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Danger radiates from him like a vibrating heat. My shiver rushes from the nape of my neck all the way down my spine, stiffening my nipples and tingling the hairs on my arms.

I shouldn’t be basking in my fiancé’s danger, that dark sun that sends chills through my body while heat pools between my legs. I shouldn’t be enjoying this side of him, especially not when I need him to promise he won’t use it against Harrison.

My lower lip quivers as I stare up at Liam. Something in his emerald eyes flickers out, and my blood goes cold. Then, with deliberate slowness, he lifts his finger to his face and presses it to his cheekbone.

My breath escapes in a rush, and I almost collapse in relief. But as Liam shakes his head at me, my momentary comfort dies a quick death.

“I’ll swear this one thing to you,” he says, his deep voice hollow and emotionless. “But you need to understand who I really am.”

“I know who you are,” I whisper, but he shakes his head.

“If this is going to be re⁠—”

“But it isn’t!” I sound hysterical, gesturing wildly as if my hands could create some sort of shield between us.

Liam’s expression hardens, and he grabs my wrists. I feel my pulse accelerate beneath his grip as he pins me with his flat stare. This can’t be real, we both know that. He needs a real mafia wife, one who can actually handle all of his darkness, not just be intrigued by the surface of its deep waters like some foolish animal who doesn’t know how to swim.

I could drown in this man, and the danger of that is all too thrilling.

“I’m a killer, Brioni.”

Nausea rises in my throat. I try to shake my head, unwilling to consciously believe, even if I know the truth of who he is deep down. Liam squeezes my wrists tighter.

“You’re going to be married to a killer, and that is what’s keeping you safe.” He spits the word. “You want to be useful to me? You understand that, and you accept it.”

I’m shaking now, every inch of my body trembling except where he’s holding me firm. As I meet my best friend’s eyes, I see pure determination in them, the same determination that I know I can achieve. I just have to put my mind to it. I take a shaky inhale and, somehow, I make myself nod.

Liam drops my wrists to pull me close—one hand at my back, pressing me against him, and the other behind my head, holding me in place as his tongue probes deep. I’m lost to the feel of him in my mouth, overpowered by the intensity of his kiss.

The kiss of a killer.

Another shiver runs through me as Liam crushes my body to his, and I feel the darkness inside him like an expanding wave, something that could engulf me. But as I arch into him, he pulls away.

“Come on,” he says roughly, his lips shiny. “Let’s do our lake route.”

* * *

The gray of the morning sky has cleared into a bluebird afternoon. Liam and I run side by side along the lakefront, my mind whirring as the breeze gusts over the white-fringed waves and straight into our lungs. It’s invigorating.

When I first imagined what it’d be like for me and Liam to be engaged, I tried to picture us on this very trail, strolling hand in hand like any other couple. But that image didn’t work.

The reality is better.

This is us as we’ve always been. It’s eerie, considering what he just told me. I try to focus on his promise to me about Harrison, and shove aside what he told me afterward.

The Liam beside me isn’t a killer. In this moment, we’re just Liam and Brioni. Pushing each other to run our fastest, striving together to be the best versions of ourselves. When I’m trying hard for Liam, his very presence makes me a better person. He’s always complemented me, but I’ve never been sure if I complement him in the same way.

And now, I’m certain I don’t. I’m so unnerved by his confession that I know I’ll never be the true wife that he needs. I’ll be holding him back from his full potential, something I will not allow myself to do. I care about him too much.

In my heart, I have to let him go. The same way that I let my mam go.

I glance over at Liam as we run, our high-cadence strides steady from years of discipline. He’s backgrounded by Lake Michigan, keeping his body between me and the harshest bite of the breeze. The unrelenting blue of water and sky behind him make him look angelic.

I’m a killer.

His words in my mind are fingernails on a chalkboard. It’s so discordant with who he is when he’s with me, and yet so in line with who he has to be as the firstborn O’Sullivan son.

Liam’s inherent danger is something I’ve always known about him, maybe not deep in my mind, but deep in the pulse between my legs.