Page 49 of Darkest Sin

“OUT,” Killian roars, the venom in his tone making my whole body shake.

“No,” I panic, my horrified stare flicking between Killian and the helpless woman. “What are you doing? I thought you were going to let me handle this. She didn’t do anything. It wasn’t her.”

“Out, Chiara,” he spits. “I told you your time was running out. You failed to give me a name or come up with a suitable solution, so now I will take matters into my own hands, and believe me when I tell you that I will enjoy my chance to break her.”

Tears fall from my eyes, the horrors from that store room still too fresh in my mind to deal with this too. Is he going to strap her to a chair and pull her fingernails out one by one or hang her from an industrial chain and beat her black and blue?

“Killian, please,” I beg. “Don’t hurt her. She didn’t do anything. She didn’t know what was going to happen. She’s innocent.”

“None of them are innocent,” he roars. “Their silence is a betrayal of their loyalty. In protecting the woman who put her hands on my wife, they betray the DeLorenzo name and will be punished.”

I reach for him, fisting my hands into the front of his shirt, and I stare up into those dark, hollow eyes. “Please. If I give you a name, will you just . . . please. Don’t do this. She doesn’t deserve this. Let her go, Killian. I know there’s still good left inside you. You don’t have to be this way. You can still have power without the pain. Please, just let her go. For me.”

A softness shimmers in his heavy stare, and as he forces my hands to release his shirt, he reaches up and wipes the fresh tears from my cheek. “Go, Chiara. It’s too late. I will get the name I need, but it won’t be from you.”

The woman behind him sucks in a horrified breath, and I stand my ground, my chest heaving, knowing that despite everything I just saw on those screens, I trust that he won’t hurt me, and a part of me has to trust that means he won’t hurt her in front of me.

That softness still lingers in his eyes, and I struggle to believe that the same man who’s capable of looking at me like this is the same man who could brutally murder someone in cold blood. “Chiara,” he says after a tension-filled silence. “You said you didn’t want to give a name because the burden of their punishment would rest on your shoulders. You didn’t want their blood on your hands. Is that still true?”

“Yes,” I say with a heavy heart. “But I’ll accept that burden if it means preventing someone else’s unneeded suffering.”

“No, Angel. I won’t allow that,” he tells me. “Remember what I told you when we came in from the maze two days ago? What did I say to you?”

I swallow hard, knowing where he’s going with this. “That you would protect me, even if it meant protecting me from yourself.”

“Right, but as your husband, it’s also my duty to protect you from yourself. So, no, Chiara. I will not allow you to give me a name. The crimes of another woman will not rest on the shoulders of my wife. Now leave.”

There’s a finality in his tone, and without question, I turn on my heel and walk straight out the door, an irrevocable darkness latching on to my soul.

23

KILLIAN

It’s almost midnight as I finish in my office. It’s been a long night and an even longer day, but the terror in Chiara’s eyes made everything worse. There’s no one to blame but myself for the fearful way she looked at me. This is what I asked for. It’s imperative that the woman by my side throughout this life learns to fear me before she loves me, otherwise, there is no hope for us.

I am not a man who can hide my life from the woman I share it with. She must know who I am, and in order to love me, she must also love the devil within me—a feat no woman has ever been capable of.

Change is out of the question. In order to change, I must become weak, and that’s not a risk I can take within this world. For her sake and mine, it’s imperative to our survival. Instead, she must rise to meet me and bring a fierce will to survive. No less will be tolerated at my side.

Chiara has thick skin. She was raised as a fighter, but it’s not enough. She has to be capable of seeing the darkness in the world around us. The vile things I must do to maintain fear are all that keep the other monsters at bay, and when I come home to her covered in blood, she needs to understand that the alternative would have been me not coming home at all. I want her to love the man I have to be, not love me despite it. I’m a cold-blooded killer standing before her, but if she can look past that, she’d see I’m the man who would sacrifice the world just to save her.

Getting up from my desk, I make my way out of my office as my phone rings in my hand, and I glance down to see Sergiu’s name across the screen. Irritation burns through me. I’ve known it was his wife who put her hands on Chiara since the moment I found her on the ground. All I needed was confirmation, and despite what Chiara thinks, I got that from Evie on the drive over here.

As for Monica, I need to play my cards right. A part of me was holding on to hope that it might have been Phillip’s wife, Rachael. I would have put her in the ground next to her husband without hesitation. We could have held a double funeral for the two of them, and I wouldn’t have had a second thought about it. But Monica . . . that makes things difficult.

I can’t simply execute her without causing issues with Sergiu. He will retaliate without a conscious thought for what he’s doing, and it will start a mess none of us can possibly come back from. I need to figure out a game plan, and I need to be sure, confident, and precise in my plan, but I can’t wait too long. Monica will soon discover that Evie gave the confirmation I required, and when that happens, the war will rage.

Hitting accept on Sergiu’s call, I hold the phone to my ear and step out of my office. “Cousin,” I say in greeting.

“The DeAngelis shipment has been secured and is ready for delivery. I’ve been in contact with Roman, and they’re ready to take delivery. I’ll have our drivers out within the next hour.”

“Good. Go with them. We can’t afford for anything to go wrong. We need a smooth delivery to ensure a good working relationship with the brothers, and remember, don’t piss them off. They won’t hesitate to put a bullet right between your eyes.”

“Comforting,” he mutters.

“Wasn’t meant to be,” I state before ending the call, and while I might not trust him to always have my back, I do trust him to get the job done better than anyone else. He can be a charming motherfucker when he needs to be, and on more than one occasion, that charm has saved our asses. As for me, I don’t suck up to other men by acting like a charming fool. The only time you’ll see me laying on the charm is when I have a woman on her knees and my cock in her throat, and as for Chiara, I’ve never seen a woman look so beautiful when she’s working my cock.

I’m not going to lie, I feel like a fucking prick for speaking to Chiara like that when she walked in on me and Evie. She has been asked by Rachael to take care of the funeral arrangements for Phillip, and we were only just getting started when Chiara came running in looking as though she were about to be sick, and the moment she noticed Evie behind me, I knew exactly what was going through her head. Maybe it was cruel to not tell her what was really going on, but I need her to stop seeing me as her savior and more as the villain of her story.

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