soon as we don’t have any eyes on us. I’ve spent my entire life sharing her—I’m done. I won’t let any other man even get a glimpse of her ever again.
I start to pull away when she groans into my lips—her voice pulling me back to her.
How am I ever going to let her go?
I’m not.
She’s mine.
My hand slides up her thigh, hiking her dress up her toned leg until I reach her ass.
“Get a room,” a man’s voice says.
I stop, realizing I’m taking things too far.
Our eyes open, and we stare at each other as my lips gently pull off hers. She pulls her bottom lip into her mouth as her cheeks pinken. I swear I see stars in her eyes.
Oh, baby, you have no idea what I’m about to do to you.
I pull her back up onto her feet, then take her hand. We need to get out of here now, before I take her into the church bathroom and fuck her in a dirty stall.
I turn, and then I see my biggest problem—Maxwell.
He’s sitting in the second pew with a smug look on his face. I don’t know why in the hell Liesel thinks we need to keep him alive. She thinks I was controlling before; she’s about to find out just how controlling I can be.
“Stand up,” I tell Maxwell.
He stands casually, putting his hands in his pockets like he’s not worried for his life.
My jaw ticks. I hate that he thinks so little of me. He thinks that Liesel will save him.
I consider my options. I don’t want to leave Liesel alone for a second, but I also don’t want her to have Maxwell on her conscience.
I pull out some cash and hand it to Liesel. “There is a hotel two blocks over. Get us the most expensive room they have for the night.”
She looks at me, wide-eyed. “What about him?”
“I’ll take care of him.”
She opens her mouth, I assume, to argue with me, to beg for me not to kill him, but she shuts it before rising on her tiptoes and kissing me with plenty of tongue. “Hurry,” she whispers before she walks out of the church.
I stand frozen, watching her walk away. I can’t stand to see her go, even though we’ll only be apart a few minutes. I still ache.
Maxwell frowns.
I grin.
Liesel trusted me. She let me decide what I do with Maxwell. I don’t know when that changed, why she decided to trust me now with him, but she did.
“Shit,” Maxwell mutters.
I stalk toward him—expecting him to run, to beg, to fight.
He does nothing.
What game is he playing?
I pull my gun out.
He keeps his hands in his pockets, surrendering to his fate.
“You going to kill me here, in the church? Isn’t that like a double sin or something?”
“Why do you assume I’m going to kill you?”
“Because you are.”
“Move,” I say, nodding my gun toward the church’s basement door behind the altar.
Maxwell walks with slow and steady steps, not like a man about to die. He walks like he isn’t afraid of death.
He’s like me—always knowing death will come sooner for him than it will for most people. It’s one of the many reasons why my marriage to Liesel isn’t real. It won’t last, so what’s the point?
We descend into the dark basement. This is the moment where I could torture Maxwell, get answers to my questions, ensure my family is safe and free the boy Corbin kidnapped. But Liesel is waiting for me in a hotel room, hopefully naked. My only goal is to secure him so I can spend the night with my wife. Tomorrow, I can deal with this bastard.
Every second I spend with Maxwell is a second I don’t get back with Liesel. I may have just married her, but tomorrow is never promised. Tomorrow she could hate me, divorce me, kill me.
I grab pull ties from my pocket while keeping the gun on Maxwell.
“Put your arms behind your back,” I say.
Maxwell slowly removes his hands from his pocket and slips them behind his back.
I walk behind him, jerking him backward until his arms are around a pole. I tie his arms with the pull ties, and then I walk to the door.
“I knew you didn’t have the balls to go against her,” Maxwell snickers.
I fire.
He yelps and then stares at his thigh, where blood oozes out.
“Fucking bastard,” he yells at me.
I smirk; there’s his reaction. He is human, after all.
“I’ll be back in the morning, to see