Marry Screw Kill

by Liv Morris

  “Okay.” She sits up and cracks a small smile for the first time since I entered the house tonight. It feels like a breath of fresh air has swept through the room, clearing away the heaviness surrounding us only moments ago.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Harlow

  I hear Sin rummaging through cabinets and drawers in the kitchen as I walk upstairs to freshen up from my embarrassing crying fit. Once the tears started, I couldn’t stop them. Sin ensured me he could find a couple plates, forks, and napkins for eating pizza on his own. I can’t imagine what he must think of me. I’m still not over seeing him this morning when I was with James. Remembering the look in Sin’s eyes when he stared at me makes my stomach knot up. I’ll never forget that moment for as long as I live.

  After blowing my nose and combing my hair, I look a little more human. Hell, who am I kidding? I am a disheveled mess, both inside and out, but mostly inside. First, getting caught having crazy sex with James, then Emma and Paul making me think about my future with James—or more, if I want a future with him at all. And visiting my mother’s grave for the first time since her burial has drained all the strength from me. I could’ve run a marathon today and had more energy leftover.

  Lying against Sin’s chest, secure in his arms, was the safest I’ve ever felt in my life. That earthy smell of his is so manly and crisp. His strong arms surrounded me with strength and comfort. His tender touch showed me patience and caring.

  The steady thumps of his heart rose above the scattered thoughts in my head. I chose to focus on each beat, and slowly, my tears ceased. The tender touch of him caring for me almost washed away the shame I felt from him seeing me on the table, strapped and being taken by James.

  I need to head back downstairs, but my bed beckons me with its soft comforter and satiny sheets. Part of me wants to crawl under the covers, disappear from this day, and pretend it never happened, but another part knows I have a new friend downstairs waiting for me.

  I’m his uncle’s fiancée, I remind myself, with a wedding date set in four weeks. I close my eyes as a nauseous wave rolls over me—the kind a woman in love shouldn’t have when thinking about her wedding.

  I shake my head and comb through the long strands of my hair one last time. Straightening my shirt, I head back down downstairs, red eyes and all. As shitty as this day has been, a flutter of excitement stirs within me. I want to be near him, and dammit, I want to feel his touch again.

  I don’t see him in the kitchen, so I head back to where I left him. I walk into the room and find Sin sitting on the couch, waiting for me. The TV pipes out some soft and smooth jazz music—soothing to my ears and my mood. Two plates and a couple beers sit on the coffee table, so it appears Sin had some success in the kitchen. Gone is the wine I was indulging in earlier, or wanting to drown myself in. He’s cleared it away and I’m glad. It feels like we’re starting fresh for the night and his thoughtfulness makes me smile. Even these small gestures are big to me.

  “Hey,” I say after taking a deep breath and entering the room. Sin stands up to greet me, returning my grin with his own. “Thanks again.”

  “I’m not sure for what.” He glances down at the table. “Pizza. Beer. It’s nothing really.”

  “For being here and listening to me. For caring.” The gaze between us grows heavy and charged with something that warms me and makes me feel uncomfortable at the same time. I have to look away for a split second to break from the intensity.

  “Come eat.” He holds his arm to the side like he’s ushering me toward the couch. “You like beer?”

  “Only with pizza.” I grin at him and he tilts his head back in a laugh. The perfect cutting edge of his jaw and its masculine strength makes my heart skip a beat or two. “How’d you know?”

  “Lucky guess.” He waits until I’ve found my place before sitting down on the couch next to me. He’s not pushy or demanding. What a contrast to James and his treatment of me. One man makes me feel safe and secure, while the other scares me with his demands.

  Sin inhales over half the pizza in silence as I nibble on a couple slices. I observe the demolition in amazement and raise a brow at him when he glances at me after coming up for air. Finally, he sets his plate down and wipes his face with a napkin.

  “You’re very serious about your pizza,” I tease.

