The Monster by L.J. Shen

Age 9

This is the last time you ever cry in your life, shithead.

That was the only thing that went through my head when the woman who gave birth to me punched the doorbell five times in a row, clutching the back of my shirt like she was disposing of some punk who’d TP’d her house on her neighbor’s doorstep.

The door to Uncle Troy’s penthouse swung open. She shoved me past the threshold.

“Here. All yours. You win.”

I flung myself into the arms of Aunt Sparrow, who staggered backward, pulling me to her chest in a protective hug.

Sparrow and Troy Brennan weren’t really my aunt and uncle, but I spent a lot of time with them—and by ‘a lot’, I mean still not enough.

Cat, AKA the woman who birthed me, was giving me away. She’d made up her mind tonight when she’d passed by me, on her way to her bedroom.

“Why are you so small? Pam’s kid is your age, and he is, like, huge.”

“Because you never fucking feed me.” I flung my joystick to the side, giving her stink eye.

“You’re, like, ten or eleven, Samuel! Make yourself a sandwich.”

I was a nine-year-old and a malnourished one at that. But she was right. I should make myself a sandwich. I would if we had the ingredients for it. There weren’t even condiments in our house, only drug paraphernalia and enough booze to fill the Charles River.

Not that Cat cared. She was blind with rage because I stole her cocaine and sold it to some wiseguys down the street then used the money to buy four McMeals and a Nerf gun, when she left me unattended tonight.

Grandma Maria was the one who did the heavy lifting when it came to raising me. She lived with us, working two jobs to support us. Catalina was in the background, like a piece of furniture. There, but not really. We lived under the same roof, but she moved out whenever her boyfriends were whipped enough to let her stay with them. She went to rehab centers, and dated married men, and somehow had money to buy expensive bags and shoes. Kids at school kept telling me their dads said Cat knew the curve of every mattress at our local Motel 6, and even though I wasn’t sure what it meant, I was sure it wasn’t good.

I once eavesdropped on Uncle Troy telling her, “He is not the fucking Hamptons, Cat. You can’t visit him periodically, when the weather allows it.”

Catalina had told him to shut his trap. That I was the worst mistake she had ever made while she was high.

That day, I got expelled. Beat the shit out of Neil DeMarco for saying his dad and mom were getting a divorce because of my mom.

“Your mom’s a slut, and now I have to move to a smaller house! I hate you!”

I’d given him a different reason to hate me by the time I was done with him, one he would always remember because it changed his face.

When Cat picked me up, she’d yelled at me that she’d fuck up my face like I’d done to Neil, but I wasn’t worth breaking her new nails over. I’d barely heard her. Everything inside my head was swollen from the fight and from thoughts that made my head hurt.

But I knew she’d be too cheap to take me to Urgent Care, so I didn’t complain.

“All ours?” Aunt Sparrow narrowed her green eyes at Catalina. “What are you talking about? Today is not our day with Sam.”

Aunt Sparrow had red hair and freckles and a body like a scarecrow, all bones and skin. She wasn’t as pretty as Catalina, but I still loved her more.

Cat rolled her eyes, kicking the duffel bag with my stuff. It hit Uncle Troy’s shins.

“Don’t pretend like you haven’t been gunning for this all along. You take him on your family vacations, he has a room here, and you go to all his soccer games. You’d breastfeed him if you had any tits, which sadly, you don’t.” Catalina swiped her eyes along Sparrow’s body. “You always wanted him. He’ll complete your boring little family, with your boring little daughter. Well, it’s your lucky day, because the asshole is officially yours.”

I swallowed hard and glared straight ahead at the flat screen TV behind Sparrow’s shoulder. Their living room was a mess. The good kind of mess. Toys strewn everywhere, pink fluffy blankets, and a purple, glittery toddler scooter. Brave was playing on the screen. It was Sailor’s favorite movie. She was probably asleep.

Shehad a bedtime. Rules. A routine.

Sailor was Troy and Sparrow’s two-year-old. I loved her like a sister. Whenever she feared a monster was hiding under her bed and I was there, she’d slip out of her toddler bed and pad into my room and slide under my blanket, clutching me like I was a teddy bear.

“Keep me thafe, Sammy.”

“Always, Sail.”

“Not in front of the kid.” Troy stepped toward Cat, putting space between her and me. My stomach growled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten since those McMeals I’d shoved down my throat.

“Sam, can you give us a minute?” Sparrow ran her fingers through my dusty hair. “I got you that Ghost of Tsushima videogame, like you asked. Grab a snack and play while we finish up here.”

I took some beef jerky—Uncle Troy told me protein would help me grow taller—and disappeared into the hallway, rounding the corner but not getting into my room. I’d had my own room here since I was in first grade. Grandma Maria said it was because Troy and Sparrow lived in a good school district, and we needed their zip code to register, but even after I got expelled from my first school, I still came here often.

My “real” house was in a bad neighborhood in Southie, where tennis shoes littered every power line, and even if you didn’t pick fights, you’d sure as hell need to finish them in order to survive.

Eavesdropping, I heard Troy growl, “What the fuck?” from the doorway. I liked how he said the word ‘fuck.’ The sound of it gave me whiplash, and the skin on my arms turned all funny. “Maria has barely been gone for three weeks, and you’re already pulling shady shit.”

Grandma Maria passed away in her sleep less than a month ago. I was the one who’d found her. Cat had been out all night, “working.” I’d held Grams and cried until I couldn’t open my eyes anymore. When Cat finally got home, with whiskey breath and smudged makeup, she told me it was all my fault.

That Grams was too tired of my bullshit and decided to bail.

“Can’t blame her for kickin’ the bucket, kid. I’d do the same if I could!”

I packed my duffel bag that same morning and hid it under my bed.

I’d known Cat wasn’t going to keep me.

“First of all, watch your mouth. I’m still grieving. I lost my mother unexpectedly, you know,” Catalina huffed.

“Tough shit. Sam never had his mother to begin with.” Troy’s voice made the walls rattle, even when he spoke calmly.

“The boy is untamable. Dumb as a brick and as aggressive as a stray dog. Me sticking around ain’t gonna help. It’s only a matter of time before he lands in juvie,” my mother spat. “He’s a monster.”

That was her nickname for me. Monster.

The Monster did this.

The Monster did that.

“Look, I don’t care what you and your perfect little wife think. It’s just too much responsibility. I’m out. I can’t send him to therapy and shit like that. I’m not made out of money.” Catalina stubbed her heel on the floor. I heard her rummaging through her Chanel bag for her cigarettes. She wasn’t gonna find them. I smoked half the pack in the backyard while she was getting high in her bedroom. The rest were in my bag.

“If money is an issue—” Sparrow started.

“Bitch, please,” Cat cut into her words viciously, spluttering. “Keep your money. And I hope you are not dumb enough to think you’re better than me, with all the help you’re getting from your husband and harem of nannies and tutors. Sam’s the spawn of the Devil. I can’t do this alone.”

“You’re not doing this alone,” Troy ground out. “We have shared custody of him, idiot.”

Fire blazed in my chest. I didn’t know Sparrow and Troy had legal custody over me. I didn’t know what it meant, but it sounded important.

“Either you take him or I drop him off at an orphanage,” Cat yawned.

