by Anna Zaires
“You’re an excellent cook,” Mom tells him, and he gives her a big, warm smile, his eyes crinkling in genuine pleasure.
Watching him like this, I start to wonder whether Peter isn’t doing this just for me. Is it possible that some part of him craves this too? That because he’s never had parents of his own, he’s enjoying being a part of our family? Because if he’s pretending, he’s doing a great job.
I, for one, am convinced that he’s starting to like my parents—and that despite everything, they might eventually like him back.
As we’re wrapping up the meal, my parents finally get around to questioning us—about work and all sorts of typical parent stuff.
“So have you decided what you’re going to be doing?” Mom asks Peter, and he nods, telling them all about the training studio he’s planning to start.
“I like that idea,” Dad declares. “Seems like a solid fit, with your background and all.”
Peter smiles at his approval. “I thought so. In any case, it’s something to do for now, when Sara is at work.”
There’s no trace of resentment in his voice, but I still can’t help a pang of unease as he gets up and starts clearing off the table. He’s bothered by my hours, I can tell. After all the months spent apart, the evenings and weekends we get to spend together are not enough—for either one of us.
Maybe this new training business will make things better, giving him something to focus on that’s not me, and as we settle into our married life, we won’t miss each other as intensely. If not, then sooner or later, something will have to give—and it’ll have to be on my side.
Peter has sacrificed everything to make me happy, and I can do no less for him.
As my parents leave, I debate telling my husband about Ryson’s visit to my dad, but I decide against it. Peter was already upset to learn that Ryson interfered with our wedding. If he knew that the FBI agent is continuing to harass my family, he might do something about it—and that’s the last thing I want.
Promise or not, Peter will do whatever it takes to protect our family, and I don’t need another man’s death on my conscience.
19
Sara
Over the next month, we settle into our new home and continue with the routine we’ve fallen into during our first week of marriage. Though Danny and the rest of Peter’s security team are always around, Peter drives me to and from work himself, and he volunteers with me at the clinic. In between, he works on setting up his new business and gathering clients—a venture in which he’s having great success.
I sneak out of my office one afternoon, when I have a couple of appointment cancellations, and have Danny drive me to the park that Peter has chosen as his outdoor training grounds. And then I watch, grinning, as he puts five teenage boys through their paces, making them sprint, jump over benches, climb trees, and attempt to punch him in the face.
None of them succeed, of course, but they look like they’re having fun trying.
He spots me a minute later, and a radiant smile lights his face before he turns back and barks out the next set of instructions. Then he comes toward me, leaving his students to grunt and pant as they attempt to do a pullup on a tree.
It’s a hot August day, and he’s shirtless, dressed only in a pair of camouflage pants and military-style boots. I watch, mouth dry, as he comes toward me with a loping stride, his muscled torso glowing with a hint of perspiration.
“What are you doing here, ptichka?” he asks, stopping in front of me, and I jump into his arms, looping my arms around his neck. He catches me, twirling me around as I kiss him unabashedly, and by the time he puts me down, we’re both breathing heavily while his students hoot and wolf-whistle in the background.
“Back to it,” he barks over his shoulder, his hands still on my waist, and they instantly obey, resuming their attempts at pullups.
“A real drill sergeant, are we?” I grin up at him, reaching up to smooth his thick hair into some semblance of order. It’s getting long on the sides as well as the top, and harder to control. I like the messy look, so I don’t say anything, but we’ll probably need to get him in for a haircut soon.
“You bet,” he murmurs, dipping his head to kiss me again, and I laugh, pushing him away before we start making out for real.
It’s happened in public way too often; Peter has no shame when it comes to me.
In part, it’s because we keep feeling like we don’t get enough time together. My current job is more focused on the gynecology side of OB-GYN and thus has more predictable hours, but I still have a few pregnant patients—and my bosses have extended their vacation, so I’ve been seeing all of their patients this month as well.
They asked me to cover for them, and I couldn’t say no.
