Page 172 of Filthy Lies

His hand covers my mouth. “Anyone could walk by,” he whispers against my ear. “So you’ll need to be very, very quiet. Can you do that for me? Can you be my quiet good girl?”

I nod, dripping wet at the danger, the forbiddenness of it all. This sick, twisted, beautiful thing between us.

Vince spins me to face the wall, yanking my skirt up to my waist. His fingers find me soaking through the thin lace of my panties.

“So fucking wet,” he groans. “You liked it, didn’t you? Lying for me. Covering up what I did.”

“Yes,” I admit. “I shouldn’t, but I did. I fucking did.”

“Don’t you see?” His teeth graze my shoulder as he tears my panties aside. “This is who we are. This is what we’ve always been. Monsters who found each other in the dark.”

I hear his zipper, feel the thick head of him pressing against my entrance. He’s huge, always too much at first, forcing my body to yield to him.

“Say it,” he demands as he teases me with just the tip. “Say what you are.”

“I’m yours,” I gasp. I press back against him, desperate to be filled.

“What else?” He holds himself still because he knows I’m dying here.

I don’t have to ask what he’s pushing me to say. He wants to know what I’ve become. What I’ll always be now.

“I’m a monster,” I whisper. “Just like you.”

He rewards me by slamming home in one brutal thrust that makes me bite my fist to keep from screaming.

“My beautiful, perfect monster,” he praises. “My queen.”

He fucks me against the wall of the supply closet, one hand clamped over my mouth to muffle my cries, the other digging bruises into my hip. I come so hard I black out for a second, my vision swimming with dark spots as pleasure crashes through me.

When it’s over, we stand there panting, still joined, my cheek pressed against the cool plaster wall. His lips brush the shell of my ear, making me shiver despite the heat between us.

“Do you regret it?” he asks. “Any of it?”

I turn in his arms, meeting his gaze in the dim light filtering through the crack beneath the door. “I regret many things, Vince. But protecting you?” I trace the silver streak in his hair, the one that matches his father’s. “Never. Not even if it damns me to hell.”

He presses his forehead to mine. “Then we’ll burn together,” he promises. “You and me and all the bloody secrets we keep.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I whisper against his lips. “But Vince?”

“Yes?”

“Next time you decide to kill someone in our house—” I dig my nails into his shoulders. “—at least give me a fucking heads-up first.”

EPILOGUE I: ROWAN

SIX MONTHS LATER

They say monsters need love, too, which is probably why this church is bursting with them.

Six months after the last of our problems was scrubbed out of existence, we stand inside the gilded sanctuary of St. Basil’s Cathedral to watch two other reformed monsters exchange vows.

Anastasia is breath-stealing in her couture gown, a confectioner’s dream of white silk and handmade lace that hugs her torso before cascading outward, framing her like a vengeful angel.

Daniil stands beside her, his face composed but eyes burning with an intensity that penetrates the solemnity of the occasion.

Between them and our pew, dozens of men who’ve killed without blinking sit in their Sunday best, weapons undoubtedly concealed beneath Savile Row tailoring.

No one ever said two rival crime families merging together would be a neat and tidy affair. But so far, everyone has been on their best behavior. Mostly.

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