Ruthless People (36 page)

“Do you love me?”

“Yes, I love you. You don’t have to say it back. I can wait.”

She took a deep breath and dropped her head down.

“Mel, I’m serious, you don’t have to say it back now. I can wait.” I tried to lift
her chin, but she ripped her head from my hand.

“Mel . . .”

“I’m not good at love,” she whispered.

“I know, that’s why I was waiting.” I rubbed her thighs, not for anything sexual,
but so she could feel me and know I was here holding her.

She ran her hand through her hair and sighed. “I’ve been working on it.”

“I know that, too.” I’ve watched as she peeled back layers of herself for me to see
day by day.

Rising from my lap, she walked over to the window, and I missed her warmth.

“I’ve always been the strong one, Liam. I’m good at being the strong one. I don’t
want anyone to ever see me as weak or—”

“There is not a person alive who truly knows you that doesn’t fear you or think you’re
weak,” I whispered, stepping behind her. “What is wrong with you?”

“What if I was pregnant?” She turned to me quickly. “No one sees a pregnant woman
and thinks, ‘holy shit, this woman could kill me with her bare hands.’ All they see
is this . . . this
incubator
who stuffs her face and waddles like a penguin.”

I laughed. “I would say like a duck, but a penguin works.”

She hit my arm hard, and I laughed some more. She always made me truly laugh.

“Sweetheart, we still have a while before you’re waddling like anything.”

“Yeah, a little under seven months.” She frowned, lifting up her shirt for me to see
a tiny bump that was almost unnoticeable. I had seen her naked so many times I could
tell.

I felt the words leave my throat as my mouth dropped open. My hand went to her stomach
before I met her gaze. Each time I tried to form a word, it was lost by the time I
opened my mouth again.

“You’re pregnant,” I whispered.

She nodded. “Ten weeks.”

My legs gave out under me, and I found myself on my knees, my head on her stomach.
I couldn’t hear anything, but I felt so humbled, in love, and overjoyed. Her hands
found their way into my hair again as I kissed her stomach.

“I love you, too, Liam. I just don’t know if I can say it often,” she whispered. “So
you’re going to have to say it to him or her a lot.”

I laughed and nodded. She bent down in front of me, and I gripped the sides of her
face.

“Holy shit, I’m fucking pregnant,” she whispered.

“Holy shit, indeed,” I whispered back before taking her lips. Pulling her body to
mine, I lifted her up bridal style and walked over to the bed.

“No sex on the piano?” she asked in my arms.

“I don’t want sex. I want to make love to you.”

Dropping her in the center of the bed, she raised an eyebrow at me. “You are so cheesy,
Liam.”

“Shut up and enjoy it.” If I was going to die of something, it was going to be of
happiness.

She pulled me by my belt onto the bed and hopped on my waist. “You cannot treat me
differently.”

“The fuck I am.” Everything was different now.

“Liam, I’m serious.” She glared at me.

Sitting up, I grabbed her sides to hold her in place. “So am I, you’re pregnant.”

“That doesn’t make me handicapped or made out of glass,” she snapped, and I would
have to prepare for a few months of it. But that thought only brought a smile to my
lips.

“Melody, if you would let me, I would wrap you in bubble wrap and make sure you were
surrounded by at least four men on the ground and two in the fucking sky.”

“And I would use the motherfuckers’ heads as target practice. Until I start to fucking
waddle, no one is to treat me any fucking differently. If they do, I’ll chain them
to the back of your stupid Audi and rip them apart. Pregnant or not, I’m still fucking
Bloody Melody,” she yelled in my face.

There had to be something fucked up with me if I found her threatening to kill people
while pregnant sexy. Kissing her, I made sure to leave a mental note of where our
argument had left off before flipping her onto her back. I could feel her small hands
ripping at my clothes, trying her best to pull them off me as I was trying to do with
her.

“Say it again,” I whispered, kissing down her chest.

“What?” she gasped out in pleasure as I made it to the promise land, the land of milk
and honey right between her thighs.

“Tell me you love me.” I kissed her other lips, before placing three fingers inside
her.

She didn’t speak as I quickened my fingers in and out of her. She moaned out loudly
as I slowed down.

“Liam . . .”

“Tell me,” I whispered, moving so slow she rocked against me in hopes of forcing me
to move faster.

“I fucking hate you!”

“And?” I asked, smirking. I loved watching her this wild because of me.

“That’s it.” She smiled, and I bit her thigh gently.

“I wanted to drink all of you,” I muttered against her skin toward my fingers. “I
wanted to make you come with my tongue.”

Pulling out, she whimpered.

“But since you once again want to be difficult”—I smiled, releasing my throbbing cock
out of my pants—“I’m going to have to fuck it out of you.”

Before she could respond, I slammed into her and her body jerked off the bed.

“Fucking Christ, Liam,” she hissed out in pleasure, locking her legs around me. However,
I pulled them apart.

“This will be all about my pleasure and not yours if you don’t say it, love.” I grinned
as she fought against me, but I always won this fight.

“I fucking hate you.”

“And?”

“I kind of love you, too, you asshole,” she mumbled, and I would take it.

Capturing her lips in mine for only a moment before I sucked her breast, she rocked
against me while I stroked within her. Each movement was painfully slow, but I didn’t
want to rush this. I wanted us to ride each wave of pleasure with her. But my wife
rarely did what I wanted. Wrapping her legs around me once again, she pulled me even
closer to her before flipping me on the bed. Her head rocked back while she rode me,
and I had to hold on to the headboard. My grip was so tight, I was shocked that it
didn’t break.

“Jesus, Mel.” I groaned. I couldn’t hold it anymore. Grabbing her waist, I held on,
watching through half-closed eyes as she brought me the greatest pleasure.

