Page 48 of The Mafia Assassin's Redemption-

“You can mouth off all you want, but I now know how to control you. And I will. You’re mine, brat. Until I choose to let you go.”

“And when’s that going to be?”

He kisses me hard on the mouth. “How about never?”

I pull away and wipe my mouth with my arm. “How about you start sleeping with one eye open?”

“I never sleep,” he says softly,

“You defiled me. I’ll get you for this.”

He turns away from me and strips off the sheet before throwing it into a bag with the torn nightgown, the panties, and bra. “Just add it to my list of sins, Harry.”

ELEVEN

torin

“See,now I know how to beat you at poker. You and fucking Cal are almost impossible to beat, unless you’re all up in some chick,” Seamus says, sliding the pile of chips toward himself as I lose the game. Again.

He’s right about Cal. Lucie is proof positive of that. But me… there’s no reason for me to get all worked up over some lass. Unless it’s lack of sex. And that’s not an issue for me right now.

I drum a chip against the table and bounce my knee. I should be ashamed of what I just did, what I took. But I’m not.

A quick and simple fuck would have gotten the results needed, but instead, I ran with it, pushed her to her edge. And she met me there, spitting fire and rolling down into subspace every step of the way.

“Was up in said chick, now I’m not. I did what I needed to. That’s all.”

“Oh yeah, bro. And I like to tongue the Blarney Stone whenever we’re in Ireland.” Seamus snickers and runs a hand over the chips. “You know what? I don’t give a shit what you tell yourself, as long as you keep losing like this.”

I scowl. “Fuck off, Shay.” I call him by his little-used childhood nickname.

“Just saying you never lose, unless you’re distracted.” He taps his head. “Not a winning strategy.”

“The only strategy is to play without a tell. I don’t have one. Neither does Callahan.”

It’s times like this I wish I still smoked.

But he’s unleashed something in me, the torrent of fresh memories of my new reality. The knowledge that in my room, a demon awaits.

And I don’t feel like facing her. Not tonight.

No doubt she’s plotting my death for fucking her. I had to, though. Ours wasn’t a regular mafia marriage where everyone would be content just seeing a stained sheet. It had to be legit. And if Salvatore had decided not to attend, the sheet would have been sent as proof.

As it was, I’m slightly shocked he didn’t try to watch us fuck.

I blow out a breath when Dec joins us, a scowl on his face as he unscrews the lid of a bottle of Redbreast. He drops into a chair—Cal’s chair—takes a long swallow, and nods at the pile of chips in front of Seamus.

“Jesus, Tor,” he says. “Makes me feel better about my night.”

I glance at my phone. “It’s almost three, and judging from the love bite on your throat and the stench of weed on your clothes, I’m thinking you were at an underground club partying your ass off. How bad could it have been?”

Seamus examines his bite. “Did your pretty trouble come with extra trouble, boyfriend-style?”

He swats our brother away. “No. That trouble was the clinging type, y’know?”

Seamus nods and I don’t react, just take his bottle and guzzle the amber-colored liquid.

I don’t like clingers. I like contracts and encounters that come with a use-by date.