Page 194 of Carnal Wagers

“Don’t kill her,” I choked out.

“Why not?” he goaded, his continued gentleness toying with me. “She deceived you. She stabbed you. Don’t you think you should be begging me to?”

In my current condition, I couldn’t stop him if he tried. I had no vials, no bra—hence no concealed knife—no sharp hairpins, and no defense to count on from my fatigue-logged limbs.

“I’m asking you not to.”

His lips whispered a kiss on my forehead, something delicate and sweet and a complete contradiction to his words. “What would you do if I did?”

I clenched my teeth, and despite how hard I tried to keep it all in, a tear leaked out and dampened his pillow.

“I’d never forgive you.”

He shifted down the bed until we were nose to nose. “Couldn’t have that now, could I?”

My chin trembled the more I fought to contain the pot of my churning feelings from boiling over.

“She was groomed, Cillian, since she was an infant. She was brainwashed into believing—”

He pressed a finger to my mouth and hushed me.

“She never had a chance,” I whispered around it. “I know how you want me to feel about her. I know she is not who I thought she was, but I cannot forget what she means to me. I cannot abandon her, not when she could not have helped how she was raised any more than you or I could.”

“I know, love. Calm down.”

I rolled the inside of my bottom lip between my teeth. He was never this unruffled where the Love Knot Killer was concerned.

“She is your half sister,” I tried to reason. “And she is like a sister to me.”

The twitch of his mouth into a tentative smile made my anxiety soar.

“If you do anything to her, I swear I will return it tenfold on Brody.”

He snickered. “Makes sense you’d choose him, but trust me. With time, you’ll get along.”

“I’m not joking,” I gritted out, curling my hand around his finger and squeezing as tight as I could. I might not have much range of motion right now, but I’d claw his eyes out to get my point across. I’d still love him without them.

“Listen to me, sweetheart. I. Know.” He swept a lock of my hair behind my ear, and I held onto him tighter as another tear spilled over my nose and plopped onto the sheets. “My brothers and I already agreed she’ll live for all the reasons above, but we can’t exactly do nothing. She deserves punishment. A taste of her own medicine.”

I nodded slowly, every shift tugging on my spine. “How?”

“Your gunshots already dealt justice for the stabbings. But the poison remains.”

“That’ll—”

“In a controlled hospital setting, she’ll be fine.” His confidence released some of the pressure straining my emotions. “But this needs to happen before any of us can move on.”

Mafia life dealt in absolutes and the basic laws of retaliation and retribution. If this was the limit of their justice, I’d accept it with open arms.

“And then?”

“We get her the help she needs—doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, whatever helps—but she cannot and will not be released back into society until this foolish vendetta of hers is put to rest. Don’t go against me on that.”

I let out a heavy sigh, a wave of tension flowing out with it.

“I won’t. I know she needs this.”

I planted a grateful kiss on his lips. He grunted deep from within his chest, the easy agreement so at odds with the strain digging grooves into his face and darkening the bags under his eyes. There was no sign of another one of his emotional disconnection episodes, but none of this could have been easy on him either.