Chase
I stared at that damn bed longer than I should have.
Maybe because it seemed so foreign to me.
Having something done for me, rather than I doing it for someone else.
I was a creature of habit. I’d always been that way, so I’d been irritated as hell when she didn’t get up at six like I always did, and then even more angered to realize that I was watching her sleep, a woman I still wasn’t sure should stay living.
So, disgusted with myself, I ran downstairs and made coffee, poured a healthy dose of whiskey in mine, and managed to clean up the rest of the glass in the living room before going to kick her out of my bed.
But she was up.
And she was… fluffing the damn pillows as if she owned them!
Rage took over.
Simmering into anger.
And then, such a deep-rooted sadness that it hurt to breathe.
“I’m like your bitch.” I laughed when Mil ran around the bed and grabbed her gun, strapping it to her chest and pulling her sweater over it. She looked so sexy when she was serious, which was almost all the time now that she was boss. “Why am I doing the chores again?”
She winked and then kissed me on the mouth. “Because… Mama’s gotta go bring home the bacon.”
Normally I’d laugh, but it hit a nerve. I grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. “You realize we have millions upon millions of pounds of bacon, right?”
Her smile was forced as she jerked away. “You do. I don’t. My family doesn’t. This is my responsibility.”
“And what about us?” I challenged. “Our responsibility to each other? What’s mine is yours?”
“Not this again,” she muttered.
“The hell?” Now I was pissed.
“This!” She waved her arms wide. “Chase, I’m a boss I can’t just take a—”
I felt as if I’d just been punched in the gut. “A what? A made man’s money? A cousin to the boss’s money? What? What were you going to say?”
“Nothing.” She looked down. “Look, I’ll be back later tonight. I love you, okay?”
Her smile was back.
God, I hated that smile.
The one meant to make me think about sex, about how good it was between us in bed, when I’d never felt so much distance between us, outside the physical relationship.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Go.”
And I made the bed.
Again.
I washed the blood out of her clothes.
Again.
I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror.
Again.
I shoved the memory away and kicked one of the pillows askew. I hadn’t needed shit from Mil, and I didn’t need shit from Luciana.
I walked out of the room with a purpose and was quickly halted in my tracks when Luciana screamed.
I reached back and grabbed the gun from the back of my jeans and slowly made my way down the hall until I stopped at the bedroom she was in.
It was the one where I’d tried to convince her to sleep last night.
She was completely naked except for a blanket she held in front of her olive skin.
I dropped my gun to my side.
And then she pointed a shaking hand at a mouse.
Was there anything this woman wasn’t scared of?
I sighed and hung my head. “You screamed because of a mouse?”
“It ran over my foot!” she yelled at me, showing spunk for the first time since she’d made her way into my house, my life.
I tilted my head. “You were trapped in a pantry for God knows how long, slept with an assassin last night, and you’re screaming over… a mouse?”
“You’re an assassin?” she repeated in a weak voice.
“What the hell did you think I did? Shoot people for my own personal enjoyment?”
“I-I thought that was a one-time thing… like terrorists.”
I burst out laughing; it wasn’t pretty sounding.
And it didn’t sound the way I remembered, easy.
Her eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Finally,” I mumbled. “Get angry, never get sad.”
She frowned as I nodded toward the mouse. “Sadness doesn’t beat the fear, princess.”
The mouse moved.
She ran behind me.
I tensed when she put her hands on my biceps.
I stared straight ahead, well aware that the blanket she’d been holding was still within eyesight, which made her completely naked.
I sucked in a breath through my teeth and pointed my gun at the mouse. “Sadness gets you stuck. Fear does the exact same thing. If you’re fearful, you run. If you’re sad, you’re paralyzed… and nobody wants that life. It’s better to get angry, to charge straight ahead, guns blazing.” I fired a clean shot into the mouse and turned to face her, my eyes straight ahead. “You should get dressed now.”
She looked down, covered her breasts, and then closed her eyes as crimson washed over her face. I might have been dead inside, but I still had some semblance of life in me, because I wanted to look.
I didn’t.
But I wanted to.
And I hated that want.
The feeling it brought.
The memories right along with it.
“Scream again over a fucking mouse, and the next gunshot goes here.” I put the gun to her head and winked. “When I hear you scream next time, I’m going to assume someone’s trying to kill you. Got it?”
She nodded, her eyes still clenched shut, as I walked toward the door and slammed it behind me.
Memories of her soft lips punished me the entire walk back to the kitchen for more whiskey.