Page 72 of Irish Vice

But I don’t need my safeword. I have another weapon. One he gave me a month ago, when I moved back to Thornfield after the last time we fought.

I have words that will silence him forever.

And then we can both get on with our lives. We can forget the worst mistake we ever made together—thinking we could love each other like normal human beings. Him—a mob boss whose daily life is so drenched in violence that he brought a gun to my bed. Me—a woman who killed three innocent people and lied for over a decade.

Enough. It’s time to end this farce.

I feel like I’m chambering a bullet as I ask, “Want to know the truth? Want the real reason I didn’t wait to give you the note?”

He glares.

I know my next words. It’s like they’re the truth, like they’re truly what I thought when I saw Fiona’s note this morning. I know exactly how deep they’ll cut. I cock the hammer, making sure to enunciate every word. “I knew you couldn’t help me. You can’t keep me safe.”

“I killed?—”

“Right.” I fake a yawn. “You killed a man for me. At the freeport. You’ve said that once or twice.”

I can still stop. I can still keep from shattering everything we have.

But if I back off now, we’ll fight again tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. We’ll be trapped on this same precipice forever—doomed mobster and lawyer, broken man and woman, ruined Dom and sub.

I need this pain to end. I don’t want to ever hurt like this again. So I curl my finger around the trigger of my words and I say, “That was a month ago. And we still don’t know who sent that man, because you shoved a gun in his mouth.”

“Are you honestly saying you’d prefer?—”

“I’dpreferbeing with a man who has some shred of impulse control. Someone who doesn’t shoot first and ask questions later. Someone who doesn’t storm away from breakfast like a petulant child.”

This is it. This is where I destroy him. Destroy us. This is where I say the words I can never take back.

I take a deep breath, and I fire.

“You think you’re a grown man, but you’re still the same six-year-old coward who hid first and counted bodies later. So, yes. Yes, I went to Boston. Yes, I tried to reach Fiona. Yes, I tried to protect myself. Because I couldn’t count on you to do a goddamn thing.”

28

BRAIDEN

The scar on my forearm flares with rage and remembered pain. I want to keep my fingers from clutching it, but my body isn’t taking orders from my brain. I feel the rough surface, the permanent reminder of the worst day of my life.

It’s not the words that hurt. They’re nothing worse than what I’ve told myself for years.

But it’s the fact that Samantha says them. She chose to use my past against me.

I’m responsible for sharpening her claws. I’ve let her say things before, challenge me in ways I’d never allow from any other lover. I’ve let her push me to the edge and beyond, all because I didn’t trust her to stay in my bed if I called her on topping from below.

But she’s wrong. I’m not a hopeless, helpless boy. Not anymore.

I’m a man. A man who was stupid enough to trust her with my story. A man who can’t afford to trust her ever again.

“You’re a lousy fuck,” I say.

Her laugh is a single incredulous bark.

And she’s right. I wasn’t precise. I didn’t say exactly what I meant. So I correct myself. “No. You’re a lousysub.”

“You managed to put me in that collar often enough.”

“And you fought me every fucking step of the way. But you can’t top your way out this time. We’re done, you and I. Finished. Whatever you thought we had, it’s over.”