The Heir She Loved (Shadows of Sin #4)

2 Olivia

June 22nd, 2022

I groaned, stretching painfully in my bed before collapsing back into my blankets.

I was so sore. Exhausted, and…hollow.

I felt hollow.

I blinked heavily, turning my head to find Lucy lying on the other side of my bed. It was early morning, and the last thing I remembered was Everett carrying me out of the woods.

Another delusion?

I yawned and stretched again, everything screaming in pain. No, I wouldn’t have been in this much pain if it wasn’t real.

So…if it was real, if what happened yesterday actually happened, then now what?

Where did I go from here? Because if he went back to the ‘means to an end’ dialogue, I wasn’t sure if I would survive that.

I closed my eyes and rubbed them with the heels of my hands only to pause when I felt my clothes shift against my skin.

My brows pulled together as I lifted my arms and then looked down at my body covered in blankets.

I shifted again, frowning. Everything felt weird. I grabbed the edge of my blanket and threw it off of me, taking in my state of being.

A new pair of his sweats, his shirt from yesterday, cleaned and smelling only of him.

I forced myself to sit up, my muscles screaming in pain, and reached back for my hair. No sticks or moss, still a little tangled, but obviously brushed out.

My heart skipped. Had he…had he taken care of me?

I immediately covered my face. “No,”

I told myself. “Don’t do this to yourself,”

I mumbled, swinging my legs over, Lucy jumping off the bed beside me. I must have cleaned up haphazardly before falling into bed, it was the only thing that made sense.

I inhaled deeply and let my hands fall to either side of me, my eyes finding Lucy’s. Okay, bath. That’s what I needed, a nice, long bath, a good scrub, I needed to wash my hair. It was a good plan.

Lucy and I trudged our way to the bathroom, filled up the tub, and began the slow process of peeling off the clothes. All I could think about was how he had looked at me when he had fucked me yesterday.

“Olivia Rose, I claim you. From now until death finds us.”

I didn’t know what that meant, but by the letter he had carved into my skin, I assumed it was important.

“Then I claim you, Everett.”

I couldn’t help but smile as I peeled the bandages off and took in the inflamed ‘E’ on my inner thigh. It was the size of my palm, jagged, and absolutely beautiful. It made my stomach warm and my chest flutter in excitement, and for the first time since meeting him, I was looking forward to seeing him again.

But part of me worried about it too. What if it was the high from the hunt that had him like that? What if I was the one who pushed him to it with all of that ‘jealousy’ bullshit?

What if it wasn’t real?

I hissed when I climbed into the tub filled with soothing watermelon bath salts, and hydrating oils. Lucy joined me on the floor, watching me as I allowed the water to do its thing. God, it felt good. My legs were as sore as they had been when I first started running. I needed to stretch more.

Maybe yoga would help with that.

I dipped under the water and quickly washed my hair. I’d do a more thorough wash later, but right now, I was inspired.

When I was able to run my fingers through my hair, I came up, gasping for breath, and settled back against my tub, closing my eyes, allowing my muscles to relax.

20 minutes was all I could stand before I got out, dried off, bandaged my wounds, pulled on Everett’s sweats and my tank top, and headed to the kitchen.

I made myself some coffee and finally sat down at my laptop, my fingers flying over the keys.

He found her, he wanted her, he claimed her.

Maybe that would be my tagline.

It was a good one.

My door opened however long later.

Long enough for my untouched coffee to grow cold and 3,000 words to be typed up and ready to send.

I glanced over for half a second, noting that it was Evelyn, before turning back to the laptop. “Hey,”

I mumbled, 90% of my mind still on the story, still in the zone.

I could go for hours, I was sure. Today was a good day. A good writing day. Katie was going to be happy; I was sure of it.

“You look like you were inspired,”

Evelyn said to my right.

I nodded. “A bit.”

I learned a long time ago that when I got into these sprees, when someone spoke to me in the middle of one, I came across as rude or disrespectful, but that’s not how I meant it. I was writing. I was creating something. Building, nurturing. It wasn’t as simple as what people thought. It was real to me. This was all real to me. I was living this life on the pages and being wrenched from it in the middle of an idea was the worst thing that could—

A black box appeared in my peripheral vision.