“I love you,” I cried as I came along with her. She fell on top of me, and my first
instinct was to wrap her in my arms.

All I could smell was sex, and all I could hear was her deep breaths mixed in with
mine. We stayed there, wrapped in each other’s arms for what seemed liked hours before
she looked up at me. She didn’t say anything just stared, and once again, I wished
I could read her mind.

“What?” I asked as she rolled beside me. My hand went to her stomach protectively.
The next fucking Callahan, my kid, was less than seven months away. It made me want
to make love to her all over again.

“We should have used condoms,” she whispered, placing her hand over mine.

“Not today. Not fucking ever.” I didn’t want anything between us. “You don’t want
a child?”

“Kids are smelly and loud. You never know what they want because they can’t talk.
Their heads are way too big for their bodies, which means if you drop them, they’re
going headfirst. They’re like little aliens.” She sighed, and I tried not to smile.
She was scared and worried about being a mother, and because she was my Mel, she would
never just come out and say it.

“Only in the beginning—”

“Yeah, because they transform from aliens into monsters. First, little monsters who
cry and throw tantrums, then to sex-crazed teenagers who think they are smarter than
everyone else. That’s going to be the next eighteen years, Liam. I’m not like your
mom. My patience will run out, and I am going to say or do something—”

I kissed her. “There were days my mom was even scarier than my father . . . a lot
of days, actually. However, my parents made it work, and we turned out fine.”

“You’re a sex-crazed, closet smoker, who sells dope, crack, and smack for a living.
Not to mention a murderer.” She rolled her eyes at me before laughing.

“Like I said, I turned out fine.” Honestly, the worst thing was the murder, but that
wasn’t my fault. People thought they could steal from us, threaten us, and I made
sure that wasn’t tolerated.

“I’m a planner Liam,” she said, sighing. “I like to know how I’m going to approach
things, or kill them. This, our kid, isn’t part of my plan. We have Saige and Amory
to deal . . .”

“Don’t stress, love. I can handle—”She pulled a knife from under the pillow and held
it to my throat. Pushing me back, she took a seat on my waist once again.

“If you try to put me on the bench, Liam, so help me I will start cutting body parts
off. I may be pregnant, but I am still Bloody Motherfucking Melody. I can destroy
anyone I want. I’ll chalk it up to hormones.” She glared, and I could see the same
woman who shot me in the thigh.

I felt my dick rise at her words and her position on top of me.

“Bloody Motherfucking Melody, indeed.” I snickered, rubbing against her. I watched
her eyes glaze over as she let the knife drop to the floor and kissed me.

When our phones rang and she pulled away, I felt the need to snap whichever fool thought
to call us at two in the morning.

“Speak,” she said into the phone as I kissed her legs. “We will be right there.”

No, we’ll be right here!
My mind begged.

Hanging up, Mel jumped out of bed, leaving me hard as a fucking rock in bed.

“Amory and Saige burned down my fucking house,” she snapped angrily as she stomped
into the closet.

I groaned to myself. “Damn them all to hell.”

“Liam, get your horny fucking ass out of bed and help me kill a bitch!” she yelled.

Oh, I was going to kill them all right.

MELODY

I leaned against the car, watching as the Giovanni Villa burned to the ground. The
fire department was trying their best to control the fire, but a deadlier one was
burning inside me.

Fedel ran up to me. “There was a note on the gate, ma’am.”

I saw Liam reaching for it, but I snatched it before he could and glared at him. He
was not going to treat me differently. I wouldn’t have it.

You burn my shit, I burn yours. All is fair in war. Congrats on the baby. Such a happy
time for you both.

XOXO

A&S

Liam grabbed the letter, his nose flaring with just as much rage as mine was.

There was only one other person who knew I was pregnant.

I roared into Fedel’s face. “Find Dr. Anderson,
now
!”

Liam turned to me, his eyes still hard. “Everything is different now.”

I nodded, opening the car door and taking a seat. Everything was different. I was
now a bigger target. I was always a target, but now so was my child—the next leader
of our empire—and because of that, I was going to have to change. Not into Evelyn
or Coraline, but a different type of leader. I was going to have to figure out how
to be ruthless
and
pregnant. Amory and Saige picked the wrong motherfucking family to mess with.

TWENTY-SEVEN

“He pulls a knife,
you pull a gun,
he sends one of yours to the hospital,
you send one of his to the morgue . . .”

~ Al Capone

LIAM

“What’s a five letter word for mortality?” I asked the man in the hospital cast in
front of me.

He said nothing, but that had to be due to all the morphine. Smirking, I snapped my
fingers and filled in the spaces of the newspaper crossword.

“That’s right, death,” I said to him. “It seems even God is mocking you Commissioner . . .
ex-Commissioner now, right? People don’t like suicidal cops.”

He just glared as I continued with my game.

“Seven letter word for ineffective. Don’t tell me, failure. Seriously, this is today’s
crossword. Can you believe it? It’s like they made it about your life.”

“Is that why you’re here, Callahan, to kick a man when he is down? I’m not shocked,”
he hissed out, but I wasn’t sure if that was due to the pain or because he was ticked
off.

“I don’t kick a man when he is down. I put a bullet in his skull. You should know
that.” I sighed, placing the paper down.

“Then kill me already,” he yelled, making me want to roll my eyes.

“Not until you answer a few of my questions,” I replied, rising to my feet. I reached
over and grabbed his oxygen mask.

Taking it off his bruised face, he took a deep breath before it turned into short
gasps for air. He reached over for the nurse call button so I pushed it for him. Once,
then twice, and then a few more times for the heck of it.