  “It’s a New York thing. We are the world’s biggest connoisseurs of the pie.” He winks. “Years of ordering and eating the greasy stuff has left me a pizza snob, though.”

  “How did this one stack up to what you have in the city?” Turning my body toward him on the couch, I tuck my legs under me, lean against the back, and wait for his review.

  “Not bad.” Wayward thoughts come to mind as Sin sits back on the couch and rubs his stomach in satisfaction. I wonder how those muscles would feel under my fingers, or how his bare skin would feel to my touch. I glance back up at his face and return to safer territory, but it’s not much help. He has a smirk that could disarm Mother Teresa and my stomach flutters in a way that has nothing to do with the food I ate. It’s all him. His sweetness and closeness are dangerous to my sanity.

  “Glad the lowly pizza of Rochester measures up to your standards, pizza snob.”

  “It’s a good find, I have to admit.” He acts like he won the pizza lottery and I roll my eyes at him.

  “Rolling your eyes, huh?” His face turns somber and I freeze. He reaches out for my arm and I flinch without a thought as to why.

  “Harlow, I was kidding.” Worry is written all over his face. “You’re allowed to roll your eyes, you know that?”

  “He doesn’t like that,” I sigh, knowing the fun teasing between us has come to a halt.

  “Why does he not like that?” The way Sin says “he” makes a chill run across my skin.

  “It’s just the way our relationship has worked.” The words coming out of my mouth sound messed up, even to me.

  “I can’t hide my feelings from you, and I don’t want to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He takes my shaky hand and holds it gently. Every touch from him tonight has been soft and kind, something I’ve missed experiencing since my mother died. The thought of her and what I’ve missed makes my heart ache. I’m a complete mess with my thoughts and feelings jumping all over the place.

  “James may be my uncle, but there’s no loyalty that can excuse how I see him treating you. He’s killing the very best part of you—your potential. Can you tell me this is what you’d hoped for in life?”

  I peer into his concerned eyes, where a sense of security dwells. They’re like a golden oasis for me, and the world I have come to know with James becomes even more cloudy and distorted.

  “I’m so confused.”

  “About what? Being with him? Marrying him?” Sin asks. The questions aren’t easy for me to answer because I’m not sure where to begin.

  “Today I saw an old friend of my mother’s when I went to meet with Emma. They both want me to think about James and the wedding.” I can’t believe the details of my life pouring out of me today with Sin. I’ve always kept my thoughts and feelings to myself, carried them around with me as part of living, but maybe that’s the problem. Keeping them bottled up isn’t working either. “Then I went to my mother’s grave for the first time since she was killed.”

  “Whoa,” Sin says, holding my hand a little tighter. “Last night you said she passed away. She was killed?” I nod.

  “How long ago was that?” he whispers.

  “On my birthday. Almost four months ago.” I glance down at our interlocked hands and break the connection as tears threaten. I’ve cried more tonight than I did at her funeral. But being numb from the drugs James gave me squelched my tears. “She was killed the day I met James.”

  “Before or after you met him?” Sin asks, and our eyes meet. A million questions fly around in his eyes and I prepare for the inevitable: talking in details. I’ve yet to openly discuss that night with anyone and here I am s
pilling everything to an almost stranger—one with caring eyes and a heart that warms me with a sense of peace. I shake off any doubt and plunge forward with more details of the ugly night.

  “That night, before.” Sin looks at me with a touch of confusion in his eyes, like he’s trying to piece together what happened in his mind. “James was there for me when I woke up. I’ll start at the beginning, or close to it.”

  “Only what you want to share with me. No pressure.” Sin’s sweetness makes me want to open up and trust him completely, but I will skip over some details from that night. Many are too painful to dredge up for me still, they’re the ones that consume me and plague my nightmares.

