The Marriage Debt (Underworld Kings)

His face contorts with pain. “I’m doing this for your own good.”

“You don’t know what’s good for me,” I say, incensed. “Now let me fucking talk to him.”

I push past him, despite him trying to keep me away. But he keeps guarding me from the side. And that damn gun is still pointed at his brother.

Does he hate his brother that much?

Or is he afraid Liam has come back to steal the crown?

“He’s your brother, Luca,” I spit at him. “I thought you’d changed.”

“Oh, he has,” Liam responds, stepping into a puddle created by the rain. “Three years I hid. Did you know he’s been tracking me?”

I shake my head.

“Taking picture after picture after picture,” he says, getting closer and closer until he’s right in front of me. “Even after we’d already talked.”

“You talked?” I gasp.

I can’t believe this. How long has this been going on?

“When?” I shout at Luca, but then it hits me. Those few days Lita had to come babysit me and Luca mysteriously vanished. My hand slides in front of my mouth. “You were gone. I thought it was business, but you were talking to Liam? And you came home and pretended everything was normal?”

“Tell her the fucking truth!” Luca barks out loud at his own damn brother.

“I don’t need to, little brother. You’re doing all the work for me,” Liam muses as he steps closer.

Luca’s gun clicks. “Take one step closer, and I’ll fucking blow your head off.”

I throw him a look. “Stop. You’re only making this worse for yourself.”

“Yeah, Luca. You’re not making a case for yourself here. Having a private detective stalk your own damn brother.”

“Don’t twist what happened,” Luca growls back. “I’ve been looking for you for years, and I told you.”

“To finish what you started,” Liam says through gritted teeth.

“You’re wrong,” Luca spits. “Don’t listen to him, Jill. He’s trying to get you to hate me out of revenge.”

“I do hate you!” I yell back, tears rolling down my cheeks. “Do you know how it felt to be the one responsible for his death? What I had to sacrifice?” I look him up and down, lift my hand, and take off the ring. “I even fucking married you. But that debt is settled now. I don’t owe you anything anymore.”

I chuck the ring at his chest, and it clatters onto the ground. Luca’s face is filled with gut-wrenching emotions, but my heart hurts equally bad.

Because I gave it all to him.

He made me bleed.

Carved his name into my skin.

Made me believe I could love him.

“You’re bleeding,” Liam says. I’m so distracted by the emotions raging through my head that I don’t even know what he means until I follow his eyes down my pants at the markings Luca left for me. The ones I scratched open.

Fuck.

Liam immediately lunges at me and pulls down the sweatpants before I can protest, showing both Luca and Jasmine what I did to myself. What he did to me. Even though I tried hard to erase his name from my skin, his name is still visible.

Jasmine gasps. “Oh my God…”

“You even marked her?” Liam makes a disgusted face at his brother.

Luca’s hold on the gun only grows stronger as he keeps it pointed right at Liam. “Get the fuck away from her!”

“No, the only one who should be kept away from her is you,” Jasmine says, stepping between us. “You went too far.”

“I brought you here to fucking distract him,” Luca growls. “Do your fucking job!”

“What?” I mutter. What does he mean?

“You only brought me here so you could draw Liam out and kill him, didn’t you?” Jasmine says, folding her arms. She suddenly jumps at Luca, trying to snatch the gun from his hand, but he keeps it high up in the air.

“Get out of my fucking way,” Luca barks, and he shoves her aside so hard she falls to the ground.

In a single second, Liam suddenly pounces onto Luca, punching him in the face so hard blood splatters around. I shriek as the two roll around on the muddy ground, fighting over his gun. Liam grabs Luca’s wrist, slamming it into the ground. When it’s finally knocked away, Liam’s hands wrap around his throat. “Now it’s your turn to fucking die.”

It’s so fucking hard to watch that I have to close my eyes.

Ugh!

A groan.

Liam.

My eyes burst open. Liam rolls around through the mud, clutching his junk. Luca kneed him. Hard.

Luca is already back up on his feet, bleeding from his nose and lip. He stomps on his brother and kicks him in the stomach. “I warned you to stay the fuck away!”

I do the only thing I can think of to stop this madness once and for all.

I approach Luca from behind, tears staining my eyes, as I fish his own damn knife from my pocket and ram it into his side.