In a way, I was relieved. I always knew once Grams died, Catalina would get rid of me. I spent the last few weeks worrying she’d set the house on fire with me in it to get insurance money or something. At least I was still alive.

I knew my mother didn’t love me. She never looked at me. When she did, she told me I reminded her of him.

“Same Edward Cullen hair. Same dead, gray eyes.”

Himwas my late father, Brock Greystone. Before he died, he was employed by Troy Brennan. Brock Greystone was weak and pathetic and a weasel. A rat. Everyone said so. Grams, Cat, Troy.

My worst nightmare was becoming like him, which was why Catalina always told me I was so much like him.

Then there was Uncle Troy. I knew he was a bad man, but he was an honorable one, too.

The wiseguys down my block said he had blood on his hands.

That he threatened, tortured, and killed people.

Nobody messed with Troy. Nobody kicked him out of the house or yelled at him or told him he was their worst mistake. And he had that thing about him, like … like he was made out of marble. Sometimes I looked at his chest and was surprised to see it moved.

I wanted to be him so much that when I thought about it my bones began to hurt.

His existence just seemed louder than anyone else’s.

Whenever Uncle Troy disappeared in the middle of the night, he always came back bruised and disheveled. He’d bring dunks and ignore the fact he smelled of gunpowder and blood. He would tell us bad jokes at the table while we ate, and to make sure Sailor wasn’t scared anymore, he’d tell her he saw the monster family that lived in her closet move out.

One time he bled all over a donut, and Sailor had eaten it because she thought it was Christmas frosting. Aunt Sparrow was close to nuclear explosion. She’d chased him around the kitchen with a broomstick while Sail and I giggled, swatting it about and actually catching his ear twice. When she finally caught him (only because he let her), he captured both her wrists and lowered her to the floor and kissed her hard on the mouth. I thought I saw some tongue, too, but then she swatted his chest and giggled.

Everyone was so happy and laughed so much, Sailor had an accident, and she never had accidents anymore.

But then I’d felt my chest tighten because I knew they’d send me back to Cat later that afternoon. It reminded me I wasn’t really a part of their family.

It was the only good moment I had. I’d play it over and over, lying in my bed, every time I heard Cat’s bedsprings whine under the weight of a stranger.

“We’ll take him,” Sparrow announced coldly. “Off you go. We’ll send you the paperwork as soon as our lawyer drafts the documents.”

My chest filled with something warm just then. Something I’d never felt before. I couldn’t stop it. It felt good. Hope? Opportunity? I couldn’t put a name on it.

“Red,” Troy breathed his wife’s nickname.

And just like that, my insides turned cold again. He didn’t want to adopt me. Why would he? They already had one perfect daughter. Sailor was cute and funny and normal. She didn’t get into fights, hadn’t been expelled three times, and definitely hadn’t broken six bones in her body doing dangerous shit because pain reminded her she was still alive.

I wasn’t an idiot. I knew where I was headed—the streets. Kids like me didn’t get adopted. They got into trouble.

“No,” Sparrow snapped at him. “I’ve made up my mind.”

Nobody spoke for a moment. I got really scared. I wanted to shake Cat and tell her how much I hated her. That she should’ve died instead of Grandma Maria. That she deserved to die. With all her drugs and boyfriends and rehab trips.

I never told anyone how she used to give me shots of rum to make me sleep. Whenever Troy or Sparrow paid us surprise visits, she’d rub white powder on my gums to wake me up. She’d curse under her breath, threatening to burn me if I didn’t wake up.

I was seven when I realized I was an addict.

If I didn’t get the white powder daily, I shook and sweated and screamed into my pillow until I ran out of energy and passed out.

I was eight when I kicked the habit.

I’d just refused to let her give me rum or powder. Went crazy every time she came near me with that stuff. Once, I bit Cat’s arm so bad a part of her skin stayed in my mouth, salty and metallic and hard against my teeth.

She never tried again after that.

“You’re fucking lucky my wife is stubborn as hell,” Troy hissed. “We’ll take Sam, but there will be stipulations—and many of them.”

“Shocker,” Cat bit out. “Let’s hear them.”

“You’ll hand him over and sign all the legal paperwork, no negotiations and without asking for a penny.”

“Done,” Cat cackled humorlessly.

“You’ll fuck off from Boston. Move far away. And when I say far, Catalina, I mean somewhere he can’t see you. Where the memory of his deadbeat mother doesn’t burn hot. Another planet is preferable, but since we can’t risk aliens meeting you and thinking we’re all cunts, two states away minimum is my requirement. And if you ever come back—which I sincerely recommend against—you’ll go through me if you wanna see him. You walk away from him now, you lose all your motherly privileges. If I catch you messing with this kid, my kid…” he paused for emphasis “…I will give you the slow, painful death you’ve been begging for almost a decade, and I will make you watch your own death in the mirror, you vain waste of oxygen.”

I believed him.

I knew she did, too.

“You’ll never see me again.” Cat’s voice rattled, like her throat was full of coins. “He is rotten to the core, Troy. That’s why you love him. You see yourself in him. His darkness calls to you.”

That was when I turned into a pillar of salt. Or at least that’s how it felt. I was afraid if someone touched me, I would shatter.

I could be like Troy.

I had darkness. And violence. And all the things that made him great.

I had the same hunger and disdain for the world and heart that was just that—a heart—with nothing much inside it.

I could turn a corner.

I could be something else.

I could be something, period.

That was a possibility I’d never considered before.

Cat left not long after. Then Troy and Sparrow talked. I heard Troy pour himself a drink. They discussed lawyers and what to tell Sailor. Sparrow suggested they send me to a Montessori school, whatever the heck that was. I tiptoed my way to bed, too tired to care about my own future. My knees knocked together, and I felt the beef jerky crawling up my throat. I made a pit stop in the bathroom and puked my guts out.

Orphan. A mistake. A monster.

I didn’t know how much time passed before they walked into my room.

I pretended to be asleep. I didn’t want to talk. All I wanted to do was to lie there with my eyes closed, scared that they’d decide they didn’t want me after all or that they were going to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.

I felt my bed dip as Sparrow sat on its edge. I had Boston Celtics green and white linen, a PlayStation, a TV, and a Bill Russell jersey hanging on my wall. My room was painted green and full of framed pictures of me with Troy, Sparrow, and Sailor at Disney, Universal, and in Hawaii.

My room back in Cat’s house was just a bed, a dresser, and a trash can.

No paint. No pictures. No nothing.

I never asked myself why.

Why the Brennans took me in.

Why I was a part of this fucked-up arrangement.

“We know you’re awake.” Troy’s whiskey breath fanned my hair over my eyes, making my nose twitch. “You’d be an idiot to fall asleep on a night like this, and my son is no idiot.”

I cracked my eyes open. His silhouette took up most of my room. Sparrow put her hand on my back, rubbing it in circles.

I didn’t shatter.

I released a breath.

I’m not a pillar of salt after all.

“Are you my real pops?” I blurted out but wasn’t brave enough to look at him when I asked. “Did you knock Cat up?”

I should’ve asked this long ago. It was the only thing that made sense. “You’d never give me the time of the day otherwise. You can’t let me hang out here just because Grandma Maria once scrubbed your toilets. Am I a bastard?”

“You’re not a bastard, and you’re not mine,” Troy said point-blank, averting his gaze to the window. The Boston skyline stretched out in front of him. All the things he owned and ruled. “Not biologically, anyway.”

