Reaper (Boston Underworld, #2)

by A. Zavarelli

“You have kind hands,” he murmurs. His eyes close again, and he starts to slip into unconsciousness. “Ronan, you’ve got to stay with me.”

I’ve never felt like Lachlan and I would be able to relate on anything. But as it turns out, Ronan is our common ground.

“Shhh, Ronan,” I whisper. “It’s okay. Just look at me. Only me.” To everyone’s surprise, my words seem to soothe him. So I keep repeating them, stroking his face beneath my fingers. He never takes his eyes off me. “Do you trust me?” I ask him. He nods. “Okay, good,” I whisper. “Because I would never let anyone hurt you. Do you know that?”

“You calmed him.” His voice is tinged with disbelief. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.” “Oh,” I choke out.

😢

“I don’t know how to say this in a way that you can understand, Sasha. But Ronan doesn’t know what to do with himself if he isn’t being told. Thinking freely does not come naturally to him. His days are completely regimented. If he isn’t working, he’s at home. He works out. He eats at a certain time, and only from a small selection of foods. He reads. He works. And he takes orders as they come. Anything else, he doesn’t know how to handle it. He comes to things in his own time. And on his own terms.”

“Ronan needs stability in his life. And if ye’re planning on leaving like you say, then the best thing you can do for him is to leave him be. For him to open up to you and then have ye walk away, I fear it will do him more harm than good. And I won’t stand for that.”

Mack laughs. “Cut him some slack, Lach,” she says. “Ronan looks like he’s having a bad day.” “This is why women don’t attend business meetings,” Crow says in response.

I haven’t any idea why I’m even indulging her with this line of questioning. But there is a part of me, a small part of me, that wants to ask her some things. I take the box of donuts from the cupboard and set them on the table. When Mack spots them, she grins and it makes me uncomfortable.

I sit down across from her and fold my hands. I don’t even know where to begin. Or what to say. “Just one sentence,” Mack insists. “The first thing that comes to your mind. And go.” “I don’t know what she wants,” I tell her.

“But what if she doesn’t fancy it?” “Then she’ll tell you. And you fix it. Simple. It’s all about communication, Ronan, which I know isn’t your strong suit. But you can’t expect to figure all this shit out telepathically. You’ve got to put yourself out there a bit.”

don’t expect her to say anything. But she does. Her voice is faint and scratchy. But she speaks. For me. “He says,” she forces out, “he will protect you.”

And once, I saw him threaten Michael when he laughed at Ronan at the club. Like he wanted to tear off Michael’s head for laughing at him.”

On the outside, he’s so perfect it’s hard to believe I could ever measure up to him.

His eyes are avoiding mine, and I’m grateful. Because I’m smiling. He’s overwhelmed and uncomfortable. I don’t know why he gets like that. But I’m curious as hell the more I get to know about him.

So I take a chance, and leaning up on my tiptoes, pull his gaze down to mine. “Come back,” I whisper. “I don’t want you to go.”

have his undivided attention. And I’m fully aware that one wrong move on my part will make him bolt. He’s here, but he’s already halfway out the door. I need him to relax. I need him to feel comfortable with me.

It doesn’t make sense. The man is fucking gorgeous. And twenty-nine years old now. It’s been two years since he claimed me after killing Blaine, but surely there would have had to be women before that. Right?

We’re oil and water. We don’t mix. I’m bad for him. And he’s no good for me either, probably. But I’m his, regardless. He needs to know that.

“Ronan, look at me.” He does. And I crack wide open under the weight of those soft brown eyes. “We have all night,” I tell him.

He buries his face in my neck, the next words out of his mouth coming unbidden. “I think about ye all the time.”

“Goddammit, Ronan.” Crow slams his fist down on the bar. “Ye’re being a gobshite.”

Gobshite 😂

Silence falls around us, and Crow just sits beside me for a while. He’s good at that. He doesn’t judge me. Or laugh at the broken bits of thoughts that I manage to get out. He’s usually pretty good at working them out too. Just like he does tonight.

I can kill for her. Fight for her. Do anything for her. Anything for her but that. I can’t be a father. I don’t know how. Just as I don’t know how to be a boyfriend, or a husband, or even carry on a proper conversation.

😩💔

“Ye know, Fitz. Sometimes people think they can’t change. But I remember that day I met you so many years ago. And if anyone ever tried to tell me you haven’t changed, I think you’d know exactly what I’d have to say on the matter.”

She wants to get back to her life in California and pretend this didn’t happen. That’s Em’s way of dealing with things. Mine is to let her go and pretend I don’t need her. Because that’s what big sisters do. I’ve always looked out for her. Protected her. Sacrificed for her.

She talked to me like I was so stupid. Like I was just one of those women who didn’t know any better. The truth is, she’s the one who doesn’t know any better. She doesn’t know what it’s like to have to choose. Sometimes I resent her for that. Like right now when she’s acting like she’s too good to be here anymore. In this apartment and in my presence.

