Vicious Minds (Children of Vice #4)(37)

Exactly. “I thought maybe my grandmother was forging their handwriting. But, I know my parents handwriting, every stroke and impression…even the paper it was written on matched all other letters…so it was a brand new one from her. My mother never failed to comfort Wyatt. She can’t help herself.”

“Someone sounds a little jealous,” she muttered against my lips, kissing me gently. “You first borns always hate the second.”

“He’s the third. Dona is a minute older,” I said back through a set jaw.

“He’s the second son. Your duty is to continue the family business. His is to not overshadow you. You were going to have the world at your fingertips, all the power, all the resources. So your mother made Wyatt her favorite, just so he could have something you couldn’t. And that bothers you. You’re so greedy.” I grabbed her throat and she grinned like mad.

“They made him their favorite because they didn’t trust him to be loyal if he had nothing! It was a shield around him…protecting him from betraying me and from me killing him for that betrayal.” I sneered in her face as I gripped her throat.

She leaned in. “My point still stands because you know and yet it still bothers you anyway because you are greedy. Secondly, if you want our sex to get rougher all you have to do is ask.”

“I—”

“The harder you squeeze the harder your cock is getting under me,” she pointed out and I let go. She took a deep beep breath before punching me square in the nose.

“Ah—” my head flew back as I cupped my nose. “Fuck!”

“Just so you know, the rougher you are with me, the rougher I am to you,” she snapped, and when I looked back to her eyes they were dead serious.

Feisty little lioness. “So, if I tie you up and take a whip to you—”

“Don’t complain when I do the same to you.”

I imagined what it would feel like to have her whip me…to see her in that role. I didn’t think I could give up control like that, but I was interested.

“Hello, you’re going to have to wait.” She greeted my cock as he rose up to salute her. “Aren’t we still talking about the trap you plan on leaving for your parents? They spent years convincing you and the rest of the world they were dead. Drawing them out isn’t going to be easy or simple.”

“I don’t want to just draw them out Calliope, I want to make them suffer.”

“What?”

“They left us. They left me holding the bag while they went off into the sunset. Left me in grief. My mother died when I was sixteen, and after seeing that pain, my father left too. They planned it to make look natural, after all who would believe they were both killed at the same time? My father was twenty-eight when his father died. I was fucking 18. Left with the world on my shoulders. And I said fine, I wanted it anyway. But now that I know they are alive I can look back to all the times when I felt something was off, or something was too easy. They abdicated their rule, yet they are still fucking with my legacy now. I will not be their puppet. No one could take down the great Liam and Melody Callahan…no one but me.”

“I must just be sitting against your cock for fun then.” She frowned and tugged on my hair, tilting my head up. “We are going to take them down. Replace them with a much better couple…us.”

“Forgive me…us? Again, if you are not doing all of this to betray me.”

“So that’s why you’ve given in. You win either way. If I’m betraying you, in the end your parents will kill me for you. If help you, then you get one over on your parents.”

Exactly.

“It took years for them to create their plan…hell who knows how long they may have been planning. It could have been since I was born.” I doubted that, but there was still a chance. “The trap I set needs to be slow, unnoticeable, and as you said, delicate. I don’t know when exactly they are watching. This safe house is fine, you can see out but not in.”

“Which is where I come again instead of getting the date I wanted.” She frowned, glaring at me. “This plan…while they are watching you, you need someone who they have no interest or care in setting the traps for them. Even if they’ve seen us together already, they’ll write me off as just another one of your playthings. They would only think you’re serious about me if I go back to Chicago with you. Which is why I can’t go.”

“Yes.”

“You are aware of what you’re asking me, correct, Ethan? This is not simple nor easy,” she insisted, her expression hard. This was why she was so refreshing to be with. She was already on the same page as me. She knew exactly what it would take for this to work: complete devotion to the lie, the fake life I created from this point on, the women that would have to stand in her place.

“My family has always prided itself in the fact that the men are very loyal. That we do not get ourselves entangled in the same sort of drama with our women other families have gotten into. My grandmother would even swear it is the real secret behind our families’ ability to maintain power.”

“But now you’re telling me that in order to be by your side, I need to step aside.”

“No, just be my shadow for a while.”

“Same thing. For this plan to work, your parents must not know you ever had an attachment to me. I was just random fling. The only way to get that to work is for you to screw other women.” She fixed me with an icy stare.