Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 105065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 525(@200wpm)___ 420(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 525(@200wpm)___ 420(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
“Ye’re dead gorgeous, sweetheart,” he says. “I love watching ye this way.”
“I’m the only one, right?” the words slip from my mouth before I can stop them.
Lachlan groans and wraps his fingers around my hips, taking control as he fucks me hard.
“Ye’re the only one, butterfly.” The words come between thrusts. “The only one I want.”
When I open my eyes and meet his, I believe him. He’s being open and honest right now, lost in the rush of ecstasy. I doubt he could string together a lie right now if he wanted to. And my heart feels lighter. So when he buries his face in my neck and comes again, I do something I can’t recall ever doing before. I wrap my arms around his waist and I hug him.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Lachlan
“Hold up.” I tap at the screen. “Right there.”
Alexei freezes the image and works his magic on it. After several more clicks and buttons, the image comes clear. Ivan. He said something to the Armenians before he legged it out of the club that day. And then they lit the place up with bullets.
Alexei leans back in his chair on a sigh. “He doesn’t know about the cameras,” he confirms. “Viktor had them installed after one of our own started skimming from us.”
“So he hasn’t a clue that we’re aware of his betrayal?”
Alexei shakes his head and reaches for the cognac. “I couldn’t say. He hasn’t been around for a week now. Viktor is not happy.”
My fingers tap the wood desk in agitation. This news should come as a relief. Now we know for certain Ivan is the one feeding information to the Armenians. But it still doesn’t explain how he got the information. Ivan is just a soldier, and not one who’s privy to the details of every meeting or drop.
Then there’s still the matter of the ballistics report from my grandfather. Something about it doesn’t feel right. It’s too clean. Too easy. Ivan is a bloody idiot, but I don’t see him having reason to kill Carrick. There has to be more to it than that.
A part of me wants to explain it away. Maybe it was an accident. Our lads don’t get hit from friendly fire often, but it has occurred before. This doesn’t feel like one of those situations, no matter which angle I look at it from.
“Niall will want to meet.”
Alexei nods. “I’ll let Viktor know.”
He offers me a glass of cognac and I take it.
“I’m likely to catch heat for this,” I tell him.
He looks ups at me, and there’s a bit of humor in his always serious eyes. I’ve always thought Alexei too weak when it comes to women. He can see now that I’m afflicted with the same madness.
“He’ll want to make the trade soon.”
I swallow everything that’s in my glass and allow it to burn my insides up.
This.
This is the reason why I don’t want to accept that Ivan’s responsible. I can’t let her go. But I’ve no choice. Alexei looks at me, and he knows. He knows full well exactly what he’s done to me.
“I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do.”
“Then that makes two of us.” He shrugs and raises his glass to mine.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Mackenzie
After another week in Lachlan’s bed and life, the lines are starting to blur even more than I care to admit. When I walk into the bathroom and catch him shaving, it feels familiar. The steam is still evaporating from his shower, filled with the scent of his body wash. Everywhere I look, our things are scattered and strewn together. A tube of my lipstick, his aftershave… a laundry basket filled with his jeans and my lace underthings.
Every day, this is our routine. We wake up and he sinks inside of me, desperately trying to put a dent in the ravenous hunger we have for each other’s flesh. It doesn’t work. The thing I thought I’d be able to get out of my system is only growing stronger. I know it is for him too. Sometimes he takes me twice before we end up in the shower together. We take our time cleaning each other and then I sit up here and do my makeup while he shaves.
He's let his guard down around me. When he looks at me now, there’s no longer suspicion, but something else. It feels comfortable. And it feels like home.
It shouldn’t.
He's infiltrating my thoughts, my soul, my very life force... wrapping his fingers around them and squeezing. Every time I question my feelings, I think I must be going crazy. The things Lach is involved in… they aren’t new to me. I know men like him. I’ve known them all my life.
They’re men like my father. Men who think they’re invincible. He was reckless and dangerous, and it never bothered me that our house was always filled with rough and tumble guys. Because he was my hero. And heroes aren’t supposed to die.
But he did.
And some day, be it tomorrow, or a year from now… Lachlan will too. Because that’s the business he deals in. It’s written in their creed.
Family, loyalty, honor, and blood.
I’m under no false conclusions. You live for the syndicate, you die for the syndicate. That’s just the way it is. Someday, Lachlan will give his life for this crew. He will be gone, just like the rest of the people in my life. And then where will I be? Why have I tethered myself to this man that’s only going to hurt me in the end?
I’m watching him, and I know he feels it, but he doesn’t say anything. He just goes about his business, letting me take him in. There’s so much more to him than I realized. I never stopped to consider him as a person. I never stopped to consider what it was actually like for him to live this way.
Sean’s words from earlier come back to haunt me. The burden of suspicion is on Lach. His own men don’t trust him. I knew he was stressed about the shit with the Armenians, but I didn’t know how deep it went. Now, here I am, full submersed in it. I worry about him leaving and not coming back. Every time he walks out the door, I want to beg him to stay. But that’s a luxury I don’t have, and an unrealistic one at that.