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It could have been him.
It would have been him.
It wasn’t him.
The man who killed Reid, might be dead, but whoever put that rose on my doorstep isn’t. What if he knows about Callisto? What if he’s trying to take my happiness away from me as punishment?Relax Makenna, he’ll find them. Because that’s what Callisto does. He finds people and he makes them pay.
25
Makenna
After a shower and a change of clothes, we’re sitting at The Sommelier with Brynn and a guy named Graham. He’s tall, lean, dark hair, blue eyes, and sophisticated. The complete opposite of her normal tattooed-bad-boy type. And somehow, he knows Callisto. They’ve been talking business and numbers for the last ten minutes.
This place all rich wood, gold trim, and white columns. There’s even an upstairs VIP area, which is where we are now. It’s sectioned off by tables with plush gold banquettes and alligator-leather barrel chairs. The men are sitting in the chairs, across the table from the banquette, where I’m sitting with Brynn. It feels like something from the Roaring Twenties. Great Gatsby-style. No plastic Solo cups. I guess this means we’re officially grown-ups.
She crosses her legs and takes a sip of her cabernet. “I feel like it’s been forever since we’ve had a wine and cheese date. Do you even sleep in your own bed anymore?”
“Yes.” I smirk. “He just sleeps with me.”
“Like, the whole night? Graham gets kicked out after round three.” She looks across the table and winks.
Graham narrows his eyes. The air sparks with heated tension. I’ve seen that look. Callisto has perfected it. It’s a warning. A challenge. A dare.
“Oh, he must be special.” I bring my glass to my lips. “The limit used to be two.”
Brynn laughs and licks her lips at him. He turns back to Callisto, who has been watching me the way Graham watches Brynn.
She angles her body toward mine. Pushes a lock of blonde hair from my forehead. “Seriously, Maks. It’s good to see you happy. You deserve it. And to think he was right in front of you the whole time.”You have no idea.“It’s almost like it was—”
“Fate?”
“Yeah,” she half-whispers.
I glance across the table at him. He’s talking to Graham, but every few seconds, his eyes find mine. I look back at Brynn. “All these years, he’s been—”
“Waiting for you.” Another whisper. She waves a hand in front of her face, like a fan. “You bitch. You’re going to make me cry.” She blinks, then clears her throat. She pours some of her wine into my glass, then raises hers. “To Fate. That messy, brilliant bitch.”
I clink my glass to hers, feeling Callisto watching me. “To Fate.”
* * *
Four hours later, I wake from dreams of eyes like whiskey and sunlight and soft lips on mine. The bed dips behind me when he crawls in. Callisto.I didn’t even realize he’d left. Then again, I never do. Sometimes I think that’s why he fucks me the way he does, to make sure I spend the next few hours in a sex coma, so he can go out into the shadows and do what he needs to do.
He snakes his arm around my waist, his hand creeping beneath the hem of the t-shirt I sleep in—his t-shirt. The fresh scent of clean masculinity floats through the air as he rests his head against mine. My body comes alive the second I feel his lips on the back of my neck.
“I love you. So fucking much,” he whispers with the passion of someone saying it for the first time.Or the last.
At least three nights a week, I lay my head on this pillow, pretending not to worry, grasping at the last threads of my strength while Callisto goes about his father’s business like a thief in the darkness. Every time he comes back home, the routine is the same. He showers, then climbs in bed as though he hadn’t just had another man’s blood on his clothes. He thinks he has to wash away his sins to save my innocence, that somehow the darkness in him will seep into my soul. He doesn’t even realize that the fire that burns within me whenever he’s near is strong enough to purify us both.
I never move. I don’t make a display of letting him know I know he’s been gone. I think he prefers it that way. Maybe it helps with the guilt of leaving. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe we just choose to pretend that it does. Maybe all he needs is a warm body to come home to—a reminder that there’s more to life than the destruction he sees.
I don’t know what happens when he’s out there. I don’t know the details of what he does. I don’t want to. But I know that despite the stone-cold exterior, there’s a beating heart inside, and that’s all I need to know.
26
Callisto
The man who shot Franco was Anthony’s brother. Apparently, he gets loose-lipped after a round of stiff whiskey and told one of our guys all about his revenge-fueled shooting spree. I waited until Makenna was asleep before I handled him. He was in the middle of his weekly poker game in the back room of a low-end strip club. The room went silent when I walked in. Motherfucker knew exactly why I was there. Of course, he denied it. They always do. Now, he’s bleeding out in an alley after eating a bullet. Him and his brother can have a nice family reunion in Hell.
