Page 12 of Bound to a Monster

“You really don’t give a shit about this wedding,” he says with a sigh.

“We’re still talking about that?” I give him another cocky grin. “I’m just messing around. I know what you’re saying, alright? I plan on taking it seriously. Adriano’s going to introduce us in a couple of days, and this weekend we’ll say the words and get it all over with. Then I’ll go back to living my life.”

“I don’t know if it’s that simple. I mean, she’s going to move in with you, right?”

“If she wants to.”

Alex rubs his face with both hands. “You haven’t thought about this at all.”

“That’s logistics. I’ve been busy worrying about this.” I gesture at the nearly finished shop. “My time’s been better spent here.”

Alex doesn’t seem convinced, but that bastard thinks he knows everything about relationships now that he’s living in blissful matrimony with my fucking sister. The guy should be more careful considering he knocked her up before putting a ring on her finger, but that’s an old argument and I’m putting it behind me.

He finally gives up trying to lecture me about the right way to be a husband, and we get to work. I have a lot of thoughts about my friend Alex, but at least he’s one of the hardest-working men I’ve ever met, and he’s got a solid mind too. By the time our two employees, Dasha and Katerina, show up, the place is starting to look like a store again.

The girls take over putting the front together while Alex and I deal with back-of-the-shop issues, which are mostly fake Rolexes, fake Patek Philippes, and fake Omegas, and how to unload them.

We deal in legit stock for the most part, but we’re a criminal organization. I’m not even remotely above fleecing some unsuspecting rich assholes and selling the rest wholesale to even less scrupulous dealers all over the country.

Work keeps me occupied. It settles my mind and focuses me. Despite the smiles, laughter, and charm, it’s hard to keep the bad thoughts at bay. I’ve been sated for a while, ever since that night with my little fencer, but even that nearly went sideways.

I still remember the way she jammed her lipstick tube into that drunk asshole’s throat. When she ran off, the guy started after her, and for a second, the dark thoughts nearly won. I had my knife out and on him, edge tight against the tip of his collarbone in the soft flesh right there, hidden from the onlookers between our bodies. And the voice in my head screamed for blood, screamed for his pain. It wanted him tohurt.

I cut him slowly, and his eyes went wide in horror?—

And the only thing that stopped me was knowing I wouldn’t catch up with her in time if I kept going.

Follow that girl and I’ll kill you.

The fear in his eyes felt so fucking good.

Almost as good as what I did with her later on.

“You want to grab some lunch with me and Nat?” Alex asks me a few hours later, and I turn him down. He heads out, leaving me alone in the back.

Despite knowing better, I go over to the small personal safe I keep tucked under my desk and unlock it. Inside are diamonds, cash, a loaded gun, and a small pink vibrator.

My trophy from that night.

I raise it to my lips and lick it. I smell it, breathing in the dregs of her scent.

She’s fading from it. I don’t know how to keep my little fencer close, but this is the best I can do.

In a few days, I’ll be married, and that girl won’t matter anymore.

But I can’t get her out of my head. I’m obsessed in a way I haven’t been in a long time. It should scare me—the last time I got like this ended with blood on my hands—but for some reason, it has the opposite effect.

Even though I’m getting hitched, at least I can still feel something.

That night proved I still have emotions in my cold, black heart.

They’re quiet and dormant, but still there.

Now I’ll have to resign myself to a life of mediocrity with a woman I don’t care about, with only this small pink vibrator as a reminder of what life could have been like if only things were different.

Chapter 5

Carmie

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