  “I came home late from work. Later than normal. My mother’s boyfriend was drunk and flipping out on her for some reason. I still don’t know why. He was screaming and pointing a gun at her head. I tried to stop him, but the gun went off.” I don’t tell him about grabbing Tony’s arm before he shot her. I can’t risk Sin possibly blaming me, too.

  “And you watched this happen?” Sin’s brows are drawn and he looks at me with pain and pity.

  “He killed her and then turned the gun on himself. All in front of me.”

  My summary leaves out so much, but I feel only up to the basics.

  “I freaked out and remember hearing my neighbor’s voice over my screams. My neighbor called nine-one-one and paramedics came with the police. They gave me something that knocked me out. James says my body went into shock and my mind shut down in self-defense. I have no real memory of anything after the gunshots until I woke up in the hospital.”

  “God, Harlow. I had no idea you went through so much hell.” Turning toward me on the couch, Sin takes his other hand and covers it over mine. The simple gesture gives me more courage to continue. “I’m so sorry. It doesn’t seem like enough, but I truly am.”

  “Thanks, Sin.” I take a few breaths to bury the surge of emotions rising inside me. I close my eyes and almost feel the heavy weight of the blood soaked on my shirt along with the splatters on my skin from that night—the last conscious memory I have of my life in the apartment I’d lived in since I was born. My heart races at all the memories. Freaked out from where my thoughts have trailed off to, I open my eyes quickly to look at Sin. His beautiful face, with eyes seeming to share my pain, will help me wash away the vivid memory … I hope.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sin

  How does Harlow handle what has happened in her life? Witnessing the brutal murder of a mother isn’t something a person can get over in a few months. Hell, I’m still coming to terms with the death of my friend in the desert of Australia some four years ago. I wonder what he’d be up to now if he were still alive. Would he have married the love of his life and have a couple kids? The timeline of my life is marked and divided in the before and after of his death. The storm it caused inside me changed the course I was on.

  But Harlow sits here beside me, brave and resilient in a fragile strength despite the pain life has dished out to her. From what I’ve seen and heard between her and my uncle, I’m beginning to think she’s traded one nightmare for another.

  “Do you have family? Were they there for you afterwards?” I ask, hoping she didn’t bear the burden of her mother’s murder alone with my uncle.

  “I don’t. At least none I know of.” A shadow of sorrow crosses over her and my heart actually hurts at her words.

  “No one?”

  “No one. My mother ran away from home to have me. She kept me in the dark about my father and any family she left behind. She said she had to flee to keep me. When I pushed her about it, she would say I was only alive because of her cutting off all ties with them.”

  A shudder courses over her slender frame. I suppress the urge to haul her into my arms and tell her she’s found a friend and isn’t alone in this harsh, cruel world.

  “So, it was you and your mother against the world. I’m amazed by you.”

  “There’s nothing special about me. I woke up with James at my side smiling down at me. I had nowhere to go that night. No one to really call that could handle what I’d been through, so I took the hand he offered and let him help me.”

  There’s no medical reason for my uncle, a top cardiologist at The Clinic, to have been in her room. There’s something fucked up with this scenario.

  “Had you ever met my uncle?”

  “Not that I remember. Though, he was a member at the country club where my mother worked.”

  An odd intuition hits me as uneasiness crawls up my back. Something is amiss, but what? The dots are there, but the connection to them isn’t apparent. I don’t have a clear picture of their entire relationship from both sides and I need both to make sense of it, if that’s even possible.

  “So, you turned to him for help,” I say gently, without a tone of accusation.

  “I did.” She lowers her head. “I had no one else.”

  Though my desire to know the whole story isn’t satisfied, I’ve asked enough questions of her tonight—except one.

  “Harlow?” She gazes back up at me with eyes the color of the sea—eyes I could get lost in and never be found again. I realize it’s a look full of innocence and trust.

  “You left with him that night, but do you want to stay with him now? I’m here if you need me.”

  “I can’t ask for your help. He’s your uncle and you have to go back to New York in a few weeks. I’ll figure it out.”

