Page 68 of Creole Kingpin
“Good.”
She looks hopeful all of a sudden.Puta perra.
“Are you ... are you going to cut me loose now?”
“I told you not to ask questions.”
My blade flashes, and she gurgles as I slit her throat. She’s dead in less than a minute. I wipe the blade on the chair and slide it back into my boot.
Now I’m going to go find the woman who killed my brother. And she will not die so quickly. No, I will make that last a long, long time.
Forty-Two
Magnolia
Iwake up alone, but I know Moses slept next to me. I remember the heat from his body last night. The pillow still shows the indent from his head.
I can’t believe I slept in the same bed with him for the first time in fifteen years, and we just ... slept. That’s not happening again, I decide.
Despite my anger last night, the words he spoke to Rhodes in that room at the club come rushing back into my head.
“You willing to die for her? Because I am.”
I was too pissed to really think about them until now. And one thing I know for certain—a man doesn’t say that about a woman he doesn’t care about. He doesn’t say it if he’s not all in.
But why did he wait so damn long to come back?As soon as I ask the silent question, Ho-It-All is ready with an answer.
Have you given him a chance to tell you? No, you’ve been throwing everything back in his face and shutting him down. Maybe trytalking to the man.Like, an actual fucking conversation.
I’m tempted to flip my inner voice the bird, but she’s right.
Even though the old us only existed for a flicker of time—two weeks—it was the most real thing I’ve ever had in my life. Even my relationship with Rafe didn’t feel as real as those two weeks I spent with Moses.
Maybe it’s because all Moses and I had to rely on during that crazy time was each other. Two perfect strangers, riding out the aftermath of an insane storm, bonding over a shared experience. I don’t care what anyone says. Until they’ve experienced what we went through, they can’t say dick about what we had together.
And, God, I remember how wetalked. Over the chessboard, especially. It was easy then, even if most of what I said was naive as hell when I think back on it now.
I distinctly remember telling him about the empire I was going to build. How it was the most important thing in the world. I’d just inherited the house from the old madam who got me off the streets and took me under her wing, and I wasn’t walking away and letting that go. Not when I just got my hands on it. Not for anyone.
That was the other naive part. Thinking a house meant more than spending my life with someone who Iknew, even after that short span of time, was unlike anyone else I’d ever met in my life. We were drawn together like magnets. It’s the only explanation I have.
What would it have been like to wake up next to Moses every day for the last fifteen years? How different would life have been if I’d gone with him?
I stop myself there.
Doesn’t matter now.It’s all coulda, woulda, shoulda, and those thoughts are a waste of time and energy.
What I have isright now, and I’m getting my ass out of bed to take advantage of it.
With a final glance at Moses’s pillow, I roll off the comfortable mattress, take care of business in the bathroom, not even pausing to look in the mirror, and automatically grab my phone from where I left it on the nightstand before I go in search of him.
My first stop is the kitchen because that’s where the long hallway leads, but instead of finding Moses there, I find Jules.
I’m proud of myself for not losing my temper last night any more than I did, because facing him this morning would make me feel like an asshole. It’s a good reminder not to be a dick to people I’m going to have to see more than once. Which could literally be anyone.
“Morning, Ms. Maison,” Jules says from where he stands near the center island of the open-concept kitchen and living room area.
“Magnolia’s fine. Ms. Maison makes me sound like I’m fancier than I really am.”