“I’m a Greystone,” I insisted.

“No,” he hissed. “You’re a Brennan. Greystones don’t have the heart gene.”

I’d never heard about that gene. Then again, I skipped school most days in favor of smoking cigarettes outside bars and selling whatever it was I stole that day to help pay for my next meal.

“I ain’t perfect,” I sat up, glowering. “So if that’s what you want, some perfect yes-kid, kick me out now.”

“We don’t want you to be perfect.” Sparrow rubbed my back faster, harder. “We just want you to be ours. You are Samuel. A gift from God. In the Bible, Samuel was gifted to Hannah after years of praying. She thought she was barren. Do you know what barren means?”

“A woman who can’t have kids.” I shuddered. To have kids, you first had to make them, and I knew exactly how people went about making them—I caught Catalina practicing a bunch of times with her clients—and it was damn gross.

Sparrow nodded. “After Sailor was born, the doctors told me I couldn’t conceive again. Turned out, I didn’t have to. I have you. Your name means ‘The Lord Hears’ in Hebrew. Shma-el. God heard my prayers and surpassed my every expectation. You’re exquisite, Samuel.”

Exquisite. Ha. That was a word I’d use for a famous painting or some shit, not a nine-year-old ex cocaine addict, recovering alcoholic, who was an active smoker, and half the size of kids my age.

My childhood was such a bust, my innocence and I no longer shared a zip code, and if she thought a few home-cooked meals and some back rubs were going to change it, well, she was in for an unpleasant surprise.

“Tell me why I’m here. Why I’m not in an orphanage. I’m old enough to know,” I demanded, balling my fists really hard, clenching my jaw. “And don’t talk to me about the Bible. The Lord may have heard Hannah, but He sure as shit ain’t been listening to me.”

“You’re here because we love you,” Sparrow said at the same time Troy answered, “You’re here because I killed your father.”

Silence descended. Sparrow shot up from my bed, her eyes really wide and really big, staring at her husband. Her mouth hung open like a fish. Troy carried on.

“He said he deserves to know. He’s not wrong, Red. The truth, Sam, is that shortly before your father died, he kidnapped Sparrow with every intention of killing her. I had to save my wife and did so without thinking twice. I wanted you to have a father figure. A person to look up to. The plan was to take you to basketball games every now and again. Provide guidance, advice, and a fat college fund to kick-start your life; getting attached was never in my plans, but it happened, anyway.” He looked me right in the eye. “Very early on I realized you were not a project. You were family.”

“You killed my father,” I echoed.

I knew Brock Greystone was dead, but Catalina and Grandma Maria always said it happened in an accident.

“Yes,” he said simply.

“Who knows?”

“You. Me. Cat. Aunt Sparrow. God.”

“Did God forgive you?”

Troy smirked. “He gave me you.”

Depending on who you asked, that could be seen as a punishment.

Now Brock was dead, and Cat was gone. The Brennans were my only shot at survival, whether I liked it or not.

“All right?” Troy asked. With his Southie accent, it came out as “Aight?”

I stared at him, not sure what to think or do.

“I’m going to go get some dunks now.” He leaned down to grab my shoulder bag, retrieving Cat’s pack of cigarettes from it. It was close to midnight. He was definitely going to one of his “businesses.”

“Donuts always make everything better,” Sparrow pointed out, carrying on with the lie. “Be safe, honey.”

He bent down to kiss the top of her head. “Always, Red. And you…” he tousled my hair with his massive palm “…no more cigarettes. This shit could send you to an early grave.”

That was the moment I decided I was going to smoke until my lungs collapsed. Not because I wanted to defy Uncle Troy, but because dying young didn’t seem like a bad idea.

When he left, I turned to Sparrow. My nerves were shot. I couldn’t trust myself not to vomit again, but this time in her lap. And I never vomited, never cried.

“He didn’t want to take me,” I said.

She ran her fingers through my hair, brushing it back to normal. “No, he didn’t. But only because he didn’t want your mother to walk out of your life.”

“But you didn’t give a shit about that. Why?”

“Because I know no mother is better than a bad mother, and every day you were with her made my heart hurt.”

“Grams left, too.”

“She didn’t leave, honey. She died. It wasn’t up to her.”

“I don’t care. I hate women. I hate them.”

“One day you’ll find someone who changes your mind.” Sparrow smiled privately, like she knew something I didn’t. She was wrong.

Grams died and left me with Cat.

Cat almost killed me multiple times.

Women weren’t reliable. Men weren’t either, but men I could at least punch in the nuts, and men never made any promises. I didn’t have a father or a grandfather to get mad at.

“I will never change my mind,” I muttered, fighting my heavy eyelids that demanded I pass out.

I crashed in Sparrow’s arms hours after Troy left.

When I woke up the next morning, I found a golden chain on my nightstand.

I scanned the Saint Anthony charm on it. My initials was engraved around the coin.

S.A.B.

Samuel Austin Brennan.

Years later, I’d learn Troy and Sparrow petitioned to legally changed my name from Greystone to Brennan the same hour they filed for full custody of me.

I knew who Saint Anthony was, the Patron Saint of all lost things.

I was lost, but now I’d been found.

Next to the necklace was a paper plate with a glazed donut and a hot cup of cocoa.

I was a Brennan now.

Boston underworld aristocracy.

Privileged, respected, and feared above all.

A legend in the making.

I intended to live up to my namesake at any price.

I would never be lost again.

My parents failed, but me? I’d prevail.

I would rise from the ashes and make them proud.

Would soar into the sky.

This was the first time I felt this way.

Certain.

Age 17.

The heart was a monster.

That’s why it was locked behind our ribs, in a cage.

I’d known this all along, from the moment I was born, but tonight I felt it, too.

Twenty minutes after taking the Mass Pike out of Boston, I finally came to terms with the fact that I was lost.

I drove with the windows rolled down, the humid summer air whipping at my wet cheeks. The tears kept on coming.

The scent of spring’s blossoms lingered in my nostrils, heady and sweet, mixing with the crispness of the night.

She is never going to smell spring blossoms again.

To smile lopsidedly, like she is holding the secrets of the universe between her lips.

To press a dress against my chest and shimmy her shoulders excitedly, exclaiming it’s, “Tres you!”

Why’d you have to do this, B?

I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

In the distance, neon lights flashed from striped yellow and red tents. There was a giant sign in the middle of a glittering Ferris wheel.

Aquila Fair.

Drown.

I needed to drown.

In lights and smells and noises, with simple lives that weren’t mine.

I took a sharp turn right.

I parked among the SUVs, beat-up vehicles, and sports cars, stumbling out of the Volvo in my black hoodie, cut-off shorts, and sneakers. The Daisy Dukes were my doing. I took scissors to an old pair of jeans and cut them off so that the curve of my ass was visible even from space. My attire usually resembled that of Kate Middleton. Prim, proper, and princess-like. But tonight, I wanted to piss her off for dying on me. To give her the middle finger for not sticking around.

“American girls show skin like men don’t know what awaits under their garments. You, mon cheri, will make a man earn every inch of you, and dress appropriately and demurely, you hear?”

My feet carried me forward, the mouthwatering fragrance of cotton candy, buttered popcorn, and candy apple trickling into my system.

Shedidn’t like it when I ate junk food.