  Always thinking of others, perhaps that is the reason she’s in this situation with him.

  “It’s time to think of yourself.”

  “Things between us changed after the first couple weeks. Once the funeral was over and the reality that she was gone sunk in, I was numb with the pills he gave me.”

  “Pills? Do you know what they were?”

  “Valium, I think,” she whispers. “I slowly quit taking them. They made me feel nothing at all. I didn’t even cry at my own mother’s funeral. It was like watching a movie of someone else’s life.”

  “Fucker,” I curse under my breath in hopes I don’t frighten her more. He tried to keep her emotions buried. No wonder she’s in this place. Her will must be bent and broken. He captured her and held her captive by drugging her. It makes me sick knowing I’m related to this scum.

  “Does he think you’re still taking the pills?”

  “Yes, I think so. He keeps giving them to me, but I flush them down the toilet.”

  “Don’t take another one, okay?” Harlow nods, but that’s not enough. “And don’t let him touch you anymore. He’s not worthy of you.”

  “What can I do? I have nothing. I gave him control over my small bank account. I wanted to help him pay for my mother’s funeral. I walk out that door and I’m walking to where? I don’t have a job or place now. He’ll find me, and then what?”

  Her eyes cloud with frustrated tears. My uncle has trapped her in his snare. No money. No future, other than being tied to him. I remember back to the clothes in the guestroom closet left from her “other” life. At least they were hers.

  “He may be my uncle, but I can’t defend his treatment of you. You deserve more. You deserve your own future. Let me help you.” Bringing my hand to her cheek, I wipe away a falling tear and make tiny traces over her perfect pale skin. The softness against my fingers is close to heaven.

  I have my entire future ahead of me. My life is planned out. Ivy League med school, then becoming a doctor and helping others find healing in this crazy world. But what a hypocrite I’d be if I didn’t help this hurting woman right in front of me.

  “I’ll figure it out. Somehow.” Defeat sounds in her voice, and I don’t think she understands that I mean it. I’ll help her leave tonight if she can muster the courage to break James’ invisible chains.

  Someone clears their throat behind us and Harlow and I jump at the sound. What the hell?

  I turn to see my uncle leaning against the door to the media room. In a split second, I drop my hands fro
m hers and Harlow and I stand to face him.

  His tall frame consumes most of the door’s open space and his face is set in an angry snarl. The fury in his eyes hits us like a flame that could set the room, or even the house, on fire—or maybe just me, since I’m locked in his crosshairs.

  I have no idea how much he heard of our conversation, if any. Our voices were quiet, barely above a whisper, but our position on the couch and me touching her cheek was intimate, combine the two and we likely appeared as lovers engaged in an illicit discussion. To him, the topic would be forbidden between us. I was trying to talk her into leaving him.

  Shit!

  Chapter Eighteen

  Harlow

  “James,” I cry out as soon as I see him looking at Sin and I. Angry would be about a hundred steps down from his mood right now. His eyes shine with a blaze, but not the kind from passion. He’s livid and ready to blow. “What are you doing home?”

  James pushes off the door casing and takes two slow steps toward us like a tiger stalking his prey.

  “Didn’t think I needed to announce I’d arrived home. This is my house, isn’t it?” James hisses into the tense air.

  “Yes, of course.” I glance over at Sin. He’s running his fingers through his hair. He’s also moved a foot away from me, as if the distance will help. “I was just telling Sin about visiting my mother’s grave today.”

  I turn to Sin and try to communicate with my eyes that he needs to play along with me, but his brows furrow in confusion. Hell, what a mess I’m in.

  “Is that right?” James fires his question with the intent to harm. “So, what? You were comforting her, Sin?” Sarcasm laces his voice.

  “She was upset, so yes. I was trying to be there for her,” Sin defends himself, and me, even though I broke down because of James treatment of me today, not visiting my mother’s grave.