Page 69 of Jaded Soul (Kovalyov Bratva 3)

Cillian’s smile twitches. “You grow up fast in my family.”

“So it seems.”

He adjusts his position. Now, even without moving, our shoulders are pressed together. I don’t want to move away and give him the satisfaction of knowing that I’m aware of his proximity.

So I ignore it.

Heat races up and down my arm, but I ignore that, too.

“Have you murdered anyone?” I ask abruptly.

“Fuck,” he groans. “I knew I shouldn’t have put that in your head.”

“Well?”

He closes his eyes for a moment and his body goes still. “Would you judge me if I said I have?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Damn it,” he growls through gritted teeth.

“You really have killed someone?” I gasp.

He meets my eyes levelly. I find myself transfixed and confused in equal measure.

How can a man with such beautiful eyes be capable of doing such horrific things?

“I have,” Cillian says quietly. “But would it help you to know that the person in question was a horrible man? That he deserved to die?”

“You don’t get to make that call.”

“Why not?” Cillian counters. “If I hadn’t stopped him, he would have lived free. He would have sold more children, destroyed more lives.”

I freeze. “He was a human trafficker?”

“That, and more.”

I glare at him, searching for flaws in his story. “And you’re not just making this up to justify the fact that you’re a murderer?”

“No,” he says with a wide-open expression. “I told you—I’m not a liar.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I believe you.”

His smile is so bright that it puts the moon to shame.

Then it falters.

Just a little, but enough for me to take notice.

“It still wasn’t easy,” he admits. “Killing him. I knew everything he’d done. I knew the kind of man he was. But killing him wasn’t easy.”

“Good,” I say. “Killing another person should never be so easy. No matter what they’ve done.”

Cillian nods thoughtfully. Lost in horrible memories.