Said Americans were in the habit of eating themselves into type 2 diabetes. She had a lot of ideas about Americans, all of them bordering on xenophobic, and I used to spend half my time arguing the merits of America with her.

Tents that offered live shows, vendors, and a small arcade surrounded the rides, serving as a border. The ding-ding-ding of machines, peppered with the mechanical noises from the rides, reverberated in my empty stomach. The Ferris wheel sitting in the center was bathed in an ocean of lights.

I bought myself pink cotton candy and a Diet Coke and walked around.

There were couples making out, laughing, fighting. Clusters of teenagers yelling and hooting. Parents screaming. Children running. I was irrationally, maddeningly angry with all of them.

For being alive.

For not grieving with me.

For taking for granted the rarity of their precious condition: alive, healthy, and well.

I tossed the remainder of cotton candy into a trash can and looked around, deciding what ride to go on first. From the corner of my eye, I noticed a giant sign.

The Creep Show: A Haunted Mansion Experience.

Haunted mansions were my playground.

I lived in one, after all—my house held the secrets of seven generations of Fitzpatricks—and I’d always been drawn to ghosts and monsters.

I took my place in line, shifting from foot to foot as I checked my phone. My mother and brothers were all looking for me.

Cillian: Where are you, Aisling? Call me back immediately.

Hunter: Yo, sis. You okay? Sounds like you were involved in some heavy shit. Sending hugz from Cali.

Mother: I heard what happened. Quite terrible, dear. Please come home so we can discuss this. So dreadful that you saw this.

Mother: You know how bad my anxiety gets when I can’t get hold of you. You need to come back home, Ash.

Mother: Oh, Aisling, what am I to do? You didn’t even make my herbal tea before you left. I’m a wreck over here!

That was my mother. Self-centered even when it was my world imploding into miniscule pieces. Always worried for her own well-being before mine.

I tucked my phone back in my pocket and craned my neck to look at the carts as they slid back from the jaws of an evil, laughing clown. Muffled screams bled from the inside of the ride. The people who came out stepped out of the carts with wobbly knees, buzzing with excitement.

When I was finally put in one of the wagons—it looked like a rickety pod with red paint smeared all over it to symbolize blood—I was alone, even though there was enough space for two people.

I knew nothing would happen to me on a fair ride.

Still, I felt lost, fragile, and unbearably lonely tonight. Like someone had peeled away my skin in one go and left me to carry my bones and veins and muscles in a messy heap.

I’d just lost my best friend. The only one that counted.

I grabbed onto the shirtsleeve of the guy manning the ride, tugging.

“I want to get off.”

He gave me a slow once-over, his gaze lingering a second too long on my bare thighs.

“Hell, sugar, I’d like to get you off, too. But you’ll have to wait till the end of my shift. I need the money,” he slurred, sounding stoned.

I clutched onto his Hurley hoodie sleeve, throwing fourteen years of etiquette lessons out the window in one moment of desperation. “No! I want to get off the ride. Unless you can put someone in the cart with me?” Hope trickled into my voice.

“Bro, it’s, like, a ride anyone four feet or over can get on.” He shook my touch off, frowning. “You’ll make it out alive.”

“I know. It’s not that I’m scared. I just—”

“Look…” he raised a hand to stop my stream of words “…if I don’t press that red button over there every three minutes, I lose my job. You getting out or sucking it up?”

I was about to answer that it was fine, that I was just being silly, when someone stepped forward, cutting the entire line behind them.

“She’ll suck it up, Sir Smokes-a-Lot.”

A curtain of unshed tears blocked my vision, and I knew if I blinked it away, everyone would see I was crying. I was so embarrassed I wanted to die. Blurry Stoner Guy pushed the metal rail open obediently, muttering a quick hello to the stranger approaching us, ducking his head down.

The person slid into my cart, pulling the metal bar against our waists, flicking a cigarette sideways, an umbrella of smoke cocooning us together.

I wiped my eyes, mouthing a mortified thank you. When I looked up, our gazes collided, and my insides crushed like a glass ceiling shattered by a supernova.

Him.

I didn’t know him, but I dreamed of him.

I’d dreamed of this man every night since I was nine.

Since I’d started reading kissing books under the covers about brave knights and the princesses who loved them.

Beautiful and princely, with eyes that could see through your soul.

He looked to be in his early twenties. With tawny, wind-swept hair tousled in untidy sexiness. His eyes were two silver moons—the kind that change color in different lights. His skin glowed, like he’d been dipped in gold, and he was so tall his knees poked out of the cart. He wore a black V-neck that clung onto his muscular chest and biceps and black jeans ripped at the knees.

A Saint Anthony charm was wrapped around his neck, held by a tattered leather string.

“I—I’m Aisling.” I stuck my hand out to him. Our cart jerked forward and whined as two girls my age jumped into the pod behind us, gossiping hotly about a girl named Emmabelle who used to go to school with them and apparently had sex with half the football team then sucked off the other half.

He ignored my outstretched hand. I swallowed, withdrawing my hand and dumping it in my lap.

“Bad night?” His eyes lingered on my puffy eyes.

“The worst.” I didn’t even have the good manners to smile politely.

“I highly doubt that.”

“Oh, I’ll bet you anything my night is going worse than anyone else’s in this carnival.”

He offered me an arched eyebrow, showing me his handsomeness had a devilish quality to it, the kind I suspected very few women could resist.

“I wouldn’t bet with me.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“I always win.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” I murmured, starting to think he was a little too confident for my liking. “I bet you anything I’m having the worst night out of all the people in this carnival.”

“Is that right? Anything?”

“Within reason.” I straightened my back, remembering myself. She always told me to behave a certain way. If she was a ghost hovering above me right now, she would not appreciate my attire. The least I could do was not lose my virginity to this handsome stranger in a stupid bet.

“I’m guessing you’re the sensible one.” He twisted his lighter between his long fingers, back and forth, a movement I found oddly soothing.

“One, out of …?”

“Your siblings.”

“How do you know I have siblings at all?” I felt my eyebrows rise in surprise.

He stared at me boldly, his eyes saying things no stranger had any business telling me. It was like the world was his, and since I was a part of it, he could have me, too. Suddenly, I realized whatever was happening here was very odd and at least somewhat dangerous.

I wanted to strip for this man, and I’d never wanted to strip for any man, for any reason, especially not romantic reasons—and I didn’t mean just my clothes.

I wanted to make him explode like a piñata, clawing into his gut, unearthing every single quality, trait, and bad habit that he had. Who was he? What was his story? Why did he talk to me?

“You think you’re nothing special,” he said softly.

“Do people think they’re special?”

“Those who aren’t do.”

“I’m guessing you’re the troublemaker out of your siblings.” I tucked my hair behind my ears. He smirked, and I felt it in my bones. The way the air heated up just because he was content.

“Bingo.”

“You must’ve been a hellion growing up.” I cocked my head sideways, as if a different angle would show me a picture of him when he was nine or ten.

“I was such a troublemaker, my mother threw me out when I was nine.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I piped up.

“I’m not. I dodged a bullet.”

“And your dad?”

“He didn’t.” The man retrieved a cigarette pack he kept in his rolled-up shirtsleeve, a-la Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He cupped his palm over his mouth and lit another cancer stick. I noticed Stoner Guy saw and didn’t say a word. “He was shot when I was a kid.”

