The Marriage Debt (Underworld Kings)

I immediately check its paw, and sure enough, there’s the scar from the wire.

That same bunny is still here, living in this closet filled with toys and a playhouse all for him.

All this time … Luca took care of it. Fed it. Played with it. Gave it love and affection.

While I thought he only took it to torment me and eventually had … killed it.

I cuddle the bunny close and take in its smell. It reminds me of all those years ago, back when we were stupid kids doing stupid things. If only I knew back then what I know now …

What kind of a man was hiding behind the monster he’d so viciously crafted.

I turn around to face Luca. He stands there with his hands in his pockets, watching me unravel.

My lips quiver. “Why?”

His voice is just as unwavering as his gaze. “You know why.”

I shake my head.

It can’t be true. It just can’t.

He can’t have done this for me.

“But you said you didn’t save this bunny for me,” I say, my voice getting more unhinged with each word that slips off my lips.

His stance grows rigid. “Sometimes, I lie.”

Sometimes, I lie.

The words strike me like the lightning that struck the night Liam died.

He’s said that before.

Way back when … the night he snuck into my room to claim my first kiss.

My first orgasm.

My first everything.

And threatened me not to tell anyone.

I always thought it was all a lie to get into my pants, to claim me before anyone else, because Luca was vicious, and I couldn’t picture him as anything other than that same vicious monster.

But I was wrong.

So wrong.

Tears well up in my eyes as my whole body trembles. “You said that too when you climbed through my window. When you—”

“Stole your first kiss,” he says, stepping closer.

I shake my head. “All those things you said that night were lies.”

“Were they, bunny?”

Bunny.

The name he calls me … All because of this little creature he saved for me.

Suddenly, I become hyperaware of every speck of rain hitting the windows around us. Because the sound is the only thing keeping me here in the present instead of digging inside my memories to unlock the truth hidden beneath his lies.

But I can’t escape the one thing that threads the past and present together.

Luca.

With his dark, wavy hair, those penetrative, hooded eyes, and that killer body of his … It’s even more impossible than ever to look away.

“No,” I say, but the word is barely audible as my throat feels clamped up.

It can’t be true. It just can’t …

“Yes,” he says, approaching me slowly. “It’s all true, even if I tried to deny it, over and over.”

He can’t be …

“I’ve been in love with you since we first met.”

I step back, but I can barely keep my footing as I stumble against the pen. I quickly put the bunny down and step out of the pen as my body veers farther and farther away from Luca and the danger surrounding him.

Never before have I been as frightened as I am now.

Not because of how badly he could hurt me.

But because of how much truth there is to what he says.

To what I feel inside my heart when I look at him.

When he kisses me.

But it doesn’t make any sense. “You bullied me. Hated me.”

He walks closer and closer, cornering me into the wall of this closet. “For years, I watched you look up to my own damn brother with those lovestruck eyes.”

I try to move back, but there’s no escaping him.

Not this time.

“I tried to chase you away, tried to make you hate me, so it’d be easier to let go.” He plants a flat hand against the wall behind me. “I even invited random girls over so I could forget about you.”

“That blonde with the big tits you booty-called…” I mutter, remembering the time he brought her home the night he was supposed to entertain my sister and me.

“I didn’t fuck her,” he answers, tilting his head as he looks into my eyes. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

I can barely breathe.

“I tried everything. And you know what it did? Only make me hunger for more even though I knew what I could do to you if I got my hands on you.” He grabs a strand of my hair and twirls it around his finger. “I hated myself for it.”

He … hated himself?

All the little wheels in my head are spinning as I dig in my memories, trying to find the clues. All the times he yelled, fought, stormed away enraged. It was all right there in front of me, all along. But I refused to see because I was so focused on him toying with me that I didn’t see the bigger picture. The reason behind all the lies and torment.