He hadn’t said King. Was that his way of telling me my time with King was done? Why hadn’t King come for this? He had known what I was about to hear, and he had sent Sebastian to bring me. What was he doing that was so important that he didn’t care that I was going to learn he had been lying to me all this time?

  Because he didn’t care. I had been a job. That was it. I’d been a job for him. Nothing more. If I had meant anything to him, he’d be by my side right now. Asking me to stay with him. Telling me that he had developed feelings for me.

  “I’ll go,” I said, the words surprising myself as I heard them fall from my mouth.

  But I couldn’t stay here. Not now. I’d miss Maeme. I’d miss Birdie. My heart wouldn’t recover for a long time, and seeing King would rebreak it over and over. I had to go. There was no other choice.

  Blaise nodded and dropped his hands to his sides. “Very well. Go get your things packed up. You’ll be picked up in forty-five minutes out in front of the stables. We have to head to the airstrip.” He shifted his gaze to Sebastian. “Go with her.”

  Sebastian stood. “Yes, sir.”

  I glanced up at him, and I saw the pity in his eyes. The concern for me. He was truly worried about my feelings. I could see it there. Maybe someone other than Maeme had cared for me more than just being a job.

  “Let’s go,” he said gently.

  I followed behind him and kept my head down, not wanting to make eye contact with any of the others. They would all see too much. I’d been broken many times before, but never had someone wielded the power to crush my soul. Until King.

  • forty •

  “How much abuse could a heart take before it stopped?”

  Rumor

  I heard the screams well before we reached the hallway. A sick knot formed in my stomach, and I felt bile rise up in my throat. I couldn’t keep walking. Not that way. Not in that direction.

  “Fuck,” Sebastian muttered under his breath, hearing the female cries of pleasure and pain that were coming from the tack room.

  I shook my head, backing up as a wall of bricks sat heavily on my chest. Just when I’d thought I couldn’t be hurt anymore, when I’d believed the agony couldn’t get any worse, I was slapped in the face with yet another truth.

  “I can’t,” I rasped. It hurt to speak. My throat was constricted.

  “I’m sorry, Rumor. I’m so fucking sorry,” Sebastian said as his hand closed over mine. “We’ll go another way. Come with me.”

  Unable to do anything else, I let him lead me back out the door and around the buildings until we reached a door on the far side of the main structure. How much abuse could a heart take before it stopped? Shattered? Was that possible?

  I much preferred broken ribs. Those I could heal from. Those I understood. This…I was afraid this had ruined me. Completely. How could I ever recover? I couldn’t even hate him. I wanted to. I wanted to hate him for all he’d done. For making me love him. For letting me believe he cared. But I couldn’t. I knew what hate was. I had hated Hill. I had wished he were dead. If King were dead, I wouldn’t be able to survive it. Even after all this.

  Sebastian kept my hand in his as he led me up a set of stairs I hadn’t been on before, then down the hallway I was familiar with to King’s bedroom.

  He opened the door, then turned to me. “Do you want my help, or do you want to be alone?”

  “Alone,” I replied. I needed one last moment to grieve what I’d never truly had before I left it forever.

  He squeezed my hand before letting it go. “I understand. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”

  I only nodded. I didn’t want to say more. It was too difficult. Stepping inside, I left the door open. Not wanting to be closed in here. I stood for a moment and took in the bed, the dresser, the sofa, all the memories that I’d thought were special and I now knew they were a lie. All of it.

  Wincing, I took in a deep breath as I walked over and opened the closet to get out my suitcase. I would survive this. I would. I had to. Life was about survival. I’d learned that at an early age. I was surviving yet again. I was beginning to accept that there would never be a day that I wasn’t just surviving. Getting through. There wasn’t going to be happiness in my future. I’d been born with a curse on my head. That had to be it. I hadn’t been given any real breaks in this life. The moments that I had believed were my breaks in the past were always facades. Cruel, manipulative lies that I’d wanted to be real so badly that I walked right into them.

