Sebring

“He does what he’s told,” she continued. “He doesn’t get special treatment. He doesn’t get the clean jobs because the boss’s daughter gave him her cunt and her heart. It should have been a long time ago I stopped letting you protect him. Keep him for yourself. Try to keep him clean. The time for that to stop is now. A job needs to get done, no matter how dirty, he proves allegiance by doing it quickly and doing it well just like anyone else.”

“So,” I began, “Green isn’t stupid enough to turn on us, he just lost his patience because he needs money to actually feed himself, he takes off and you send my ex-boyfriend to whack him to make a point?”

“A point that needed to be made. Not only to Tommy but out there.” She threw an arm wide before she pointed at her desk. “And in here, to all our boys.”

That speared through my heart.

“It was you?” I asked.

“It was me.”

“Not Dad?” I pressed masochistically, but holding on to hope that she was taking orders too.

Just like Tommy.

She shook her head, her manner still gentle. “No, sis. Not Dad.”

She hadn’t relayed the order.

She’d given it.

I stood just inside the door of her office, silent.

Defeated.

Tommy, my Tommy, had killed a man. That man was Green. My man. My soldier.

It wasn’t like Tommy was clean. Before and after there was a Tommy and me, he’d done things. Many things. Including that. He was a gangster, like me. That was part of the business.

Though, I’d never killed anyone nor ordered an execution. But I’d sat through listening to orders being given with and without saying a word against it.

But since there was a Tommy and me, it was Gill or another member of the crew.

It wasn’t Tommy.

Not my Tommy.

“He gave up on you.”

Her quiet words set my entire body to trembling.

Even so, I retorted, “Dad had Gill pouring acid on his face.”

“Dad himself poured boiling oil on your back and you didn’t give up on Tommy,” she shot back.

I looked away, the trembling worse, the pain resurfacing. Vast assortments of pain. Entire collections.

She was right. We’d been found where we thought we were safe in Baja. We’d been dragged back. And the torture hadn’t been just for Tommy for overstepping his bounds, daring to fall in love with the king’s princess, taking her away.

The torture had been for me too.

We both had a lesson to learn.

Everyone associated with Vincent Shade had a lesson to learn.

But I’d been first.

There was a small area of skin on Tommy’s left cheekbone that looked like it was melting.

He’d endured that for five minutes and renounced me. Promised it was over. Accepted his punishment of working by my side and never again touching me. Ending forever what we’d had. And last, committing his future to my father’s sister’s daughter.

He’d married my cousin three months later.

But for ages, Tommy had watched the oil poured along the small of my back, my upper hips, and I had not renounced him. He’d shouted. Cursed. Fought against his restraints. Begged them to burn him.

But when they turned to him, he hadn’t endured his long.

I’d endured it silently, focusing as best I could on making new plans. Plans for when it was over, we were healed and it was time to try again (this time successfully). The oil dripped on my back while I decided our next destination. How we’d get there. How we’d cover our tracks. At the same time hoping with each drop gliding pure agony, I was proving to my father that I loved the man I was accepting torment for so he’d find it in him to simply let us be free.

“Liv, sissy, you need to give up on him too,” Georgia told me gently.

Her words brought me back into the room.

“He’s a soldier, nothing more. He’s not yours. He’s ours,” she went on. “And he needs to do his job.”

She was correct.

In this world where we lived, she was absolutely correct.

It was just that I didn’t want to live in a world where things like that were the way you lived.

“Right now I hate you,” I whispered.

Her shoulders slumped slightly, but that was all she gave to me.

“It isn’t the first time,” she replied.

She was again absolutely right.

She was my sister.

But she was also her father’s daughter.

And I detested him.

“No,” I agreed and watched her fight the flinch. “And I’m sure not the last.”

Still holding my eyes, she started to round her desk. “Liv—”

“Fuck you, Georgia,” I bit out and she halted at another rare reaction from me.

“I’ll give you time,” she offered.

“Excellent call,” I returned, reaching out a hand to the doorknob. I opened the door and started through but turned back to share, “David’s hiding something. I’m leaving for the day and working from home for the foreseeable future. I’ll cover his duties while he’s out of commission. Until I find out what he’s hiding and how bad it is, you need to use your inestimable skills to shut him down. I’m sure I can count on you doing that.”

“Liv—”

I raised a brow as I interrupted her. “I can’t count on you to do that?”

Her mouth got tight before she forced out, “It’s done. I’ll go with Gill personally.”

I made no reply.

I walked across the hall, trying to ignore Tommy leaning a broad shoulder against my doorjamb.