CHAPTER 12
Kian
I’ve killed no one before.
But there’s a first time for everything as I angrily strode into a fists-at-dawn fight an hour later once I reached my warehouse on the city’s outskirts. Slipping into a hooded denim jacket because the warehouse is cold, I survey the argument between Carter and a delivery driver from Canada. Their voices are loud enough to alert the cops away from their break-time donuts in the NYPD headquarters. Once Carter grabs the guy by the shirt collar, I let my presence be known.
Both men look my way.
“Finally!” the driver exclaims, sweat all over his red face. “Can you tell your brainless Pitbull here I can’t give him shit until my boss lets me know the payment has gone through?”
“I told you, dickhead, but you seem a little slow. Maybe your mama deprived you of oxygen when she was titty-feeding you. We don’t pay for anything until I check the merchandise isn’t pieces of glass. You understand? Or should I bring out an interpreter for you?”
Always the hothead with the quick-fire trigger, I pat Carter’s shoulder to release the guy from the death grip before they start school boy grappling on my floor.
“Grab a coffee and cool off. Now, Carter,” I insist when he doesn’t make a fast enough move to fuck off. He exhales and stalks away to the far end of the warehouse.
“That guy has a screw loose. I’m not trying to cause fucking trouble; I want to get back on the road. It’s like I told him.”
“You’re one of Andy Visage’s drivers, yeah? He knows how I work, so while I check out the merchandise you brought me, call your boss, and he’ll fill you in.”
With a skeptical scowl directed at me, I instinctively arch an eyebrow. When conducting business, I have always avoided playing the heavy. The MacNamara clan firmly believes in the saying that you can catch more flies with honey rather than vinegar. If things get rough, I’m not opposed to throwing down, but I’d rather use my quick way with words to solve problems.
After a call to Visage, I see a more at-ease driver approaching, where I’m looking over the gems that have been trafficked across the Canadian border. The journey started on a freighter from Dubai. They’re some well-traveled diamonds and still have a way to go yet to reach my family in Ireland. Some couriers are more antsy than others, and it’s something I’ll talk to Visage about on our next call. I won’t deal with frightened tantrums every time I receive a fucking shipment.
Closing the boxes, I ask. “Is it sorted?”
“Eh, sorry about the confusion. I didn’t know. This is my first time delivering to the States. The boss confirmed what you said. And said to tell you, if you have to beat me up, he supports it. But I hope not. I have to go to my mother’s eightieth birthday party this weekend. She’ll have fucking kittens if I’m battered and bruised.”
Fucking Canadians. I laugh and reach out to pat him on the shoulder. “You’ll have all your teeth to eat cake, my man, don’t worry.” Because I feel sorry for him, I fish out four hundred bucks and push them into his hand. “For your trouble.”
“Gee, thanks, Mister MacNamara.” He beams.
Within moments, the payment is sent electronically to Visage through hidden channels, and I have the anxious driver back on the road. I’m waiting by the open door when Carter ambles over. A coffee in one hand and his phone in the other.
“Hey, guess what?”
“If you tell me you’re setting up a hookup while I left my girl at home to come and sort out your mess, I’ll break your neck.”
He snorts a laugh. “Nah, I’m taking the week off from sex.” My eyebrow pops up. Never have I heard him say that sentence. Alert the media. “That fella in the Bronx who said he could get the latest tablets and phones just sent a message over the secure line. He wants to know if we’re still interested.”
If I hadn’t picked Carter off the street trying to sell knockoff purses, he’d still be there today on a corner, unaware of his potential. It’s what I saw in him that day; it’s why I offered him a job, but sometimes he still thinks too small for my operation. I’m not into petty theft. I go big, or I go the fuck home.
“Unless he can get 200k units, it’s not worth my time.”
Carter whistles through his teeth. “Let me see what he says.”
The chances of him pulling off this deal are slim, but I’ll let him go ahead if he proves me wrong. When you pull off your first significant steal, your confidence skyrockets.
While I’m already at the warehouse, I attend to the gems, calling my grandfather and uncles to let them know they’ll be on the next shipment out of the port. The jobs that need my attention snowball from there, and it’s way past my girl’s bedtime when I finally make it home.
