Epilogue
Gaven
Ifound the man I sought in a little apartment on the Lower East Side.
Not a single one of his neighbors even suspected his vocation.
No one ever did. I knew better than most that monsters like me looked like everyone else.
This man, in particular, lived in a small but expensive two-bedroom unit with added security both at the front and back entrances of the building.
His biggest mistake, however, was the living room windows. Wide, tall, overlooking the street.
On one hand, they could have been used as an added escape route—likely his own thoughts—but in this instance, they would be used for his death.
It was just too pathetic. Too many killers got complacent in their work.
The more they killed and got away with it, the more comfortable they became.
After all, it took a certain amount of ego to take a life and go back to theirs like nothing had happened.
Snow fell across the expanse of the city, ice decorating the overhangs in long strips that would be knocked off come morning. For now, though, it made the world feel as if it were cloaked in a frost spell. My breath fogged in front of my face with each exhale.
Across the street, I huddled down on the balcony of an empty model apartment of a similarly expensive residence such as the one my target was currently enjoying himself.
A grin widened my lips. He thought he was safe.
It’d been months, after all, since he’d gotten away from nearly taking everything from me.
Months since he’d accepted the contract that would ultimately lead to his demise.
I knew the game. It hadn’t been personal. It had been just a job.
But not this time, not to me.
Evangeline Price wasn’t a job and she was no longer just a tool. She was mine. Everything about her was mine to own, mine to control, and mine to worship. This man had nearly stolen that all from me and the reminder of her fear was burned forever into my head.
It didn’t matter to me that, for him, she had been just a job.
He had nearly stolen something from me and that was an act that I could not forgive.
I waited for the man to pass in front of the window of his living room, pressing my foot against the steel bars of the balcony railing as I balanced the rifle on the ledge and aimed it.
It’d been decades since I’d first done this—years since my last contract kill and the only contract I now intended to honor was signed in my own hand and that of my wife’s. The final contract a man like me had never expected to have. A marriage contract.
A smile tugged my lips up as the man on the other side of the glass poured himself a glass of alcohol, not knowing it would be his last. Overhead, the moon hung full—a white eye scanning the vast expanse of a city that never slept.
Nestled in the comforter of stars, I used the light it gave along with the lights of the rest of the city—the yellow glow from other apartments and headlights down below.
A car honked in the street. The man’s shadow moved away from his kitchen and finally towards his living room.
I adjusted my rifle and lifted it away from the balcony’s edge instead of putting it on the lower stand by my feet.
Once it was on its stand, adjusted, and prepped, I got down on my stomach on the cold, hard granite balcony floor.
My stomach was covered in a thick cashmere sweater—one that my sweet Angel had picked for me.
No doubt if I dirtied it too much, I’d have to listen to her vent to me about expensive clothes and trying to keep them nice so that they would last. Honestly, I found that even her angry domestic ranting didn’t rankle me anymore.
It was cute. She was cute. At eighteen, I’d never even considered how nice it would be to not only wear expensive and warm clothes but to have them picked out by someone who actually cared what they did for me.
If they tucked me away from the chill in the air or if they fit right.
Angel cared, and that was why I had to do this.
I lined up my shot and sucked in a mouthful of frosty air, letting it burn into my lungs the same way it had decades before on that first night I’d taken a life. The man’s head dipped. A button was pressed, and the curtains drew down—shielding him from my view. That wouldn’t stop me.
Reaching up, I lowered the goggles I’d pushed onto my head and left there when I’d first gotten here. Flipping down the outer lens and pressing a button on the side, the image of the man’s heat signal was outlined in my view. In my pocket, my phone buzzed.
With a silent curse, I retrieved it and looked down at the screen. Through the infrared lens, the phone glowed. I flipped the lens back up and read the latest text.
Angel: Can you pick up ice cream on your way home?
I typed back a quick reply before sliding the phone back into my pocket and readjusting my hold on the rifle’s handle. Hunger curled deep in my gut as I lined up my shot. Bloodlust. Rage. Pain. Everything my Angel had felt when this man had tried to take her life—take her from me—I knew it well.
Now, he would know nothing more.