“Deservingly?” I heard myself ask.

“Very much so.” Hot Stranger sucked on his cigarette, the orange ember flaring like that thing behind my ribcage. “How ’bout your folks?”

“Both alive.”

“But someone else isn’t. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be crying.” He exhaled a spiral of smoke skyward. We both watched as the gray mist above us evaporated.

“I lost someone tonight,” I admitted.

“Who?”

“No offense, but that’s none of your business.”

“None taken, but just for the record…” he tilted my chin up with the hand holding his cigarette “…everything in Suffolk County is my fucking business, sweetheart, and right now, you’re within county limits, so think again.”

An odd feeling washed over me. Fear, desire, and kinship battled inside me. He was direct and aggressive, a fighter. As unlikely as it sounded, I knew he and I were cracked in the same place, even though we’d both been broken in different ways.

Our cart began to move, slicing through a black vinyl curtain. A giant, plastic zombie leaned forward from a veil of green smoke, laughing lowly into my ear.

“The monster’s gonna get ya.”

There were beasts twirling, screaming zombies that spat water in our faces, and a family of corpses having dinner. A baby’s red eyes shot lasers at us.

The train of carts ascended to the top, slow and steady. People all around us squeaked in excitement.

“Do you ever feel lost?” I whispered.

The stranger laced his fingers with mine on the scratched plastic bench beneath us. His hand was warm, dry, and calloused. Mine was cold, soft, and sweaty. I didn’t pull away, even when danger began humming around me, thickening the air, depriving me from oxygen.

Play with monsters, but don’t be surprised when you get beaten.

“No. I had to find myself at a young age.”

“Lucky you.”

“I wouldn’t use that word to describe me.” He chuckled.

“Not Irish, then?” I couldn’t help but probe.

He didn’t look Irish—he was too tall, too broad, too tan—but he had that Southie accent most blue-collar Irish men sported.

“Depends on how you look at it,” he answered. “Back to the subject at hand—your being lost.”

“Yes, right.” I cleared my throat, thinking about her again. “I don’t think I’ll ever find myself. I don’t have many friends. In fact, I only had one really true friend, and she died today.”

“There is nothing to find. Life is not about finding yourself. It’s about creating yourself. There’s something liberating about knowing your own bones, all the things you are capable of. Being unapologetically yourself makes you invincible.” His voice seeped into me, hitting roots. Our fingers tightened together. Our cart jerked here and there while zombies sent arms flying in our direction, trying to catch us. People around us giggled and screamed.

He hadn’t said he was sorry for my loss like everyone else had. “And who are you?” I breathed.

“I’m a monster.”

“No, really,” I protested.

“It’s true. I thrive in the dark. My job is to implement fear, and I am some people’s nightmare. Like all monsters, I always take what I want.”

We reached the highest point. The peak.

“And what I want right now, Aisling, is to kiss you.”

The cart jerked back, screeched, then tipped down, falling at an increasing speed.

The stranger muffled my scream with his mouth. His hot, salty lips sealed mine possessively. All my inhibitions, fears, and anxiety evaporated. He tasted of cigarettes, mint gum, and sex. Like a man. I let go of the rails, clutching the thin fabric of his black shirt, drawing him close, drowning in what we were in that moment. A monster devouring a princess, with no knight in sight to save her.

He tilted his head and cupped my cheek, his other hand cradling the back of my head. His tongue prodded my mouth open, touching mine—gently at first—before I let our kiss deepen. Our tongues twisted together, dancing, teasing, searching. My stomach dipped, and my anxiety dissolved.

The world felt different. Brighter. Bigger.

Warmth pooled between my legs, and my groin rocked forward on its own accord. I felt achingly empty. I squeezed my thighs together just as I felt a lash of fresh air on my face.

The ride was over.

We were back out.

He broke our kiss, drawing back, his face expressionless. Terrifyingly calm.

The girls in the cart behind us mumbled “holy shit” and “that was hot” and “yeah, it’s definitely him, Tiff.”

Him who?

“First kiss, huh?” He wiped a smudge of saliva from the corner of my mouth with his thumb, cold amusement dancing in his eyes. Like I was a toy. Something laughable, replaceable. “You’ll get the hang of it.”

The girls behind us giggled. My soul fired up its imaginary laptop and opened Zillow in search of a suitable place to bury myself from shame.

“Are you seriously not going to tell me your name?” My voice came out hoarse. I cleared my throat. “Imagine if you really were my first kiss. I could be scarred for life. You might traumatize me. I’d never be able to trust another man again.”

Stoner Guy flung the metal bar open, striding down the line of carts. “Time’s up. Everybody out.”

The stranger smoothed my hair away from my face.

“You’ll survive,” he croaked.

“Don’t be so sure.”

“Don’t underestimate me. I know a whole fucking lot about people. Besides, I already told you, my name is Monster.”

“Now, that might be your nickname—” I started.

“Nicknames are more telling than birth names.”

I happened to agree. My father called my older brother, Cillian, Mo Orga, which meant “my golden” in Irish Gaelic, and my middle brother, Hunter, Ceann Beag, which meant “little one.”

He never nicknamed me anything.

My name meant vision, a dream. Perhaps that’s all I was to my father. Something that wasn’t real, tangible, or important. I was meant to be an idea. A pretty vessel for him to parade and exhibit.

A little daughter, pretty, prim, and proper, without the pressure of breeding me for some big role. To take over his company one day. To give him male heirs to continue his legacy. I was my mother’s gift from him, and I played my role, doting over her, fulfilling her every whim, and filling the hours he was away on business with shopping trips, doing each other’s hair, and more.

Now I was planning to go to med school so when I graduated, I could also take care of her physically. Jane Fitzpatrick always did detest visiting her doctors. She said they were judging her, misunderstanding her.

I couldn’t wait for the day I’d be qualified to replace her physician and check another box in the impossible wish list my parents had set out for me.

“I’m not afraid of monsters.” I squared my shoulders.

Pleased with my answer, he flicked my chin. “Maybe you’re one of us. You just said yourself you don’t know who you are.”

I tried to go after him. I wasn’t too proud to follow him around, ask him what he meant. But he was quicker, sliding out of the cart quickly, and with the feral grace of a tiger, he walked away.

He disappeared in the throng of swirling lights and bodies, evaporating into thin air, as monsters did.

I came here to drown.

Now, I could hardly breathe.

Three hours later, I was still buzzing with adrenaline and pain. I tried all the rides. Ate too much candy. Drank root beer on a bench and people-watched. The distraction did not dull the pain. I continued to play the moment I found out she was dead over and over again in my head like I was trying to punish myself for … what? Not stopping it? Not getting there sooner?

There was nothing I could have done to prevent it.

Wasn’t there? She asked you for help. You never gave it to her.

I looked for Monster all night, even when I didn’t mean to. My eyes wandered, scanning the lines and couples and throngs of people. I wondered if I’d made him up in my head. Everything about our encounter seemed unreal.

When I took a restroom break at the portable toilets, I noticed the back of the door was freshly engraved with words. Words that seemed intimately directed to my eyes.

Lust lingers, love stays.

Lust is impatient, love waits.

Lust burns, love warms.

Lust destroys, but love? Love kills.

S.A.B.

When the clock hit midnight, I gave up. I wasn’t going to find him.

