Page 39 of Cruel Kiss

Unless I do the inevitable.

But I won't make that choice. I just lie there, wide awake, wet, wanting, and denied, and remind myself that I hate him, I hate him, I hate him.

They're the least convincing words I've ever thought.

11

CALI

I'm extra, super-duper careful walking out of my bedroom when morning comes around. If I grab another crotch, I think I'll go ahead and just end it. Fool me twice, shame on me, you know?

But no crotch waits for me, thank my lucky stars. The hallway is as empty as it ought to be. I heave a great sigh of relief.

But I only make it to the top of the stairs before I stop. My whole body still feels wrong. Wound too tight. Like a Slinky somebody bent out of shape and never let snap back.

Last night was the most ridiculous thing that has ever happened to me. And I've had a lot of ridiculous things happen lately. A scale in Phoenix. A blonde hair in my brush. A man dying on my landing.

But this. Grabbing my ex-lover-slash-current-house-guest-slash-mob-boss by the crotch in the dark because I thought his manhood was a blunt weapon? Getting pinned to the wall? His thumb on my mouth?

Then retreating to my room, humiliating myself with a feverish hand inside my pajama shorts, and then refusing to finish just to spite a man who wasn't even in the room?!

I shake my head at myself.

Who am I? I used to be a woman who color-coded her spreadsheets and packed the kids' lunches the night before. Now, I'mthis. Some feral thing in the dark, mad at a branch, outraged at a pair of reading glasses.

I grip the banister and go downstairs anyway. Because that's the other thing I do now.

I.

Keep.

Going.

Slutty reading glasses be damned.

But halfway down the stairs, I stop again. This time, it's because I hear voices in the kitchen.

It's Ronan and Navi. They're whispering back and forth, but the acoustics are just right to carry their voices up to me. I stop, one hand on the newel post, and make a spur-of-the-moment decision to do a little freelance eavesdropping.

"—payroll's short again," Navi is saying. "Third time this month."

"Cover it out of the Red Hook building."

"I already borrowed against Red Hook, Ro. There's nothing left to borrow. I'm telling you, the well's running dry."

A pause. The clink of a spoon against a mug.

"Another four men took off this week, too," Navi adds. "Just in case you're keeping count."

"Do you think I simply stopped?" drawls Ronan.

"Fuck if I know, dude. All I know is that the guns paid for everything, and without that cash flow to feed families, you're basically handing the Bratva to Lev on a silver platter."

"Let Lev talk," Ronan says dismissively. "It's not until he starts acting that I'll decide to give a shit."

Navi scoffs. "'Start'acting? Ronan, he'sbeenacting. Did you forget that he kidnapped our former money man and sent assassins here to pull the same stunt on your girl and her kids? You say you're keeping count, but I kinda think you're ignoring the real costs of your decisions here, cousin."

I don't hear Ronan answer.