“Now you listen to me, kid,” I yell at her as I jump off the sofa and stare at her in disbelief. “You don’t know anything about the way the real world works. And for good reason. Ma and I always protected you. Sheltered you. So that you never had to deal with these kind of realities. You have no idea the sacrifices I’ve made to keep you safe. So that you could go to college and have a shot at a normal life.”

There have been moments in my life when I felt like nothing. Thought I was nothing. But to have my own sister say it, my own flesh and blood… it feels like I’ve just been knifed in the stomach.

“He can handle it from anyone else, Sasha. But never you.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I whisper. He holds me tighter and nuzzles into my neck like I’m his source of comfort and not the other way around. “I’m sorry about what I called you,” he replies. “I didn’t mean it.” “Ronan?” “Aye?” “Please don’t let me go,” I tell him. “Or at least stay until I fall asleep.” And he does.

“Good morning,” she says from the kitchen. “I had Conor buy donuts. I tell ya girl, I’m really getting used to this. Did you know I can send them out for me any time I want? Seriously considering changing my name to the Queen.”

Crow and I have never had a problem. But things with Sasha are different. And I need him to understand that she isn’t like anyone else that he can say whatever he wants to. In my mind, she already belongs to me, even if I can never really have her. And I will protect her, no matter the cost.

Even as young lads in school, the girls were always coming up to speak with him. He told me how it worked and tried to get me to speak with them too. But I knew they didn’t like me. Nobody liked me. Except for Crow and his mammy.

😢

The other kids were always whispering that I was a freak. So I kept to myself. It didn’t bother me.

😩😩💔 he kills me.

I wanted her. I’d never wanted anything as much as I wanted her. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and I wanted to touch her.

And Crow explained that most women, they didn’t like it. We had to keep that part of our lives separate, for obvious reasons. But I didn’t know how to separate myself. I only knew how to paint the floor with blood and I could do that exceptionally well.

I wanted her. And I hated that I couldn’t have her. Even when I saw Blaine hurting her, and I killed him, I knew I still couldn’t have her. I was too fucked up. She’d never want me. A murderer. A freak. A mobster. The only thing I knew how to do was kill.

“Alright, caveman,” Lachlan says. “We get it, she’s yours. Now fuck off out of here. I’ll sort out the lad.”

“Nobody else gets to see you like that,” he declares. “Ye’re claimed.”

😏

He looks at me. And we both know it’s a lie. This thing between us isn’t over. I’ll always be enslaved to this man. I’d serve him any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Because, fuck me, that’s why.

“Is something wrong?” I ask him. He glares at me. “Aye, something’s wrong. You were flashing your tits and ass for all the lads tonight. After I’d taken you. Made you my woman.”

I want to believe that they are. To justify what he does. I know Ronan has rage inside. I’ve seen it first hand when he killed Blaine. But even then, it was justified. And when I look at him, all I see is the calm. He’s my anchor in the stormy sea. The one that keeps me from being pulled away into the chaos.

“Do you like me touching you, Ronan?” I ask. “Because sometimes I can’t tell.” “Aye,” he answers, his voice husky. “I like it very much.” He’s quiet for a moment, thoughtful. “When you touch me, it feels different,” he adds. “Nice.” The gravity of that simple statement knocks me off balance.

I don’t like seeing her upset. And I made her that way. So I take a bite. And it’s good. I tell her so, and she relaxes again. I make a note to tell her the food is grand any time she cooks for me.

“Nothing,” she says quickly. “Listen, Sash. I don’t really know what the deal is with you and Ronan. I think I’m still in shock that he actually had sex. I mean the man is like a fucking ice cube. Does he ever warm up?” “He’s very… intense,” I tell her.

He is the very thing they created him to be. A killer. A machine. But he’s also a protector. A man who can be as human as any other. I’ve seen his true nature. And I’ve never felt safer than when I was in his arms. So these people—the ones who hurt him—they didn’t win. Ronan might not know it, but I do.

And even if I don’t know all of the details, I’m glimpsing a piece of Ronan that I doubt very many ever have. It isn’t something I take lightly.

His voice is sleepy. Content. The shock of what I’m witnessing no longer fazes him. He’s under the spell of my fingers, completely oblivious to anything else. I forge on, choking my emotion down as the horrors of Ronan’s childhood are laid bare. Scars on his knees. His thighs. His stomach, chest and shoulders. There isn’t a single part of him that’s been untouched by the violence he has known.

This chapter has me in bits 😢

I feel protective of him, in this moment. And I never want to let anything hurt him again. I know Ronan can handle himself. He can handle anything this life would ever throw at him because he’s already been through hell and back. But watching him experience things for the first time, such simple things, at his age… makes me realize he also needs someone to experience them with.

“I don’t mean to upset you,” he says. “I worry that I might hurt ye. Like last time. I could not live with myself if I did that to you again, Sasha.”