My phone was blowing up, and I knew my parents were going to send a search unit if I didn’t come back home.

A missing seventeen-year-old girl was a non-issue if it had only been eight hours since you’d last seen her.

A missing seventeen-year-old oil heiress whose daddy was one of the richest men in the world sure was, though, and I had no doubt my family would raise a ruckus.

I was a Fitzpatrick, and Fitzpatricks should always be protected.

I glanced at my phone again.

Mother: I am getting increasingly worried. Just text me, please. I understand that you are upset, but you are upsetting us all by disappearing like this! I cannot get any sleep. You know how much I need my sleep.

Mother: Your father will be blaming me for this entire ordeal. I do hope this pleases you, Aisling. Getting me into trouble.

Oh, Merde. Put a lid on it, Mother.

Hunter: Da will have a heart attack, sis. Just sayin’ (more hugz from Cali).

Cillian: Stop being so emotional. She was the hired help.

Da: I am sorry for your loss, Ash. Please come home.

Leaves crunched beneath my feet as I made my way to Mom’s Volvo XC90. I was about to swing the door open, get inside, and gun it back to Avebury Court Manor, our house. That was when I heard it. A crunch that had nothing to do with my feet. My head snapped up in the darkness. Toward the edge of the parking lot, about three cars down from my vehicle, was a corner nestled between a thick line of trees leading to the woods by the highway. Secluded and dark.

“No, no, no. Please. I know I fucked up, but I promise, I’ll stop.”

Someone wailed. A man.

I squinted, ducking between my car and an Impala, peeking at the two figures under a thick mass of leaves. One of them was standing, holding a gun. The other was on his knees, in front of the standing figure, like he was praying to a merciless god. Maybe it was the fact I’d already witnessed one death tonight, but even though my adrenaline kicked in, I couldn’t muster the hysteria I probably ought to feel right now.

“Lying will get you nowhere,” the standing man clipped harshly.

“What makes you think I’m—”

“Your lips are moving,” the standing man kicked the man on his knees with the tip of his shoe, eliciting an animalistic wail. “I told you there won’t be a third time.”

“But I—”

“One last wish, Mason,” the man tsked, and my blood ran cold because I recognized that voice. I would recognize it anywhere, I realized, from tonight until the very last day of my life.

It was the voice of Monster.

Mymonster.

The man who gave me my first kiss.

The guy on his knees was trembling, trying to contain his frightened tears. He shook his head then finally, blurted out, “If Nikki asks, tell her it was drug-related. I don’t want her to know the truth. She’s suffered enough.”

“I will. Goodbye.”

With that, Monster used the gun pressed to the man’s forehead and popped off two bullets. From the dull thuds, I gathered there was a silencer on the gun. I slapped a hand over my mouth, muffling a horrified scream that ripped out of my throat.

He’d killed a man.

He’d killed a man out in the open.

And he hadn’t even blinked.

My legs shook, and I fell to the ground, the concrete biting into my knees. I scrambled for my keys in my hoodie, my knees hot with fresh blood oozing out of them from my fall.

Run, Merde. Run.

I unlocked the Volvo and glided into the driver’s seat, frantically wiping the tears and sweat from my face to clear my vision, biting on my lower lip to suppress a scream.

This night is not happening. It’s just a figment of your imagination.

A slam on the window beside me made me jump so high my head hit the car’s roof. I twisted my whole body and saw it was Monster. He must’ve caught sight of me, or worse … heard my scream. With shaking fingers, I started the car, blinded by tears. The Monster jammed something into the side of the door casually, unlocking it with terrifying ease, preventing me from throwing the car into reverse.

He parked his hands on the car’s roof, his biceps bulging from his short sleeves, looking blasé and indifferent.

“You’re having one hell of a night, aren’t you, little Aisling.” The deadly calm in his voice made everything so much worse.

“I didn’t see anything,” I exclaimed, jerking back, like he was going to strike me.

To my surprise, he started laughing. Wholeheartedly. A guttural noise that sounded weird coming from him, like he wasn’t used to laughing.

“Now you believe that I’m a monster?” He leaned forward, his lips hovering close to mine. My blood turned to ice, and yet, for the life of me, I couldn’t pull away this time. It must be the shock, I told myself. This was a fight-or-flight situation, but my traitorous body went for secret option number three: freeze.

No. This wasn’t just fear. There was something else thrown into the mix. Something hot and pungent. Something I didn’t want to know about myself.

Know your bones.

This beast just put two bullets in someone’s head, and yet here I was, my body humming, sizzling, begging to be touched by him.

“Are you actually going to let me kiss you?” He furrowed his brows, his lips practically moving over mine. I was spellbound. Speechless. I had to move.

Move, Merde. Move.

Finally, I managed to shake my head no.

He tugged my lower lip between his teeth, sucking on it teasingly then swiping his tongue over the inside of it.

“You’re a beautiful liar, Aisling.” His low tenor vibrated in my stomach. “Guess you found yourself, then. You’re a monster, too.” He kissed me again, with lips and teeth, before finally pulling away.

“Tell anyone about this, and I will find you, and I will kill you, too. Now, I suggest you run. Far and fast. I’m giving you a two-minute head start before coming after your ass.”

With that, he turned around and ambled away, the streetlamps catching his silhouette and making him look like the complex villain you secretly root for in a film noir, sliding into a car parked a row from mine.

Slow. Steady. Lethal.

I floored it, never looking back.

Driving so fast, the car whined and died as soon as I got home.

Shortly after the Aquila Fair, my brother Hunter came back from California for good.

Golden, tan, and blonder than ever. He moved into a penthouse downtown with a girl named Sailor, who’d been hired as his babysitter. I’d seen her a few times, when her mother used to cook for us on special occasions.

Da liked to rule all of us with an iron fist, and Hunter was by far the hardest to tame.

A few days after Hunter and Sailor moved in together, I’d visited him at his penthouse. Sailor was out, and he was taking one of his extras long showers, which I suspected involved a lot of self-pleasuring, seeing as he wasn’t allowed to date anyone since moving back to Boston.

I gave myself a tour around the living room, which looked like it had been staged by a professional before being put on the market for sale. Everything was too neat, too shiny, too modern to look livable. The only hint that people actually lived here was a row of pictures sitting on the mantel by the floor-to-ceiling window. Even before approaching them, I knew they were put there by Sailor, not Hunter.

Hunter never did consider himself to have a true family, and seeing as he’d lived away from the house since age six, I couldn’t exactly blame him.

My curiosity got the better of me, and I walked over to the mantel. The first picture was of the young redheaded woman, which I recognized as Sailor, her face youthful and full of freckles, hugging a middle-aged, dark-haired man and an older replica of herself, whom I recognized as Sparrow.

The second picture was of the redheaded girl at a party with two blonde women her age. They were all laughing, wearing goofy neon sunglasses.

I recognized them as the Penrose sisters. They were on the local news the other day, for shoveling snow outside senior citizens’ houses.

The third …

The third was a picture of Sailor and the Monster.

Mymonster.

The guy from the carnival.

He stared into the camera, looking grim and serious, while she looked at him like he was the moon. Her spot of light in the endless darkness.

“Yup. That’s her. My ball-busting roommate,” I heard a voice behind me and jumped back with a gasp, slapping a hand over my chest, afraid my heart would accidentally leap out.

