Chained Hands (Chained Hearts Duet Book 1) Read online

  “Hey, someone is following us,” Ellie whispers.

  We’re walking along the busy street in New York so I’m sure many people are walking in the same direction as we are. I simply nod as I contemplate answering the phone when it rings again. I mean, how do I even tell her what happened to Dillan? It’s not really something you can just explain. In the end, I have no choice but to answer as she won’t give up unless I do.

  “Hello.” My voice is raised due to the busyness and noise level of the street.

  “I’ve been trying to call you all week. Why haven’t you answered?”

  My mother has bipolar disorder. She has her good days and her bad days. And by the sound of her voice right now, it doesn’t sound like it’s one of those good days. Not the right day to answer her call, that’s for sure.

  “Sorry, I’ve had a lot going on.”

  “Oh, I know. I spoke to Dillan yesterday, and he said you ran out on him with another man. Really, Sailor, how could you?”

  My feet stop moving, and I have to remember to take a deep breath.

  He’s dead.

  I shouldn’t be mad at him, but I am.

  Dillan always lied to my mother.

  I used to think it was to protect us, but now I see it’s because he never wanted to be in her bad books like I always am.

  “I didn’t!” It’s all I manage to reply.

  “Sailor, you are lying. Stop it! We’re driving up there, so you better be home tonight. Your father and I will talk to you both.”

  My heart rate picks up, then misses a few beats, as I think about what to say. “No, you can’t come,” I yell at her through the phone.

  “We’re already halfway there. We’ll see you later. Bye, sweetie.” Then she hangs up.

  Ellie is looking at me, trying to work out what’s going on.

  I have no words.

  Not a single one.

  “He’s still following us,” she leans in and whispers in my ear.

  “No one is following us.” I roll my eyes at her paranoia but then freeze when I see Joey leaning against a building half a block behind us. He smiles when our eyes meet and nods his head just the once.

  “Stay here.” I leave her in the middle of the sidewalk and make my way back to Joey.

  This day started off badly, and it’s just gotten a whole lot worse. How am I meant to be the normal person I want to be with everything that’s going on around me? How am I meant to grieve my husband properly when my world won’t stop spinning?

  I want it to stop.

  I want to curl up in my bed and stay there, remember the times that were good. Because, believe it or not, there were some good times. But as I look back over my shoulder and see my husband’s fiancée watching me, I wonder if I’m even thinking clearly. Turning back around, I continue toward Joey.

  “Are you lost or following me for a reason?”

  “You could run,” he says simply.

  I cross my arms over my chest. “I had many opportunities to run, yet here I am, like an idiot,” I say, throwing my hands up in the air. I chose not to run because not only did he threaten to kill my husband, which he ended up doing anyway, but also everyone I love. I may have issues with my family, but I would never want to see any of them dead.

  “Does he plan to kill Ellie after what she saw?” His eyes take on a squint as he looks at me.

  “What did she see?” he questions.

  “Nothing.” I answer.

  “You should keep it that way, he’s debating on whether to shoot her yet, I would make she sure keeps her mouth shut, unless she wants to end up like your husband.”

  “You are a dick, get lost.” I huff and turn.

  “That’s great, but I’m still going to follow you.”

  “Why?”

  “Boss’s orders,” he says and shrugs.

  “Do you do everything he says?”

  “Yes.” He doesn’t hesitate to answer, and I guess that rings alarm bells, but I still can’t hold back and state, “What a boring life you must lead.”

  “If you say so,” he remarks.

  I huff and walk back to Ellie. I can tell she wants an explanation, but I keep on walking because right now I just can’t bring myself to discuss this shit with anyone. When I get to the first house, I turn back to see Joey still standing there watching us.

  “He works for him, right? Is he watching me now?” Why on earth would they be watching her? “I mean, he knows Dillan and I were engaged. Is that it?” I could lie to her because, clearly, she doesn’t have a clue.

  “No, they’re making sure the apartment sells so they get their damn money. Just remember to never talk about what happened and we should be fine,” I add.

  “Oh,” she says, working it out now. “So, if I left, they wouldn’t follow me?”

  “No, feel free to leave,” I reply in a cheerful voice.

  “I don’t think I should leave you. What if you don’t sell and they come after me?”

  Oh, gosh, I just can’t right now. Was I this stupid with Dillan? I mean, I believed a lot of things he said, let him handle all the money and clearly that was a mistake, since he blew it and had to borrow money from the damn mafia.

  If they didn’t kill him, I might have murdered him myself.

  “Can I live with you?”

  It takes a lot for me to not swear at her, yell at her, so instead, I choose to ignore her. Dillan obviously picked her because she was an easy target.

  “Do you have family?” I ask.

  She bites her nails again—a horrible habit—before she answers, “A mother. But she’s in a nursing home. She was older when she had me.”

  “Maybe you should move somewhere close to her,” I offer as we walk into the rental. I’m not sure how I can afford another place. That’s why as I walk into this beat-down, one-bedroom apartment I don’t wince when I see the state of it. It’s all I can afford, so it will have to do.

