Chapter 1
Lilyanna
Slowly walking through the door, he shifted and brushed against me. I didn’t pause even though I wanted too. I kept moving, even when it felt like a hole had been drilled through a part of my soul. I couldn’t act because I didn’t quite understand the pull I felt toward this man.
This isn’t the first contact I’ve had with him. We grew up together in a way that made our families close. The Carters and The Valisk’s were allies and have been for years. The bond between the families was cemented originally through the Blazing Devils Motorcycle Club.
The night I was taken, my uncle wiped out another rival family. They had taken my aunt and uncle, then they took out their empire.
Fear started to rise at the memory ingrained in my mind, and I fought it back. This wasn’t the time and definitely not the place to relive such nightmares.
I felt his heat at my back as I walked into the house. Cole was close, almost too close for my own sanity.
“Lilyanna?” Willow’s sweet voice echoed from another room. She sounded so much like my aunt Bethy that I had to remind myself it wasn’t her.
“Yeah girl,” I call back, letting her know I definitely arrived.
“She’s in the living room,” Coles deep rumble had shivers of desire skirting over my body like a warm breeze. It washed over and through me like a tidal wave.
“Thanks,” I told him. My voice was low and quiet, losing some of its excitement.
I hated being this close to him because he made me want things. Things I shouldn’t and couldn’t have. Too many lives had been put at risk to save me from a man like Cole. The last thing I needed to do was find myself falling for him.
He brushed past me while he was heading into the kitchen. The skin to skin contact took another chunk of my soul with him as he walked away.
I’ve killed people in my life, lots of people. The list may almost be as long as my uncles, if not I was definitely catching up. All those deaths didn’t blemish my soul in the slightest, but Cole, he took pieces and pieces until I feared there would be nothing left of me. To become a killer, you had to push aside your humanity and remember that the bullet you placed into another person was only a job. A contract that needed to be filled. Looking at death as anything else would only cause problems, and I didn’t need any more problems in my life.
I was in love with him, and it whispered through my consciousness like a whisper of something great.
But, I won’t succumb to it. I couldn’t with my line of work and most definitely not with his. We killed people, and two negatives didn’t make magic happen. We would never work, and I knew I couldn’t live with the heartache if he ever left me.
It only worked with my aunt and Willow because their hands were clean. No blood and no death tainted them.
As for us, even though I know he felt it too, there would be nothing but much-needed space separating us. Survival was key, and he most definitely represented my drop into that void, knowing my untimely death was the end to it all. Maybe I should let him have me and then I would be free.