I turned around quickly and offered Hunter a polite smile. We were still more acquaintances than siblings.

“She looks beautiful.”

He shrugged, sauntering deeper into the living room with a towel wrapped around his waist and nothing else, his blond hair dripping water. “She’s okay.”

“I’m guessing those are her parents.” I pointed at the first picture, playing innocent. He nodded.

“And these two?” I moved to the Penrose sisters, playing dumb. My heart pounded in my chest. I didn’t know why, but I had a feeling about these girls. This group. I wanted to be a part of them.

“Persephone and Emmabelle. Her best friends. They’re sisters. Another bucket list dream I can’t fulfill because Sailor is on my case.”

“What do you mean? What do you want to do to them?”

“I want to do them.” He rolled his eyes, looking at me like I was a complete moron.

“And who is this guy?” I asked nonchalantly, pointing at Monster. This was it. My big moment to find out his name. I didn’t know what I was going to do if I found out he was her boyfriend. How could I tell my brother that he was living with a woman who was dating a murderer?

But no. That wasn’t the thing that bothered me the most about the idea of Sailor and Monster being together. It was the fact that he had a girlfriend. That he had moved on. Of course he would. All we shared was a kiss and a theme park ride.

I thought I was going to be sick.

“That’s Sam Brennan.” Hunter ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it back. “Her brother. Well, adoptive brother, I guess. Her parents adopted him when she was barely a toddler. A real piece of work and the current number one mobster in Boston. All the gangs and mafia families on the East Coast have a bounty on his head. His chances of reaching an old age are below zero.”

The Monster was a mobster.

No surprises there.

But now he had a name, an identity, a context.

Things were about to become very complicated.

Aisling 18, Sam 26.

“For heaven’s sake, Aisling, what are you doing? They’re here. Hurry up!” Mother chided me, her heels clicking on the marble floor behind me. My mother’s delicate fingers wrapped around my wrist, tugging me.

“Come on, you know I don’t do small talk very well. You’ll need to save me from mingling. Especially with the matriarch. She works for a living. You know I don’t do well with the middle class.”

I followed her to the foyer, a boulder the size of Connecticut settling in the pit of my stomach.

Today was the day my parents decided to invite Sailor’s family for dinner. Mother wanted to get to know the Brennans. Well, that was her main excuse. Really, she just wanted to force Hunter to visit her.

Even though Hunter was against the arrangement, I’d met Sailor plenty of times since they moved in together. We became fast friends after a peculiar charity ball we’d both attended, in which she introduced me to Persephone and Emmabelle.

She was funny, quick-witted, and loyal. But no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t get her to talk about Sam. She was crazy protective of him, and every time I asked about her family, she changed the subject.

The butlers swung the double doors open. The Brennans stood on the other side. Mrs. Brennan, with tangerine hair and sharp emerald eyes, held a steaming dish in her hand.

Sam’s eagle eyes snapped to mine. The unpleasant curl of his lips warned me not to act like we’d previously met. Seeing each other wasn’t a surprise to either of us. I had no doubt Sam knew his sister lived with my brother.

He never bothered to seek me out.

My father, oblivious to my gigantic internal meltdown, conducted the introductions.

“And this is my daughter, Aisling.” Athair—father in Gaelic—waved his hand in my direction, like I was a decorative ornament. Gerald Fitzpatrick was a plump man with a face the color of a shrimp, beady eyes, and three chins.

Sam offered me half a nod, barely glancing my way.

“Pleasure to meet you,” I said steely. Sam ignored me.

My brother Cillian stood tall and imposing yet still looked small in comparison to Sam.

“Don’t even look at her, Mr. Brennan. Aisling is prime rib. Not a hotdog and therefore not on your menu.”

“Cillian, for shame.” Mother clutched her pearls, like she hadn’t shared his opinion. Sam grinned, taking his phone out and checking something, like our presence around him didn’t even register.

Cillian walked over to Troy, Sam’s dad.

“May I offer you and your wife a tour of Avebury Court Manor?”

The man sized him up. My guess was our mansion interested Troy Brennan just a tad less than the state of the weather in Gambia.

“You may, but I’ll pass,” Troy drawled, “on the grounds that you’re a cun—”

“We’d love a tour!” Sparrow elbowed her husband’s side.

Sam tucked his phone back in his pocket, indifferent to the awkwardness. Judging by the introductions alone, tonight was going to be long and painful.

“Aisling, go with them while I check on the cook. See if they need anything,” Mother instructed, and I knew what it meant.

Keep them company so I don’t have to. So I can fix myself a drink and hide in my room a little longer.

I fell into step behind Troy, Sparrow, Cillian, and Sam. His casual jeans and tee were replaced with gray slacks and a black button-down shirt. His hair was cropped closer to his scalp. His shoulders were so broad they blocked half the hallway.

We were the only two people who didn’t engage in small talk, although both Troy and Cillian seemed painfully bored with Sparrow’s sourdough bread recipe, which included letting the dough “rest” in the sun, feeding it, talking to it, and generally treating it like a Tamagotchi.

We ascended the stairs to the second floor. My house was terrible. Soulless and glitzy, like an endless hotel lobby. Limestone and gold accents winked from every direction; dramatic curtains and fountains attacked your eyeballs no matter where you looked. If nouveau riche had a face, it would be Avebury Court Manor.

Cillian showed the Brennans the left wing, also known as the family hall, filing through our rooms as he recited our family’s history like we were the Kennedys.

Sam slowed his stride gradually. At first, I didn’t think it was intentional, but soon, we were walking at the same pace, eight feet away from the rest.

He was the first to speak.

“Suffering from a jock itch?”

I gave an unwavering smile that did nothing to calm my nerves but didn’t answer. His presence alone had me feeling disoriented, excited, and manic.

“You’re awfully slow,” he continued. His husky voice trickled into my system, like sweet venom.

“You’re awfully rude.”

I stared ahead at our families’ backs. Cillian was standing in front of a portrait of Cormac Fitzpatrick, the first-generation Fitzpatrick who arrived in Boston after the Great Famine. Troy and Sparrow looked about ready to fling themselves out the French windows.

“Found yourself yet?” he inquired.

Not even close.

I felt my cheeks reddening under my makeup. “I had a bad night that night.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.” He chuckled.

Cillian shot us a frown. “Hurry up. And remember, Brennan, I’m watching you.”

Sam smiled at my brother, who was only a few years older than him. “Like what you see, Fitzpatrick?”

“Not even remotely.” Cillian narrowed his eyes.

“A word to the wise: I don’t like being told what to do, but for the right price, I can be motivated into doing just about anything.”

“And you’re proud of that?” Cillian drawled.

“Immensely. You’ll be lining up for my services the minute Daddy isn’t able to pull you out of whatever bullshit you get yourself into.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Cillian muttered.

Sam slowed his pace. It didn’t surprise me Sam didn’t care about Cillian’s warnings.

“My brother is a character,” I said defensively.

“That’s just a nice way of calling someone an asshole. Sailor tells me you’re going to med school.”

I nodded curtly.

“Why?”

“I want to help people.”

“No, you don’t.”

We officially lost our families. Cillian was too busy showing Sparrow and Troy the library, our family’s pride and joy. Sam stepped under a little alcove with a window overlooking our vineyard, snatching my wrist and tugging me with him out of sight.

