Page 57 of Carnal Urges
“Of course I’ll laugh at you. Would you like to know why?”
“No.”
“Because you kill people for a living.”
I don’t know why I bother answering her questions. All she does is ignore me. I grumble, “That’s not all I do.”
She flips the covers off her face and stares at me with her browsdrawn together. “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot extortion, racketeering, gunrunning, human trafficking—”
“No bloody human trafficking!”
“—drug smuggling, forgery, tax fraud, stock manipulation, corruption of public officials—”
“Where are you getting this information? Google?”
“Are you saying you don’t do those things?”
I say through gritted teeth, “You have no idea what I do, lass.”
“Don’t glower at me. And why areyouso upset? I’m the one with the brain damage and the maybe-baby.” Her eyes go wide. “Oh god.”
Alarmed by her expression, I say, “What now?”
“The ketamine you gave me…” She stares at me in horror.
My stomach rolls over. My voice comes out gruff. “It was only one dose. One low dose.”
“It was enough to make me lose my memory. Imagine what it could do to a fetus!”
“That could’ve been the fall.”
She says sarcastically, “The drop, you mean. And it might not have been.”
When I don’t say anything, she covers her eyes with a hand and whimpers.
I stand, take her hand away from her face, and lean over her, gazing down into her worried eyes. “The baby will be fine,” I say with more conviction than I feel. “You’re young, strong, and healthy. You’re both going to be okay.”
I don’t addUnless you die from that brain clot,because that would just be rude.
She stares up at me, panicking, but managing to despise me nonetheless. “Declan, if it turns out that this kid that I’m not having has anything less than a genius IQ, I’ll kill you. And I don’t mean that figuratively.”
Bypassing the threat on my life, which I’m sure she’s sincere about, I smile. “Deal.”
“Why are you smiling? I just said I’d kill you!”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t get it.”
“If you want to slit my throat, you must be feeling better.”
She purses her lips, considering me. “It wouldn’t be throat slitting. Too bloody.”
“Gun?”
She wrinkles her nose. “Too messy.”
“Ah, I remember. Something slow and painful involving flesh-eating bacteria.”