  “Oh, my god!” A mouse runs along Ellie’s foot, and she screams.

  “Go wait outside.”

  “You can’t live here. This place is—”

  “Go outside,” I tell her again.

  Ellie looks at the ground, shivers, and does exactly that, turns and walks back outside, while I look at an apartment I could very well be murdered in.

  Great.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Keir

  “She’s home,” Joey says, then ends the call. Sailor may not run, but I’m not going to bet against it. I could live without the money she owes, but that’s not how business works. She married him, and when I killed him, she took on his debt. That’s how it works, that’s how it has always worked, and there is no getting out of it.

  The car eases to a stop, and I get out.

  Joey is standing there, and he shakes his head when he sees me. “You didn’t have to come.”

  “Go home.”

  Joey nods and gets in the waiting car as I walk up the stairs to Sailor’s apartment. Knocking on the door, I wait for it to open.

  “Who are you?”

  Spinning around to the woman’s voice, I see she’s older but looks familiar, and the man with her places his hand on the small of her back while eyeing me.

  “Mom.” Sailor’s voice has me turning back to the door, and that’s when I see that she looks like her mother—high cheekbones, soft lips, and a heart-shaped face.

  “Who is this man?” Her mother stabs her finger in my direction.

  Before Sailor can answer, I jump in and take a step toward her parents. “I’m Keir, I worked with Dillan.”

  The sour look on her mother’s face drops, and a smile takes its place instead.

  “Nice to meet you,” her father says, offering me his hand, which I shake as her mother walks to Sailor and hugs her with one arm before she pulls away.

  “Where is Dillan? You haven’t ruined everything have you?” Her mother’s tone is full of suspicion, and I watch Sailor wince hesitantly before her mother walks into t
he apartment. Her father nods to me, kisses his daughter on the cheek then steps up the stairs.

  “I’ll give you a minute.” Her father looks back at me before entering the apartment.

  The door shuts behind him and she quickly takes the few steps needed until she’s standing in front of me. “You need to leave.” I lift my hand to graze her porcelain skin. I wonder, would it crack? But she pulls away from my touch before I can make contact. “Leave, Keir.”

  “No. Invite me in.”

  She crosses her arms over her chest, pushing her tits up high as she does. “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Sailor, get inside and bring your friend.” Her mother is standing at the door, watching us when I look up at the sound of her voice.

  “Invite accepted,” I whisper as I walk past her. When I step into the apartment, Ellie is sitting at the kitchen counter next to Sailor’s father. When she sees me, her body freezes, but she says nothing.

  It’s best she doesn’t say one single word.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Sailor’s mother asks.

  Sailor looks to Ellie, then back to her mother.

  “Dillan is dead?” her mother asks in shock.

  Sailor’s forehead crinkles, and her chest goes red as anger directed at Ellie sets in.

  “And this …” she points to Ellie with her nose wrinkled up in disdain, “… is his fiancée? Gosh, Sailor, how long has this been going on?”

  Sailor hasn’t said one single word.

  Then her mother focuses on me. “And you …” Again, her mother’s nose pulls up into a wrinkle. “You are fucking my daughter, are you not?”

  I could lie, but I simply smile and nod.

  This gets Sailor’s attention as she stomps over to me. “How dare you.”

  Then, boom.

  She slaps me across the face.

  Hard.

  So hard my head whips around to the left.

  I let her slap me once, so now she thinks she can slap me whenever she likes. I loosen my jaw after her smackdown, and when I look back at her, I see that anger is now pointed directly at me. I pull my gun from my waistband, and her parents scream behind me.

  But Sailor?

  Well, she does nothing but smile.

  “Shoot me! Get it over and done with.” She doesn’t hesitate and steps forward until her chest touches the barrel of my gun.

  “Sailor!” her father screams.

  “Why would I waste such a pretty face?” I angle the gun down to her leg, and she follows its movement. “But I can waste a perfectly good leg.” I turn the safety off, expecting her to have cracked by now. Instead, she’s still smiling at me—no, more like smirking. I bet if I touched between her legs right now, she’d be wet.

  Actually, I’d bet my life on it.

  I drag the gun up slowly and run it over her pubic bone before I get to her chest. “Or a kidney. You can live with one of those.”

  “Say something, Sailor,” her father pleads.

  “Yeah, say something, Sailor.” I lean forward until our noses touch.

  She takes a deep centering breath, her smile resting against my lips. “Fuck off, Keir.”

  I pull the gun back, flick the safety back on, and pocket it. “I think I’ll stay.” Quickly kissing her lips, I stride past her stunned parents and into the kitchen, then open the fridge to grab myself a drink. No one utters a word for several moments. They seem to be shocked silent.

  “You always had an inkling towards the bad crowd … the bad boys,” her mother finally says. “Always in and out of juvie as a kid. I thought you’d changed.”

  My brow raises at her mother’s words. And when I look to Sailor to confirm it, she rolls her eyes.

  “I have changed, Mother. I grew up.”

  “Well, how do you explain this?” Her mother points in my direction like I am some sort of scum she wants to eradicate from her bathroom floor.

