Their Forever - Chloe Kent Page 0,44

with his target. That was all it had taken, that one question, which had led Liam to ask another.

Liam had been unharmed and coaxed Kade into thinking about whether or not he really wanted his first to be remembered as taking out an unarmed man. And so had started a negotiation of a lifetime.

Kade had conceded that he would give Liam a chance to fight for his life. They had decided on mixed martial arts as their choice of weapon. And the deal was if Liam won, Kade would let him live.

It had been the toughest fight of Liam's life. Kade had come at him with bull force. He was smart and tactically creative. But Liam had experience. So when Liam had knocked him down, and kept him down, he had given Liam his life. From that day, they had formed a friendship like no other. Liam had taught him things he had used in the field and which he had said had saved his life, but for all that it would have meant nothing. Kade had the core of a fighter, and he would have survived any situation without anyone's help.

Liam's jaw clenched as he gathered Olivia's tense body closer. She was such an innocent caught in a dangerous world. His world. He could have paid for her, then let her go and live with her family. But he was selfish and arrogant and entitled. If he wanted something, he took it. He didn't need a reason, and he answered to no one.

And he had wanted Olivia. Blinded only by his reigning need to have her. To own her. Like a precious piece of art. That's how he wanted to own her.

What he didn't expect was the sheer terror that poisoned his veins at the thought of living without her. What he didn't expect was the earth-crushing longing he felt just moments after having already touched her. He couldn't let her out of his sight. He couldn't keep her out of his mind. She softened parts of him he had long since buried.

She was nothing like the type of possession he had thought he was buying. The kind where if he lost her, or needed to dispose of her, he could easily obtain another just like her. He could have even had a collection of women just like her.

Instead, she changed everything from that first night, and he was no longer a man he recognized. He was someone who owned a precious, priceless commodity, not just a commodity easily replaced. She haunted him. Those gray defiant eyes of hers, that filled with fear as he touched her, sparked with something else, something he knew he didn't deserve.

He should have sent her to go with her family. Go back to school. Find herself. But no, he had peeled off her layers with a patient and calculated hand, had showed her what her body could bring her under his command. And she grew and blossomed, and even perfection didn't cover what she really was.

For months he'd had that niggling feeling that he had done something wrong. Every time he looked at her, she looked back at him with her gratitude and eagerness, and he’d realized what he had done to her. He’d taken her innocence and made her dependent on him, like a sleek predator in the dark, with lovely innocence.

When she said she loved him, it was because he'd made her believe that she did. He had forced that reaction from her. How could she love him? He was a monster in a suit and a cunning smile. And he had taken her innocence and replaced it with addiction. For him.

But what she felt for Kade, those inklings, the tiny flickering of her pulse when he was near, that was natural. She had no reason to react that way to Kade. She wasn't indebted to him. She owed him nothing. It was pure.

He pulled her even closer and kissed her hair. Fuck, she was the sweetest pleasure he had ever had.

“What cleanup did you ask him about?” she asked, long after he’d told her how he knew Kade.

“Kade had to go back and make sure it looked as if Bethy and Nunzio's henchman had disappeared together. It's what he does, Olivia. He makes people disappear. Sleep now,” he instructed her.

“He said you saved his life. How?” she asked, and by her tone he knew his little sweetheart was not going to back down until she had all the answers she