Page 163 of To Have and to Stalk
He laughed. “I could just force you, little girl. Same as your ex.”
She shrugged. “You could…but isn’t that so messy and complicated?”
Her features were cool and composed. She had a soft, almost teasing lilt to her voice, as if she wasn’t bargaining with the new Mafia lead.
I watched her, transfixed.
“You’d have to worry about if I squealed,” she said. “You’d have to keep threatening me and reminding me how scary you are. All the while, you’re trying to prove yourself as boss, running a highly illegal operation. I imagine any slight hiccup would be…bad.”
His eyes narrowed into slits.
“And for what?” she continued. “To eventually just end up back here, with your dick blown off.”
This was the brilliant mind I spent hours decoding in her papers. This was the warrior who’d battled a silent illness her entire life. The woman who’d ensnared a man who could have ended her life.
The woman who’d beat him.
And I was fucking mesmerized.
A sharp, vicious smile speared Butcher’s lips. “Three years.”
“Two, and I’m not involved. You never call on me or Calder again.”
Butcher speared his hands into his jeans. His gaze slid from her to me. Something close to appreciation in them.
He answered her, gaze on me. “Deal.”
chapter
fifty-six
SHAY
Once the adrenaline wore off, I think I blacked out. Dissociated. I vaguely remember a car, then Calder helping me out of it. Going back to his massive mountain mansion and peeling off my blood-soaked clothes.
A shower.
Calder still dressed in his suit, only taking off the jacket, black dress shirt drenched and clinging to his body under the spray while he helped clean me off.
The water turning red, then pink, then clear, spiraling down the drain.
And somehow ending up in Calder’s warm bed, wrapped in his arms—sans wet suit.
Did I really just do that?
Did I just…
“Oh my god,” I said aloud.
Calder’s grip tightened around my body. “Shay?”
I sat up straight, untangling from Calder. A panic attack crawled up my throat. I tried to focus on the room. A burnt-orange duvet. Soft, like expensive cotton. A now black sky?—
Blood.
A hot weight landed between my shoulder blades—Calder’s hand.
“Breathe,” he commanded.
