Page 17 of Mated to the Kingpin

Chapter 10

Claire

The stars look so deceptively peaceful above me as I stand in the clearing, bathed in silver moonlight and uncertainty. They glitter bright and remote, like they haven’t borne witness to everything else: the accidents, the heartbreaks, the nights of silence after Seth died. Like they haven’t watched me sob uncontrollably in the garden behind my house where we used to spend time together, where no one would overhear the sound of my grief cracking apart in the dark.

Around me, the Georgia night breathes. Heavy. Slow. Alive. The air is thick with humidity, wrapping itself around my skin like a damp second layer. It clings to my neck, the hollow of my throat, and the inner curve of my knees. Somewhere distant, the low buzz of cicadas sings lazy, overlapping songs beneath the canopy of moss-draped trees. The scent of wet leaves and wild jasmine clings to the edges of the clearing, a haunting sweetness carried on the drifting breeze. Beneath it, the earthy tang of marsh mud and pine sap grounds me just enough to keep the memories from dragging me under.

The wind combs gently through my hair, a rare cooler current against the flushed heat gathering along my chest and neck. My dress dances faintly around my ankles, the hemcatching on the dry grass with each step. I stand rigid against the softness around me because my question still rings between us: “Tell me what happened the night Seth died.”

Liam stiffens. It’s like I’ve just drawn a gun and pressed the barrel between his eyes. The silence is pressed down by the weight of everything he hasn’t said for a decade. He looks past me for only a moment, just a flicker of movement in his eyes, like he’d rather study the stars than face the history between us. A frog croaks from a camouflaged perch nearby, the night-song layering higher, thicker, until it feels like even the woods are listening. When his gaze finds mine again, it’s not the alpha or the mob boss staring back at me.

It’s a boy dragging guilt like a chain he’s forgotten how to live without.

“I killed him.”

The words rip the breath from my lungs.

“What?” My voice cracks on the single syllable. I shake my head. “It was a car accident.”

He doesn’t look away. “Yeah, but it was my fault. I killed him.”

The chill slices into my skin without warning, cutting through the warm evening. My hands fist into the satin of my gown. It anchors me, barely.

“I don’t…” My mouth won’t shape the words properly. “You need to explain what the hell you mean.”

His nod is mechanical. He’s unraveling slowly in front of me, and I can’t look away. All around us, the southern night hums. A barred owl calls somewhere deeper in the trees with a low, echoing question. The breeze rustles palmettos, sweetgrass flutters in the damp air along the boundary of the tree line, and beneath it all, the rhythm of coastal life continues, slower and older than anything human.

When he speaks again, his voice is barely more than a breath. Nothing like the dominant, feral growl of the man who blackmailed me into marriage. This isn’t that Liam. This is someone else. Someone closer to the boy I once loved. Someone breaking in front of me.

“We were stupid.”

His fists clench at his sides. He isn’t trying to hide the shame, the horror. He’s holding it like a punishment he’s long given up trying to escape. For the first time since I was sixteen years old, I want to reach for him. I want to scream at him, to hit him, to cradle him, all in the same breath.

“It was a Friday night. Bright moon. Seth was grounded—I don’t even remember what for anymore. Something dumb. But he called me. Said he needed to get out, to breathe before he suffocated in that house. I agreed.”

His lips twitch. Not a smile. A ghost of something too grieving to be fond.

“We took the old Mustang. The one he helped me rebuild. He called it the ‘Iron Stallion.’ You remember that?”

The words hit with the force of memory. Seth’s eager voice. His laugh. The way he’d lean into stories like they were campfire legends. I nod, the motion small, tight.

“We were just being assholes,” Liam says, his voice warping under the strain of what’s coming. “Taking sharp turns too fast, switching the playlist every five minutes, arguing about which Marvel character would win in a fight.”

A tight line forms at the corner of his jaw. His knuckles are white.

“There was a car. Out of nowhere. Drunk driver, turned out. I tried to swerve. We slid off the road into the ditch.” He drags in a breath. “Flipped, slammed into a pine. Seth didn’t have his belt on.”

The damp in the air is finally cold enough that my gown clings to my calves. The fabric brushes against wet ferns, soaking up pale beads of condensation glinting like frost on the tree line.

“He was halfway out the window,” Liam says quietly, his voice thick. “Laughing about the wind in his face like we couldn’t fucking die.”

I wrap my arms around myself even though my skin’s already cool, goosebumps prickling along my arms beneath the delicate fabric.

“I crawled out through the windshield, bleeding everywhere, screaming for him. When I found him he was?—”

His voice chokes off. His lips move, but no words come out. The only sound breaking the pause is the high-pitched whine of night insects and, faintly, the slosh and drone of marsh water shifting over roots somewhere nearby.

“There was no way to save him.”

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