“Yes, you could,” Peter said when I explained that I have to be on call for yet another weekend because Wendy’s patient is about to deliver. “You could definitely say no. What’s the worst that would happen? They’d fire you?”
“Well, yes,” I began, then stopped with a sigh. “I know, I know. We have money, and I don’t technically have to work.”
“That’s right.” His gaze was intent on my face, and I looked away, not ready to go there yet. Logically, I know he’s right—we’re multimillionaires, thanks to his recent adventures—but I’ve worked too hard to become a doctor to simply give it up.
“You could still volunteer at the clinic,” he said, and once again, he had a point. I’ve thought about that several times, about how nice it would be if I could cuddle with him every morning instead of getting up with the alarm and racing off to work. As frustrating as my captivity in Japan was, we were always together there—something I didn’t appreciate at the time, given my anger with Peter, but now recall with perverse longing.
“It’s not the same,” I told him. “I wouldn’t get to deliver babies at the clinic.”
It’s true, and he let the matter drop, but I knew we’ll return to it again.
It’s inevitable, given our mutual obsession.
And it is an obsession. I can’t deny that. I thought I loved George, at least in the beginning, but my feelings for him were a pale shadow of the way I feel about his killer. I’d never missed George this way when we were apart, never longed to come home to him with this kind of intensity. Our lives were more or less separate, and I thought that’s the way things are supposed to be, that all marriages—all relationships—are like that.
There’s no separation of any kind with Peter. Not even close. It’s like an invisible thread binds us together, even when we’re physically apart. He’s constantly in my thoughts, and I often catch myself physically aching for him, as if my body is addicted to his touch.
It doesn’t help that when we are together, he showers me with attention and pampers me until I feel like a spoiled pet. Massages, foot rubs, brushing my hair—he does it all when we have time. And that’s not even counting the sex.
Oh, God, the sex.
Ever since our wedding night, when I admitted to Peter—and to myself—that I need a certain degree of force from him in order to cope with our nontraditional relationship, he’s had zero compunction about unleashing his inner monster in the bedroom. Though there are plenty of times when he’s sweet and tender, more often than not, he takes me with unbridled hunger, leaving me sore and aching in the morning. No part of my body is off limits to him, and I frequently find myself tied up on my knees, with my mouth stuffed full of cock and my ass burning from his rough claiming.
He may be my husband now, but he’s still my tormentor.
The key part, though, is “my.” To my relief, sex with me is where Peter seems to channel his darker impulses. As far as I’m aware, he’s kept his word about not hurting anyone else, and as the weeks march on, I find myself less worried when we’re around my family and friends. My parents are slowly warming up to him, and my bandmates seem to like him—which surprises me, since Marsha is now seriously dating Phil and she’s not a Peter fan.
&nbs
p; Or at least I assume that’s why I’ve barely seen her since the wedding.
“Marsha never seems to come out with us lately,” I tell Phil when we’re all grabbing a drink after a Friday night performance. “You guys are still together, right?”
He flushes, clearly uncomfortable. “Yeah, but she’s been, um, really busy.”
I nod and pick up my drink. “Right, okay.”
It’s ridiculous to feel hurt by my friend’s abandonment. After all, I’d avoided her for a bit after learning that she’d been helping the FBI keep tabs on me. And in any case, I can’t blame her for being cautious. Any sane person would want to stay away from a man she suspects of being a conscienceless assassin who’d once tortured her friend and killed her husband.
“What is she busy with?” Peter asks, coming up behind me to knead my shoulders. His tone is light and casual, but I can feel the tension in his strong fingers as he massages my knotted muscles. “Is she working more shifts?”
“Something like that,” Phil mumbles, then motions to the bartender. “A round of tequila shots, man. The best you got.”
The tequila burns my throat as we down the shots, and the slight awkwardness dissipates as Rory and Simon launch into an animated discussion of the pros and cons of natural blondes. Phil joins in, but Peter stays quiet, observing them with a vaguely amused expression, and when I excuse myself to go to the bathroom, I hear him order a round of vodka.