  Never again.

  Laying my suitcase on the bed, I went to get my clothes. The ones that were mine alone. I didn’t want to take any memories with me from here. Not bothering to fold them, I shoved everything inside, then went to the bathroom to get my few toiletries and makeup bag. This was reminiscent of the many times I had packed up and had to leave a home as a child. Except I had a suitcase now. Back then, I had always been given a trash bag and told to put my stuff in it.

  Just as I was placing my last item in the suitcase, heavy footsteps caught my attention, and I spun around to see King stalking into the room with a wild expression in his eyes. He was shirtless, and his body was damp with sweat. From having rough sex in the tack room.

  A wave of nausea rolled over me as my chest twisted inside. I turned away from him, unable to see him, especially like that. Knowing he’d been busy fucking another woman while I was told that he had been lying to me. I’d been a job for him. Not his friend. Not…not anything.

  “You’re not leaving!” he said in a fierce tone. Then, he was behind me, grabbing my arm and spinning me around.

  Stunned, I glared up at him. Was he kidding me right now? He had destroyed me, and now, he was here to cause a scene. Act as if he cared where I went. He pulled me to him, and I shivered, not wanting to touch his body. The sweat he had from being with another woman.

  “DON’T TOUCH ME!” I shouted, pushing at his chest and trying to back away from him.

  “Rumor,” he said gently, as if he was trying to calm me. He couldn’t calm me. Not now. Not after all this. “Baby, listen to me.”

  “BABY?!” I spit at him. “YOU DO NOT get to call me that.” I let out a sob as the emotion inside of me began to unravel.

  “He told you,” he said as if he hadn’t realized I had been at a meeting, being clued in on his deceit.

  “Yes, he did. While you were…were in the tack room.” I couldn’t say more. I was going to be sick, thinking about it. “Please go away. Let me finish.”

  “Rumor, listen to me. What you heard in the tack room wasn’t what you think.” His tone was pleading. Almost desperate.

  I found myself caving, wanting to turn back to him. Listen. What was wrong with me? Why was I so weak?

  “Were you whipping a female?” I bit out, staring at my open suitcase.

  “Yes. But it isn’t—”

  “Were you punishing her, or was she enjoying it?” I would not let him lie to me.

  When he didn’t answer right away, I knew. I closed the suitcase, fighting back the tears. I wasn’t going to let him know how devastated I was.

  “She was enjoying it. But I didn’t fuck her. Storm was in there. He fucked her. I just needed…I had to…I was strung tight, and I needed a release. She was willing, and…DAMMIT! I shouldn’t have done it, but I had to do something. I had to clear my head. Burn off some of the shit clawing at me.”

  He hadn’t fucked her.

  GOD! Why did I feel relief? There was so much more wrong here. Like the fact that he got off on doing it. His lies. His lies. I had to remember his lies!

  He grabbed my upper arms and pulled me back against his chest. “Is he making you leave me? I’ll stop it. I will. I need you to let me explain.”

  I wouldn’t melt. I wouldn’t give in to him. I didn’t trust him anymore. That was gone. Without trust, what did we have?

  “He gave me a choice. I chose to leave. I’m not your job anymore.”

  His hands tightened on me. “You were not my job, Rumor.”

  “YES, I was. Stop lying to me. Please just stop. I’ve had all of it I can handle. You followed me, King. FOLLOWED ME from my house that day. You were at the service station to get me. It has been a lie since the moment I met you. And…and I let myself believe you. Think there was more.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to break free from his hold, but I couldn’t. He wasn’t easing up.

  “I followed you. My job was to get you here. But it became more than that. I got to know you. We became friends. We became more.”

  Every word out of his mouth was bittersweet. I wanted them to be true, yet they had come from a man I could never trust again. Too little, too late.