I saw it, kept typing, and then registered it, my fingers slowing at the sight of it.

My brows furrowed, eyes lifting to find Everett standing on the other side of the table, watching me through that mask like I was his next meal.

My skin immediately heated up. “What is that?”

I asked, pushing my laptop to the side. I had to remain calm and collected until I could get a gauge on him. On how he felt.

“Something the observant little writer didn’t see when she woke up, apparently,”

he stated, straightening. “And there’s this too,”

he said, sliding another box across the table, this one larger and metal.

I looked between the two, my heart dropping as realization dawned. My face hardened and I fell back into my chair, Evelyn walking around me to my other side. My eyes lifted to his. So, he regretted it then. All of it.

What he said, the thing he carved into my skin, all of it.

My eyes lifted to his, the anger simmering under my skin. Steven usually bought me flowers when he apologized. A bracelet once. Chocolates. I hated chocolate. But while one of these boxes was clearly too large for a bracelet, the other was the perfect size for one.

I honestly didn’t expect him to be the gift-giving type.

“Holy shit,”

Evelyn laughed as we continued to glare at each other. “Girl, this is hot. He strapped her to a stump and fucked her with a gun?”

My eyes widened, my cheeks burning red. I slammed the laptop shut, pulling it towards me. Goddammit.

“Kinky,”

she purred, walking behind me, her fingers drifting across my shoulders. “I like kinky.”

She walked back to my other side and gently took my chin, turning my head to the side to inspect my bandage job. “I also find scars…”

she leaned down, holding my head up, only pausing when our lips were inches apart, “irresistible.”

I swallowed, already worked up from the scene in the book I was reliving. But she wasn’t the pair of lips I wanted.

Before I could pull away Evelyn disappeared, Everett replacing her, towering over me like some sort of god.

He tore the laptop out of my hands, setting it down, and reached for the first box. He pulled on the red ribbon wrapped around it, letting it fall away, before pulling the lid off to reveal a small metal chess piece, platinum, just like the pawn, only this one was a Queen.

My heart skipped a beat.

He stepped up behind me, a pair of snips appearing on my right, and he grabbed my jaw with his other hand, easily clipping the metal holding the pawn on.

It fell straight to my lap.

He set the snips down and reached for the Queen, clipping it onto the metal loop and tightening the clip down.

Everett leaned over, my hand finding the new charm. “Good girls, even ones paying a debt, get upgraded when they behave,”

he hummed, my breath catching at his words.

Evelyn had stepped back, watching the exchange with suspicion in her eyes, but she kept her mouth shut.

I glanced up as Everett straightened, my brows furrowing. Paying a debt? This just confirmed it. It was just another payment made. The marks we had carved, the words we had said, meant nothing. Nothing at all.

Everett walked back around the table and shoved the other box towards me. “Your gun.”

I forced my hand down, glaring at him, and reached for the box in irritation. I opened it up, finding a beautiful silver .45 ACP with an extra mag and a box of bullets. It looked exactly like the one he had shoved inside of me weeks ago. Exactly like the one I had nearly shot him with yesterday.

I frowned, shoved it back and found his eyes. “Take the collar off.”

I had a signing in a couple of weeks, and I needed—wanted this collar off. I didn’t want anything to do with it anymore. I wanted it gone.

His eyes flashed before they hardened to ice. “No.”

“Why?”

I asked. “I have a signing in two weeks and I’m sick of walking around this city looking like a goddamn dog.”

“Like I’ve said before; ‘woof woof’.”

He cocked his head to one side. “If you want a more subtle collar, earn it.”

I shoved myself to a stand, nails digging into the wood. “You are insufferable.”

“We aren’t here to make your life pleasant,”

he replied, leaning over the table. “We’re here to get what’s owed to us and figure out why the Delepski’s have targeted you. When all of that’s said and done—”

“You’ll kill me, I know the drill.”

His eyes flashed, but I was too angry to care.

I straightened, grabbed my laptop, and met his eyes. “Whatever you say, Master. Just tell me where you’d like me, how you’d like me, and when you’d like me. I’m here to fucking serve.”

