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He was the Welsh King, the head of a mafia organization. He was a very classy and intelligent criminal, but he was a criminal all the same.
So why did this surprise me?
I didn’t have to ask myself twice. I knew why the sight of weapons triggered me so badly.
Merrick was my home. My safety. But he also reminded me of my father and that was a hard pill to swallow. Not in essence, but in the hidden parts of him that surfaced now and then. The guns, the scars, the self denial, the flicker of cruelty behind his intense gaze.
My eyes were wet as I paused before a display case full of knives. On the top was a short blade in an open velvet box.
I lifted it, gripping the hilt in my fist. There was curling script down the blade and my family crest at the base.
Edwin Gethin Prothero.
My father, the man who shared Merrick’s first and true name. Two Edwins against the world.
My throat tightened. They had been brothers in arms. I knew they’d fought alongside one another to take all the territory below Boston and keep the Irish at bay.
They had shared their lives for fifteen years. Broken bread together, drank together. Probably slept with the same women.
My shaking finger slid up the blade and blood broke from beneath the skin. Just a few drops. Dripping down my palm to my wrist.
“Clara.”
I turned, a tear leaking from my lashes. Merrick stood there looking so goddamn handsome in his burgundy shirt. His mouth was a thin line and his eyes burned. Flame so hot it was blue.
“I thought you were at work.”
“I came back to get my wallet.”
My fingers tightened around the hilt of the blade. It shook as we both gazed down at it.
“Why do you have this?” I whispered.
His hand curled around my elbow, but I didn’t let go.
“Edwin gave it to me before he died,” he said.
I pulled back, suddenly angry although I wasn’t sure why. That intense stare fixed on me as I took a deep breath. Blinking to keep the rest of my tears back.
“This is mine,” I said. “It has the Prothero family crest on it.”
“These knives were left to me.”
I dropped it with a clatter and turned to go, but he seized my wrist. Blood stained his fingertips and his lips as he lifted my hand and kissed my palm.
His tongue darted out, tasting my blood. Licking it from my skin. Our eyes locked and our breath came short and fast in the silence between us.
“Anything I have is yours,” he said. “If that’s what you need to let him go.”
“I’ve already let him go,” I said. “It’s you that can’t. I won’t do this, Merrick, I won’t have the ghost of my father in the room with us. If you want me in your bed tonight, take his shit out of this room.”
It was cruel and I saw the pain in his eyes for a moment before he dropped them. He swallowed and I could make out the pulse in his throat.
“Edwin made me who I am,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “I can tell.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
