“Do they… What if they tell you to get rid of me?”
Shane’s hands tightened around her head, making her wince slightly. “They can fuck off. It would kill me to break with Cormac after what he did for my family, but I would for you.”
“I know he saved you when you were a kid, but didn’t he also drag you into this lifestyle?” That didn’t sound like a true friend to her.
His expression closed slightly. “Cormac didn’t drag me anywhere, honey. I leapt in eagerly, ready to repay the debt I owed.”
She scowled. “They expected you to pay for him saving your life as a child?”
He shook his head slowly. “No, I felt obligated to repay them when they helped me hide the fact that I had killed the bastard who’d spawned me.”
She gasped, fear racing through her. It was so much worse than she’d thought. If he could kill his father, he’d have no trouble eliminating anyone who got in his way. What kind of ruthless monster killed his—
Remembering that ugly scar on his back, she could understand why he’d want revenge, and her fear faded. “Why didn’t you just leave or tell someone?”
His gaze shuttered, and his voice turned cold. “Judging me, baby girl? Shocked that I killed my father?” Shane sneered. “I’m proud of it. That bastard deserved to die, and if I hadn’t killed him, he would have killed my mother and my sister.”
“Oh.” She had clenched her hand in his, but now forced her fingers to relax. “How old were you?”
“Fifteen. Siobhan was six and had always been fragile. She missed a lot of school from being sick, and since my useless fuck of a father never kept a job for longer than a few days, there was no money for a doctor. He wouldn’t take charity, so she suffered. We all suffered from his choices, but she used to cry sometimes because the pain was so bad.”
“What was wrong with her?”
“Rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile onset, but we didn’t know it at the time. I guess she’d started crying one afternoon, which interfered with his drinking time. He attacked my little sister to shut her up. Mom tried to stop him and was knocked out. When I came home from school, he was beating my baby sister with a belt, though she was unconscious.”
She hugged him instinctively. “What did you do?”
“I stabbed him through the back of the neck with a steak knife.” His laugh held a sharp edge. “It was some freebie set my mom had gotten at a grocery store with coupons, and it did not want to go in. I had to try a few times.”
The shadows in his expression stilled her breath, but she couldn’t say it was from fear. He was mesmerizing in his darkness, and she couldn’t find fault with his actions in light of the circumstances. After a brief consideration, she decided she would probably happily rid the world of her father, and she certainly would if she had the chance to get rid of Aldo. “So, Cormac saved you?”
“I saved myself and my family, baby, but he helped me hide the body. The world just assumed that drunken fucker had finally shambled off into obscurity, and the neighborhood breathed a sigh of relief.” He smiled, loosening his hands around her head to gently brush her cheek. “My sister and mother breathed a helluva lot easier, and life improved when I started working with Cormac.”
“In the mafia.” She couldn’t hide her disdain. “Your improved life came at the expense of others.” At his careless shrug, she asked, “Did you have to kill other people?” He nodded, making her teeth set on edge from frustration at his deliberate obscurity. “Okay, how many?”
“I’m not answering that.”
She arched a brow. “Why? Do you think I’m wearing a wire?”
He chuckled. “The only thing you’re wearing is me, baby.”
Mia rolled her eyes. “So tell me.”
Shane shook his head. “No. You don’t need to know.”
“Do you even know?”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course, I know, Mia. I mark it down on the wall with the blood of my victims. You wanna see the shrine?”
The implausible urge to giggle rose inside her and she had to bite her tongue. “Seriously, have you killed so many people you can’t keep track?”
He sighed, sounding annoyed. “I know exactly how many I’ve killed. I know the reasons why, and I have no stain on my conscience for ending those fuckers. Happy now?”
She slumped a bit. “I guess.” Tilting her head, she asked, “Ballpark? More than five? Less than one hundred?”
He snorted. “How about this? I’ve killed more people than the number of times we’ve fucked, but a lot less than the number of times I plan to fuck you.”
His words were twisted and wrong, but she couldn’t pretend they didn’t make her body stir with desire. When he tugged her head down for a long kiss, she didn’t protest or fight. Mia didn’t even have the compulsion to resist as he worked her into a frenzied state and fucked her to satiation within fifteen minutes.