The rage rolling off of him was palpable. “Evelyn, get out,”

he ordered her.

I could feel her eyes on me for a few seconds before she released a breath. “Fine, but we actually have work to do, so don’t turn this into a huge session.”

I listened to her tapping heels fade away, each one causing my heart to beat a little faster, but I held my glare. I couldn’t keep doing this. I wanted it to be done. I needed it to be over with.

When the sound of the door shutting found our ears, Everett slowly prowled around the table, his unblinking gaze trained on his prey. “If you’re going to act like a brat, I’ll treat you like one,”

he told me, his voice sending chills down my spine.

I took a step back, clutching my laptop to my chest. “You’re being a controlling dick,”

I told him. “Just because you made some sort of sick claim over me doesn’t give you the right to treat me like shit.”

He tore the laptop out of my hands, placing it on the table, and continued his slow pace towards me. “I thought you liked being taken advantage of. Being used. You get off on it.”

I swallowed, my legs trembling in memory of what he had done to me yesterday. “You brought me gifts,” I spat.

“Use your words, Olivia,”

he hummed as my back hit the wall. “I don’t do guessing games.”

I pressed myself into the wall, searching his eyes. “I doubt you actually give a shit about my feelings.”

“I give a fuck about them when they affect how you react to me,”

he replied icily, coming to a stop in front of me. “I don’t like when something happens in your head that I don’t know about, real or fake, it all matters to me. It’s all important.”

My shoulders fell an inch at his words. I couldn’t get a read on him.

No, that was a lie, I could get a read on him. Everything he did had a purpose. There were no games in his words, no way to misinterpret what he was telling me. The only time he had ever actually hurt me, I had asked for it. I wanted it.

I swallowed again, my mouth suddenly dry. I glanced at the kitchen doorway before finding his eyes again. “He gave me gifts when he wanted to apologize for what he did,”

I confessed, eyes falling to his dark red tie. “But it was never an actual apology. He was always sorry that I caused him to do whatever it was he was apologizing for. You said something yesterday…I thought you were taking it back. ‘I’m sorry that you pushed me to this point’ or something like that.”

He was quiet for so long, I almost looked up to see what his eyes were saying, but just before I did, he grabbed my jaw and lifted my face until my eyes found his anyway.

They were flaming, but not in the chilling, angry way they usually did, this was different. It caused my heart to thrum and butterflies to erupt in my stomach.

It made my head spin and my pussy pulse. It made me feel something real. “I was very aware of the decision I made yesterday,”

he told me carefully.

“I don’t regret it, I never will. I told you I owned you, Olivia. Your orgasms, your heartbeat, the very air you breathe, I own it, and if you had opened that box in your bedroom, you would have found a letter in there, with specific instructions on how this works, with that being said, it’s under your pillow. You will read it tonight under your blanket, do you understand me?”

Waves of relief washed over me as I searched his eyes. “I understand,”

I breathed out. Not an apology. It was confirmation. His gifts were confirmations of what happened yesterday. An addition to the promises he had already made.

His throat bobbed, his eyes shifting. “It’s sacred,”

he finally mumbled, his eyes falling to my lips. “And it stays between us until I say.”

He stared at my lips long enough to cause them to part. To cause my breath to hitch and my eyes to fall to his own lips. Fuck, I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to kiss him more than anything else in the world.

“You are the air in my lungs, Olivia,”

he spoke quietly, his lips caressing each word, his voice a song that spoke melodies to my heart.

I felt as if I were floating. “Then let me help you breathe.”

I heard the door open, and Everett’s grip tightened, my eyes lifting to his. His gaze had changed, chilling and unforgiving. “Do you understand?”

So, they weren’t allowed to know. Not yet. I had to play the game, just like he wanted me to do. I needed to be a good little pup for him.

So, I hardened my own eyes, challenging him, fisting my hands at my sides. “Yes,”

I said through my teeth.

And I could have sworn a flash of pride shimmer through his eyes before he hardened his gaze and finally released me.

I worked my jaw, fighting the urge to rub it as we both turned to face Evelyn, Mr. Kingsmen, and a beautiful woman I had never seen before.

