I didn’t care about any of it. Not anymore.
All I cared about was my devotion to the woman at my side, and just how the fucking hell we were going to forge a way for ourselves.
This little shack at Kington Peak wasn’t going to be enough of a home to keep us together. People would be coming, seeking, demanding.
People would be wanting to kill us the very moment they caught sight of the truth.
I kissed Elaine’s head and held her tighter.
There was no doubt about it, we’d committed the most forbidden crime we could have committed, and it wasn’t the reverend’s body at our feet.
A Morelli had fallen in love with a Constantine, and a Constantine had fallen in love with him right back.
Our road ahead was impossible, but we’d find it. We had to find it.
Elaine was thinking the same thoughts as me in that beautiful head of hers. She looked up at me with a delicate smile.
“What do we do now?” she asked me. “We can’t stay here forever, right? Not now you’re not going to kill me.”
I couldn’t hold back my smirk.
“No, sweetheart, we can’t stay here forever. Not now I’m not going to kill you.”
She laughed. “Life would have been a whole lot easier if you’d have just killed me on day one, wouldn’t it?”
I tossed the spade to the ground.
“I was never going to kill you. I just wanted you to believe I was. You’re too damn intoxicating for that, Elaine.”
“You’re pretty damn intoxicating yourself, Lucian,” she said. “Cocaine has nothing on you.”
I took her hand and led her back to the porch. The sky was already darkening, the afternoon reaching its close.
In truth I had no idea where the road ahead was leading us, I just knew it would be together.
“Time for the king to take my crown jewel again?” she asked me, tugging me inside with a mischievous smile on her perfect lips.
Yes, it was time for the king to take her sweet crown jewel again.
The king would never grow tired of taking that pretty gem; I knew it right down in my dark, dirty soul.
I took my princess upstairs to our bedroom and tied her up tight to the bed.
I made that woman my own in every way it’s possible to own someone, and then I did it all over again.
And then, when my baby girl was sleeping beside me, I thought about the next vile cunt I’d be killing for her.
I just hoped I managed to end their days before fate ended mine.
They’d be coming after me, and I knew it.
Time was ticking, and it was ticking fast, but not fast enough to take away the moment.
I, Lucian Morelli of the Morelli family, settled down next to the beautiful sleeping Elaine Constantine, and fell into the same dream of love, revenge, and star-crossed paths through darkest night.