I glance at my door. Not that she’ll be coming through it. I’m at my office, the large pool house adjacent to the Palermo mansion. It serves as my home most of the time–my actual house a few miles from here, neglected for the most part.

The door doesn’t open. The itch in my brain only grows.

“What the fuck?” I slam my laptop closed and lean back, rubbing my temples as I glance at my watch. It’s after midnight. I could call it for the evening and go to bed. It might be wise, but I don’t feel like turning in. What I feel like doing is … It’s the one thing I can’t do. I can’t go to Carina.

It doesn’t matter that I imagine what her touch would feel like, how she’d moan as I made her writhe with my tongue, my fingers, my cock. None of that matters. Because she’s Antonio’s sister. Because she’s way too young for me. There are a million other reasons, too, mostly having to do with the fact that I live on the edge of a knife. Violence surrounds me. I may not relish it the way Butcher does, but I’m no stranger to it. I’ve taken lives. There’s blood on my hands, and that’s something I’d never want to taint Carina with.

She’s too young, too naïve to know about the hard truths of this world. She puts up a sassy front, but she doesn’t know how bad things can truly be. The bloodshed, the bullshit, the fucking dehumanization that occurs far too often. It’s better if she stays far away from it. And me.

I crack my neck, the itch in the back of my neck growing into a buzzing sensation, like bees are making a home in my cranium. That’s all I can take. I stand and stride to the door, yank it open, and stare across the lighted surface of the pool, up past the hedges around the first floor, and higher to a double set of windows that reflect the sliver moon.

Carina’s room.

It’s dark. As it should be. She should be asleep, dreaming of college and getting away from all the bad shit that comes with the Palermo family name.

Still, I stare. No, I don’t just stare. I want. I need. But my needs will always come second to hers. I made that choice long ago when I joined this family. And for her, I’ll make it again and again.

I move to close the door, but then I freeze.

A shadow is moving through the patch of apple trees about fifty yards away. The hair on the back of my neck rises, and I palm the pistol from the holster at my chest. What the fuck is this? Has our security been breached?