Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 36890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 184(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 184(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
“I play the inexperienced curator.” I widened my eyes and batted my lashes. “Nervous. Eager. Maybe a little too quick to ask for help. He’ll try to pull me in—either to coerce me or trap me into being part of the whole thing. And when he does, we record everything. Emails. Messages. Conversations.”
“Set him up with his own game,” Aston murmured, and there was something almost reverent in his tone.
“Yes.” I nodded, my heart pounding now. “He’s a man who thinks he’s smarter than everyone. Who sees me as a pawn. Let’s make him underestimate me. Just once.”
His gaze burned into mine, stormy eyes full of something fierce. He slowly stepped forward, lifting his hand to brush a strand of hair from my face with aching tenderness. “Mon Dieu, you’re brilliant. You know that?”
I felt my breath hitch. I craved his praise, but it wasn’t the compliment that undid me. It was the look on his face. That raw mixture of admiration and hunger. Pride. Devotion.
“You’d trust me to pull this off?” I asked, unable to keep the vulnerability out of my voice.
“I trust you with my life.”
His quick reply and faith in me healed something in my heart, but it still wasn’t enough. Not yet.
“I appreciate that.” I looked up at him, aching with confusion and longing. “But I need time before we discuss the relationship stuff.”
He nodded once, lips brushing my temple. “You can have anything you want, Kerrigan. Anything except me letting you go.”
Another piece of my fractured heart mended into place. My voice was raw as I asked, “How much of what we had was real?”
There was no missing the sincerity shining from his eyes. “All of it. Every second. I wanted to be the man you believed I was, but I’m not. I’m more. And less. I’ve done things that would turn your stomach. Yet, for the first time in my life, I wanted something good. Something real.”
My chest ached. “I wanted that too.”
A long silence stretched between us. So many things unsaid.
“Then that’s what we’ll have after we take down Sterling Ellis with your brilliant plan,” he vowed. “And you’ve taken the time to come to terms with the man who I am.”
14
ASTON
Staying away from Kerrigan was torture. I barely made it half a mile from her apartment building after dropping her off before I turned back around and parked in her lot.
It didn’t matter that Rafa had promised to keep a couple of guys on her around the clock. I needed to stick close to make sure she was safe. And so I was near when she decided she could live with the secrets I’d been keeping. I wouldn’t consider any other possible outcome.
Kerrigan had quickly become the center of my universe, and I would spend the rest of my life with her. Once she came to terms with the darkness of the world I lived in.
I killed the engine and sat in silence, my hands gripping the steering wheel as I stared up at her window. The blinds were open, but I couldn’t see anything from this angle.
As I fired off several messages to get things rolling with Kerrigan’s plan to trap Ellis, a sleek black SUV pulled into a space a few cars away from mine. I tensed until I recognized the vehicle. It was one of Rafa’s.
Adam was behind the wheel, with Vincenzo in the passenger seat. Both of them were enforcers for The Family.
The driver’s door opened, and Adam stepped out. A second later, Vincenzo joined him. They spotted me instantly and strolled over. I got out of my car to meet them.
“You couldn’t stay away?” Adam asked dryly.
“Not even for an hour,” I admitted, shaking my head with a rueful chuckle.
“Or even to do a better job cleaning up.” Vincenzo jerked his chin toward my arm. “You missed a spot.”
I went to my trunk and popped it. Stripping out of the shirt I was wearing, I used the inside to wipe away any bloodstains I could see on my skin. “Better?”
Vincenzo nodded.
Tossing the dirty shirt into my trunk, I pulled out a clean one and put it on. After slamming the door shut, I leaned against my rear bumper and crossed my arms over my chest. “Rafa assigned you two to guard Kerrigan?”
This time, Adam was the one who nodded. “Nothing will happen to your woman on our watch.”
“It better not,” I growled.
“You didn’t work out your anger by killing at least half a dozen people barely an hour ago?” Vincenzo asked.
“They took her,” I bit out through stiff lips.
There was a beat of silence while Adam studied me. “You’re in deep with her.”
“And there’s no going back,” I replied.
Vincenzo cracked the faintest of smiles. “About damn time someone knocked the French out of you.”
I huffed a laugh, low and grim. “She didn’t knock anything out of me. She just makes me a better man, even the dark parts.”