How am I going to end her life when all I want right now is to claim her? I’ve heard other brothers in the club talking about what they call the big bang. The moment you know when you’ve met the woman you want to make your Old Lady. The woman you want to wear your brand and birth your children. I always thought they were full of shit. I’ve felt many a thing when fucking someone though here with her… no—the moment I kissed her outside that damn shithole club, I felt it. I was hit with the goddamn big bang, and I don’t know what to do about it. That’s a lie too. I think I fell for her the moment she walked out of her apartment wearing that stupid costume—Snow White. She’s a goodie goodie. Too good for a bastard like me, but I want her anyway.
“Just kill the girl and I’ll patch you in myself,” the bastard’s voice echoes in my thoughts. All I have to do is take her life. A life that suddenly feels like the most precious thing in the world to me. I could do it now. Put a bullet between her eyes. Snuff out that light behind her eyes that calls to me. Could I live with the after? Would there be a world for me once she’s gone and I am left to my revenge?
I can’t stop thinking about her.
Claiming her.
Fucking her.
Making her mine.
All fuckin’ mine.
“Diego? Everything okay?” I can hear the apprehension in her voice. Sybil should be worried. I’m like a damn ticking time bomb. Any minute I could snap and do what I’m supposed to. What I’m meant to—kill her. A war between good and evil is raging inside me.
I blink. “Never better. Why don’t we sit, and you can tell me about yourself?”
Confusion colors her face. “You want to talk?”
No. I want to get you completely naked and spread out beneath me. “Come on.” I lace my fingers with hers, feeling an electric shock jolt through me as our skin connects. Sinking down on the old worn leather couch, I bring Sybil down with me. A giggle escapes her. It’s a musical sound. One I want to hear her make over and over again. Only I’m not supposed to be thinking about making her mine. I’m supposed to end her life. Her all too trusting gaze meets mine full of such hope, I have to break away.
My stomach rolls and my nostrils flare as I let out a breath.
Sybil squeezes my hand and my gaze immediately pulls back to her face…her lips. Those damn sweet tempting lips.
Desire burns between us, but I don’t dare to kiss her again or I will be completely lost to her.
“What do you do for fun?” I ask, even though I practically already know everything about her.
“I don’t really get a lot of time to myself. I do a lot of charity work. My father was big into giving back, and it is something that always stuck with me. I volunteer at the local animal clinic, do story hour at the library, and I visit nursing homes and take care baskets to the patients there. So many of them have been dumped there and forgotten. Bringing them the smallest everyday things like lotion or a book means the world to them.”
“Takes a special person to care so much for others.”
“I don’t know if I do it because I want to or because I want to keep honoring my father’s memory. It was something we always did together. What about you, Diego. What do you do besides get tattoos or ride your motorcycle?”
I laugh. “Stalk pretty women like you.” I make it sound like a joke but if she only knew I had been stalking her. Tracking her every move…going through her things…she’d hate me.
I change the subject. I want to know everything about her. “Tell me something that no one knows about you.”
Sybil offers me a weak smile. There’s this far off look in her eyes that I don’t like. It’s full of sadness. “I think that my stepmother is wicked. I think she is an evil witch who killed my parents, and one day she’ll succeed in killing me too.”
My eyes widen. I was expecting her to tell me she doesn’t recycle or some dumb bullshit like that. I wasn’t expecting her to know that her life is in danger and yet she came here with me anyway.
“I know how crazy that must sound to you because you don’t know her or what she is capable of.” Nervous laughter flutters from her belly. She looks away, and I’m glad for it. I have a strong poker face but right now I’m not doing so great at keeping my thoughts in check.
How would she react if I told her that I was hired to kill her? Would she scream? Faint perhaps? Beg me not to do it…beg me to get it over with. “Why would she kill them and want you dead?”
“Why does anyone do anything? Greed,” she says the word in a low whisper.
Greed indeed.
“Tell me something about you?”
If she only knew my deep dark secret. “I’m going to kill my stepfather to avenge my father.”
“Seems we have more in common than you know. I plan to kill my stepmother unless she gets to me first.” Her tone is serious as she stares me straight in the eyes full of conviction.
I nearly choke on my beer as I spit it out onto the floor. It takes me a minute