  “Stay with me. Don’t go. Don’t leave me,” he pleaded close to my ear. “I’m sorry, sweets. I am so fucking sorry.”

  And here I’d thought, my destruction couldn’t get any worse.

  “I can’t,” I told him, even as the words felt as if I had just ripped out my own heart.

  “Don’t say that. You can. He gave you a choice. Choose me. It’s not a job, baby. It was in the beginning, but it hasn’t been for a while. It changed. I changed. You changed me.”

  No, no, no, no. I wouldn’t listen to this. I had to save myself this time. I had to put myself first. Protect what was left of my heart—if there was anything left at all. He wasn’t my future. He never was going to be. He was in the Mafia. They all were. I didn’t belong in this world. I wanted to be free.

  “Let go of me,” I said, jerking away from his hold, and thankfully, he let me this time. I stumbled forward slightly but caught myself and bent over to zip up the suitcase.

  “I won’t let you leave me.” He said the words as if he meant them.

  “You don’t get to decide that.”

  The voice wasn’t mine. I straightened and looked at the door, where Blaise Hughes stood. The energy in the room changed, and it felt suddenly dangerous. I looked at King, who took a step between me and the door. What was he doing? That man was the boss. His boss. Mafia bosses killed people. I’d read the books. I knew that much.

  “She’s had a lot dropped on her. I should have been there. She needs time,” King told his boss.

  “Are you correcting me, King?” There was a deadly threat in Blaise’s voice.

  Panic gripped me, and I moved quickly, getting around King to stand in front of him. His hands shot out to grab me, and I looked back at him.

  “STOP!” I warned him.

  He was not going to get shot by the Mafia boss over this. I turned back to Blaise.

  “I am coming. Just, please, don’t make him say anything more he will be punished for,” I asked him.

  I prayed there was a soul somewhere inside this man. He had a kid whose soccer game he wanted to get back to. He’d said he worshipped his wife. He had a heart. I had to make sure he used it.

  Blaise looked from me to King. “Get her things, Huck,” he said, stepping aside as the massive man entered.

  I moved back, basically plastering myself in front of King. I was afraid he’d do something stupid, and I didn’t think the Huck dude had a heart or emotion. He was a killer, and I’d be damned if he killed King.

  Huck stalked past us and grabbed the handle on my suitcase, then looked at me. “Is this it?” he asked in a deep voice that made me tremble and press further into King.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “You’ve got a shopping trip in your future,” he muttered as he walked back to the door.

  That was an odd thing to hear someone like him say. Did he think I needed more things?

  “Don’t go,” King begged me quietly as his hand brushed against my side.

  Blaise Hughes’s eyes were on both of us, but he said nothing. I was afraid to move until Huck was out of the room and away from King.

  “We need to go,” Blaise said, breaking the silence.

  King’s hand twitched against me as if he was struggling not to grab me. I was a very stupid woman. Possibly the stupidest female to ever walk the earth. I took in a deep breath and met Blaise’s hard expression with a determined one of my own.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” I told him.

  The corner of his mouth twitched so slightly that I wasn’t sure if I had imagined it or not.

  “Is that so?” he drawled as if he wasn’t surprised in the least.

  I nodded. “Yes. I’m going to stay here.”

  King fisted my shirt with his hand, and his arm flexed as he held me firmly to him, as if he thought Blaise would come rip me away.

  “Like I said, your choice,” he said. “Huck, leave the suitcase.”

  Huck dropped the suitcase on the floor, and Blaise gave King one last look before turning and walking out of the room. The beast followed him. I stood there, not moving until their footsteps were gone.

  “Fuck,” King sighed and grabbed my waist to turn me around.

  I held up a hand to stop whatever he was going to do next.

  “I said I was staying. I didn’t mean here, in this room. I have conditions, and I have lines that I’m going to draw, and you’re going to respect them.”

