My eyes stay trained on the floor. I can’t look at her.
“So you planned on avenging your mother’s death?” she asks, her voice so soft.
“I didn’t just plan on avenging her death. I planned on ripping those people from their loved ones as they took my mother from me. She was the last thing I had when it comes to a family. I was left with no one when she died. I am the heir to the King money and mafia crown.”
A moment of silence passes, and I look up to see if she is still with me.
“Killing people never brought her back, though, and it just ate at you, at your insides. I know it did because looking at who you are now and the person you were when I first met you, seems as if I have met two people.”
I close my eyes. This is the problem. I exhale a deep breath.
“People get used to this side of me without knowing that I can change in a moment’s time. I protect myself and that’s it. Until—you. I was so keen on getting my revenge through my family’s mafia that it never occurred to me what I was doing. I have killed hundreds of people, Bree. There is so much blood on my hands, sometimes it takes me to the darkest places in my mind if I think about it too long.”
Setting her glass down on the table, she moves closer to me. Her hands find mine. “Killing people won’t bring her back. Doing what you do won’t bring her back. Two wrongs don’t make a right…”
My eyes pop open as I stare at her face. She feels sorry for me. She sees me as that young boy who lost his mom, who lost everything, and that’s not what I want. I don’t want pity for what I have done or gone through.
“I don’t want your pity, Bree. I don’t want you to tell me what I can and can’t do, what will work and won’t work. We all have our own ways of working through things, and I get by just fine with what I do…” My voice is so full of anger that I have to clench my hands from lashing out at her.
Why does what she says bother me so fucking much? Because she’s right, my mind whispers to me, which just makes me angrier, of course.
Her mouth parts, and it looks as if she is going to say something. Then she closes it only to open it again. “I don’t feel sorry for you. That’s the last fucking thing I feel for you. The blood on your hands is because of you, and there isn’t any type of pity or saying sorry that can make that shit go away. I just know what it’s like to lose a fucking parent so I feel your pain.”
Her words just make me angrier. She knows what pain feels like. Yes, she lost a parent, but she still has one, or at least something similar to one. I have nothing. I have me, myself and I. Relying on anyone else would just lead to death.
“Pain. You have no fucking clue what pain is…” I sneer. My muscles are clenching with the need to pound on something, and I know the moment Bree notices. She takes a step back, and she is smart to. I am a ticking time bomb…and she is right in the way of getting hit.
“I do!” she shoots back. She may have backed up away from me, but her face says she could give a fuck about how angry I am. Either way, I have had enough of her defiance.
Standing, I corner her. She thinks I am evil and dark; she thinks I won’t hurt her. She thinks wrong.
“Don’t touch me. I don’t know you when you’re like this….” Her cry is the one thing that causes me to gentle my touch as I grip her by the throat. My nose skims over her skin, settling just over her heart beat. It is fluttering so fast I am afraid it will burst from her neck.
“You know me, as does your body,” I whisper, placing a soft kiss against her throat.
“My body wants you, but that’s it,” she lies. I can tell, I know, she wants me. She wants me for me. The killer in me wants her dead, but the lover in me wants to fuck her senseless. I don’t know which one will win.
“You lie…” I growl, nipping at her skin with my teeth. A deep moan escapes her lips. She is the worst fucking liar on the face of the earth.
“I didn’t,” she says with an anger in her eyes that causes my dick to rise. Using my other hand, I slip in between her legs. Evidence of her arousal and need for me is dripping from her leg. She is wet for me.
“The proof is in the pudding, baby...” I growl, slipping a finger inside her. My other hand is still wrapped around her throat. I am in control, and I want her to know that. We have shared something that I haven’t with anyone else, but I don’t want her to think she can pull the wool over my eyes. It will always be me who owns her. Me who loves her….
Love? My attack stops as I pull away from her. My hands leave her, and I can tell it upsets her, but I don’t care. Did I love her? Love. Why would my mind even think that?