Page 88 of Mercenary

I smile, ruthlessly. “She’ll have a chance to escape.” Escape me, after I finish with Franco’s men. But I refrain from being too specific.

Madelyn blinks, struggling not to lose it. Tough girl. Stronger than her sister in less obvious ways.

“Eat,” I order.

I pick up a sandwich and take a large bite. She doesn’t do the same, and instead watches me until I’m finished.

“Deal,” she murmurs, as if within the time it’s taken me to eat a sandwich, she’s come to the conclusion that I’m her one and only choice.

Damn us both.

“Good thing I’m not allergic to peanuts,” she softly says as she selects half a sandwich and settles down to eat.

We eat in silence, her likely preoccupied with thoughts of Kylie and me preoccupied with her.

I pick up the bottle and drink, noting the stiffness of her body. The resignation in her tightly clenched jaw. I’m itching to pop off the two tiny buttons at the tip of her prissy white V-neck collar and rip the T-shirt off her beautiful body. Instead, I hand her the Jack. “Finish it.”

She scowls, opens her mouth to protest, then thinks better of it.

“Do you have any idea where they took her?” she asks, several minutes later, after the liquor kicks in.

“Not yet. Soon. Tracking people is what I do.”

“And killing them.”

“Among other things.”

She wrinkles her nose with distaste. I don’t know why but her reaction doesn’t sit well with me. “With knives?”

“Among other things.”

She bites her lip, then asks, “Did you kill those men at the service station?”

Damn it. I want to lie. I want to say no, I’m not that man. Instead I shrug my shoulders, nonchalantly, like how the way the lack of softness usually within her eyes when she looks at me, doesn’t bother me.

She rolls out of her chair and onto her feet.

Away from me.

“Whatever you think of me, understand this: I get no pleasure in bringing you pain,” I mutter.

She stares at me. I don’t understand why I felt the need to share this. To open up enough for her to glimpse the softer, weaker, close-to-dead side of me. The screwed-up thing is, I crave her forgiveness, her compassion, her optimism.

Her love.

Well, fuck.

I can’t look away from her. I can’t goddamn breathe. And I wait . . . wait . . . wait as the weight of my words shifts around in her clever, analytical mind, and wait . . . wait . . . wait for her to tell me to fuck off for good.

“Was it all just a lie between us?”

Bam.

“Was I simply an easy way to get to my sister? Someone to use? A means to an end?”

Bam. Bam. Bam.

I jump to my feet.