Page 11 of The Temptation

This time, I grasp both of her shoulders, squeezing them slightly, but I don’t turn her around. I’m afraid that if I do, she’ll see straight through my facade.

“You will marry that psychopath over my dead fucking body, Lucia,” I growl.

We are on a second loop around the block, taking Killer for his daily walk. This is something I usually do on my own, but my conscience wouldn’t allow me to leave Lucia home alone. Not after what she said this morning.

How could she possibly think we’d be better off without her?

That she’d be better off with that fucking monster?

Just the thought of her going off with him is enough to give me fucking nightmares.

It’s risky having her out here with me, so I want to stick close to the safe house, but after her comments earlier, I have no plans of letting her out of my sight.

I somehow managed to get her to come back to the table and eat some breakfast this morning. After I inadvertently caused her to cut her meal short the night before, I’ve been keeping my mouth shut and treating her with kid gloves ever since. I’ve never been a man of words, and the more I speak around this woman, the deeper I seem to be digging my hole.

“Why do you have to put that on Ki-Ki?” Lucia asks,pointing to the leather muzzle I placed over his snout before leaving the house.

“Killer,” I correct, trying to bite back my annoyance at that ridiculous name. “And like I said, he’s trained to kill, so muzzling him while we’re in public is a sensible move. Although he usually only acts on command, I’m not taking any chances if a hostile person or dog randomly approaches us.”

“He’s such a good doggy,” she coos, reaching forward to ruffle the fur on his back. It’s a gutsy move on her part; she’s braver than most. Even my men are scared shitless of him, but the dog just looks back at her and wags its damn tail. “Ki-Ki would never kill an innocent person or animal, would you, boy?”

“That’s your first mistake there. I’m his master, and even I wouldn’t underestimate him … hence the muzzle. And stop psyching him out, you’re going to make him soft.”

She’s already eliminated canned dog food from his diet. He now enjoys a freshly cooked breakfast each morning, consisting of ground beef, chicken breast, rice, a variety of vegetables, scrambled eggs, and blueberries.

Fucking blueberries.

Neither of us is used to eating this well, and I’m not sure how we’re going to cope with returning to our everyday, bland reality after this.

“Why do you need a killer dog anyway?” she asks. “I know you have a dangerous job, but you own a gun … I’ve seen it.”

“To be honest, I originally got him to protect my house.”

“From who? The bad guys?”

“No, my mum.”

She audibly gasps, but I keep my attention trained forward. “You trained your dog to kill your mother?”

“Not to kill her … to keep her away from my stuff. She thinks that just because she gave me life, it gives her the right to do whatever she wants with my things.”

“She steals from you?”

“She has in the past. If I didn’t hand over money, she’d break into my place with whatever loser she was dating at the time and take anything they could sell to support their habit.”

“Oh, Romeo,” she whispers as she reaches for my hand and wraps her dainty fingers around mine. Her hand is so fucking tiny, just like her. “How’s Ki-Ki going to protect your house if he’s here with us?”

I lift one shoulder. “I have motion cameras installed on the exterior of the building. If she turns up there, I’ll know about it.”

“That’s good.”

I should remove my hand from hers, but for some reason, I don’t.

Famous last words.

I should’ve listened to my gut, which was screaming at me to drop her hand the moment she took hold, because when we round the corner, heading back towards the safe house, I see Dante in the driveway, sitting on the hood of his sports car with his arms crossed over his chest.

I can already tell by the frown on his usual jovial face as his gaze focuses solely on our conjoined hands that I’m in deep shit.