Chapter 33

Hunter

Kelly was just staring up at me with her big, beautiful, green eyes like I was all she needed in the whole fucking world.

Who the fuck was this girl? Every time she got closer to me, all she wanted was more, and the more she wanted, the more I wanted to give to her.

I knew I should walk out of her life and leave her the fuck alone, but I couldn’t. I had known her one fucking day and I felt like she knew me as well or better than anyone else on the planet. She was mine, and wherever I was going, I knew she was coming with me. It was bad for me and it was awful for her, but there was nothing that could be done about it. It was time she got the full story and understood just what it meant to be forever a part of my godforsaken existence.

I stood up, keeping hold of her in my arms, and drove my mouth down on hers. She wrapped her arms around my neck and sighed softly as I kissed her hard and deeply.

I pulled my lips away from hers and stared into her eyes.

“Kelly. I’m a fucking nightmare. You might think you know that, but what I did to those two fucks in the diner, when I walked out on you earlier, that is nothing compared to who I am and the things I’ve done.”

She slid her arms from my neck and down to my chest, taking her gaze down to my chest too. I put her down on her feet and she sat on the chair. I walked over to her car, grabbing the bottle on the way.

I leaned back on the car, lit a cigarette, and looked over at her. She had her feet up on the chair and was holding her knees close to her chest.

“Hunter, please,” she said, a slight tremble in her voice. “What are you talking about?”

I took a drag of my smoke and exhaled a thick cloud up toward the ceiling.

Well, Hunter boy. This is it. Tell the little lady about the fucking god-awful ride she’s about to take.

“There are people,” I said. “People from Boston. They’re coming after me. They will find me, and when they do, they will try to fucking kill me. But that won’t happen. Because I will kill them. All of them. It’s what I do.”

She sat there trying to process the words that had just come out of my mouth.

Darling, we haven’t even scratched the surface. Don’t let that rattle you.

“So, so you go to the police. Tell them you’re in trouble. Nobody has to die.”

I laughed as I breathed out smoke and caught myself when I realized she was serious.

“What?” she demanded. “That’s what you do when you’re in trouble.”

You are fucking adorable.

“Kelly,” I said. “First off, what about me makes you think that’s what I do when I get in trouble? Second, did it ever occur to you that I’m not in trouble? That maybe I am the fucking trouble? That this is what happens to me because this is who I am?”

She didn’t respond and I didn’t expect her to.

“These people that are coming for me,” I said and paused.

How the fuck could I possibly sum this up in a neat package for her? I decided to let it all fly, and field questions later.

“These people are my family. My old man, specifically. The Donnelly family, and me, are the dirtiest, most lethal and low down fucking criminals in Boston. Those two guys in the diner today, they were nothing. I’ve never boxed, Kelly. I learned how to pound people’s skulls into the ground by doing it for a fucking living. That’s what I do. For money. And I am goddamned good at it. It’s in my blood.”

She just stared back at me. As if she was trying to come to terms with the fact that the man she just surrendered herself to was the same man that was standing in front of her now, saying these horrible things.

“So your dad, your dad wants to kill you?”

It was a lot to take in for the poor girl, but she wanted the truth. And this was it. After everything we’d been through together already, the least I owed her was the truth.

“He’s not really my dad. I have no fucking clue who my real parents are. I’m some orphan piece of garbage that got cleaned up by the wrong goddamn family. My mother, or the closest thing I had to one, was a sweet woman. She was the one who took me in. I don’t remember anything before that, but she’s gone. Been dead for years. The only family I had was the old man and his equally pitiful sons. They reminded me every chance they got that I wasn’t one of them, and I’ve known it since I was old enough to think for myself. I just got, caught. Caught up in the family business because of my certain talents.”

“And what would those be?”

She knew the fucking answer. She knew, but I guess she wanted to hear me say it.

“Violence, Kelly. Fucking mayhem, destruction, murder. The ability to do things that most people wouldn’t dream of in their sickest and most twisted fantasies. I do those things and I don’t give two shits about it.”

She stopped me.

“Hunter, no, stop.”

She was pleading, but it was too late. She’d wanted to know me. Now she did.

“I fucking like it. I can’t explain it. I guess I’m just fucking bad. I’m a bad seed right down to my fucking core and I just landed in the right family to exploit that.”

She was crying, trying to pretend it all wasn’t true. I could tell she wanted to go back to ten minutes ago when we were lying on the car, covered in sweat, stuck in a post orgasmic daydream, but there was no going back. This was where we were, and where we always would be. She had known I was bad news. Now she understood just how bad.

Then she lifted her head and wiped her eyes, suddenly seeming more composed than she had been seconds ago.

“Okay. Fine. So, you’re the devil on earth. The only question I have is this. If you’re so bad, and if your family is so bad, then why are they trying to kill you? Could you have possibly done something good that upset them, Hunter?”

Smart fucking girl. You’re a real smart fucking girl, Kelly.

I sat there on the car and let her words sink in for a moment.

“Well? What did you do, Hunter? What did you do to make your father want to track you down and kill you?”

“I fucked him over. I fucked the prick over like he had been fucking me over since the day the bastard brought me home.”

Then I told her, not sparing any gory detail, about the night that had sent me on the road from Boston. The night that changed my life. The night that brought me to Stone Peak and had me spilling my guts to the most beautiful woman I had ever set eyes on in my whole goddamned life. The girl who was now as much a part of me as any low down, dirty fucking thing I had ever done.