Vicious Minds (Children of Vice #4)(24)

“This will only take five minutes. I can make it,” she teased, grinning back at me.

She was dangerous and most likely insane…which was probably why I liked her and couldn’t kill her…yet.

This could very well be a mistake. But if she was going to be my downfall …part of me wanted to see how she’d do it, which also proved how insane I was too.





Chapter 5





“She has the laugh of an angel

and the smile of the Devil.

She’s a wicked, wild, and wreckless thing.”





~Jordan Sarah Weatherhead





ETHAN – AGE 23

Bogotá, Colombia

Monday, July 1st





What am I doing? I didn’t understand. I really didn’t. Why was I naked in bed with her? Why?

“How many women have you brought here to fuck?” She softly ran her fingers over my chest.

“I’ve lost count,” I lied, staring the ceiling when her face blocked my view. Her long brown hair fell around us. Her grey gaze was on my face as she looked me over as if she were reading a book.

“Liar,” she murmured before kissing my lips gently, neither of us closing our eyes or looking away.

“You’re right,” I muttered back. “I’ve brought back five.”

Her eyebrow raised before her gaze narrowed. She grazed her lips over mine again, and just before we kissed she whispered, “Liar.”

“What’s my tell?” I questioned, wondering how she knew.

She slid her naked body over mine and I could hear the chain rattle at her ankle. “You’re Ethan Callahan.”

“How is that a tell?”

“It not. It’s just you.” She rested her head over my heart and her soft round breast pressed against my chest. “In order to manipulate people, you need to understand people; to understand people, you need to watch people. Everyone is like a walking novel to me.”

“Even me?” Again, she nodded. “And what is the story of Ethan Callahan? What makes you think you can guess my thoughts?”

She took a deep breath. “Your parents’ story; do you know family would talk about it all the time? The Italian queen who married the Irish prince.”

“My father would not have been pleased knowing he was referred to as a prince while my mother was a queen.”

“Oh well, it’s the truth.” She snickered. “Your mother was already running the Italian mafia before she married your father, and your father took over afterwards…”

“Are you going to give me a history lesson on my own family?” I questioned, not sure where she was going with this.

“You led me down that…never mind,” she went on. “My point is, everyone talked about the great love your parents had, how they were just electric around each other. To the point that you’d feel uncomfortable being around them. I didn’t understand at first, but then I met them, and even as a child I recognized that everyone else felt so fake in comparison to them, even my own parents. I think that’s why so many people outside of Chicago and the families couldn’t believe the rumors; two people who genuinely loved each other, who were so faithful to each other, couldn’t be so cruel and ruthless.”

“I thought you were getting to a point?” I didn’t want to think of my parents now of all times.

“You grew up with that.” I froze. She lifted her head to look at me again, but I didn’t meet her gaze. “For most people that type of love is something you only read about. But you, you grew up witnessing them love each other like that, you watched your father stay faithful to her even after her death…you know true love exists. You know soulmates exist. For you to know that and not want it for yourself, it’s not possible.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” I muttered, glancing over at the alarm clock as it read 2:00 a.m., wishing she’d go to sleep. “Loving anyone the way my parents did is irresponsible and blinding. Their love hurt a lot people, even their own children. I hope you weren’t thinking that was what you would get if you somehow managed to get me to marry you. It’s not possible.”

She placed her face in my line of sight again. “Liar.”

“Excuse me?”

“You may not want to love like your parents but you sure as hell want to be loved that way,” she answered. “Another human devoted to you; who loves you completely, selflessly, whose loyalty is without question, even after death? Who doesn’t want that? Even dogs want that. We cannot choose our family, they sometimes let us down, or are too selfish to care about us, but the people we marry? That’s our chance to grab the love we failed to receive elsewhere.”

“I’m not going to love you.”

“Liar.” She grinned as she climbed onto my lap. Her brown hair a mess, her pink nipples hard, her chest covered in bite marks that I gave her. She took my hands and placed them on her hips. I couldn’t help but get hard at the sight of her.

“What are you after, Calliope?” I gripped her sides tighter. “Why so much effort? What do you want to use me for? Fame? Power? Money?”

“Everything,” she answered, shifting as I sat up.