Page 65 of What Doesn't Kill Us

I bark out a laugh, then lower my face to hers, kissing away the stray tears on her cheeks. “Hardly. I just know that it’s easy to lose sight of other people’s perspective.”

“People on the edge have a different perspective.”

I smile. “And birds are entangled by their feet and men by their tongues.”

“You remember,” she says with a little smile, her body relaxing against me, her eyes softening as she looks up at me.

“Of course, I remember. I still have them in my wallet.”

“No, you don’t!”

I nod, shrugging my shoulders but not saying anything. It’s silly, and I know it’s silly. I never thought I’d be the type of man to keep little anecdotes and trinkets that remind me of a woman—or anyone. But here I am, carrying around old fortunes in my wallet. Tony and Matt would have a field day if they knew, accusing me of getting soft, and in some ways, they wouldn’t be wrong.

“So, in all of this and everything that’s happened, was it even you they were after? Or me? Lilith?”

“Probably all of us in some fashion. Many people want me out of the way because I interfere with their mission to make more money off the backs of innocent people. I’ve lost a lot of people, a lot of money over the years, and plan on taking even more from them in the future.”

“So, you’re always going to have a target on your forehead?”

“Yes. Even when I attempted to remove myself from the picture, they still came for me. I’m not sure if there will ever be a way for me to leave the life completely without always looking over my shoulder.”

She’s quiet for a moment, her fingers rubbing patterns on my chest. Then she says, “So you’re saying we’re gonna have to pull a Wyatt Earp?”

“WyattEarp? What do you mean?”

“You know, Wyatt Earp and the Cowboys. Anyone wearing a red bandanna will be shot on sight kind of thing. Anyone who wants to stand up against us is fair game—no questions, no problem.”

“Sounds kind of drastic.”

She shrugs, her lips twisting as she replies, “Well, the fuckers won’t leave you alone, so what are we supposed to do? Spend our entire existence looking over our shoulders?”

She’s not wrong, but that kind of anarchy would take a lot of time and energy, and we’ll likely end up with a few more of our own dead. “You have a point, but we may be better served removing the heads of a few at the top and then negotiating with the rest.”

Her features harden as she stares off into space. “Negotiate? Since when does the Beast negotiate?”

“Have I mentioned how much I hate that fucking nickname? It’s so stupid.”

“You mean you didn’t start it?”

I scoff, shaking my head. “Absolutely not. I wouldn’t give myself a nickname at all. It’s so tacky.”

“Tony did it, didn’t he?”

“He sure did. He still thinks it’s funny, too. Sometimes, I feel like half the shit I hear about myself isn’t even true.”

She giggles, the sound sending a rush of warmth through my chest, and I smile in response. Then she says, “So, you’re saying you’re not the murderous, bloodthirsty, rampaging beast they all say you are?”

“I probably am, to a certain degree. But I don’t go around killing people indiscriminately. And I don’t care about power or money.”

“That power thing may not be entirely true,” she says dryly.

“There’s a difference between wanting power regardless of the lengths you must go to keep it. That’s the difference between me and people like Vincent. Most power-hungry people can’t handle the responsibility needed to wield it appropriately. And they’re so desperate to keep it, to always crave more, they don’t care who they step on. My aim is to help those who would be stepped on to be a bigger hurdle.”

“Sounds like a thankless, impossible task.”

“It’s never thankless, but it does often feel impossible. And if it was just me against the world, then it would be. But there are scores of people like me out there, people who have made it their life’s work to infiltrate organizations that seek to cause harm and dismantle them from the inside. Good will always overcome evil, Toni. It has to.”

“I’m not good.”

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