“None for me?” I say, seeing only four shot glasses upon return, and my husband grins at me.
“Afraid not, ptichka. I need you awake and conscious in my bed tonight.”
He accompanies the words with a squeeze of my knee, and the guys guffaw as I fight a blush. Peter is completely unapologetic about his desire for me, using every opportunity he gets to touch me and otherwise lay claim to me—in private or in public. My bandmates are convinced we fuck like rabbits all the time, and it’s true.
My husband has the stamina of a teenage boy on Viagra.
Still laughing, the guys down the vodka, and Peter immediately orders another round. I eye him with some confusion—I’ve never seen him drink so heavily—but I figure he’s just letting off a little steam after a long week.
Two more rounds of vodka shots later, though, I realize something else is going on. For one thing, I’m pretty sure Peter spilled his last shot on the floor. My bandmates were too drunk to notice, but I’m only lightly buzzed and I saw him tip the glass to the side right before he took the shot with them.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think Peter is deliberately trying to get them plastered.
After another half hour and three more rounds of shots, my suspicion solidifies into certainty. Rory and Simon are now ten sheets to the wind, with Rory singing an Irish ballad and Simon pitching in off-key, while Phil is deep into a philosophical treatise on the randomness of life and reversion to the mean. Peter is acting like he’s equally drunk and fully into Phil’s ramblings, but to me, it’s obvious that my husband is manipulating the conversation—to what end, though, I don’t know.
“And so you see, a movie studio CEO could think he has the golden touch with blockbusters, but really, he’s just on a winning streak,” Phil slurs, and Peter nods, as though it all makes sense. “You think you have it made, but it’s just luck, man. Just fucking luck. And then bam! The pendulum swings the other way. Because it’s all random and reverts to the fucking mean. We don’t get that as humans—we think we have control ’cause we see a pattern—but it’s all bullshit. Life is like a rusted-out pendulum in an earthquake, swinging this way and that, sometimes getting stuck on an upswing. And sometimes—sometimes your whole life is an upswing, until a tremor shakes that rust loose.” He shakes his head mournfully, and I decide he’s definitely had enough.
I don’t know what Peter’s agenda is, but alcohol poisoning is no joke.
Leaning over, I touch my husband’s hand and pitch my voice low. “Let’s go home. I’m getting sleepy.”
He turns up his palm and gently squeezes my hand, his eyes completely sober even as his lips curve in a seemingly tipsy smile. “Just a little longer, my love. Phil here has a point.”
I frown, confused. “He does?”
“Oh, yeah,” Phil slurs. “You just don’t see it ’cause you can’t see it. You can’t even imagine it. No human can, because our minds aren’t capable of coming up with truly random patterns. And when algorithms do it for us, we don’t believe they’re random. Like the random shuffle on your music player? Not random. If it were, you’d sometimes get the same song two, three, four times in a row, and that does not seem random to us. That seems like a song is being deliberately chosen, like there’s a purpose behind it, but that’s false. It’s just math, just programming. And so—”
“So they tweaked the algorithm, removing true randomness to make it seem more random,” Peter says, sounding drunkenly serious as he plays with my fingers. “I hear you, man. It’s crazy.”
Phil bobs his head. “Isn’t it? I tell Marsha this all the time, but she doesn’t believe it. She doesn’t get that sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence, that something can be simply random. Like take you and Sara. There was some bad guy named Peter in her past, and Marsha thinks it’s you, even though the FBI told her—they outright told her—that it’s not. Like what makes more sense: that you’re a wanted killer who for some weird reason is allowed to roam free, or that there might’ve been two Peters in Sara’s life? It’s like a song that comes up twice—hard to believe, but genuinely random. I mean, there is that one FBI guy who’s still talking to her, but I’m pretty sure he’s just hitting on her, the asshole.”
