Page 27 of Kingpin

“If you choose not to answer my questions, today’s firefight will be the least of your worries. Who. Ordered. The hit?”

Her eyes fluttered. “I was told to kill you. It was supposed to happen on our wedding night. And then you never came to bed, and then we never spent time together, and then I just decided not to.”

“Not to what?”

She paused. “To kill you, Israel. I decided not to kill you.”

“Yet you kept the poison. How convenient.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I wasn’t supposed to fall for you. All I was supposed to do was act—” She broke off suddenly.

I narrowed my eyes. “Your life depends on you not holding back now.”

“I’m not afraid of death, Israel. I’ve been surrounded by it my whole life.”

I grinned. “Sweetheart, if you think I’m going to kill you, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“Wh—what?”

“I’m not going to kill you. You’re much too beautiful for that. I will break you, though.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

“I will break you. I will take you and use you and ruin you. You will be nothing but a useful servant to me. Doing my bidding, getting punishment if you don’t. I’ll dig into your soul and convince you that there’s no possible future in which you can be happy. And when I’ve finally got control of your mind, I’ll return you to your family and have them do with you what they please.”

I shoved her face and watched her stumble as I turned to make my way back into the bathroom. I felt small shards of glass digging into the bottom of my foot, but I didn’t care. I understood. I understood everything. My need to distance myself from her. The need to spend my nights in another room altogether. Finally, I understood why my gut had been screaming at me ever since my wedding.

I propped my foot up on the bathroom counter and dug around for my tweezers.

“Do you need help?”

I ignored her question as I started plucking the glass from my heel.

“Israel, do you need—”

“Get out,” I said.

“No.”

I slowly turned my eyes to hers. “Get. Out. Before I toss you out myself.”

“This isn’t what it looks like, or sounds like, or even feels like. But if you don’t give me a chance to prove that—”

“You’ve proved everything just fine.”

“What? I’ve proven that I won’t poison you, even though I’m carrying it around? How many times have we eaten together?”

My eyes fell back to my heel. “You’ll be fun to break in.”

“How many times, Israel?”

I refused to answer her question as I pulled the last shard from the bottom of my foot.

“Here, let me get you something for—”

“Silence!” I roared.

She still didn’t listen. Before I could react, one of my beautiful white washcloths got pressed against my bleeding foot, and she didn’t once hesitate. I stared at the top of her head as all sorts of things ran through my mind. One stood out in particular, though.

---