Page 34 of Gilded Kisses

He slams the door in my face. Oh, no he doesn’t.

“I trusted you. I guess that was my mistake.”

“You can slice my balls off and kick me in the dick another day. If you live that long. Now go!”

“I can’t believe you wanted this to happen.”

“It helped me draw out an enemy,” Harlon admits, like I’m only a canary in a cage to him.

What a bastard. But a smart move.

It’s hard to believe a life can shatter and become so utterly irreparable in an instant twice in one lifetime. No, make that three times.

But mine has.

Eight

Mirsha

Ihave every intention of walking out of The Gilded Key tonight as its new owner. Well, one-third owner. Everything I touch, I share with my two best friends. We tried buying this place three years back, but after the fallout with Aster and her father, we left the country for a while.

But now we are back.

Italy was nice. Mexico has some of the best damn tequila a man can lose his senses on. And you haven’t lived unless you’ve consumed Raki in a Turkish bathhouse.

We thought distance would break the ties we have with Aster but it’s only made it worse and I can’t take much more booze before my liver dies, taking me along with it.

We’ve been back stateside for a little over a month. The urge to break down her father’s prison door, steal his daughter and take her captive like fucking animals only plagues my mind half the day. The other half is used for sleeping or chasing down the owners of this place to complete the deal.

I know beyond any doubt, Viper won’t fucking sleep until it’s ours. So here I am, wishing I could be anywhere else. Thousands of miles or a few hundred doesn’t matter. But now there aren’t borders or oceans to keep me in check. It’s been three years since tasting her lips on mine and it’s worse than getting lost in the desert. My chest tightens at the knowledge and I swallow down the dry sand of loneliness with another mouthful of bourbon.

“You can glower in that window all you want. I told you why we have to close this deal. It’s the only part of her we have. I want it. You two fuckers can go drown your pitiful asses at the bottom of a bourbon bottle later. After I get your names on the sale contract.”

I raise my glass and down the rest of my top-self Kentucky Straight. It kicks, burns and then mellows as it hits the back of my throat.

“He’s in a particular mood tonight, isn’t he, Mirsha?”

My gaze glides across the room to Luther lounging on a nearby couch, his arm thrown across the back. He balances his drink on his knee. We’ve holed up for the last week in The Gilded Key. I’m starting to think of this suite as a prison rather than a fantasy land. It’s been a constant back and forth between the owners and their intermediary, Raja.

“It’s better than it was when we were in Mexico. He was a miserable fucker then. Now he’s just being a pain in the ass.”

Viper isn’t listening to us though. He has his phone out and pulls up the number of the broker working the buyout deal.

“Raja. Any word?” From what we hear, he does everything from filling the club’s performance stages with new talent to luring in new members. He helped a few friends of ours up in Seattle landa gig that ended with them getting a Constantine girl knocked up. It all turned out with no dead bodies, but marrying the enemy must have them sleeping with one eye open. It hasn’t escaped my knowledge that she’s a cousin of Aster’s and when a Constantine feels slighted, there is hell to pay. But things have changed since the head of the Constantine family got life in prison and the son stepped into his role. Drake must have loved getting passed over in favor of his older brother’s son. Taking orders from his nephew must burn.

Back in the day Aster’s father, Drake, fought for us despite the fact that Constantines are not known for sharing. Carving a nook out for the Moretti family took grit, blood, and money. Thirty percent of anything we raked in to be exact.

Drake hated we had to pay anything to his family, but it’s the price of doing business. A couple of decades into our lives, he got married and had a kid. Everything was fine until the forbidden fruit became irresistible. Now her father will put a bullet in our heads the second we cross into his hometown territory. That might scare other people into behaving and walking a tight line, but we stay awayforher. Her father is a petty bastard. None of us cared at first.

And then a friend turned into an enemy within a night. She doesn’t know how close she came to losing her father the night he found us together.

But Drake was right about us being wrong for her. We left to keep him from making her life a living hell.

Viper raises his gaze to me like he knows the acid in my gut is churning. His eyes narrow. “You are thinking too loud.”

Viper moves from his chair to stand beside me. His hand on my shoulder is welcome. Right now, I can’t tell if it’s him needing human connection or him offering it. All the senses and emotions are a ball of tangled yarn with no way of unraveling.

Drake hated the connection I share with Luther and Viper. He said we were full of shit and crazy. I believed him until I kissed Aster. Then I knew magic existed. An Australian shaman described it as ties through time and space that connect me with a twin flame. In this case three flames. She warned if we ever try to sever the connection, death would follow for everyone. It explains people dying from broken hearts, I guess.

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