Page 9 of Precious Hazard (Perfectly Imperfect #11)

“I find that promise very hard to believe, Tara.” A rich, velvety baritone reaches my ears.

My eyes snap open.

“You!”

I ignore Tara’s furious glare and focus on the welt spreading across her left cheek. The motherfucker hit her hard. “Does it hurt?”

“Yes!” She pushes my hand away. “What the fuck, DeVille? I thought you were someone my ex had threatened or tangled with. Maybe a schmuck who couldn’t pay back his loan and decided to kill the messenger instead. And I figured I was next!”

I look down at the dead guy. Stavros Katrakis.

The stupid son of a bitch I followed after Nino’s guys managed to sneak a tracker on the little shit’s car for me.

This pencil-dick owed me answers. Answers I now won’t be able to get.

Fucking great. As if our existing problems with the Greek Syndicate weren’t enough. I just made them infinitely worse.

Truth is, I didn’t give a damn about who I was shooting when I pulled the trigger. I saw that asshole slap Tara, and rage unlike any I’ve ever known boiled in my veins.

“What if you missed? Had you considered that?” she continues to jabber. “Your crazy ass could have killed me, DeVille! And what the hell are you doing here anyway?”

It sure didn’t take her long to get back to spitting nails.

Just moments ago, she was shaking like a leaf.

I push the thought aside. Now is not the time to examine why seeing her scared and hurt made me lose my head.

Killing the Katrakis pup wasn’t exactly smart, not that I regret it.

But if I were thinking more clearly, I would have chosen a different way to make him pay.

“I don’t miss, Tara.” Reaching into my coat, I take out my phone and dial my driver. “Pull the car to the end of the street.”

“It’s dark! And Stavros’s head was like… inches from mine. And now look at it! There’s a rather large hole in his skull. Why in the hell did you shoot him?”

There’s no way I’m admitting I offed the bastard for raising his hand at her. “Are you always this hysterical?”

“I’m not—”

The rumble of an engine and the squeal of tires interrupt Tara’s diatribe. My car turns the corner and comes to a stop right next to the body, narrowly missing Stavros’s right hand. What douche needs to wear a seal ring simply to let others know about the authority he’s been given by his daddy?

“Mr. DeVille!” Riggo erupts from behind the wheel and rushes around the front of the stretched luxury sedan, almost stumbling over Katrakis’s lifeless form. “I’ve just— What— Oh shit! This guy is dead!”

“Your deductive reasoning never ceases to amaze me, Riggo,” I sigh, reminding myself that he’s just an excited, nineteen-year-old kid. “Put the stiff in the trunk. We’ll drop Ms. Popov at home, and then you’ll get rid of the body.”

“You’re not dropping me off anywhere,” Tara snaps. “My car is right here. Besides, I’m late for work.”

I feel the twitch in my left eye. The fucking thing starts whenever my temper is hanging on by the thinnest thread. I take a deep breath and try to keep my tone calm and even. “You’re not getting behind the wheel tonight.”

She might pretend to be unperturbed, but people can rarely hide shit from me.

The foolish woman is barely keeping it together.

She’ll likely get into a wreck heading to Naos, home, or wherever else she might decide to venture.

Maybe I should just let her drive herself to her own doom.

It would solve this whole “marriage problem” quite effectively.

“Who the fuck do you think you are to order me around?”

“You’re in shock,” I snap. “Your hands haven’t stopped shaking. Consider me a Good Samaritan and get in the fucking car. Now, Tara!”

“I’m fine. I’ll call an Uber.” She turns around and, stepping over the body, grabs her purse from the back seat. There’s hardly so much as a wobble to her brisk stride as she then rushes toward the mouth of the alley.

“You’re covered in blood!” I yell.

“Screw you, DeVille!”

I watch her for a few seconds, admiring the agility with which she traverses the uneven pavement in her platform heels, then turn to Riggo. “You have ten seconds to stuff that body in the trunk,” I bark and take off in pursuit of my unwanted future wife.

She’s rather quick, but her legs are much shorter than mine.

I reach her just before she gets to the corner.

Taking a page out of her brother’s book, I grab her by the waist, then throw her over my shoulder.

With her pert ass saluting the night sky, I turn to head back to the car while my arm wraps around her thrashing thighs.

“What the— Let me go!”

“Keep your voice down.”

“I will not keep my voice down! I’ll scream if you don’t let go of me this instant!”

