A Thousand Cuts (Underworld Kings)

Her voice was approaching a decibel that dogs miles away could hear.

I stared at my friend, who had quickly become hysterical when, as a rule, she did not get hysterical. She was passionate, yes. Outspoken, also yes. But being a struggling single mother in Manhattan meant that bouts of hysterics were a luxury she could not afford.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She smacked my arm with a force that her small stature should not have been capable of.

I scowled at her, rubbing the affected area. “I thought you knew.”

Her eyes bulged out almost comically. “You thought I knew that our best friend, our very sexy, accomplished, all-around perfect best friend was in love with me?”

I nodded slowly, even though I was starting to understand that this response was only going to make the situation worse.

“Let’s say I did know,” she snapped. “You didn’t think that in the years we’ve been friends I would’ve wanted to talk about this situation?”

“I don’t know,” I hedged. “Maybe it was something you wanted to keep private.”

“Private?” she squawked. “You helped me get my DivaCup out when it was stuck inside me, you were there for the birth of my son, you were there when we watched the sex tape my asshole ex filmed of us without my knowledge... There is no privacy between us!”

I glanced around the restaurant at all the people staring. She was yelling now. I wasn’t bothered since I didn’t embarrass easily, but I was also aware that this was my fiancé’s restaurant, and there were likely multiple people who would report such a scene.

“Jessica, calm down,” I pled.

Her face scrunched up like she’d smelled something rotten. “Do you think that anyone has actually calmed down by being ordered to?” she replied snarkily.

I sighed, thankful for the arrival of the waitress with more drinks. It gave me a small respite, and gave Jessica the opportunity to breathe.

“I truly thought you’d find your way to each other,” I told her when the waitress left. “That eventually, things would work out. But life doesn’t always work that way. And I refuse to let my friends continue to dance around each other, to watch Aiden get hurt as you date yet another asshole. So the information is out there. Do with it what you will.”

Jessica stared at me for a long time. She was thinking, digesting. I wasn’t sure where she’d arrive.

“So when do I get to meet Cristian?” she said finally, landing on denial for now, it seemed.

“Soon,” I replied, meeting her denial with some of my own.

Hopefully she’d never meet the man who was currently threatening her life.

If she did, it meant I’d failed.

So why, after everything, did I secretly wish for failure?

Chapter Sixteen

Cristian was waiting for me when I got home.

Home.

I didn’t want to think of the estate as home. Certainly shouldn’t have. It was a prison. Nothing more. Nothing less.

But I was getting worse and worse at lying to myself. Dinner had exhausted me. Made this all more real. I’d delayed meeting with Jessica because I knew that speaking with her would cement this situation in reality. At first, I’d been sure I’d find a way out of it, and Jessica wouldn’t know a thing.

But now the way out was blocked. The road a lot more complicated than I’d once thought. I hadn’t considered what I’d begin to feel for Cristian. About who I was when I was with him.

He was in the sitting room. I could’ve walked right past him, gone to my room, nursed the anger remaining after our altercation before I left.

But, of course, I didn’t.

“How was your dinner?” Cristian asked.

He was sitting in the dark, a few flickering candles barely illuminating the large room.

“You don’t have reports from whatever spies you had positioned at the restaurant?” I sassed.

Cristian’s long sigh echoed across the room. He didn’t answer, not right away. He got up from his seat, moving slowly toward me.

I didn’t move, though some ridiculous part of me ached to walk toward him, to jump into his arms like some fucking heroine in a romance.

But I was no heroine. And whatever it was between us wasn’t romance, so I stayed put.

Unfortunately, Cristian stopped short of touching me. He left a sliver of distance between our bodies, and I resented him for that. Resented myself even more for craving the intimacy of it.

“No, Sienna.” His voice was low and raspy. “I am not having people spy on you when you have conversations with your friends. Telling Jessica has made it real for you. I wonder now if you have properly accepted your fate. Your future with me.”

I blinked rapidly at him in the dull light. The house was inky, the candles bathing the room in flickering yellow lights. His face was drenched in shadow, I couldn’t see his expression clearly. His tone was resolute, granite.