Chained Hands (Chained Hearts Duet 1)

If they didn’t kill him, I might have murdered him myself.

“Can I live with you?”

It takes a lot for me to not swear at her, yell at her, so instead, I choose to ignore her. Dillan obviously picked her because she was an easy target.

“Do you have family?” I ask.

She bites her nails again—a horrible habit—before she answers, “A mother. But she’s in a nursing home. She was older when she had me.”

“Maybe you should move somewhere close to her,” I offer as we walk into the rental. I’m not sure how I can afford another place. That’s why as I walk into this beat-down, one-bedroom apartment I don’t wince when I see the state of it. It’s all I can afford, so it will have to do.

“Oh, my god!” A mouse runs along Ellie’s foot, and she screams.

“Go wait outside.”

“You can’t live here. This place is—”

“Go outside,” I tell her again.

Ellie looks at the ground, shivers, and does exactly that, turns and walks back outside, while I look at an apartment I could very well be murdered in.

Great.

Chapter Twenty-One

Keir

“She’s home,” Joey says, then ends the call. Sailor may not run, but I’m not going to bet against it. I could live without the money she owes, but that’s not how business works. She married him, and when I killed him, she took on his debt. That’s how it works, that’s how it has always worked, and there is no getting out of it.

The car eases to a stop, and I get out.

Joey is standing there, and he shakes his head when he sees me. “You didn’t have to come.”

“Go home.”

Joey nods and gets in the waiting car as I walk up the stairs to Sailor’s apartment. Knocking on the door, I wait for it to open.

“Who are you?”

Spinning around to the woman’s voice, I see she’s older but looks familiar, and the man with her places his hand on the small of her back while eyeing me.

“Mom.” Sailor’s voice has me turning back to the door, and that’s when I see that she looks like her mother—high cheekbones, soft lips, and a heart-shaped face.

“Who is this man?” Her mother stabs her finger in my direction.

Before Sailor can answer, I jump in and take a step toward her parents. “I’m Keir, I worked with Dillan.”

The sour look on her mother’s face drops, and a smile takes its place instead.

“Nice to meet you,” her father says, offering me his hand, which I shake as her mother walks to Sailor and hugs her with one arm before she pulls away.

“Where is Dillan? You haven’t ruined everything have you?” Her mother’s tone is full of suspicion, and I watch Sailor wince hesitantly before her mother walks into the apartment. Her father nods to me, kisses his daughter on the cheek then steps up the stairs.

“I’ll give you a minute.” Her father looks back at me before entering the apartment.

The door shuts behind him and she quickly takes the few steps needed until she’s standing in front of me. “You need to leave.” I lift my hand to graze her porcelain skin. I wonder, would it crack? But she pulls away from my touch before I can make contact. “Leave, Keir.”

“No. Invite me in.”

She crosses her arms over her chest, pushing her tits up high as she does. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Sailor, get inside and bring your friend.” Her mother is standing at the door, watching us when I look up at the sound of her voice.

“Invite accepted,” I whisper as I walk past her. When I step into the apartment, Ellie is sitting at the kitchen counter next to Sailor’s father. When she sees me, her body freezes, but she says nothing.

It’s best she doesn’t say one single word.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sailor’s mother asks.

Sailor looks to Ellie, then back to her mother.

“Dillan is dead?” her mother asks in shock.

Sailor’s forehead crinkles, and her chest goes red as anger directed at Ellie sets in.

“And this …” she points to Ellie with her nose wrinkled up in disdain, “… is his fiancée? Gosh, Sailor, how long has this been going on?”

Sailor hasn’t said one single word.

Then her mother focuses on me. “And you …” Again, her mother’s nose pulls up into a wrinkle. “You are fucking my daughter, are you not?”

I could lie, but I simply smile and nod.

This gets Sailor’s attention as she stomps over to me. “How dare you.”

Then, boom.

She slaps me across the face.

Hard.

So hard my head whips around to the left.

I let her slap me once, so now she thinks she can slap me whenever she likes. I loosen my jaw after her smackdown, and when I look back at her, I see that anger is now pointed directly at me. I pull my gun from my waistband, and her parents scream behind me.