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We would never be safe here.
Even if he let me live.
This wasn’t a life I wanted to be a part of. I didn’t want people executed in my driveway. I didn’t want to put headphones over my child’s ears so they wouldn’t have to hear the gunshots. Staying here would only force me back into the life I ran away from.
I couldn’t stay here.
I hadn’t expected Cato to visit after what happened last night. I assumed he was too busy dealing with whatever problems he was having in his business to think about me. But he walked inside and joined me on the couch. He was in his suit and tie, so he probably had been to the office that morning. It wasn’t the suit he’d been wearing last night, so he hadn’t stayed up all night like I had.
He rested against the back of the couch and watched me, his blue eyes somber. He didn’t seem angry, sad, or anything else. He seemed indifferent. His hands rested together on his lap, his corded veins webbed from his knuckles to his wrist. “I warned you to stay in your room.”
“What makes you think I didn’t?”
“Your face is the color of snow.”
I rested my arms across my stomach, still feeling the remnants of the nausea I had in the morning. I thought it was morning sickness, but maybe it was just disgust in this case. “What happened?” I didn’t think he would answer, but I wanted to ask anyway.
He faced forward. “There’s a group in Siberia that found out about a transfer happening last night.”
“A transfer?”
“One of my clients paid back his debt. The truck delivered the cash to my main bank. Somehow, the Siberians found out about it and tried to intercept it. I knew about the heist before it happened, so I was able to catch them.”
“Why didn’t you just call the transfer off?”
“Because I needed to exterminate them. The only way to make sure a cockroach doesn’t survive is to cut off its head.”
My arms tightened over my stomach.
“So my men took out theirs. The transfer went through. And they located the people in charge and brought them here for their execution. I like to do my own dirty work. People know I mean business.”
“So those five people…were in charge?”
“They were working directly for their boss. I asked for information, but they wouldn’t give it.”
“Even the woman?” I whispered.
He shook his head. “Said she didn’t know anything.”
“How do you know she was lying?”
He shrugged. “I don’t. But I can’t take any chances.”
My heart fell into my stomach. “Won’t the people in charge come after you in retaliation?”
“With what men?” He rubbed his palms together. “I killed them all, including the accomplices they trusted. They know I’m onto them, and it’s only a matter of time before I track them down. If they’re smart, they’ll disappear. Everyone knows you only have one chance to take me out. If you fail, I won’t stop hunting I’ve killed you and your entire family.”
“What about Micah and Damien?”
“That was an exception, one I’ll never make again.”
The nights we spent alone together made me think Cato was a regular guy. We had deep conversations, tender embraces, and he said the sweetest things to me. He was soft and gentle, kissing me like he loved me and fucking me like I was the only woman he wanted for the rest of his life. But that couldn’t mask the truth—he was a crime lord.
He turned back to me, reading the distress on my face. “What is it?”
My answer came out as a whisper. “Nothing.”
He reached his hand out and touched me on the ankle. “Baby?”
“What do you want me to say?” I pulled my ankle away so he would let go. “That I’m terrified of you?”
It was the first time he’d shown me that look of sadness, like he was genuinely disappointed by the way I felt. “You don’t need to be terrified of me.”
“You whipped me with a belt for talking back to you. Then you executed a bunch of people.”
“Not a bunch,” he said. “Just a few.”
“Oh, so that makes me feel better?” I asked sarcastically.
“And I only whipped you because you threw a plate of food in my face—in my own house in front of my butler. You thought I wouldn’t punish you for that?”
“You were being a huge bitch.”
He cocked his eyebrow. “A huge bitch?”
“There’s no reason to talk to me that way.”
“There’s no reason to question me. You had no right to do that.”
“No right?” I asked. “I’m carrying your baby. I can ask you whatever the hell I want. Is it really that terrible that the woman you’re sleeping with actually wants to sleep with you? Because it’s one of the things she misses the most? Is it really that terrible that I wanted to ask if my brother could visit me because I feel alone?” I got off the couch because I was finished with this conversation. “Just get out, Cato. I was already upset with you, but now I really want nothing to do with you.” I stepped into the bathroom and shut the door because that was the only room in my bedroom with a door—unless I wanted to walk into the closet.