I looked between them, my eyes lingering on the woman’s beautiful brown eyes before finding their way back to Evelyn. “Sure, come in,”

I said dryly, hiding the fact that I was very aware of what I was wearing, and now that I knew for sure that we had to hide it, how was I going to explain away the fact that I was wearing Everett’s sweats?

Not to mention that Lucy was the absolute worst guard dog on this planet.

Evelyn looked between the two of us suspiciously again. “We need to talk to you about our steps moving forward.”

I bit back the retort as I headed for the coffee pot. I couldn’t react like I normally would now, not with Malachi in the room.

So, I took a deep breath. Shutting off Everett’s Olivia, and turning on a quiet, reserved, more respectful Olivia. I could take whatever frustrations I had out on him later, but for now, I was going to breathe and try not to simmer in the words Everett had just told me.

“You are the air in my lungs, Olivia.”

“Then let me help you breathe.”

“I didn’t make that much coffee, so I can offer two cups,”

I said, turning back to the four as they stood around my table, Lucy sitting a few yards to my right, her tongue out, her tail wagging, as if to say ‘Look at all of these brand-new friends’.

“I would love some,”

Malachi smiled. “Thank you, and one for Diedra too.”

Diedra. My eyes flicked to the woman. She looked so…detached from them, but not in a bad way. More in the way of the fact that she didn’t seem apart of whatever family Everett, Evelyn, and Malachi had. She was separated from that, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she laid down at night wondering what it would be like to be a part of something like that.

I nodded and turned back to the coffee pot, pulling out a couple of mugs. “I wasn’t expecting company, so I apologize for my appearance. You may all have a seat.”

“Well, we weren’t truly planning this either. Everett told us yesterday of the men hunting you down, and I am terribly sorry that it happened. We thought we would swing by and discuss it with you.”

I filled up the two cups. I had been trying hard not to linger on the actual hunt of it. I didn’t want to linger on anything other than what had happened between Everett and I. “I’ve done my fair share of research into loan sharks,”

I told them. “But I honestly didn’t expect for your customers to go after people seen with your sons.”

Evelyn had already told me they weren’t just loan sharks, but it was easier to just start from the beginning. Maybe I could get more information if I acted dumb.

I slid the coffee pot back and picked up the glasses heading back for the table.

“That’s what we’ve come to talk to you about. Evelyn has assured me that you can be trusted, and now that these particular people are after you, we have no choice but to tell you the truth of the matter.”

I set the cup down in front of Diedra, my eyes lifting to Malachi. “The truth?”

I asked, walking over to him.

“Thank you,”

he smiled, “it smells divine.”

I spent a good chunk of my money on the best coffee I could find, it should smell divine. I straightened and found my own chair, across from them, Everett and Evelyn standing against the wall, one near the entryway, the other closer to me, like a pair of watch dogs.

“Olivia, you’re smart enough to know that being loan sharks isn’t all we do.”

Lucy came to join me, sitting right up against my leg as I looked between the two. I glanced at Evelyn and back, scratching Lucy’s head. “I know that real loan sharks, at least from the information I was able to find, don’t allow their clients to pay via sex,”

I stated, feeling Everett’s eyes burning into the side of my head. “And, as I mentioned before, clients going after you is shocking. The masks to protect their identities,”

I nodded towards Everett, “having ‘sisters’ to protect them.”

I searched his eyes for a few seconds before shaking my head. “Yes, I understand that loaning money isn’t all you do.”

I adjusted myself in my chair. “So, what are you then? Who are you? What am I allowed to know in order to continue on with this?”

He took a drink of his coffee before setting it down. “You write books.”

“I do.”

“So first I need assurances that whatever we speak in this room will not end up in one of your books.”

This was it. Confirmation that I was going to die. They had secrets they couldn’t risk getting out, but now they had to tell me for whatever reason they had to tell me. Once I knew this information, I was a liability.

But…but with what Everett had done. Did that mean I got to live? So then what would happen? Malachi would tell me this information and then find out what Everett had done. What came after that?