I freeze, my hand tensing in Peter’s grasp as my husband chuckles and shakes his head, all but oozing male sympathy. “Wow. Asshole indeed. What’s the guy’s name?”
“Tyson or something like that.” Phil hiccups and loudly yawns. “Rhymes with bison.”
Shit. My heart hammers in my chest as Peter glances at me, his gaze hard and unreadable. Has he suspected something like this all along? Is that why he’s been plying Phil—and by default, Rory and Simon—with alcohol all night?
Did he somehow learn that the agent had approached my father?
I’ve been trying to forget about that, to stop worrying about the FBI finding out about Monica’s stepfather, but every so often, I wake up in cold sweat from a nightmare where SWAT agents burst through our bedroom door. Officially, there’s a deal, but Ryson is clearly on a mission of his own.
What has he been telling Marsha? What has she been telling him? My mind spins as Peter orders one final round, then makes our excuses to the guys, leaving them to down the shots on their own as he shepherds me out of the bar and into Danny’s car.
My former assassin is law-abiding enough—or smart enough—not to drink and drive.
I wait until we get home before I bring up what Phil told us. “Peter, about the—”
“Why didn’t you tell me Ryson was still in the picture?” my husband interrupts, stepping up to me. There’s only a hint of alcohol on his breath as he leans in, trapping me against the back of the couch with his powerful body.
He’s either had even less to drink than I thought, or his metabolism is off the charts.
My throat goes dry and my breathing jacks up as I see the icy hardness in his metallic eyes. This is the Peter who used to terrify me, the man who’d broken into my house and so ruthlessly interrogated me to find George.
The killer who’s never known remorse.
“I didn’t know he was talking to Marsha,” I say when I’m able to sound semi-calm. I know Peter won’t hurt me outside of our bedroom games, but it’s hard not to be intimidated when he looms over me like this, the heat from his muscular body surrounding me, his nearness both a temptation and a threat.
He might not hurt me, but he will hurt others.
Agent Ryson’s life—and possibly Marsha’s—is on the line.
“No?” His eyes narrow. “What about your par
ents? You didn’t know he’s been sniffing around them either?”
“No, I—” I stop before I make the situation worse by lying. “Okay, I knew he’d talked to my dad a few weeks back, but I figured it was just the one time. Are you saying he’s approached them again?” My words are coming too fast, but I can’t help it.
I’m terrified both for the agent and of what he might uncover.
Peter stares down at me, then finally steps back, letting me inhale a full breath.
“Earlier today,” he says grimly, and it takes me a second to realize he’s answering my question. “My crew saw him approach your mother when she was at a mall with Agnes Levinson. One of the guys tailed him when he left, and do you want to guess where the fucker went?”
I swallow. “Where?”
“To the hospital. Where you used to work—and your friend still does.”
Of course. That’s what gave him the idea to question Phil tonight. Or more accurately, to interrogate him—only with alcohol instead of a designer drug as an aid.
“Do you think he knows? About Moni—” I stop as it occurs to me that it might not be safe to speak so openly.
If the FBI are on to us, the house might be bugged.
“It’s fine. I do daily sweeps,” Peter says, as if reading my mind. “Nobody’s listening.”
Daily sweeps? There’s paranoia, and then there’s whatever this is. I knew our house has all the security of a military base—I’ve seen the futuristic tech embedded throughout—but I didn’t realize Peter is that paranoid.
“And no,” he continues while I’m gathering my thoughts. “I don’t think he knows anything. My hackers are keeping tabs on the files related to Sonny Pearson, and nobody’s accessed them in weeks.”
Sonny Pearson? Is that Monica’s stepfather’s name? My stomach tightens as I stare at Peter, images of dark alleys and pools of blood swimming in front of my eyes. I’ve mostly put that murder out of my mind, just like all the other awful things Peter’s done, but now that I know the man’s name, the horror and guilt are fresh again.
