Page 42 of Vicious Souls

It’s only one word that escapes my lips as I look at her. As a million silent words pass between us. A look that does not go unnoticed by all those in the room.

The doctors step back, and I hear them vaguely, telling my father that I will live another day to fight another battle. However, both advise against getting shot again. As though I have any choice in the matter.

Marco puts a hand to my shoulder and squeezes, giving me a short nod. He turns and speaks with my father, who turns toward Kingsley, giving her an assessing look before he and Marco leave the room, leaving us alone. I raise my wrist and beckon her towards me. There is a lapse of barely a second as she pauses, then flings herself across the room with the speed of lightning until she is standing by my bedside. I tap the bed and she takes a seat facing me. The size of my bed allows her ample room to sit comfortably with me. She picks up a glass of water from the side table and lifts the straw to my lips, urging me to drink. I can’t take my eyes off her, even as the water makes its way down my parched throat. I adjust myself on the pillow, straightening my back until I am fully sitting up, covering my lower body with the blanket. It is some time before I can muster up the strength to speak, my voice a croak as I address her.

“I would’ve thought you’d have gone running for the hills after everything that happened,” I tell her.

She shrugs. “Where would I go?”

And that right there is everything I need to know. Kingsley is afraid for me. But she is also afraid for herself. She has no one beyond me. In the little time that she’s been with me, I have become her one and only friend. Her only family. After her father’s death, she has no one. And she can trust no one. I despise myself that she doesn’t know she can’t even trust me. EvenIstarted out our relationship with a goal in mind.

I give her my signature lop sided smirk. “You have all the money in the world and enough to pay handsomely for consultants and security. Why would you stay here?”

Somehow, she already knows. The world would eat her up alive. All the money in the world is not enough to save her from the curse that would surely follow her around no matter where she went. She is now entirely on her own and out of her element, and at the mercy of the thugs that seek to destroy her. The thought of something happening to her digs at the deepest corners of my conscience and burrows there like a premonition.

“How are you feeling?” she asks me.

I don’t tell her I still feel every bullet as though it is a fresh wound. I don’t mention the sting of the cuts where the doctor has plunged the puller under my skin to remove the metal pellets. I look down at my bandaged body then look back up at her, smiling. “Alive and kicking enough to go back to making your life intolerable for you,” I laugh.

Kingsley grins and tells me she is leaving to let me get some rest. I tug at her hand as she turns to leave, pulling her back toward me, our fingers flitting against each other like a surge of static electricity.

“Stay.”

It’s a single command that comes out more like a plea. One word powerful enough to make her stop in her tracks and turn back to me. Her soft gaze settles on me before she sits back down on the bed, settling into a comfortable cross-legged position. She is close but not close enough. Ignoring the stabbing pain in my abdomen, I bend forward until I am closer to her, take a strand of her hair between my fingers and tuck it behind her ear. A pregnant pause passes between us as we contemplate each other. If the past few days have taught me anything, it is that Kingsley has become important to me. Somehow, at some point, she had found a place in my heart and set up shop there. But this is not her doing. No. She had not chosen to be taken. She had not chosen to be held prisoner in my company. None of that was her doing. Hell, she hadn’t even chosen to be Maddog’s daughter. She was the victim of circumstance, and one could not blame her for what had come to pass.

I lean closer to her, for once not thinking. Not considering and not planning. Every one of my moves has always been calculated and planned. Now I just move, without thought, and I curl into her, my face barely inches away from hers.

“You are… so beautiful,” I breathe, reaching a hand up to her cheek. She blinks rapidly, a blush rising in her cheeks. This is a shy side of Kingsley that I have not seen before. A shy, demure side I like. My hand moves to the back of her neck, holding her possessively, before I push her forward until her lips meet mine. It is the softest kiss, our lips barely touching, as my skin grazes hers. I may feel something toward her, but does she feel anywhere near the same? She doesn’t pull away. Instead, she closes her eyes, flying away in her mind as her skin warms mine. She holds my lips with hers, until I pull away and find her melting into what remains of my comfort on her lips. I crush my lips to hers again, this time violently, pushing into her mouth and tasting her the way I’ve wanted to since she’d taken that disguise off and finally shown me who she was.

Kingsley is the first to pull away, coming up for air like her life depends on it after almost a minute of us sucking at one another’s lips.

“You need to eat something.”

“I need to shower.”

“Well, I can help you eat, but I can’t help you shower.”

38

DANTE

Imove slowly, still adjusting to the many holes in my body that haven’t yet fully healed. I roll up the sleeves on my black shirt as I walk toward the window and look out. If one didn’t know the recent events of my life, one could not guess that my body was riddled with bullets, torn apart then stitched back together by a team of first class doctors. It has been a week since I woke from my three day hiatus, a coma induced by the doctors to stem the pain that shook the foundations of my core.

I turn at the knock on my door and greet my father, who wastes no time coming to my side.

“Are you ready to resume your place at the head of the table?” my father asks, an invitation. He may have held down the fort while I was recuperating, but I know he is anxious to step aside and let me take the reins again.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I tell him, my eyes skating across the grounds until they reach the sun lounge by the pool where Kingsley sits reading a book.

“What of the Murray girl?” he asks, following my gaze.

“What about her?”

My father looks at me intently, telling me he doesn’t believe for one second that I don’t know what he is talking about. I continue to watch Kingsley, memorizing her mannerisms and the little quirks she has that make her so unique. The way she turns her head. The lift of her chin. The way she bites her lip. Her back is to me, so she can’t see me watching her, a fact I take great pleasure in.

“She’s here for a reason,” my father points out.

“We brought her here for a reason. There’s nothing to say we can’t change the dialogue and still get what we want.”

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