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I said it because there was no other explanation for his pain. Did he think that we would part from this life? No. I would not allow it.

He slowly pulled out until nothing but the tip of his cock remained, then went back in with the slow, methodical, languid movements that made me fucking crazy.

I wanted his hard, hungry pounding! I wanted his demands that I be his, and that I make him mine.

I wanted so much to go back in time, but I couldn't.

“What does it matter if I die now, or later?” he said cryptically with a gentle chuckle as his lips ghosted over the shell of my ear. “The end will be the same.”

What the fuck did that mean?

I opened my mouth to question him, but as if he was through with it, he began to piston inside me. Our bodies slammed together, and it took me no time to crest the wave of pleasure into a long, drawn-out orgasm as his body tensed around me, never giving me an inch of space.

No matter how hard he fucked me, he did not want us to separate, and I was more than happy to hold onto him for dear life.

When his thrusts became jagged, and I heard his moans of ecstasy, I knew he would join me on my high.

The sweet, luscious high of being loved by the one you love the most. My thighs trembled when he sank deep inside me.

His seed filled me until I felt the gentle satisfaction of being completely his.

I collapsed into his chest, my breaths uneven, as my entire body spasmed in the afterglow.

I felt moisture on his neck and shoulder, and pulled my head away again. Blood.

Four lines scored his skin where I had held him. I’d scratched him. And they were deep.

“I’m so sorry,” I gasped, touching the long lines that I’d carved in his flesh.

“I bear your marks with pride,” he said, his face still in my hair and out of my view.

Then something else bothered me. A new seed of jealousy that, strangely, made me clench with him inside me, as if my entire body wanted him to know that he was mine , and that he belonged exactly where he was right at this moment.

“Then put your scar on my palm,” I whispered, opening my left hand up to him.

He stared at it, his eyes wide, lips parted.

He took my hand, running his thumb across the line that should be there.

He smiled to himself, like a thought had pleased him.

But then his brows furrowed in agitation, before falling back into a serene mask of indifference.

His expression had slipped from one expression to another in seconds.

I wanted to pry my thumbs into his skull and open it up to see the thoughts inside!

Eoghan kissed my forehead. “We have no need for such things.”

It was an answer that wasn’t supposed to be questioned, but it set off alarms in my head.

I felt like I was on rocky ground! Eoghan, who had demanded everything from me, was telling me that a commitment in front of others wasn’t necessary? No. This wasn’t like him at all. This wasn’t alright.

It was especially not right when he pulled himself out of me, breaking our connection, when he would have stayed there, holding me until we could no longer stand. Until we had to get to bed. Or he’d demand another round… and then another…

Where was my lustful, greedy lover?

He turned from me, zipping up his fly, before he ran a hand over his hair, then his face, as if fixing himself to walk out and leave me here.

I grabbed him, turning him around. His eyes were glassy, but I saw no other signs of the strangeness I was feeling. Was I going crazy?

He looked at me, expectantly, as if my grabbing him could only be because I had something to say. But I didn’t. Couldn’t I just grab him for the sake of holding on? Why was he acting so strange?

Searching for something to say, I came upon something that had been bothering me since yesterday—a hard truth that we needed to talk about.

“My love,” I whispered, using his own terms of endearment back at him. “We have to get Cillian to safety, until we fix this situation.”

He came to me, closing the distance again, settling between my thighs. His hard eyes looked at me, black and cold as night. “No.”

“Darling, I know people who can keep him safe until the war is over. They can—”

“I cannot let him go, or you.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m not letting either of you out of my sight.”

I clutched his face in my hands, placing my forehead against his. “You’re not letting us go. I will stay. I will fight beside you, I swear it. But he’s just a defenseless boy! They will use him against us.”

He pulled away from my grasp. He put his hands through his hair, turning his back to me… possibly for the first time ever.

“No.” His voice was so full of anguish that it hurt my soul. “I just got you two back. I can’t—”

“Darling, please…” I reached for him, but he must have heard or felt me coming because he flinched away. “We have to fight this war as we need to; it will be fast, violent, and cruel. It has to be in order to destroy the Durantes.”

I felt the rising anger in my throat, because his war was now mine. I needed Eugenio Durante dead and buried. I need the Mafia gone. I needed them burned to ashes.

“To do that, we need to concentrate on one thing—breaking them. But our son…” I gasped. “I know what happened to Yuliya.”

Eoghan stiffened, his shoulders straightening as if I’d just hit him with a jolt of electricity.

“I don’t want them using that tactic on our boy. Do you?”

“No,” he said, turning around, his head shaking and his lips in a deep frown. He wasn’t saying no to my question. He was saying no to me. “I will not let him go. Do not ask this of me, Kira, because I cannot do it. I will not allow it.”

“I have never spent a night away from him. I have never slept without him in my arms. Do you think I want to do this?” I snapped, the anger at his unreasonable stubbornness overwhelming my calm.

“I have spent his entire life away from him because of you!” There it was. The first sign of his resentment. “I will not lose another second.”

I had always suspected that for all his words of love and forgiveness, there would be bitterness somewhere in there for what I’d done.

It was only natural, after all. I don’t know why it cut me so deep.

I knew it was there, despite all his loving assurances about how I was forgiven.

How could it not be? But it wasn’t the time to try and make amends when a war had arrived inside our house.

I took a deep breath, fighting tears that welled in my eyes.

“You will have a longer, more peaceful life with him. A more certain life with him, if you send him away so that we can make a better world for him.” I tried to say it as calmly as I could, but I felt the waver in my voice all the same.

“If I live that long.” Eoghan scowled at me, and I was not used to being the subject of his ire. I did not like it. “Is that your intent, then? For me to die so that I am nothing but a blip in his memories? That I will contaminate our son with my darkness?”

He had never, ever, said anything so cruel to me before. I didn’t think he was capable of such a thing. To others? Yes. But to me? My heart ached, as if someone was reaching into my chest, and squeezed my heart until the flesh broke like the skin of a juiced orange.

“How dare you,” I said quietly. “How dare you say that to me?”

“I dare because you have never been truthful with me. Not once!” He pushed away and stared at me with something that was so close to hatred that it frightened me.

“And you take it as an insult, right?” I scoffed, not letting myself look weak when he was bent on attacking me.

“I do! And you know it.” His finger was in my face, pointing with cruel accusation. “But I have overlooked that for you , Kira. I have overlooked it for my love of you. And still you give me nothing!”

“I gave you a son.”

“You took him away, and you want to take him away now.”

“I’m not!” I reached out to him, my bare feet padding on the cold surface of the tiled floor.

He drew away, his handsome face so distorted that he could have been a different person.

“Eoghan!” I called, agitated that he would pull away from my touch.

He scoffed, his voice bitter as he said, “Am I so bad of a man that I should not be allowed to be a father? I don’t even get a chance?”

“Eoghan, listen to me…” He was so far in his head that he wasn’t seeing me. He wasn’t hearing me. I needed him here. I needed him to see me. “Eoghan! God damnit! Look at me!”

When I grabbed his shoulder, he pulled away, then left the bathroom.

He left me standing there naked, the remnants of black dye in my hair dripping down my chin like mascara tears, as I stood there crying like a fool.