Page 28 of Cruel Devil

Chapter 9

Savage

My fingers start to ache, and it’s only then that I realize how hard I’m gripping the Expedition’s leather steering wheel. My wife hasn’t said a word since we’ve left Liam’s apartment, as if she’s just as busy as I am digesting the garbage truck of secrets Brennan dumped on us. She stares straight ahead, a fierce scowl on her face like she’s imagining just how she’ll torture O’Brien once we find him.

I stop for a red light, and use the chance to turn and stare at her, elbow propped on the car’s window, fingers cradling my jaw. “Never knew you were in the mob, hmm?”

“No fucking clue,” she mutters.

“Wish I could believe you, but we’ll deal with that later. Right now, there’s a lot of shit we need to talk about?—“

“Now’s not a good time,” she cuts in. And then immediately lifts her hand to stall whatever I’d been going to say. “And I’m not being snarky. I’m just…I’m still fucking processing, okay? Lot of that back there was fresh news to me. I kinda have to rewrite my entire fucking backstory, you know?”

I want to sympathize, but I have no fucking clue what it feels like to have an epiphany like she just did. I’ve only ever dreamed about it.

“You’re lucky, you know that?”

She snorts. “Oh, yeah. Learning my mom cheated on my dad with some mafia dude I thought was just my best friend’s father, who then told his son to stalk me ‘for my protection’?” Her air quotes are fierce claws. “So lucky, Papi.”

“You know what I wouldn’t give to have some light shed on my past?”

She rubs her palms over her thighs. “Honestly?” Blows out a breath. “I wish I didn’t know.”

I shake my head, but my jaw is too tight to argue the point. What I wouldn’t fucking give to have one fucking clue to the true identity of the demons who gunned down my mother?

Or Camila.

I’m convinced it’s someone in Bogota, but I don’t have any fucking proof. If I did, those people would have as many—if not more—bullet holes in their bodies than my mother did.

Or strangle marks… as Cami did.

But I guess I’ll have to wait a while longer for my answers.

Perhaps forever.

“We’ve got one quick stop to make, then we’ll head back to the villa. I’ll send out our eyes and ears, start tracking this guy down. They can start at that club where you first met him.”

It was twilight outside by the time we left Liam’s apartment. Street lamps shine all along our route back to Nico’s mansion—nothing but dim beacons, their light barely reaching the road.

“I’ll start at The Foundry. Alone.”

“There’s no way in hell I’m letting you go there alone.”

Her slap catches me off guard. It wouldn’t have, if I’d been looking at her, but I’m too busy fucking driving.

We come to a red light. She tenses up, but I just sit there, both hands strangling the steering wheel.

The light changes. I drive on.

“You can slap me as hard as you want, as often as?—”

This time I’m prepared. I catch her wrist as her hand comes flying for my face, and hold on to her as we go round a corner, using just the pressure of my palm to turn the wheel.

She tugs at me, then lands a punch in my side.

I pull over with a squeal of brakes in the nearest driveway, grimacing as I turn to face her. She tries to come at me again, but it’s enough to grab her other wrist and squeeze.

Pain flickers over her face before she forcibly smooths it away.

---