Cursing Carter’s name for keeping me out for so long, I walk into a dark apartment. If she’s returned to her folks’ place, I will rage like King Kong. But her scent assaults my senses, and I know she’s here.
A shower is needed first, washing off the dust of crime from my skin, not wanting it to touch my Samia. There’s a tiny shred of decency left in me…somewhere. Considering what I’ve done already, I can’t do much, but I’ll at least try to pretend for her. Dressed only in boxer briefs, I don’t bother about finding food. Above all else, my need for Samia surpasses anything and everything. I discover her snuggled on her side in bed, with both hands tucked beneath her chin, which adds to her innocent appearance.
Innocence I ache to defile with big bites.
Samia’s always been a hunger in the back of my throat, the unattainable feast of my life. Whatever good girl chemicals she has singing in her veins, they call to me like a drug. It’s impossible to assume I could ever leave her alone.
Not make her mine? I’d rather give away my wealth and never make another buck again. I want to bury myself inside her and live there for the rest of paradise. To hear her scream my name like I’m her lifeline is what I ache for.
Careful not to wake her, the thick pile carpet cushions my steps, and I sit on the side of the bed to brush a few wisps of blonde hair from her face. She’s so naturally beautiful, and there’s never been a time I haven’t wanted to look at her. My finger traces the faint freckles on her cheek, and she murmurs, turning toward my hand, but sleep keeps her under.
I was a juvenile delinquent when I first took notice of her. All of sixteen, thinking I was a man already and could do whatever shit I wanted. My father soon put me in my place, which made me act out like an idiot. It took several more years after that for me to wind in my attitude and to understand all the rules he put in place to keep my ass out of jail.
Back then, Samia was fourteen and dressed like a ballerina, dancing around with Raene Fierro. She was all long legs, flowing hair, and a laugh so fucking hot that it still renders me dumb when I hear it today.
That first Samia Madsen thunderbolt was impossible to forget, and I hoarded brief sights of her for years until I’d grown into a man.
I’d been directionless until my father questioned my life goals beyond playing with cars or engaging in criminal behavior.
Sure, I aimed to make a lot of money. But I had the intelligence to do that already. A focus was needed.
“I know what I want,” I remember saying to him, and he’d smiled as if he could read my mind. Then he’d told me to earn it because nothing worth a cent came easy.
Samia was who I wanted.
My dreamgirl.
Opposites aren’t meant to be together. That’s what the books say. She should be with a prince, a guy with a moral code, at least. But it’s the criminal who saw her first, and I will cut down anyone who tries to take her from me.
Right or wrong, Samia is mine, and I’m hers.
All along, she was the lost piece of me. The only thing to give me focus and the purpose of making myself a man deserving of her.
Not a good man. There’s no way I could pull off that kind of illusion.
But then, my Samia doesn’t want a good man.
She wants me. The bad, the liar, and the unlawful one.
My fingertip draws over her lips, and they tremble, almost like she senses she’s being adored in her sleep.
“I’ll worship you, dreamgirl, until you burst open with love for me.” I declare quietly. Why else did I put an ethically corrupt plan in place on the day of her accident?
It was now or never. And I chose now without even considering the damage it might cause.
Love can forgive a lot of bad things.
A day will come when my Samia has to forgive me, and on that day, I need her to love me more than she ever thought possible.
Because if she considers leaving me, I’ll have no choice but to chase her, find her, and keep her locked to me forever.
Fuck. And now my cock loves that idea as it hardens and pulses.
I’m like a monk at this point. One who jerks off twice a day in the shower to appease the savagery beneath my skin so I don’t maul my woman down to the floor and rut like an animal.
When Samia mumbles something in her sleep, I press my lips to hers to settle her. She has no idea I’ve done this often, which seems to be the only thing to relax her disturbed dreams. As she quietens, I stand to round the bed and slip beneath the covers, carrying her dead weight across the mattress until she’s half sprawled over my chest. I catch a knee in the groin and nearly weep to Jesus, but I clasp that thigh and get her settled down.
Only as her breath fans my neck does the bliss of her rain over me.
I’ve demonstrated the lengths a man can go to win his soulmate.
Only time and confession will unveil Samia’s opinion of my methods.