  “That …” she points to me as well, “… is all Dillan’s fault for making deals with the mafia. It’s me who has to clean up his damn mess.”

  “Sailor, you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.” Her mother shakes her head like she just isn’t getting a word of what her daughter is saying through her thick skull.

  “What kind of trouble did you get into?” I ask, smiling and taking a sip from a bottle of water I grabbed from the fridge.

  “None of your damn business, Keir,” she spits at me.

  “You name it, she was in trouble for it. Drugs, robbery, attempted murder.”

  Well, fuck! I raise an eyebrow at her mother’s words.

  “I didn’t get charged for that,” Sailor yells at her.

  “No, and you’re lucky you didn’t. You can thank your father and his lawyer for not having a record.” Her mother crosses her arms over her chest. “And now look at you, back at it again. Did you not learn anything?”

  “So, my good girl was a bad girl. Interesting.”

  Incredibly interesting.

  She’s intriguing, I will give her that fact.

  I wonder if Dillan knew all about this wild side.

  “Did Dillan know?”

  “No. She begged us not to tell him anything. She didn’t want him to know. It’s why we rarely saw them. And when we did, it was short and impersonal. Sailor made sure of that, right?” Her mother sounds resentful, and it resounds through every single word she utters. The disdain she has for her child is tangible, the air now thick with cynicism.

  “You didn’t even like Dillan,” Sailor bites back.

  “True, he was a worm hidden in a butterfly shell. Now, you better listen to me when I say … stay far away from this one too.” Her mother points to me again, her lip curling up on one side in a snarl. “That right there! That’s nothing but trouble.”

  “Too right,” I agree, then Sailor’s rage-filled, beautiful eyes fall to me.

  “You can leave now.”

  “No. Ellie wants me to stay, don’t you?” My eyes fixate on the woman who had been fucking Dillan, without the knowledge that any of this was going on around her. I would say she’s one hundred percent gullible, but then again Dillan was a mighty good con artist.

  “I-I-I …” She doesn’t say anything else.

  “All good. I think I might leave. Sailor, walk me out.” I nod to her parents with a huge smile. “Lovely meeting you both.” The smile should be enough for them to know I have no more time for this nonsense playing out in front of me.

  They both silently watch me as I walk to the door. When Sailor and I are out of sight, I slam her body against the wood of the door before I slide my fingers down her jeans and into her panties. “I knew it,” I say, leaning in and biting her jawline.

  She pushes at my chest. “Get the fuck off me, you asshole. And out of me,” she hisses out so she isn’t loud enough for her parents to overhear.

  “We could go to my car and solve both our issues right now. I mean, you do owe me for not killing you.” She pushes at me again, so I pull my fingers free and slide them into my mouth.

  My favorite candy growing up was a pink Starburst—she tastes similar, but the flavor is a whole lot better.

  Fuck, I can’t get enough.

  I wonder how long I’ll keep her around until I do kill her.

  “I’m not fucking you again. Now or ever.”

  Okay, maybe I’ll kill her sooner rather than later.

  She shakes her head, opens the front door, and waves for me to get out.

  “Kiss me and I’ll leave.”

  “I’m not kissing you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are a psycho-fucking-path.”

  I raise a brow. “You fucked this psychopath multiple times and loved it every time. Now, kiss me, or I’m not fucking leaving.”

  “You don’t even like me,” she manages to say.

  “You’re right, but you are for sure fuckable, and it’s one of the reasons you aren’t dead.”

  “My pussy saved my life, how fucking
poetic.” She rolls her eyes, then leans forward. I stop her with a finger to her lips. It doesn’t escape her notice that I used the finger that was inside of her.

  “You better make me believe it, or I’m coming back in.”

  “Sailor?”

  “Give me a minute,” she yells back to Ellie.

  “I despise the ground you walk on,” she spits through gritted teeth before she leans in and her soft, lush lips touch mine. I grab her ass, pulling her to me, and she tries to swat my hand away while her lips press against mine. She demands entrance into my mouth, and I give it to her, pushing my hard cock into her through our clothes. She moans ever so slightly as she kisses me. It’s not her usual kiss, this one is full of passionate hate. And all the other good things too.

  This is the type of kiss that could change my heart.

  If I let it.

  But lucky for her, I’ve had years of practice with ignoring those softer emotions, and a beautiful girl with some sweet pussy and an attitude to match cannot break me.

  Not possible.

  Never!

  I hope.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sailor

  He bites at my lip as he pulls away, and I forget for a second why I’m angry at him. Just for a second before I push him away from me, and he finally leaves.

  His lips are red from my lips and his cock is hard from my touch.

  I am wet. And a part of me hates the fact he turns me on.

  He’s dangerous, sexy, and lethal. Plus, he’s a stone-cold killer. And one I’ve fucked more than once. The problem is … I enjoyed every second of it.

  “Leave. Now.”

  “I’ll be back later. I’ll let myself in.”

  What the fuck! My eyes widen and my hands make a fist without thinking twice. “No.” I shake my head.

  “We haven’t finished.”

  And I know what he’s talking about.

  He thought after a kiss like that I would gladly spread my legs again.