Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 58794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
“Marcello, the things I would do to you if we weren’t in your office.”
“Like that’s ever stopped us.”
“True. But you have a meeting in a few minutes. Now that you’re a big shot executive, you have boring adult stuff to do.”
Like Alex, Rhi was a true artist and went wherever the wind blew her mood that day. The girls had become friends, despite Rhi’s initial jealousy over my past relationship with Alex. Once she saw there was nothing but familial love between Alex and me, she settled into her place among us. The Knights also welcomed her, and for the first time in her life, she had a real family.
“How about you sit at the conference table and work on your designs for your first exhibition?”
Her smile illuminated her beautiful face. “It might be hard to concentrate with you over here looking all sexy and important, but I think I can manage.”
I helped her down from my desk, and as she walked away, I tapped her ass lightly. She laughed, glancing over her shoulder at me. I watched her walk to the long table on the other side of the room, having to fix my pants because my cock was rock hard and ready to poke a hole through them.
When my desk phone rang, I tapped the button and went through the usual motions. But, even after six months, I still wasn’t used to sitting behind a desk. I missed being in the field and going on missions with Alpha Command. My old job took me around the world, and now I handled the company’s daily operations.
But life had other plans for me. I couldn’t have a family with Rhi if I’d chosen a different path. And I couldn’t imagine a life where my crazy Irish girl didn’t exist.
After the call ended, Rhi rushed over to me, sketchpad in hand, and sat in my lap. “I drew something for you.”
She surprised me a lot with new drawings. I was often the center of her work, or at least a godlike man who resembled me was her inspiration. Alex had arranged a meeting with a gallery owner after seeing the Achilles drawing Rhi made for me last year. Except this one was nothing like her usual images.
“What’s this?” I asked, surprised by the change in her theme.
Amid a cloud of ash and smoke, there was a man with pointed ears… a Devil who looked a lot like me.
“Alex said I could add this to her Many Faces of the Devil collection,” Rhi said with a smile. “We’re doing it as a collaboration.”
“Can I keep this one?”
She nodded. “That’s just the trial run. I wanted to test out my idea before I break out the canvas and paint.”
Rhi wasn’t a painter like Alex and me, but we had been teaching her everything we knew between the two of us. In a few short months, she’d gotten pretty good. But before she could sit in front of a canvas, she had to sketch the idea, or she would lose it completely.
She pressed her palms to my chest and kissed my lips. “I’m calling it The Devil I Desire.”
Epilogue
Marcello
Kali disappeared from her father’s house in The Hills. No one had seen or heard from her in days. Even the cameras in and around her house didn’t capture her last moments. I traced her steps, attempting to find a missing piece to the puzzle. Bastian and Damian were out of their minds, sick with worry. We didn’t know if The Lucaya Group had taken Kali or if she ran away on her own.
For three years, she’d gone off the grid. Kali was a clever woman and somehow avoided detection for a long time until she’d popped up on my radar last year. I found her living in a small town in France and dragged her back to Devil’s Creek.
With Rhi and Alex both pregnant at the same time and ready to pop, hunting down Kali was the last thing I needed. I had enough shit on my mind.
Rhi sat on my lap, her arm behind my neck as she stroked her baby belly with the other hand. “She couldn’t have gone far, right?”
“I don’t know.” My fingers raced across the keyboard. “I’ve been going through surveillance feeds all week, looking for the missing link. If Kali left on her own, I would have found her by now.”
“You didn’t last time.”
“Back then, she was on all the feeds in town. I didn’t lose her after she left the port on a private boat.” I shook my head and blew out a deep breath. “This makes no sense. She should be on one of these feeds. Instead, it’s like she vanished without a trace. Like magic.”
She chuckled. “There’s no such thing as magic. Kali has to be out there somewhere.”