Page 25

25

EDDIE

A udrina wrinkled her pretty nose at the room like it smelled bad.

Probably because it did.

Irritation stiffened my neck. “Don’t make faces like that.”

She glared at me. “What face, exactly, do you want me to make when you take me to a hotel that’s not even one star? This place is a hole.”

She wasn’t wrong, but it pissed me off that she was being such a fucking princess. But I bit down on my irritation, because soon, I wouldn’t be fucking sleeping in hotels that smelled of piss and cigarette smoke either. Or in the run-down piece-of-shit shack I’d been hiding out in for years.

With her husband dead and buried, she’d take over his empire.

At least for a little while. Until I knocked her up and took her spot. And then I wouldn’t just get the fifty percent we’d agreed on, but the whole fucking thing. She could stay at home with the brat she so desperately wanted, and I’d fill the gap like I was made for it.

Pride swelled inside me, along with a smug satisfaction. I’d been run out of this town once. Spent years hiding to keep what was mine.

When all along, I belonged here. At the top, with a trophy wife on my arm and a crew who showed me the respect I deserved.

First thing I’d do would be to put out a hit on Fawn’s family.

I smiled to myself, knowing exactly how much it would hurt her to take them all out, one by one, until she was the last one left.

Alone.

She’d come crawling back like the snake she was. Begging me.

And then I’d sell the kid. Or kill him. Right in front of her. Just to remind her she’d never been the one in charge. And that she only got to be happy if I allowed it.

Because she was mine. She was always fucking mine. Even when she thought she wasn’t.

Her making goo-goo eyes at my brother didn’t make me feel very generous. But the part of me that fed on control and other people’s fear was pleased. At least until I noticed the kid standing in the corner of the room looking as stupid and mute as ever.

I flopped down on the bed, trying not to think about whether the sheets were clean or not, and flicked on the TV. “Sit there.” I pointed to the patch of dirty carpet in front of the screen. “Don’t move until I say you can.”

Otis did exactly what I said, like the well-trained, obedient little dog he was.

I felt nothing for the kid. Never had. Never would. But his presence had been the best way of controlling his mother’s behavior, and it got me hard, just thinking about Fawn crying over her precious baby, lost to her forever.

It was the only way she’d learn. So when I took her back, she’d remember her place was with me.

I got stiff over the thought of having her back on my cock, fucking her hard, making her scream, licking away her tears.

Audrina was still strutting around in her stupid too-tall heels that reminded me of the ones Fawn had worn, when she’d been slutting herself around, swinging on stripper poles for all of fucking Saint View to gawk at. I grabbed Audrina’s arm, pulling her down on top of me. I yanked at her skirt with one hand, lifting the fabric to expose her tiny G-string.

“Eddie!” She slapped my hands away. “Your son is in the room!”

I grabbed her again, ripping the tiny piece of lace off her hairless pussy. “Who cares? You want my dick, sweetheart. You want Daddy to fill you up and put a baby in you, don’t you?”

I’d fuck this stupid bitch every which way until her belly was fat with my kid. The kid who would inherit the Guerra fortune, now that the prick’s older kids had up and left him.

The fortune I would control, as his only parent with a brain.

Audrina’s giggle grated on my nerves. But I yanked my pants down, taking out my dick. She went to straddle me, but if I had to put up with her obnoxious shit, she could at least suck my cock with those thick lips all slicked up, red and pouty.

She went to say something, but I pushed her head down, choking her with my dick.

I hissed at the warmth of her mouth and thrust my hips up, fucking her face, fingers twisted in her hair to keep her in place.

When I let her up, her makeup was smudged, and a jolt of hate hit me. She was the complete opposite of Fawn. And all I felt was disgust.

I wanted my woman back. I’d left her barely more than twenty-four hours earlier.

But Fawn had to learn her lesson. She had to learn her place.

And I had a job to do.

I dragged Audrina down onto the bed, shoving her face into the mattress so I didn’t have to look at her. I shoved her legs apart roughly, drawing her hips up to meet my cock, getting a flash of her gleaming pussy.

“Oh, Daddy, yes! Fuck me hard and deep, baby.”

I sank my cock into her, slapping her tight, round ass. “Shut up and take Daddy’s dick like the little ho you are.”

She moaned like a slut. “Tell me how you’re going to kill my husband.”

I grinned and drove into her. “That turn you on? Knowing how I’m going to put a bullet in his brain? Leave him bleeding out on the floor? Maybe I’ll fuck you on his bed before we move the body. Just so the old prick’s ghost can watch his missus take my big, thick cock.”