I pulled the trigger.
Despite the silencer on the end of the rifle, there was a quick pop next to my ear as the bullet rang out from the barrel.
The window cracked—a single fissure running in two directions towards the top and bottom from a singular hole that the bullet made.
The man’s head jerked in my infrared view, and his body collapsed.
That was it. It was done.
I packed up my gear, sliding my infrared goggles off and stowed them in the nondescript gym bag I’d brought.
After I’d taken apart the rifle and slid it inside, I quickly slipped into the empty apartment and changed—swapping my jeans and sweater for a pair of long-running pants and a tightly fitted black t-shirt with a hoodie.
Anyone who noticed me as I made my way out of the building would only see what I wanted them to see—a man on his way to the gym.
Several blocks down, I unlocked the SUV I’d driven into the city for this mission, tossed my bag into the trunk, and then left the area.
Turning the radio on and leaving it on low volume, I half listened to the two hosts discussing the new miracle formula now making waves in the medical world.
The black market of organs and organ transplant lists was about to be rocked with a young scientist’s revolutionary growth method for creating organs grown in labs to replace those used in surgeries and transplants.
Halfway home, I remembered Angel’s text and swerved into a 24-hour grocery store I’d damn near bypassed. Shit. If I forgot ice cream again, she’d flay me alive.
Who knew pregnant women could be ten times scarier than any mob boss or hitman? Ten minutes later and two large cartons of mint chocolate chip ice cream heavier, I got back on the road. Once I hit the outskirts of the city, I gunned the engine and let the speedometer race upward.
The Price Mansion came into view—new iron gates to replace the ones we’d blown open months before and sprawling grounds set before the golden hue of the illuminated windows.
My chest ached as I pressed a series of buttons on the comm unit next to the gate and one of the guards opened the entryway.
Rocks flew beneath my wheels as I sped toward the front of the manor.
A new kind of hunger was spreading within me.
One that had little to do with bloodlust and more to do with the warm, waiting female body within the walls of my home.
Jerking the SUV to a stop, I parked it in front of the double doors of the mansion, shut off the engine, and hopped out—snagging the ice cream as I went.
I didn’t make it halfway up the steps before the doors opened and I heard a very gruff Matteo call out. “Please, Ma’am, come back inside. He’ll be here soon. It’s too cold for you to be out there!”
“I’m pregnant, Matt,” my wife replied. “Not an invalid.”
Her head was turned as she stormed through the doors, so she hadn’t seen me yet. I took the last steps two at a time. As fast and silent as I could so that when she finally turned around, she was faced with nothing save for me.
Angel jumped and crashed into my chest as she came to an abrupt halt.
My lips twitched and then spread into a smile as she tilted her face upward.
A telltale bump pressed against my groin.
Switching one of the bags in my hands to my other hand, I reached out and cupped the back of her head.
My fingers slid through the bun she’d tied her longer, dirty blonde hair up into as I settled my mouth firmly on hers.
Without hesitation, her lips parted for me.
They opened under my advance, and she even rose onto her toes for more as her tongue tangled with mine.
I could have stood there kissing her for hours—days—years.
But a blast of cold air whipped past me, reminding me that while I was cloaked in a hoodie and not nearly as affected by the elements, Angel was soft and petite and very fucking pregnant.
Nudging her back inside, I lifted my gaze and noted that Matteo was already shaking his head and disappearing into another room—leaving the two of us alone. I redirected my attention downward.
My thumb touched Angel’s wet bottom lip. “What were you doing?” I demanded.
“I was going to wait outside for you,” she replied.
My smile dipped. “It’s freezing outside,” I reminded her before dropping my free hand to her belly. “And you’re not allowed outside without me.”
“Allowed?” She blinked up at me and scowled. “Don’t start that again, Gaven. I thought we talked about this. Just because I let you do whatever the hell you want in the bedroom doesn’t mean you can control me outside of it.”
“Sexually,” I said.
Her lashes lifted and she gaped at me. “What?”
I leaned down so that our faces were barely inches from each other. Her warm breath touched my chin, my throat, and made me want to see her on her back, head over the end of our bed—pussy, tits, and belly on display for me—while I thrust my cock into the back of her throat.
