Page 4 of Reign of a Billionaire

“I want you to marry me, Kingston,” she murmured, her voice soft and reserved only for me.

Louisa. My Lou.

“You’re not yet eighteen,” I said, pulling her closer to me. She rolled her eyes but immediately fell into my arms, unable to keep a smile off her face. Even when shit was hard, she found things to smile about, offering her sunshine.

“I might not live long enough.” She lifted on her tiptoes and brushed her nose against mine. “So why wait?”

I grasped her jaw in my hand. “You…We’lllive until we’ve earned our wrinkles and grays. Until we’ve seen our grandchildren and great-grandchildren walk this earth, as living proof of our love.”

I ran my fingers down the length of her silky blonde curls. Her golden eyes, speckled with hazel, met mine, and fuck, the urge to claim her drove me wild. But it was the heartbreak in them that kept me at bay.

“What’s the matter?” I demanded. She smiled again, but not as brightly. “Don’t tell me it’s nothing or there’ll be hell to pay.”

Her smile vanished, anguish in her eyes wrapping around my heart like a vise.

“Don’t hate me…” she whispered.

“I could never hate you.”

She looked over her shoulder, her fingers fidgeting with the buttons of my shirt, before she returned to watch me.

“Ivan—”

“Has he hurt you?” I growled, a red mist creeping in. It didn’t escape me that the sick prick had been eyeing the twins. Lou more than her sister. The fucker was like a bloodhound, sensing that Louisa was the softer of the two. With Liana, he risked having his balls cut off if he even contemplated touching her.

She shook her head. “No, but he…” She swallowed, her delicate throat bobbing. “He wants to marry me off to forge an alliance with the Tijuana cartel. Mother said no, but?—”

We both knew it was only a matter of time though. “Sunshine, we should wait for the right time.”

“I want you to be my first, Kingston.” My grip on her chin tightened, and she came up on her toes, her lips brushing against my mouth. “You were my first kiss. The only man tomark me.” Her full lips pursed, a soft smile curving them, and there was a pink hue that covered her cheeks. Our secret. A matching tattoo. “I just can’t bear?—”

Her voice cracked, as did my heart.

“Don’t you see, Lou?” I rasped into her mouth. “I want to be your first, your last, your only.”

“Me too,” she whispered, her cheeks staining red with her admission. “But whatever happens tomorrow, we’ve had today. We’ll have this. So why wait?”

There was so much pain in this household. Loneliness and fear. It wasn’t where I wanted our first time to be. Then there was the issue of her age, with her being just shy of her eighteenth birthday, I didn’t want her rushing into this. We should take our time—for her sake.

Her arms wrapped around my shoulders and she trailed her mouth down my chin, my neck, before burying her face into my throat.

“Maybe it’s time we run away,” she whispered. “You’re a ghost. Make us disappear before they end us once and for all.” She pulled away and met my eyes, her lip trembling. “She’s destroying you, and I can’t bear it anymore.”

The fury festered in my chest, even after all these years. It made me a monster, full of hatred and thirst for revenge. I’d take the whole Volkov empire down. And no one would be able to stop me. Not even death.

I closed my eyes, washing away the memories of the only good thing in my life and focusing on this woman in front of me who had a hand in taking her away. I hated that Liana survived while my Louisa died. She was my other half. My light in the darkness. She was my everything. It was time for Liana to pay for it. Every breath she’d taken since Lou’s death had earned her a punishment.

It had given me purpose for the first time since Alexei Nikolaev saved my battered body from that dungeon eight years ago.

While my appearance remained calm and collected, my insides were aflame.

There was a fine line between hatred and love. Even finer between sanity and insanity. I could no longer see that line. Not since I’d witnessed Lou die in front of my eyes.

I reached for a drink in my dark corner of the restaurant while I observed. Stalked. Planned.

The ember’s orange glow of my cigarette in the ashtray was the only sign indicating my presence in the restaurant. I looked over at the table where my target sat, my eyes tracking the movements of the young woman.

This dark hole in my chest was slowly swallowing me whole.