Page 1 of Cruel Love

Prologue

Marilyn

If you want something done correctly, you must do it yourself.

You’d think, after all this time, I would have learned this by now.

Unfortunately, all leaders get complacent sometimes. As soon as they do, the work gets sloppy. Overall quality suffers. Reputations get destroyed. The next thing you know, your entire life’s work is a single spark away from going up in flames.

But we must never sulk. We must never show weakness, not to our enemies and especially not to our allies.

We put on a smile.

We roll up our sleeves.

We get back to work.

And if we’re lucky, we remember why we loved our job in the first place.

The elegant feel of a knife clenched in our palm. The warm scent of blood teasing the nostrils. The satisfying sound of your enemy’s lover in pain.

The sense of pride in a job well done.

Oh, how I’ve missed this.

Chapter 1

Fox

It was worth it.

Every sleepless night in the desert. Every tortured second behind the barrel of a gun. Every bullet taken or fired from my own gun.

It was all worth it because of this.

I run my fingers down Dani’s arm, being careful to avoid the bruises still lingering around the gunshot wound on her shoulder. We lie together on my bed with nothing but a cotton sheet draped along our waistlines. My heart races, blood still pounding through me after that last climax. She rests on her side with her back to me, blissfully spent and snoozing in the moonlight. I curl an arm around her and kiss the back of her neck. She sets her hand on mine, entwining our fingers together.

Everything I’ve done has somehow brought her back to me. I know I shouldn’t be proud. I’ve done awful things, things I’ll never atone for, but...

Maybe I’ve earned this. Maybe something out there has taken pity on me and granted me this second chance.

I hold Dani even tighter. Something that powerful could easily take it all away again.

Over my dead body.

“It’s so quiet,” Dani whispers in the dark.

I smile. “That’s why I like it.”

“Me, too.”

We listen a little longer to the world outside of our cabin. It’s nothing but wind and cicadas for miles, but that was exactly the whole point. I look out the window beside us and smile at the stars and clouds in the Iowa night sky above Mrs. Clark’s farmhouse.

It’s pure paradise. Out here, we can forget the past and embrace the future — whatever future we choose.

But all of that could change after tonight.

“Stay here with me,” I whisper in her ear.

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