Page 139 of Devious Kingpin
“Okay, now to bed.”
He didn’t have to say it twice. I crawled under the covers and he tucked them around me. Kind of like Liam used to do when I was a little girl.
When I was innocent.
I squeezed my eyelids shut. “I’m not going to sleep with you,” I rasped, my voice barely above a whisper.
“I’ll be on the couch,” he stated matter-of-factly. Like him sleeping on the couch was the most natural thing in the world. “Get some sleep. I’m going to take a shower.”
I didn’t answer. It took too much effort. My body was too fatigued. My mind too clouded.
* * *
The blackness threatened to swallow me whole.
Images flashed through my mind. Some that I’d lived through and others that my imagination conjured up. The thug in the alley. Dante saving me. The rape. Dante, there again. My parents as they burned. Dad as he saved me.
I awoke with a start, the sheets stuck to my sweaty skin. Catching my breath, I slowly opened my eyes to find Dante sleeping on the couch. The moon dusted its glow over his beautiful face, and I found myself wishing I could see his dark eyes shimmering like the sky that currently ruled the night. His arms were folded over his chest and he had his feet up on the coffee table, right next to his handgun.
Guilt pinched my chest, but I ignored it. I wasn’t prepared to forgive and forget.
Shifting on the hotel bed, my eyes caught on the letters Dante had given me. They sat waiting on the nightstand, right next to the envelope from Kian, unopened. It was a moot point to open Kian’s envelope, but it wasn’t too late for Dante’s.
I reached over and took them. Keeping my movements soft, I slowly unfolded the first letter. To my surprise, it was addressed to me.
Juliette Brennan.
The little girl who said she’d save me one day. It should have been funny, except that it wasn’t. She didn’t know she was saving me from the moment she handed me that ridiculous scrunchie.
In the days that were dark, it kept me sane. That vibrant, happy color. I kept it in a safe place and only dug it out when I needed the reminder.
I still have your pink scrunchie, Juliette.
The moment I saw you again—first dancing on top of the bar in The Eastside and then in my casino—I knew you were the one for me. Your mouth. Your smile. And your eyes… they are my heaven and hell. My happiness and torment. My desire and emptiness.
If I have to move heaven and hell, Juliette, one day you’ll be mine.
And I’ll be yours.
I stared at the letters, glowing under the light of the full moon. My eyes flickered to Dante’s sleeping face, then back to the words that opened something within me I couldn’t quite distinguish.
Was it forgiveness? I shook my head. No, it couldn’t be. Was it love? I didn’t know. But it was strong and feral. Consuming. It terrified me with its intensity. The boy who saved me. I promised to save him too, and all I had done was give him a hard time. Maybe it was time to start afresh—for both of our sakes.
Taking a lungful of air, I breathed out as I unfolded the next letter and started reading. And then more letters followed. They spoke of his most secret thoughts, admissions about his feelings that I doubted he would ever voice out loud. Then there was the one about his mother and I wanted to cry for the little boy who had suffered so much. It explained a lot about who he was, and why he did the things that he did.
It wasn’t until the first rays of dawn flickered through the window that I finished reading the last of them.
Unfolding it slowly my eyes skimmed the pages.
To my wildling wife.
I finally have you.
It feels like heaven but also hell. I fear our time will be limited and you will hate me once you learn what I have done. I hope you never will, but I learned a long time ago “hope” wasn’t for the likes of me.
You’re the one thing I can’t bear to lose. The one thing I’ve clung to for all these years.
You see, I’m fucked up. Whether I was born this way or my mother made me this way, I’ll never know. In my life, there were rare things and a few special people I got attached to. My grandfather’s gifts were some of those things. My brother was one of those people. And my mother took enjoyment in torturing me by destroying those things, especially the people I loved.
