Page 40 of My Dark Ever After
Sucking the toxin of self-hatred out and replacing it with soothing caresses full of all the love I had for her.
When she came, it was with a sigh that spun out like a ball of yarn, long and loose, her muscles tightening around me before going completely lax so that just my hands on her ass and her back against the wall kept her from falling over. I lapped at the delicious spill of cum until her swollen folds tasted only of water, and then I pressed another kiss to the top of her mound.
Carefully, I adjusted her legs so they slid from my shoulders, down my arms, and to either side of my hips before I gently rose to my feet and carried her out of the shower into the slightly less steamy room. I perched her on the closed toilet so I could remove my sopping-wet suit jacket and grab a towel. Almost asleep where she sat, limbs warm and malleable, Guinevere let me dry her.
Once she was dry, I frowned at her mass of wet hair and searched the cupboards for her hairbrush. When I came back to her with it and a hair tie, her eyes widened for a moment, lips parting. I wished I knew if she remembered the first time I had done this for her, braiding her hair when she was too ill to care for herself.
She was not sick now, not physically, but the mental strain of realizing that you have ended another life is something even more insidious.
I secured a towel around my waist and settled behind her on the back of the toilet to start combing through her wet hair. She only moved to lean forward so I could get to the long ends. I worked in silence, onlyour shared breath and the rhythmic tap of water droplets against the shower floor filling the space.
“I killed someone today,” she said finally in a wooden whisper. “Did they tell you?”
I hummed, working a tangle out of her dark hair. “They told me you saved Ludo’s life and yours by acting quickly and bravely.”
She was quiet for so long, shoulders slumped and head drooping, that I wondered if she’d fallen asleep with my soothing fingers and the brush in her hair.
“Sono un’assassina,” she said, her voice more resolute, shoulders snapping straight like those of a soldier called to attention. “I am a killer.”
“There is a difference between killing for pleasure and killing to protect yourself and others,” I told her. “You are not a killer, because your heart is good and your motivations were honest.Non sei un’assassina; sei una cacciatrice.”
You are not a killer; you are a huntress.
“A hunter kills only to provide for the family or to protect their village,” I lectured as I pulled her hair into three parts and began to braid the damp strands. “They do not teach you this in school, Vera, but there is a price for saving a life, and that is often paid in the taking of another.”
“It’s too easy to believe you,” she admitted, leaning back slightly so I had to pull the tail of her braid up in order to finish it off with the elastic. “It’s always been too easy to believe you.”
“You have slept beside me for many nights,” I reminded her. “Do I have trouble sleeping? Now you know I am a killer too. Does that surprise you? Does that make me a callous man in your eyes?”
There was bitterness in her voice when she asked, “Are you saying every life you took was to save another?”
“Yes,” I responded instantly. “Unequivocally yes. If I did not kill the men who came for me, they would kill my brothers-in-arms andeventually my family. Stacci, Carlotta, Delfina, Mamma, Zacheo, Nico, Mattia—”
“Basta,” she snapped.
Enough.
“I understand,” she continued, hunched into herself, pulling her feet up to rest on the closed lid beneath her so she could hug her knees once again. “But it is too general an excuse to use so often when you could just ... stop putting people in a position where their lives are at risk.”
“Life is so simple in your eyes,” I said, even though I knew she would recoil, bunching tighter like a wood bug, ready to close off completely and roll away from me. I fought the urge to pull her close. “Sometimes you are not born into a position where freedom is a viable option.”
“You don’t like being a mafioso.” It wasn’t a question. “I’ve thought back on our conversations, and you always seem so ... reluctant to play your part. So why do this? Why kill and steal and lie? It ... it doesn’t suit you.”
Just as killing doesn’t suit me,she didn’t say, but I could hear the thought clearly enough.
I could have told her that I had cut ties with my father and banished myself to London. I could have explained that when he was killed, I had no choice but to take up his mantle because the wily bastard had not named another heir, and Camorra tradition dictated that a newcapo dei capioutside the family should kill the previous family members to eradicate any contestation about their reign.
I could have explained all that to my sweet Guinevere, and she might have felt empathy for me, might have even let herself love me again, a little.
But what was the point in that when the truth remained?
I was who I was, a stone-cold killer running an underworld empire. No matter how I had arrived here, it was who I was and, more importantly, what I was good at.
My sigh shuddered out of my lungs like steam from a failing engine. I climbed down from my perch and rounded Guinevere so I could crouch on her level to look into her eyes.
“But it does suit me,” I explained patiently. “I am good at hiding money from the authorities and slipping beneath their notice. I am clever enough to play games with the power-hungry capos just waiting for me to fail and ruthless enough to put them down when they act against me. Like the moon, I have a dark side of my heart too. I just so happen to love you with all of it, the shadowed soul and the light.”
“You’re saying that you’d love me enough to kill for me,” she countered, a cruel edge to her tone, a sneer on her pretty mouth. “And that makes it okay?”
