Page 100 of A Love Most Fatal

If he doesn’t get hurt or killed, he will get resentful, and I can’t take that, I won’t.

So, yes, I am selfish. I let him kiss up and down my body and carry me, still dripping from the shower to the bed, and there I let him make love to me until I cry, and then I let him hold me, because it’s the last time. Just tonight. I will sleep, and pretend the world hasn’t stopped spinning, and when the sun sets tonight, I will be engaged to someone else.

I’ll lose my nerve if I wait—he will wear me down with sweet kisses and proclamations of love repeated like a prayer in my ear.

It has to be tonight.

Mary is fine,stitched up and ready to go home, but the doctors want her to stay for another day, so despite her protestations and the number of texts demanding that I “just tell them to let me go,” she will come home tomorrow morning.

We didn’t have long to sleep this morning before I had to be on the site talking with city commissioners with Willa, who’d come straight from the hospital.

The day was a mess of paperwork, phone calls, and trying to figure out who the hell shot my sister and destroyed a project costing several million dollars and months of work.

We have no leads.

I would’ve kept working into the evening, but Nate and my mother ganged up on me and forced me out of the library.

They made me wash my face, and mom even put an eye mask on me before tucking me into bed, all before nine.

I pretended to sleep, slowed my breathing enough to make it look like I was relaxed, but my mind was still circling the drain, spiraling downwards and around one truth: I am not powerful enough to protect everyone I love.

It’s the rudest of awakenings, one I haven’t let myself fully believe all summer. Even with the shipments missing, and the attacks, I thought I could handle it.

I cannot.

Dad, you picked the wrong daughter.

I can’t imagine what he would do in this situation, but a large part of me believes that he wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.

He was beloved, revered, and feared. I am liked well enough by some and loathed by others. It’s not just because I’m a woman either. I’m too business focused, always trying to expand our company dealings and power in the city, not fostering my community enough.

Dad was notoriously a father, not just of us three, but of everyone in the Family. I am not as loving, or paternal. I am an unmarried 28-year-old who killed her first fiancé and has been interviewing marriage candidates like a twisted reality TV show.

I need to pivot.

Once I’m certain Nate is asleep beside me, I lay a kiss on his cheek, a light one to not wake him, and then I crawl out of the bed. I don’t want him to hear me rifling through my closet, so I borrow some of Mary’s clothes, a pair of black jeans that look more like capris on me and a tight T-shirt. It’ll have to do.

We haven’t talked about yesterday, but I know it’s been eating him up. He’s been quiet all day, helping where he can, but he’s shaken. He’s trying to find a good time to tell me that he can’t do this, can’t be with me, not when it costs so much. I can see in his eyes, he’s tortured.

When I get to Maxim’s club, it’s well-past midnight but the music is still thudding outside.

The bouncer lets me in without asking my name and it’s a nice touch, a point for Maxim in this asinine game I’ve been playing, rating him against someone nothing like him, someone who I like infinitely more.

The club is spacious and electric, a lowered dance floor with standing tables and lounging booths on the raised areas against every wall. There’s a long bar elevated on a platform to one side and a stage across the room where a live DJ plays. The club is packed, dancing bodies pressing against each other in the thrall of neon drinks and punching music. I’m underdressed—or overdressed if we’re talking about the sheer amount of fabric on my body.

I go unnoticed by patrons, all of them too distracted with the joy of their evenings, who they will meet, what they will do. A woman in a sharp suit finds me before I can venture into the club farther and leads me with a light smile to a glass staircase.

She leads me wordlessly to a table in the VIP area with a full view of the main floor where I find Maxim sitting alone with a glass of scotch. He’s less buttoned up than yesterday, a tailored black shirt with the top three buttons undone and sleeves rolled over his forearms. His hair is mussed too like he’s ran his hands through it too many times tonight. This is the look I expected from him, dark and powerful. Lethal. He’s a broader version of Cillian with darker features.

He watches me respectfully, like he’s pleased to see me but not surprised that I’m here.

“Nice club,” I say, but I don’t sit down. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

“My first project with Morelli Construction,” he says, which I already knew. It was an olive branch after his father passed,when Maxim made it clear that the blood between us didn’t need to be spoiled. “Something to drink?”

“Is there somewhere quieter we can go?” I say instead.

Maxim stands; Willa was right, he really is a huge man. He’s bigger than Leo, which is a genetic feat. He leads me through the second floor towards an elevator that brings us up and out to the roof. We can still hear the music, but barely.

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