not tonight.
I turned on my side, my eyes focused on her door like a trained soldier, I kept them open, watching, waiting for her to fall asleep.
Because something told me that she was the only soldier in a one-woman army.
And it was about time someone helped her out — even if that someone was her new enemy.
Friends?
That was just the word she used to unarm me.
What she meant was, she wanted to keep me close unless all things went to Hell. She didn’t want my friendship, and that stung more than it should.
But protection? She knew she could get.
I really shouldn’t have kissed her.
Touched her.
Wanted her.
I was doing a lot of things I swore I’d never do, including purposefully losing much needed sleep so that I could guard her door — so she wouldn’t have to.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Dante
“WELL YOU LOOK like complete shit,” Chase said as he took a sip of coffee.
“And you look like you got laid,” I fired back.
He choked on his coffee while I stared at the counter. “Tell me you disinfected every single area on this side of the kitchen.”
Chase’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me you didn’t watch me give my wife a—”
I held up my hands. “I didn’t see, I heard.”
“Whole damn house heard.” Nixon glared from his spot on the table, I hadn’t even noticed him. “And Trace already disinfected all spaces that could have seen and or touched Chase’s penis.”
“Thank God.”
Chase smirked. “I know she did when I—”
“Not before breakfast,” Nixon interrupted while I pulled out a chair at the table and started piling my plate high full of eggs, bacon, and toast.