Page 144 of Executing Malice

She’s flirting with him. It’s taking everything in me to keep from reaching for her and shaking her until sense rattles back into place.

“You don’t need to worry about the details. Just know that I will make you a queen if you come with me. I will give you everything you want. You’ll be by my side when we take over the entire country.”

I don’t understand what’s happening. I know Leila’s upset with me, and I get it, but ... does she actually want him? Is this the life that appeals to her? She wants to be some mob man’s side piece? Everett won’t keep her. She is just an obsession he’ll get tired of and discard. Possibly kill.

“Leila,” I begin.

But she jerks away from the hand I extend to her. Her soft features harden into one of hate and disgust.

“Don’t touch me.”

What little is left of my heart crumbles to ashes as I watch her scoot around me like I’m some rabid dog that might attack her.

She doesn’t stop glowering until I drop my hand. She keeps hers protectively tucked behind her to stop me from reaching for her.

“She’s made her choice, Danny,” Everett practically purrs. “She’s mine now.”

“I haven’t made any choice yet,” Leila counters. “Tell me what you did first.”

My brother laughs. “I keep forgetting you’re not like other women. You enjoy hearing how I lured him with the promise of a fresh, young pussy, fed him Viagra to get his cock hard and cut it off with garden shears. Had to tie him down first. There was blood everywhere. Boners are gushers.”

“Then what?”

“He got himself to a hospital. They had to operate to get his severed junk out of his ass and reattach it, but last I heard, he wasn’t using it anymore.”

Leila smiles, slow and sweet. The kind a girl gives a guy offering her flowers.

“You did that for me?”

“Of course.”

To my eternal dismay, she starts towards him. Her tight little outfit filthy where I had wrestled her to the ground not twenty minutes ago and fucked her. There are leaves and twigs caught in her curls and blood streaking her legs and soaked into her top. She looks beautiful and perfect, and devastating as she leaves my side and hurries to my brother.

“I’m not picking you,” she tells him coyly. “You have to convince me.”

Everett groans even as he makes to reach her.

Leila giggles and dodges his fingers. “Not yet. I want to get out of here first.”

The sight of my Leila standing next to Everett, peering up at him like he’s the only star in the sky burns into my brain. Sears my soul. It ignites a rage and sorrow so deep in my very being that everything hums.

“You’renot going with him.”

Both stop staring at each other to fix on me like they just remembered I exist.

“I don’t want you,” Leila throws back with a fistful of knives that drive straight into my gut.

“Too fucking bad,” I snarl through gritted teeth. “You’re not leaving me.”

“Jesus, Danny, that’s no way to talk to a lady. She’s made up her mind. She’s chosen me. You need to accept that.”

The ground beneath my feet shifts as I brace my weight. My fingers curl, cracking the knuckles.

“Get away from her.”

Everett takes a long, slow breath and closes a step between us. “You lost. Deal with it.”

“No, fucker, you lost.”