Page 80 of Sunshine & Sinful

I want to tell him that’s okay. That he’s a good person and did what was best for him, but that’s not my place. So, I listen.

“I know us bein’ together hurts Dark. I don’t want to hurt my son. I’ve never wanted to hurt my son. I’m not like my father. That doesn’t make me happy. I will always want what’s best for him. I’ll always be there for him. But I… feel guilty… even now…” Sunshine heaves a sigh and goes quiet and introspective, and I leave him to simmer in his thoughts.

I understand.

This is a lot for our family to accept.

Marrying my ex-father-in-law, my sons’ grandfather, isn’t something I thought I’d do. I didn’t plan this. But it’s been years in the making. Far more than a decade, if I’m honest.

“You’re the only person I’ve ever loved. I know it’s not the same for you… and that’s okay. All I’ve dreamed of the last seven, eight years was to see you happy, whether that be with me, with Dark, or whoever. But I can’t fuckin’ lie and say I wasn’t hopin’ things would turn out like this. With your brand on my thigh and your lips around my cock. You fuckin’ own me, Kali. You bring me to my goddamn knees…” Lifting my hand to his lips, Sunshine kisses each knuckle like they’re the most precious things he’s ever touched, and I melt. “I have somethin’ I need to show you,” he whispers as he lowers my hand back to his stomach and refires the bike. Before I can ask him where we’re going, we speed down the road, and for the next two hours, it’s us, the wind, and freedom. It’s peace.

He eases our bike down a dirt path in the middle of nowhere. The path thins out the further we go, trees grow denser, and the air is thick with a hint of smoke. We reach a small clearing in the center of the woods. In the middle is a giant pit.

Parking on the edge, next to the trees, Sunshine cuts the engine and helps me dismount before joining me. I don’t go far as I take in the sight. Death lives here. I can feel it. The eeriness ripples up my arms. This place could use about a dozen smudge sticks and an exorcism to feel right.

Folding my hand into his, Sunshine escorts me to the far side of the pit, beside a large mound of loose soil and a wheelbarrow with two shovels stabbed into the pile.

“What is this place?” I ask, taking it in.

He nods toward the dirt. “This is where I make your garden soil.”

Wait.

What?

Make my garden soil? He makes the bags he brings me in the spring to use? I thought he bought it. He said he bought it.

“You mean…”

“The stalkers,” he cuts in. “This is where they rest.” Sunshine sweeps his arm toward the pit. “I have friends. I can’t say who. Who dismember them for me. Grind what they can. Then they come here.”

Covering my mouth, I gasp. “All the stalkers?”

“All but Anthony. He’s being delivered to Penelope.”

Holy shit.

“What do you mean he’s being delivered to Penelope?” I ask.

Gently pinching my chin, Sunshine turns me to face him, and I tilt my head back to meet his eyes. “You don’t get to send him into my old lady’s life and get away with it. I don’t care if she’s Dark’s. I don’t care if she was a jealous, insecure bitch. I don’t care who her fuckin’ father is. You don’t fuck with my family, and you sure as fuck don’t fuck with my wife. Penelope will get hers,” he growls, and more goosebumps rip down my arms all the way to my toes.

“But Dark…”

Sunshine’s nostrils flare. “Dark will learn where his allegiances should lie… and that’s his journey. Not mine. I have my priorities straight.”

“So this is…”

“My secret. Where all your stalkers are buried to make soil to feed your plants.”

Looking up at him, at the man I married just yesterday, I don’t think I’ve ever been more… touched in my life.

Emotions bubble in my throat. I try to swallow themdown, but they lodge there as the watercolors of dusk paint the sky above, and my heart wallops in my chest.

I open my mouth to say something, but a single tear trickles down my cheek.

Sunshine catches it with his thumb. With a furrow knotting his brow, he steps forward until my breasts touch his stomach, and he wraps a hand around the side of my neck. “Talk to me.”

My bottom lip wobbles. “You’ve been feeding my garden for years with the literal blood of my enemies, and you never told me.”

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