Page 53 of The Mafia Assassin's Redemption-

I hurry up the stone steps and pull open the heavy wooden door. I step into the foyer and rest my back against it as I choke down the sacred air and let some semblance of peace roll through me.

But only nausea makes my gut clench.

I move down the aisle, my shoulders hunched over, ignoring the growing sense of foreboding as I walk through the sacristy. I turn right into the house and left into the kitchen. I stop short in the doorway, the breath all but sucked from my lungs.

“You.” I spit out the word like it’s poison.

Torin blows steam from a mug, then takes a sip. He flashes a half grin at the good father. My pulse hammers hard and I slam a frustrated fist on the countertop. Torin looks tired, and still, he’s the most delicious man I’ve laid eyes on. I want to channel his cat and growl and claw his pretty blue eyes out of his skull. The asshole doesn’t even bother to look at me.

He just says to Father Luigi, whose back is to me, “Seems like you owe me twenty bucks, Father.”

Father Luigi rises from his chair and turns toward me, guilt etched into his expression.

“You—you stalker,” I hiss, heat flaring in my cheeks.

“You’re a stalker, Father?” Torin asks lightly. “Kinky, but then again, that’s the Catholic church for you.”

I gasp.

Father Luigi blushes. “I don’t wish to interfere with your first day as a married couple.” He scuttles up to me and whispers, “Be good, kid. Torin is…” He presses his lips together, seeming to think carefully about his next words. “The Murphys are a scary family. And he saved you from the Riccis.”

I open my mouth and then snap it closed again.

Because honestly, I don’t even know what to say.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be back to business as usual.” Then he raises his voice and clears his throat. “After your honeymoon.”

And I’m left alone with the man who used me last night—the unwelcome memories of our torrid, yet so erotic wedding night crashing over me like an all-consumingwave.

The roomy kitchen suddenly shrinks and I immediately become claustrophobic.

“It’s a good Irish whiskey,” Torin says, holding out the mug to me.

I glare at him, my lips twisting with disgust. “It’s not even six.”

“And?” He takes another sip, puts down the mug, and walks over to me. “What do you expect from me, Harry? I’m a dirty, filthy Irish killer. Of course I drink whiskey at the crack of dawn.”

We’re too close but not close enough. I want to bury my face in his chest to breathe in his scent and lose myself in his warmth, right before I slide a blade between his ribs and watch him bleed out.

Holy fuck.

When did I become so utterly bloodthirsty?

Again?

When I was aged ten through sixteen, the thought of finding him and bringing him back to life so I could kill him again comforted me at night. It was only during my sixteenth year that I actually researched what happened that night in Dublin.

A tragic fire. That’s what the article said. An entire family perished. Father, mother, child.

I couldn’t find anything about him, so I figured I’d killed him in Dublin.

It was around then I thought I saw him near the school, talking to Father Dermott.

And it struck me that if the world thought I was dead, but I wasn’t, then maybe it was the same for him. I just assumed he was dead.

The possibility that he wasn’t gave me night terrors and I woke up screaming for a month afterward.

But finally, I decided since he hadn’t already killed me or come for me, then Father Dermott must not have given me up.