“Should I remind you that we have a dead guy and you’re covered in his blood?”

“I had nothing to do with that! You killed him.”

“Exactly. And I’m going to kill you unless you shut up.”

“Ha! You wouldn’t dare.”

I stop and meet her gaze over my shoulder. “Want to test that theory?”

She scrunches her nose and huffs.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

By the time I walk up to my vehicle, Riggo has managed to stuff Katrakis’s body in the trunk and is now holding the back passenger door open. I lower the grumbling woman to the ground and nod toward the seat. “Get in.”

Something hard pokes into my stomach. I look down to see my own gun pointed at my gut.

“I am not getting into that car with you, DeVille.”

I must really be losing my edge if I didn’t notice her pulling my Sig from the back of my pants while she was dangling upside down. Or maybe I was too distracted by her ass mere inches from my face.

“Do you even know how to use a gun?” I ask.

“Care to find out?”

I sigh. The safety is still on. I’m done with this standoff. Grabbing the barrel, I slowly pull it up and press it to my chest. “Either shoot or get in the damn car.”

Glaring at me as if she could eviscerate me with her eyes alone, Tara begrudgingly lets go of the weapon. Then, will miracles never cease, she actually does as she’s told and gets into the car.

I give Riggo the address and directions to Popov’s mansion before popping open the trunk.

Stavros’s body is cramped inside, his arms slumped at strange angles.

This bastard is lucky he isn’t alive, otherwise he’d be hurting something awful come morning.

I throw the gun in, and it hits Stavros’s head and bounces off to fall somewhere behind the body.

“A town car and a chauffeur,” Tara mumbles as I slide onto the seat next to her. “I should have guessed. Is driving yourself beneath you, DeVille?”

“No. I’ll get my license back in a couple of months.”

“Say what now? How did a rule follower like you manage to lose your license?”

“Speeding.”

I hit the button to raise the privacy divider. Once the barrier is fully up, I turn to face the pint-size hellion.

She’s moved as far away from me as possible, curling up with her head leaning on the side window. As we cruise along the illuminated roads, the intermittent glow of street lights falls on Tara’s face. She’s a rather cute little thing. But only by outward appearances.

Her long, dark-brown locks are gathered into a high ponytail that somehow emphasizes her delicate facial features.

The most striking of which are her big, round eyes lined with long black lashes.

Their color is the most vibrant shade of green.

Like a springtime forest. Or emeralds. They remind me of the irises of the cat that leaped in front of my SUV the other day.

That feline’s peepers glowed in the dark.

Witch’s eyes. But Tara’s are bright with her stubborn resolve.

And then, there’s her lower lip… Slightly fuller than the upper one, giving her a permanent pouty look.

Her nose is small and slightly upturned, sprinkled with a multitude of tiny freckles.

Knowing her personality, however, I would’ve expected her to sport horns, not freckles.

I’m not yet fully convinced that she doesn’t, despite her innocent looks.

“We need to finish our discussion from the other night, Tara.”

“The marriage nonsense? I thought I made myself perfectly clear.”

“Yes. But it appears that I have not. We are getting married. The decision has been made, and there’s nothing either of us can do about it. You are, however, encouraged to share your preferences regarding decorations and catering.”

She twists in her seat, practically launching herself within inches of my face. “There’s no way in hell—”

I press my finger over her mouth, silencing her. “You shouldn’t have killed the Katrakis heir, Tara.”

“What? You shot Stavros, not me!”

“Really? Then why are your fingerprints all over the gun used to kill him?”

Those alluringly green eyes widen, watching me with an expression that hints at confusion and alarm. And for just an instant, I lose myself in their mysterious depths.

So pretty.

Like dawn-kissed dew shimmering on a blanket of young grass.

It’s hard to pull myself back to the here and now.

“I’m a very careful person, gattina . I clean and wipe down my weapons every evening. You won’t find my prints on any of the guns I use. Not if I can help it. After all, you never know when one of them may turn up as a murder weapon.”

Tara’s face morphs into a mask of horror as she watches me remove my leather gloves and throw them on the side console.

“You have a choice to make, Tara. Make the wrong one, and you’ll find yourself facing one of three potential outcomes.

Option number one: Stavros’s body is discovered by New York’s finest, along with the murder weapon with your prints on it.

” I seize her chin, letting the pad of my thumb brush over her lower lip.

So soft. Much softer than I imagined it would be.