  I wasn’t sure what those lines were yet. I just knew I had to find a way to heal the damage he had caused before I could accept even a friendship with him. He wanted me here, but I didn’t trust the reasons why.

  “Anything you want, sweets,” he replied, reaching up to cup my face.

  He was going to make this so freaking hard.

  King and Rumor’s story continues in SLAY KING, coming April 14, 2024.

  • one •

  “Someone had to be honest with me. Might as well be me.”

  Rumor

  When one made rules, drew boundaries, protected themselves from situations that could cause damage, it must be something they stood firm on. That they demanded others to respect. Showing weakness made those rules and boundaries seem like a suggestion instead of guidelines.

  King Salazar made it very difficult to remember why I had set the rules. He had been the cause of them, yet every time he tried to push too far, I found myself unable to stop it.

  Craving a man wasn’t smart. Ever.

  Especially a man who had lied to you and manipulated you. Yet that was where I stood at the moment. Wanting what I shouldn’t have. Wishing it were something it would never be.

  I sat on the bed in the cottage that was located on the back of Maeme’s property and listened to the silence around me. I’d been back in this house and out of King’s bed for a week now. Every night, King showed up with dinner. He talked to me while we ate. Acted as if we were old friends. Then, when I went to bed, he slept on the sofa. He refused to let me stay here at night alone. He didn’t believe it was safe yet.

  I didn’t know who or what to believe.

  What I did know was that I was a widow, and I wasn’t sad about it. My husband had been hell-bent on eventually beating me to death. King had made it possible for me to escape that life. Something I struggled to hold against him. If he and the others hadn’t come after Hill, then I’d still be there, being beaten.

  I also knew that I was willingly living under the protection of the Southern Mafia family. The sweet grandmother who had brought me in, given me a roof over my head, a sanctuary, was also part of the Mafia, just like King, her grandson.

  Lastly, I was aware that there was a gang who wanted me for information on my dead husband. Which I did not have. Hill had never told me anything about his life. I knew nothing of his work or illegal activities.

  So, I was here. This was the only safe place for me. Living in a storybook cottage with no bills. I’d stopped feeling guilty for being here. I no longer thought I was taking advantage of a nice lady’s hospitality. They’d come and gotten me. Brought me here. It shed new light on the situation.

  The door to the cottage opened, and I heard the screen slam shut. Standing up quickly, I stood there, frozen, listening. The only person who walked in without knocking was King, and he’d been gone when I woke up this morning. His pillow and blanket in a neat, folded pile on the end of the sofa.

  “It’s me,” his familiar voice called out.

  Sighing in relief, I made my way to the door that led into the living room just as he walked into it from the kitchen. My eyes locked on him, and the way my stomach fluttered at the sight of him frustrated me to no end. I didn’t want to feel these things for him. I needed to protect my heart. But I couldn’t seem to manage it.

  The sexy smile that spread across his face didn’t help matters. My chest joined my stomach with its fluttery mess of feelings.

  “Morning, sweets,” he drawled. “Sleep good?”

  Yes, and no. Once I’d finally gotten to sleep and stopped fantasizing about him, then, yes, I slept well. It’d just taken me two hours for that to happen. Knowing he was asleep on my sofa, wearing a pair of boxer briefs, had messed with my head.

  I simply nodded.

  “Good,” he replied, closing the space between us. He reached out and wrapped one of my curls around his fingers. “Damn, I like the way you look when you get up in the morning.”

  Hello, area between my legs. It was now wide awake, along with my stomach and chest. On high alert that the traitorous, lying man in front of me was close. Touching me. Making me want things.

  “What are you doing back?” I asked, wishing I hadn’t sounded breathless.

  He didn’t respond right away. Instead, he continued to play with my hair. I should move away. I had rules, and this was breaking one of those rules.

  “I came to get you. Take you to breakfast at Maeme’s,” he replied finally.

  Do not react. Do not melt.

  “We had Sunday breakfast there three days ago,” I replied.