His eyes were so blue, I realized as I slowly spiraled, but not icy blue like Everett’s, or the chilling devilish blue of Azrael’s, his were…I don’t know. I couldn’t explain it. Looking at them now, it was like I was looking at an entirely different being. Someone I recognized but didn’t. It was like every ounce of him was begging me to trust him, but there was something else there, something familiar and dark.

Maybe I was just making it up. I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t trust my own mind, my own thoughts. I couldn’t trust anything. “I assure you that there will be no truth in my books,”

I told him. “But I write psychological thrillers. My job is to write about the darkness of this world. I can’t promise that whatever you are going to say won’t, in some form or another, end up in my book, but I can promise you that nobody in this world will think it anything but fiction.”

He watched me carefully for a moment before glancing to Everett.

My eyes found his as well, watching as the icy blues turned to Malachi. They exchanged a mountain of information within that voiceless exchange before Malachi finally turned back to me. “Very well. I can understand a writer and her prospects,”

he smiled, his warmth returning. “I could never douse the inspiration of the artists of this world.”

I nodded, keeping my hand on Lucy. Was this some sort of trick? A test? I couldn’t completely be sure. All I knew was that I now had a secret weapon that he didn’t know about. His son.

There was only one question that remained. Was this sacred thing he had done more sacred than his loyalty to his father?

Part of me doubted that.

Another part of me held the delusion that yes, yes this thing was far more powerful than the loyalty between he and his dad.

But was that the writer in me talking? The romanticizer? Or was it something far deeper that couldn’t be explained in words alone?

“You should first know that the Kingsmen’s are an alias we use when coming to Colorado Springs,”

he began formally. “A name well known around these parts as a loan shark, but that is certainly not what we are known for around the world.”

I kept my expression smooth and folded one leg over the other as I lifted my chin. “So, who are you? Would I know of you?”

I figured as much in the last two weeks when I was left with nothing but the information I had and my own mind.

Evelyn had given me enough to bloom an entire world of make believe regarding their family. It wasn’t hard to draw a few conclusions while they were away.

He chuckled. “Perhaps, you’ve done your research. We live in the deepest depths of the criminal world, Olivia, ruling it, controlling it. They know me as Malachi Adler, Everett is my son, adopted like the others, as Evelyn is my daughter. Diedra works for me. My wife in this city. She remains here, running the business and, when need be, we either come for a short visit, or a long one depending on the necessity. You’ve caught us on a long one.”

I glanced to the beautiful woman and back. She had taken on a warmth too, a soft smile, a relaxed posture. And why wouldn’t she be relaxed? She was his fake wife. She was probably protected too.

Adler. Yeah, I had read the name before. On some obscure blog on some backwoods site a couple of years ago. He wasn’t a Crime Boss or even a Crime King. He was a god in the criminal underworld, of that, I was sure.

And look at me, getting involved with them.

Malachi cocked his head to one side, his smile remaining. “You have heard of us?”

“Your name came up once, years ago,”

I confirmed. “Yes, I know who you are.”

He wasn’t just dangerous, he was the nightmares crime lords had in the middle of the night. Now I understood why his sons wore masks. They couldn’t risk being identified, but eventually…

My eyes found Everett’s. Eventually they would be. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually, they would be caught, their faces plastered across the underworld, completely recognizable.

I felt a little more understanding as to why he was so strict about when he took it off now.

My eyes returned to Malachi. “So, the Delepski’s have been following me. Not a client or a customer, I assume.”

“No,”

he answered. “Well, a customer of sorts. They were doing terrible things, and Everett here, along with his brother and sister, went to Russia to send them a message. A message they didn’t quite receive. I’m not sure why they sent two Americans after you,”

he went on, glancing to Everett and back, “but it’s been made clear that the van that you’ve been seeing, the woman that spoke to you a few weeks ago, and the men in the woods yesterday, are all connected to them.

“It seems to me that due to the contract between you and my son, they, not knowing about our business here, have misconstrued the situation. They believe that Everett and you are more than just client and boss. So, they see you as leverage against us. A weak target to either break or kill him.”

