A Thousand Cuts (Underworld Kings)

The truth crawled all over my skin, slicing it apart. It was agony, the realization that there was no one else I belonged with but this man.

“I know you started this against your will, that you’ve been planning ways to destroy me.” He smoothed my hair with his fingers. “But we both know you no longer want that. Nor do I. The only way out of this, of us, is death.”

My heart was thundering in my stomach. He alluded to knowing about me working with the detective. But he couldn’t know that. I’d be dead if he knew that, wouldn’t I? Cristian wouldn’t be merciful with me if he knew that I was trying to take down an organization that he’d been running for years.

Especially now that I knew how much it meant to him. Understood the history. Especially now that I felt like I belonged in this family.

“I know I told you there was no escape,” he continued. “That I wouldn’t let you run. That if you did, I’d find you. But I’m giving you that chance now. The only one you’ll have. If this isn’t what you want, if this life doesn’t call to you, doesn’t sate you, show you what you’ve been starving for your entire life, then leave.” His thumb brushed over my bottom lip. “If you really don’t think I’m the man for you, leave.”

He stepped back, and my body leaned toward him on impulse.

Cristian’s eyes ran over me, slowly, with intensity, like he was committing me to memory.

“I’ll be waiting for you, Sienna.”

And on that, he turned and walked away.

The bastard.

Cristian

Felix and I were in my office. We’d already had whisky and cigars with Vincentius and Lorenzo.

I was still wary about Lorenzo and where his loyalties truly laid, but something instinctual told me that he was sincere. That he may just be growing into the man we’d thought he could be.

Or maybe he was a wonderful actor. It remained to be seen.

It was now just me and Felix.

“You know why I let that happen, correct?” I asked him, fastening my cufflinks.

Felix held my stare when I looked up. There was no shame or apology in his eyes. Nothing had changed between us despite never having shared a woman with him before.

Sienna was different.

We both knew that.

She’d changed us both fundamentally.

Though Felix gave nothing away, I saw it. It was impossible to be in Sienna’s presence and not have her change you. Beyond that, he was like me. The world had hammered out his humanity, his heart, and left nothing. Yet she’d found something. Grown something.

It was because of what we lacked that Sienna connected with us. That she was tied to us. I saw the way she looked at Felix, the curiosity, the hunger. The need for the barbarian inside of him.

At first, the beast in me was bothered. I wanted to kill the man who’d saved my life, who was my most loyal solider, purely because I didn’t want to share that want. I wanted to be the only demon in her eyes.

If I were a younger man, I might have slit his throat there and then. But I was not, I was an old man. So I sat with my rage. Chewed on it. Realized that as long as I drew breath, I would be the only monster that Sienna wanted. Needed.

For as long as I drew breath.

“Though there are many rumors to the contrary, I am human,” I continued, sliding my gun into the holster underneath my jacket. There was no way I wasn’t going to be armed today.

Things had been quiet, peaceful for a while now. I would never again be lulled into a false sense of security when things were peaceful.

“I plan on walking the earth with my wife for many years to come,” I added, eyes never leaving Felix’s. “But I’m aware that she is a young woman.”

My fists clenched. I had never feared death. A man in my business welcomed it. Every day I woke was a day I was prepared to die. Until Sienna. An early grave no longer beckoned me. The concept no longer comforted me.

“After I am gone, she will make oaths, of that I know.” Felix remained silent yet attentive as always.

Although she’d declared her hatred for me not a month ago, I knew what was in her heart. How quickly hate morphed into something else entirely. It was because of how much she’d hated me that she loved me in a way that clung to the valves in her heart.

“We will have a child by then, so she won’t do anything dramatic or Shakespearean,” I told him. “That’s not who she is. She will go on. But she will be determined to do so alone. To starve the hunger inside of herself. Let the best parts of her die.” I stared at Felix. “I will not let that happen. You will not let that happen. I do not relish the thought of my wife moving on with another man. But I also know that no other man exists who could keep that part of her alive.”