PURPLE HEART - Soliders Of Fortune [BOOK TWO]

Chapter TWENTY FOUR

Maksimillian ‘Max’ Angeloff

Clawing my way out through the hellish gates of a damned history, I open my eyes and lift my head.. Allowing the water to rush down my face and drown everything out, I hone my focus on the end goal and push the guilt from my mind.. I refuse to think about the devastation my decision will cause my brother and sister when they discover the truth..

The world will change, the pieces will shuffle and the chessboard will reset when I remove its king.. Undoubtedly after that, a war will follow. Pakhan Stori Petrovich will ensure I am avenged in order to protect his fearsome reputation, and the leaderless Outlaws will have to choose.. Either they surrender, or meet their slaughter..

But I can't think about Stori, or Sasha or gangland wars right now.. Instead I take several deep circular breaths, concentrating on trying to lower my dangerously high blood pressure..

I try to ignore the intrusive memory of Javier Navarro's final words to me before I put him down like the mange-riddled mutt he was:
‘You don't know what you've got, Pendejo.’

And I try not to lose myself to thoughts of Sunday's lips pressed sweetly against my own and the electrifying kiss we'd shared at the docks..

But on that last count, I fail..

It seems I think about little else lately except Sunday, her rare and beautiful smile, her breathy Spanish siren song and her bright golden eyes that draw me in like gravity.. Her feminine, shapely figure that fills out at the chest and hips, is a maddening temptation and her honey-brown complexion is velvety and smoother than dulce de leche..

My hard body aches for her soft flesh, every piece of me craving with a deliberate and dictating need.. Carnal and inevitable.. I want her in all the ways I shouldn't, and with each lingering glance and every sweet sigh, I edge a little closer to losing my mind entirely..

But it's not just filthy thoughts of wild sex that riles me up, it's something more.. Feelings that have lain dormant for so long, I'd almost forgotten how to feel them..

Sunday isn't like the mafia mistresses who flirt with me at the casino, looking for a sugar daddy to float their bad habits..

She isn't like the thirsty divas at Blazhénstva, eager to get on their knees just to make it one cock closer to the inner circle and that taste of power they desperately crave..

She isn't like my ex-wife, who's lies still spin webs of suspicion in my head, imprisoning me in a never-ending spiral of self doubt..

And she isn't like me or my siblings, too emotionally stunted to speak her heart..

No, Sunday is a fresh summer breeze, or a springtime sunset.. A romantic sonnet, or enchanting melody.. She is everything good and I am a corruption that she must endure..

I should never have made her a means to my ends..

The longer I exist, embedded in an underworld where acts of evil are rewarded and morality makes you weak, the closer I get to evolving into everything I despise..