I laughed, despite myself. “Well, that’s wrong,”

I told him, my smile falling. “From what I’ve seen, nothing makes him waver. They could kill me, string me up by my ankles, gutted and bleeding out on the floor and your son wouldn’t even blink. Evelyn would be a better target, but then again, you’ve trained her well enough that they’re too chicken to go after her. I assume you trained them, right?”

His smile widened, laughter on his lips. “You are very observant, I did, yes. Every single one of them.”

It wasn’t hard to notice. The look in his eyes was the same look in Everett’s eyes, only slightly different. “So it’s clear why, after assuming something like that, they chose me. They’re terrified of facing you fully, so they’ve turned towards the weakest link; me, trying to pull you out of hiding, I suppose. Kill Everett, pulling his brothers out, kill them one by one, until they’ve found the head of the snake, so to speak. Classic fairytale.”

I straightened, meeting each pair of eyes briefly before finding Malachi’s again. “I won’t pretend to know anything real about this world, but I do know what I’ve read. You’ll either cut your loss, me being just a client or you’ll use me as bait. Lure them in, capture them, torture and kill them after, if you feel so inclined, getting whatever information you may want from them. But it’s a choice you have to make because they’re going after your family for going after theirs.”

I shrugged. “Like I said, classic fairytale.”

There was pride in his eyes. The kind of pride that, when I first had dinner with him, had made me feel so…good. But now a veil had been lifted, and while I wanted to feel good about that pride, I couldn’t.

I knew Everett. I knew Everett as well as someone could in this situation, but Malachi? All he was to me was a good conversation over dinner. An actor playing a part to get what he wanted out of me.

I had met too many people like that in my life to let it get to me now that I knew the truth.

“We’re going to discuss how to move forward,”

he said confidently. “My sons and I. A meeting of The Family. You’ll know your role soon enough, but you do understand what this always was.”

I nodded, my hand stilling on Lucy’s head. “My life hasn’t been my own since the day I was born, the fact that I’ve finally been given a time limit is almost relieving.”

But my future was still uncertain.

It was all down to Everett whether I lived or died now. His father didn’t seem like the kind of man to double cross, so maybe I wouldn’t give him a choice. Maybe his choice would be that he could either help me die or find me long since gone because I certainly wasn’t going to allow him to let himself get hunted and killed by his family for me.

“Good.”

He stood, and I followed his movements. “Thank you so much for the coffee, I am always a sucker for exquisite taste.”

I nodded, offering a bare smile, feeling immense relief that they hadn’t made a single comment about the sweats, despite the fact that they had most definitely noticed me wearing them. “You’re very welcome.”

I nodded at Diedra. “It was good to meet you.”

Her smile brightened. “You seem like such a lovely woman.”

“Thanks,”

I replied with another nod.

Malachi beamed. “Everett will come by and let you know what we’ve decided, but I can’t promise when. Things come up.”

I nodded in understanding, glancing over as Everett stepped away from the wall.

His eyes met mine, hard and unforgiving, before he followed after his father and Diedra without a word.

Evelyn pushed away from the wall when they all left the room, her warm brown eyes on mine. Flicking to the collar and back.

She glanced towards the door, waiting for it to shut, before turning back to me. “It’s a mistake.”

My heart stuttered, but of course, she knew. Of course, she did. They worked together. She probably knew Everett better than anyone. “It wasn’t a choice.”

But fuck me, if it had been, I would’ve made the same one.

She shook her head. “I know, baby girl, but you’re going to have a lot of choices to make in the near future, none of them good, and I’m so sorry about that.”

She walked up to me, that look in her eyes that brought me such comfort and reassurance. “He has a good reason for wanting to keep it a secret, but whether they know it or not, you’re apart of The Family now. You’re protected. For now, that protection only goes to me and Everett, but I will do my best to help in any way I can without them finding out about what’s happened. You understand that that can only go so far until Everett tells everyone the truth.”

I nodded, sanding my hands together. “I understand.”

She gave me a small smile and grabbed my hand, giving it a loving squeeze. “Okay. Then let me be the first to welcome you. We’re not perfect, but I can assure you that there is no other family in this world that will love as hard as we do. It just comes out a little differently.”

And the reassurance I felt at her words was unmatched. I was a part of The Family now.

I was protected.