I gasped, digging my nails into my palms, half-crescents of anxiety and anticipation denting my skin.

“You kept your mouth shut.” He looked at me like he wanted to touch me.

I knew what he meant. I never went to the police. Never said anything about the man he killed.

“I’m trustworthy.”

“Most people aren’t,” he said.

“I’m not most people.”

“I’m starting to see that. Listen carefully now. Your daddy is a very rich and important man, and I’m a very ambitious and a very bad man. I want his business, and nothing is going to stand in my way, least of all you. So stay the fuck away from me and don’t give me those puppy eyes, begging to be fucked right there in front of your entire immediate family, like you are doing right now. You have no idea what you’re asking for. Men like me eat girls like you for breakfast. And not in a pleasurable way. You got that?”

I did. The game was over before it had even started. Sam was a monster, and I was a princess stuck in an ivory tower, bound to be saved by someone else. His adversary, probably.

I nodded, even though my head hurt and the back of my nose and eyes pinched with tears.

“Yes. But …”

He raised an eyebrow, waiting for more. I didn’t know what to say.

“Yes?” he hissed, finally.

“One last kiss,” I murmured. “I won’t tell. You know I’d never tell.”

He seemed to consider this, before tilting his head down toward mine.

“One kiss,” he whispered, his body brushing mine. “One last measly, stupid kiss. And don’t you dare come back for more again.”

My lips fell open.

He gave me a lustful, devastating kiss. It was bold and demanding and sexy, and it created a damp, cold spot in my panties. He sucked my lower lip into his mouth, and I whimpered, biting him desperately in response, not sure what I was doing but doing it anyway. My hands found his hair, tousling it. His tongue stroked mine. I wanted to feel it between my legs, and brushed my breasts against his chest, chasing the friction.

He laughed into my mouth.

“You’re feral.”

“I know,” I grumbled. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I fucking love it.”

Love. The way he said that word made my toes curl inside my pumps.

He grabbed me by my butt cheeks and hoisted me so that my thighs encircled his leg. His fingers dug into my flesh as he ground me up and down his muscular thigh, giving me much more than the friction I was after. Each movement made my clit scrape against the fabric of my panties. It was like he was rubbing two twigs together to create fire, and the fire was a climax, climbing up my spine from my toes.

“I feel like I’m … I’m …” I tried to articulate what it was, but I couldn’t. It felt like floating and crashing at the same time. I was quivering. I wanted him to do more of the things he knew how to do that would make me feel this way.

“Empty?” he hissed into my mouth, his tongue wrestling mine.

“Yes. That’s it. I feel so empty.”

“I wish I could fill you with my fat cock.”

“Oh,” I cried as he rubbed me against him faster and harder, and everything inside me clenched, my muscles bunching.

“God … I’m … I mean, am I …?”

There was nothing I hated more than not knowing. I knew everything there was to learn from textbooks and webminers. But I didn’t know this. It made me feel like a kid. Like a cliché.

He laughed when it happened. When a wave of warm pleasure descended on my body, little earthquakes everywhere.

“I think you did.” He kissed me deeper, his hands everywhere on me, his thumb sliding up my torso, rubbing at my nipple under the fabric of my dress.

“Huh,” I sighed into his mouth, “La petite mort.”

He tore his lips from mine, frowning at me.

“Say what, now?”

“La petite mort,” I repeated. “A brief unconsciousness. A little death, in French. That’s what they call that beat after an orgasm, sometimes.”

My French governess had told me that. Sam’s eyes twinkled with so much delight, my chest flared with pride. His smiles were like human handprints. Each one was just different enough to be completely unique.

“You, Aisling Fitzpatrick, are a lovely torture.”

He broke our kiss. Everything was blurry, and my panties were really, really wet.

I pressed my fingertips to my lips. “Oh gosh, what did we do?”

His lips were swollen and bruised, but otherwise, he looked cool and collected.

“I assume that was rhetorical, so I’ll spare you the answer.” He was already fishing for the cigarette pack in his back pocket.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” I blurted out.

He chuckled, a cigarette clasped between his straight white teeth. “Don’t worry about my having girlfriends. I never will.”

“Why not?”

“Because no woman is worth it, least of all one that is the spawn of a man I’d like to bleed dry of his money.”

He lit up his cigarette. His gothic, wintry gray eyes felt like ice cubes rolling down my skin.

“You know, I would never tell if we hooked up.” I swallowed my pride. Even I didn’t know why I wanted him so badly. I just knew I did. He made me feel like I was in a parallel universe whenever we were together.

“I just told you this was our last kiss.”

“But why?” I insisted.

“Because I want your father’s business.”

“I won’t tell.”

“You’re not worth the risk.” He shrugged, puffing away on his cigarette.

“There will be no risk,” I said. A voice inside me warned me that that was enough. It was her.

He doesn’t want you, mon cheri. Turn around and walk away.

But I didn’t.

So Sam looked down at me, frowning.

“Even without the risk, you’re not worth it. You are too young, too innocent, and far too sweet for me. Now do your self-respect a favor and walk away.”

But it was too late.

My pride took such a beating, I had to retaliate, even though I had absolutely no tools to do so.

“I feel sorry for you,” I said, feeling incredibly un-sorry for him, but incredibly sorry for myself.

“You do?” He smirked, humoring me. “Why?”

“Because you’re a half-literate, barely educated dropout. You probably don’t even know the multiplication table. That’s why you do what you do. You don’t have a choice.”

“You’re calling me dumb?” His smile widened, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

“You are dumb.” I tipped my chin up. “But it’s okay. You’re hot and ooze that look-at-me-I’m-dangerous vibe, so I’m sure you’ll find someone.”

“Don’t forget rich.” He snapped his fingers.

“Not by my standards,” I smiled coldly. Holy hell, it was like my mother took over my mouth. “Just try not to make conversation. You’re not very good at it.”

“Based on you dry humping my leg like a bitch in heat five seconds ago, I’m sure I’ll be able to keep them entertained some other way.”

His words were crass, but his nonchalant smile dissolved into a grim mask of coldness.

“You … you … you …”

“I’m … I’m … I’m … what?” He clapped my mouth shut by tapping his finger to my chin, smirking. “Right?”

Before I could answer, Sam vanished.

He ignored me for the rest of the evening.

Four hours later, I crawled back to my room, still in a daze from dinner.

Sam had impressed everyone with his dry wit, sharp mind, and that aura that surrounded him. The one that promised a swift yet painful death if you crossed him.

I found my finite mathematics textbook—the one I’d left open on my Queen Anne desk because I’d been stuck on the same problem for an infinite amount of time—glaring back at me.

I groaned and reached for it, about to close it.

“I’ll try solving you tomorrow. I have bigger problems to work out now.”

Like how I cannot stop obsessing over Boston’s most notorious mobster.

My hand stopped over the slick, chrome page. I blinked. The problem was solved, only not in my handwriting.

In fact, all the problems on the page were solved. Every single one of them.

How did he …?

“Are you calling me dumb?”

Yes, I did. But Sam wasn’t dumb. Based on this page alone, he was closer to a math genius.

Angry with him, and with myself, and with the world, I slammed the math book shut with a thud. A note floated down to the floor from it. I picked it up.

Was that, like, hard?

He’d quoted Legally Blonde.

And served me my own ass in the process.

Ouch.