The greedy bitch put her fingers between her legs, fiddling with herself, getting off on how we were going to take out her husband.

It would have normally pissed me off to see her taking pleasure for herself instead of concentrating on mine, like a good woman should. But I got excited by it too, and I thrust into her harder, our skin slapping together, until she shouted that she was going to come.

I didn’t care. I came hard, shuddering into her, my head spinning in the process. “You’re mine, Fawn.”

The woman froze beneath me. Then shoved me off her, flipping over to glare at me. “Fawn? You fucking asshole! Did you just call me your wife’s name?”

I rolled over and found a pack of cigarettes and pulled one out, lighting it up with the lighter I’d left inside the little cardboard box. “Whatever. We both know that when you call me Daddy, it’s Guerra you’re thinking of.”

Her chest heaved with indignation, and she slapped my bicep. “You asshole. I didn’t even come!”

“My cum is dripping down your thighs. That’s all you care about. That and getting your hands on the old man’s money.”

She huffed and slammed her way into the bathroom.

But she didn’t deny it.

I dragged my pants back up, tucking my limp dick back into my underwear but not bothering to do up my jeans. I just lay back against the headboard, smoking my cigarette, and stared at the back of Otis’s head.

The kid hadn’t moved through the whole thing. He just sat there, watching the TV, exactly like I’d told him to.

A surge of hate for him filled me. He’d been a good pawn, useful for getting Fawn to obey me, but it pissed me off, the way he took all her attention.

Attention that should have been mine. But she’d learn.

A knock on the hotel room door had me glancing lazily over. “What?”

“Housekeeping,” a female voice called back.

“It’s the middle of the fucking night. Fuck off. We don’t want no housekeeping.”

“I have the food you ordered?”

I hadn’t ordered no food. But my stomach growled painfully, reminding me we hadn’t eaten for hours and I was starving. Wasn’t my problem if this place was too stupid to get a room service order right. I’d happily take the food and not pay for it.

I took one last drag and stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray on the bedside table. Yanking up my jeans that were falling off my hips because I hadn’t done them up properly, I crossed the room and opened the door.

The woman on the other side was tall, her dark hair flowing over her shoulders and across her black leather jacket. I frowned at her lack of uniform, but she held a brown paper bag out to me, and my stomach growled again.

“I ain’t fucking tipping you,” I told her. “You were slower than you said you’d be.” The lie fell off my tongue easily.

The woman nodded. “I understand. I guess I deserve that.”

Stupid bitch. I snatched the bag.

I didn’t even see the gun in her palm beneath it, until it was pressed against my chest.

My mouth dropped open, and I instinctively reached for mine, the one I always kept tucked into the back of my jeans. My brain catching on a second too late that I had no idea where my damn gun even was, and my pants weren’t done up enough to hold anything.

Vincent ‘Scythe’ Hanover, though I’d heard he went by a different last name now, since the crazy motherfucker had escaped from prison, stepped out of the shadows. “You should always tip your delivery people, Eddie. Because look what happens when you don’t.”

My heart sank. My gaze slid back to the woman with the gun. She wore a matching grin, and it suddenly occurred to me who she was.

Fawn’s sister.

Fuck.

I knew who they were. Knew exactly what they were capable of. A tremble started up in my fingers, and I clenched them into fists. I forced a cocky grin across my face and leaned on the doorframe like I didn’t have a care in the world. “How’s it feel to be five years too fucking late?” I sneered into Ophelia’s face. “Five years I had her. Five .” I stretched. “Actually, it’s probably closer to six now. Since the kid had a birthday.” I leaned in and whispered, “And you know I’ll have her again. Once she’s learned her lesson.”

Ophelia whipped her hand up and cracked me across the face with the gun. Pain splintered through my probably broken cheek. But something dark and sick inside me liked it. It fed on the pain, not just mine, but the one in Ophelia’s eyes that had me absolutely fucking delighted.

“I’m going to kill you in the most painful way I know how,” she seethed, pressing the gun into my face. “And I’m going to swallow up your screams like they’re the goddamn air I need to breathe.”

The tremble in my fingers started up again, and this time, I couldn’t control it. I knew Ophelia’s reputation. Knew exactly what she was capable of. She was no less deadly than her brother.

But then her gaze slid past me, and her jaw tightened.

And I remembered the kid.

And that the one thing that Hanovers all had was bleeding fucking hearts.

The tremble disappeared. I chuckled darkly. And like music to my ears, Otis’s little voice yelled out, “Don’t you hurt my daddy!”

But it was the cocking of the gun from behind me that caught all our attention.

And then the crack of a bullet as it exploded from the chamber.