Page 67 of Cruel Devil

“I already ate.”

“God, what time did you get up?” I look around, but there’s no way to tell time inside this room. No clocks, no alarms, and my cellphone has magically disappeared again.

“About an hour ago.” He plucks a strawberry out of the bowl and tosses it to Bella.

Smack!

“How will O’Brien know the job is done?”

I take a sip of coffee. Try to get my head straight.

“Photos. I have to drop them off with a bartender at The Foundry.”

“Photos can be faked.”

I shrug, keeping my eyes on my plate. “If I screw him over, he’ll just slap a price tag on my sisters and call it a day.”

Savage is quiet for so long that I have to look at him. When I do, his eyes narrow ever so slightly. I really wish he’d put a fucking shirt on. His corded muscles, the multitude of dark tattoos swirling over his tanned skin, the way I can see his heart beating under his pec…it’s making my mouth water, and not for bacon and eggs.

“Did you really think I’d just go along with it?”

“No,” I snort. “But you know I don’t have a choice.” My words echo back what Sullivan said to me.

They don’t have a choice but to play along.

Even if you play rough.

Even when they know you’re going to break them.

He looks away. “We always have a choice.”

I drop the rest of the bacon strip I’d been about to shove into my mouth, and it lands on the plate with a soft tap. “Sure. I can choose not to take the job, and never see Phoebe or Athena again. Or is there another choice available, and I’m just too dumb to figure it out?”

But he just inhales, sighs, looks down at his hands. “I can’t answer that yet, Angel.”

“Well I can’t sit on my hands until you do.”

There’s a beep from his pocket, and he shifts to the edge of the bed to fish his phone out. I study the mural of black ink on his back. It must have taken forever to ink.

Especially the jaguar. I don’t know how the tattoo artist could have created such a realistic image in multiple sittings. The jaguar is half-hidden in the dappled shadows of jungle vegetation that form the border of the mural, its massive paw pinning down a writing python that’s coiling around its other muscular leg.

It would only take one look at the jaguar’s fierce snarl and deadly teeth to figure out my husband’s nickname.

Or maybe he’s the snake, its fangs sunk deep into the jaguar’s muscular shoulder, drawing blood as it injects its poison.

Both are equally savage.

When I reach out to trace the curve of the jaguar’s back, Caesar flinches and turns to look at me over his shoulder. I pretend I’d been trying to read his phone. But he’s already frowning before we even lock eyes.

“What is it?”

“I need to go see Vito.”

“So go,” I say, my words muffled around a bite of bagel. “I’ll find you.”

He huffs, tosses his phone to the foot of the bed, smooths his hands over his thick black hair. It dried in erratic waves after our shower last night, curling sexy as fuck over his ears and neck.

When he faces me, the intensity in his eyes turns my stomach. I force a swallow, and then take a sip of coffee when that doesn’t dislodge the sudden knot in my throat.

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