Title: A Love So Dark
Series: Fatal Fidelity, Book Four
Author: Rien Gray
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 06/06/2023
Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex
Pairing: F/NB
Length: 49900
Genre: Contemporary, contemporary, romance/ noir, suspense, nonbinary, queer, bisexual, interracial, established couple, assassin, artist, Mafia, imprisonment, courtroom drama, FBI agents, revenge, graphic violence, #ownvoices
Add to Goodreads
Description
The visceral conclusion to the Fatal Fidelity series.
After Justine and Campbell’s beachside vacation is interrupted by the FBI, Campbell is arrested for murder and arson. The evidence leaves them in an impossible position: either take the fall for an assassination they didn’t commit or confess to a killing they already got away with.
When an aggressive federal agent starts uncovering Campbell’s secrets, it’s only a matter of time before the other bodies they’ve buried come back to the surface. With Campbell behind bars, Justine can’t prove their innocence, but she can take matters into her own hands.
She just has to commit the perfect crime—before they both lose everything.
A Love So Dark
Rien Gray © 2023
All Rights Reserved
Campbell
This is the first time I’ve ever been on vacation.
I grew up too poor to entertain the concept, and what few weeks of leave the military offered were spent on base in a country I never should have set foot in. Of course, contracts provide plenty of reasons to travel, but I’m not the kind of killer who stops at tourist venues in between executions. What would be the point?
Justine gives me a purpose for everything. When she smiles, when she laughs, I can hold a piece of it inside myself for a while and let the feeling resonate, unfiltered. I’ve spent most of our trips over the last few months following her as she uncovers reasons for joy, some long buried, others through sudden, ecstatic revelation. Thinking about death is more difficult when Justine burns with life beside me, taking back the decade she lost with shameless abandon.
So here I am, with nothing on the books now or for the foreseeable future. The process hasn’t always been clean—the first time I left my guns in New York, I numbed out for two solid weeks and almost put a knife through my own hand—but in a strange way, the breakdown made me even more determined to stick the landing. That lockbox is full of spotless relics I can never truly leave behind, but respecting old friends shouldn’t put me in an early grave. They wouldn’t want me to go out that way.
At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself.
Water splashes against my stomach and brings me back to the ocean, the cold and infinite promise I’m standing in.
Justine’s brow wrinkles with worry when I meet her gaze, but there’s nothing but softness in her voice when she says, “Hey.”
“Hey,” I echo.
How long did I tap out this time?
No point in dwelling on it. I scoop a hand under the surface and launch a wave of water back at her. Justine’s jaw drops before she retaliates, dousing me with a much harder splash, only to laugh and stumble back when I start wading toward her.
“You are not allowed to carry me off to win a splash fight!” she insists, but delight puts a glint on dark brown eyes, polished and precious.
“Are you sure about that?” I tease with another flick of water, watching gravity draw a sleek caress down her stomach.
Justine is aglow. Months of travel and open sun have drawn a golden tint across her skin, but the rest of her shines too: the black gloss of her hair left to grow unheeded and the bright crescent of her smile, luring me in time and again. Even when everything else freezes inside me and the last bit of light goes out, I love her.
It’s enough. In some moments, it might be the only truth keeping me sane.
Her desperate splash manages to get me in the face before I sweep Justine into my arms, prompting a sigh as water drips down my face, hair soaked through. Any pretense of struggle dies off as she laughs, slipping an arm around my shoulder to stay close.
“That went right up my nose,” I note.
My flat affect sends her into a full-on fit of giggling before she leans up to kiss me. “My bad. I’ll aim lower next time.”
That’s worth a smile. “You usually do.”
Justine’s faux-offended Campbell spikes in pitch when I change my grip, bringing us face-to-face. Her legs lock around my hips, hands laced together behind my shoulders, and I forget to think or speak. If I could always hold her like this, away from everyone else and the damage they do, I would. An idle, impossible fantasy, but I’m trying to indulge those more often. The other things I fantasize about are far too real: the satisfying snap of a target’s neck under soft leather gloves, veins collapsing as poison strips away oxygen and hope, eyes turning to dull panes of glass when they can no longer beg me to stop.
I bite my tongue and blink away the imagery. Justine is here and real, too, grounding me with her weight as I take us out of the water. The temperature today is just shy of perfect, but even a level seventy degrees makes volcanic sand warm to the touch. Our towels are long white strips beside each other, mimicking an equal sign under the broad span of the beach umbrella.
Purchase
NineStar Press | Books2Read
Amazon
Rien Gray is a queer, nonbinary writer who has worked in ghostwriting, TTRPGS, and video games. They have a treasured (and ever-growing) collection of LGBTQ+ history books as well as a deep, abiding love for Greek myth. Rien has an upcoming short story in Neon Hemlock’s Baffling Magazine. They live in Ireland.
Website | Twitter
One lucky winner will receive a $50.00 NineStar Press Gift Code!
