Page 35 of The Wages of Sin

He pulled me close again, close enough that I could feel the pure fury shaking through his body. Even so, his arms felt like heaven—so strong and secure.

For the first time all week, I was able to let down my guard a little and breathe, knowing that, just for a minute, someone else was watching my back.

I didn’t want it to end.

“Why didn’t you come to me?” he asked without letting go. “I promised to protect you.”

“Yeah, but…”

“But what?”

I tilted my head back to look up at his face. “But I figured that was just pillow talk.”

His brows pulled together hard. “What the fuck is pillow talk?”

“You know, the bullshit guys say to women when they’re in bed,” I said. “It sounds good in the moment, but they never actually mean it. I just figured you talked that way to all your girls.”

His eyes hardened. “There are no other girls, and I don’t say anything unless I mean it.”

And I believed him…but it didn’t change anything.

“Unfortunately, even if I’d known that, it still wouldn’t have come to you,” I confessed. “This client, he’s a real gangster, Dorian. He wants me dead, and I’m pretty sure he’d kill anyone who tried to stop him. I’ve been too afraid to leave this room for a week. There was no way I’d ever risk bringing a mess like that to your door.”

Even through the rage, I spotted a spark of tenderness in his eyes. Cupping his broad palm over my cheek, he pressed my head gently against his chest.

His hard, steady heartbeat against my ear was the medicine I’d been missing all week. In that moment, he felt like an immovable rock, the kind you could cling to and press against for shelter in a storm.

“Do you know this gangster’s name?” he asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “He called himself Carlo, but I don’t know if that’s his real name or?—“

“Carlo Costa,” Dorian said, his voice unusually low and menacing, even for him.

“You know him?”

“He’s one of a dozen midlevel cousins in the Costa crime family. I’d say he’s a fuck up, but that would be giving him too much credit.”

“Please tell me you’re not going to confront him,” I said, suddenly worried. “I wasn’t kidding when I said how dangerous he was. I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you.”

“You have to stop worrying about me, Kiera,” he said. “I know it’s in your nature to care about others, but if you knew who I really was, you wouldn’t care what the hell might happen to me.”

I shook my head against him. “That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is.” Gripping my shoulders, he pulled me back so I stood at arm’s length. “You have to understand. I’m not just some bad guy. I’m the bad guy. I’m the one your gangster client is afraid of. And not just him, but his boss and his boss’ boss—they all have nightmares about me.”

That didn’t sound like bragging. It sounded like the cold, hard truth.

I already knew that violence was a part of his life. I’d seen the evidence of that with my own eyes, stitched back together the consequences of it with my hands. Still, for some reason I couldn’t explain, I wasn’t afraid.

Not of him, at least.

Though, it did make me wonder something.

“How did you know where I live?” I asked.

“Jane told me.”

“She just told you?” So much for her vow to keep all our information private.

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