“You let me do whatever the hell I want to you … sexually, sweetheart,” I elaborated. “Not just in the bedroom.”
She grumbled but didn’t deny it. Instead, she conveniently switched topics. “Did you bring my ice cream?” she demanded.
I grinned and held up both bags. “Yes, I did.”
She grabbed the bags from me and opened them. A soft moan left her lips and I felt my running pants grow tighter as my gaze flashed to hers. “You got mint chocolate chip,” she said. “I fucking love mint chocolate chip.”
I shook my head and wrapped one arm around her shoulders, leading her out of the foyer and further into the mansion towards the kitchen. “I know,” I said. “And so does Raff.”
Angel cast an annoyed glance my way. I was getting used to those, too. “You’re so sure it’s a boy,” she said. “What if it’s a girl? Are you gonna call her Rafaella?”
I shrugged. “That sounds good to me.”
With a sigh, as soon as we hit the kitchen, she left my embrace to hurry across the tile and unload the ice cream.
She filled a bowl for herself and then stowed the remaining containers away.
I watched and waited, my shoulder against the doorframe as she bustled around the open area normally filled with employees during the day.
I liked it like this—with just her and me.
Her face was bright with excitement as she dove into her bowl of ice cream.
She moaned again and licked the spoon clean.
Unable to help myself—not with those intensely carnal sounds she kept making—I shoved away from the wall and circled the island to put both hands on the countertop on either side of her. “Are you done with your snack now, love?” I asked, nuzzling the side of her throat.
The quick inhale before she spoke made my insides heat. “Maybe I am, and maybe I want another bowl,” she said, her tone strained as she forced casualness that I knew she didn’t feel.
No, she didn’t feel at all casual right now.
I lifted my hands from the countertop and gripped her tits, relishing in the weight of them.
They’d gotten heavier in the past few months as she’d gotten rounder and rounder.
Her nipples hardened into tight little buds and I pinched them between my thumb and forefinger, gently rolling them back and forth.
Another thing I hadn’t anticipated was just how attracted I would be to my pregnant wife.
Seeing her like this, soft and full with the evidence that I’d marked her—made her mine—made me want to see her like this always.
“Gaven…”
“That’s not what you call me when we play, is it, sweetheart?” I prompted her, tightening my hold on her nipples until she cried out and clamped both of her own hands on the ledge of the counter.
“Master!” she gasped out the word. “Master … please…”
“Please, what?” I kissed her throat. “Good girls ask for what they want, Angel.”
“I want to come,” she pleaded.
“Do you?”
She nodded and tipped her head back to look up at me with glassy eyes. The gaze of a perfect sub—and almost perfectly satisfied.
“How?” I asked. “Do you want to come on my hands?” I moved away from her nipples, stroking down her sides.
“Do you want my mouth?” I kissed her throat again, setting my teeth to her flesh and biting down until she undulated against the stool she sat on and let out a keening wail. “Or perhaps you want my cock?”
In a flash, Angel shoved away from the counter and spun to look up at me.
She hooked her hands at the back of my neck and went to her toes just as I leaned down and wrapped one arm under her knees and another around her back.
As I lifted her against my chest, her lips met mine—harder than before.
She kissed me like a woman in need of sustenance.
I began walking—keeping my eyes open as I wove through the doorways and up the stairs toward our bedroom. She didn’t stop kissing me, even when I pulled my lips away. Instead, her sharp little teeth bit down on the column of my throat.
I jerked as we stopped in front of our bedroom. “You’re going to pay for that, Angel,” I warned her.
She licked the spot before gazing up at me with a smile. “You’ll make me like it,” she replied.
“Oh, will I?”
Angel reached out with a very knowing grin, grasped the knob, and opened the door for me. I strode inside and kicked it shut before letting her lower body go, slipping down the front of my pants so that she could feel my erection straining against the fabric.
“Yes,” Angel replied. “Because that’s just the type of cruel master that you are.”
She was right. I was a cruel master, and she was the most wicked of angels. We were a match made in Hell, and even in death, I doubted we would ever part.