Page 27 of Villainous
“Celeste. Apparently, he was in trouble with the law. And they are investigating you for his death.”
Sorrow burns in my chest. I’m a pawn to everyone. My da used me as a pawn. Ma used me as one, and now Chuck and Villainous too. Most days, I feel like a puppet. I really loved Chuck, and he pulled this shit. I don’t even know his real name or who he really was. When I first met him, he told me he was a private investigator. Everything I had with him was a lie.
My chest aches, and knots form in the pit of my stomach. The dim light outlines Villainous’s jaw, and his facial expression hasn’t changed. I thought he would be gloating about it, but he isn’t. I don’t respond but chew on my tongue.
He takes another drag of his cigarette. A light blue fog circles in front of him.
“What happened to him? You better tell me the truth. I can’t protect you if you lie to me.”
My heart accelerates at his words, and I sigh. “Why does it matter if you do? You’re going to kill me no matter what.” I roll my eyes and rest the side of my face on my kneecaps. “Liam killed him. He was trying to protect me from Celeste because he was trying to hurt me.”
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “Why?”
“I was keeping information about someone in our family, and Celeste came after me with a knife. He was going to kill me. He wanted leverage over me to get back in good graces with Cashel. Celeste was exiled from the family because he got caught working with the cartels, and Cashel made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want him to. He wanted to spare his life, so he just told him to leave. Everyone in my family thought he was dead.” I pause. “Well, now he is.”
“When did this happen?” Villainous asks as he takes another drag of his cigarette. Then he stands up from the bed, grabs the ashtray from the chestnut nightstand, and stabs the butt before setting the tray back onto the nightstand.
I exhale loudly. I don’t want to be reminded of that bloody night.
“A year before you kidnapped me.”
Annoyance traces his face. “You lied to me. You told me you haven’t seen him in years.”
I press my feet firmly to the cold wooden floor, resting my elbows behind me, and lean back. “Yeah, I know, but I thought if you couldn’t find Celeste, then you’d keep me alive to try to hunt him down. And I didn’t want to die. I have a reason to live.”
He stares at my lips and licks his. “You also told me your brothers did vile things to you. Was that a lie?”
I don’t want to share that part of me. It’s my pain and my truth, but Villainous always made me feel safe when it came to telling him things about me that no one knew. I suck in a breath, stretch my legs out in front of me and tuck a pillow behind my head.
“No. Cashel found out I wasn’t a virgin. Cashel had found me, and he wanted to sell me at an auction because he needed to pay off a debt. He didn’t know I’d already lost my virginity.”I close my eyes and try not to think about the horrible shit he did to me. “The guy that bought me had sex with me, and he noticed there wasn’t blood. He said I was lying, and I told him a tampon broke my hymen, but he didn’t want to believe me. So, he took me back to Cashel, and Cashel made me work as a prostitute. He said if I wanted to be a whore, then he was going to treat me like one. I managed to get away from him, and I stopped working as a prostitute and decided to become a stripper. I was in hiding, until you kidnapped me.”
Villainous rubs his chin but doesn’t say anything. The air between us is thick. I was hoping he was going to soothe me, but he doesn’t. He’s angry, maybe at me, or maybe he doesn’t like the fact that other men had their slimy hands on me. I was kinda thrilled Devious killed Cashel, but Liam didn’t deserve to die. When he killed him, he took a piece away from me. I was close to all my brothers at one point in my life, but they started to turn on me, except for Liam. He always had my back.
He sits oddly close to me, and my pulse accelerates. I love the smell of his skin, but I hate how he makes butterflies bounce in my stomach. “Did they ever ask you who you lost your virginity to?”
Like the Italian mafia, the Irish mob prefers their women virgins.
I suck in a lungful of air, and then I release it. “Falcon. He was a good cover-up since you had already killed him.”
Surprise flickers across his baby blues, and he moves an inch closer to me so our foreheads touch. “Why did you lie to protect me?”
Desire tugs at the pit of my belly, and I need to remember that I’m his captive and held against my will, but adrenaline courses through my veins. My body is begging to be taken by him.
“I had my reasons to protect you,” I murmur.
We are quiet for the next few moments, and tension burns between us like fireworks. He lifts his head up, and he rests his soft lips against my forehead. I let out a half sigh and half moan.
“What they did to you doesn’t define who you are,” he says, his eyes burning with desire.
Cashel and Celeste always made me feel as if I was trash, that I was beneath them because my ma was our father’s whore. I swallow thickly at his words.
He gets up from the bed and strolls to the door, not taking his eyes off me. “Get some sleep, little dove.”
He shuts the door behind him, and I sigh in relief.
Villainous
The next night, I’m in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, leaning against a wooden wall. It’s cold as shit, even though there are flames dancing in the fireplace. The lamp lights are dim, as if this place has an electrical problem.
