Chapter 83: Chapter Twenty-Eight

Phoenix

“I’m not going to kill you,” I said it softly even though it didn’t look like she believed me. She was plastered against the wall; her lipstick smudged, her pride probably a bit bruised.

That got her attention. “What?”

“You know who I am?” I crossed my arms and leaned on the opposite wall.

She swallowed. “Yes.”

“You know there isn’t anything that happens in this godforsaken world without my permission? Without my knowledge?”

She lowered her head. “Yes.”

“You know I’ll snap your neck before letting you hurt him?”

Her head jerked up. “Me hurt him?”

“Ah, you thought I was here to talk about your real last name. No, Alice, I’m not here to discuss you, I’m here to discuss him.”

“But—” She held out her hands in front of her like she was trying to use the air to brace herself. “I don’t understand?”

“He’s…” I searched for the right word. “Unfeeling.”

“What?”

“When you touch him, it hurts.”

“I know.”

“No,” I said through clenched teeth. “You couldn’t possibly know the pain associated with human touch for Andrei or the sacrifice he makes when he holds your hand or kisses your body.”

Her face fell. “You’re saying he’ll hurt me.”

“I’m saying he has twenty-two years of pent-up rage and sexual aggression; I’m saying if you want him, want whatever this is between you two, you go all the way.

“You half-ass it and he will murder you and sleep in your blood. And the man who still finds a way to smile even when he has no reason to will be gone, and I’ll blame you.”

“He terrifies me,” she confessed. “I feel like I should be running, and every time I start on the path away from him, it ends up leading exactly back to where I shouldn’t be. In the monster’s arms.”

I smiled at that. “Yeah well, sometimes the monsters are better in bed.”

She laughed.

“I’m not kidding.” I shrugged. “Men are mortal, and monsters…”

She locked eyes with me. “They’re more.”

“So much more,” I whispered. “You need to decide, and soon. Once you’re in deep with him, I can’t do anything.”

“And my other option?”

I stared through her. “I make you disappear, give you a new name, new identity, I give you everything you need to start over. Away from this life.”

Her eyes lit up.

Shit, he was going to hate me.

“Really?” She was going to take me up on it.

Fuck.

“Really.” I nodded.

“Can I think about it?”

“You have twenty-four hours.”

She gave me one final small nod.

I started walking away and then stopped. I knew she was watching, listening to me. “Something to think about…”

“What?” she asked in that soft voice of hers.

“You would be his first.”

“First?”

“Everything.”

“I don’t understand.”

“His only.”

“What are you saying?”

I looked back over my shoulder and made sure I had her full attention. “Deep down, you know.”

“Maybe you should just explain it so—”

“The first woman to bring him to his knees, the first woman to keep him there, the first woman to touch him where no one’s allowed to even look, the first woman to take what’s left of his innocence while handing him the remnants of yours,” I whispered.

“He would give you the final pieces. And if you took them and left, you would be doing more than leaving a monster—you’d be unleashing on the world absolute fucking chaos.”

I walked away.

I didn’t want to see the shock on her face.

Or the truths etched there.

Because I wasn’t sure what would happen if she did walk away.

If she chose herself over something with Andrei.

And when I made it back to Bee’s side, I knew she saw the strain in my face, the energy that had left me completely exhausted.

“You okay?” she whispered, laying her head on my shoulder while Andrei and the guys ordered more drinks.

“Never,” I answered honestly. “I just learn how to deal.”

“I know.”

“What do you love about a man like me?” I wondered out loud in a moment of temporary weakness, vulnerability.

And then my wife turned to me and kissed me softly on the lips. “I love the man. I embrace the darkness, I feed it, I soothe it. You ask me what I love about a man like you?”

“You’re not merely a man, Phoenix Nicolasi. You’re so much more than that. I love every dark twisted part of you, and I would search the depths of Hell for your soul if I had to.”

Stunned, I stared for a few seconds then said, “What don’t you love?”

She grinned up at me. “You steal the covers.”

I burst out laughing and pulled her into my arms. “Is that all?”

“Well, you haven’t kissed me in an hour, that’s pissing me off.”

I kissed her.

And then I earned a glare from Tex.

I just shot him a middle finger and kept kissing his sister, my wife, wondering if Andrei would ever find the same happiness when he was so hell-bent on pushing everyone away.