Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 132791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
I held my wife’s hand and watched as he appeared between her legs in all of his purple-white flesh glory. New and wrinkly, unfocused, his ribs tightening each time he took a greedy breath to resume his screaming.
There was nothing particularly noteworthy about his scrunched, long-suffering face. It was full of white stuff.
It was his head that confirmed the suspicion I’d had for the past few weeks, since Lila killed the wrong guy.
More specifically, the shocking thick mane of hair covering his entire skull.
The unmistakable, rare, and familiar shade of dark red. Burgundy.
Of the Callaghans.
Red. All I saw was red. Rage took over my entire fucking being.
Fintan.
Fintan was the rapist.
It all made sense.
His name was on Sam Brennan’s list. In plain sight all along.
It had never occurred to me to look into him as a suspect before the warehouse incident because…
Because you’re a fucking gobshite who spent your entire life assuming the best about him.
I’d ignored his name because he disappeared often to get drunk or make illegal bets. Him not being by my side on that night was nothing special.
He had a girlfriend, but that meant very little to men of our trade; he had substance abuse issues, so it was likely he wasn’t on his best behavior that night. And while Fintan was a scaredy-cat not accustomed to violence, he certainly possessed a mean streak.
He’d taken one look at Raffaella, concluded she wasn’t going to fight back, rat him out, or complicate his life—and decided to destroy hers.
The writing was on the wall. How he protested the marriage from the get-go. How angry he was when it went ahead. And how concerned he’d been when he first heard Lila was sentient.
The last nine months rushed into the forefront of my mind.
He’d sent her a letter, had likely slipped it under the door himself. Why?
The answer was simple—he wanted her alone so he could kill her and get rid of both her and the baby. Bury his secret with them.
He tried twice—once when he crashed into her and Tierney in that intersection, after which he panicked and tried to pin it on Angelo—and a second time when he arranged a time to meet her at the dock, but I showed up instead.
He was the one who sent that Roger prick to the port and ordered him to kill whoever showed up, Lila or me. Because once I was gone, there’d be no one to retaliate.
He thought he could get away with it.
Until the very last moment.
The red flowers at Fermanagh’s…
My jaw locked. They were unevenly red. Old.
He kept her blood-soaked tiara of roses.
Made her live under the same roof with it.
My heart thrashed so hard it nearly cracked my fucking ribs.
I couldn’t make a stink about it. Not here, not now. With Lila writhing and aching as the doctor stitched up the sore place between her legs. A nurse dabbed her temples with a cloth, and my wife’s arms stretched open, waiting to be filled with the baby she just birthed.
My baby.
He was fucking mine.
I would raise him as my own, and he’d look exactly like me.
No one would question his origin.
“Gealach, he is beautiful,” I praised, pressing my lips to her sweat-coated forehead. She shuddered under my lips. I pulled back and caressed the damp hair away from her face.
One of the nurses placed a much drier, slightly less sullen version of our newborn in her arms.
His hair.
I couldn’t stop staring.
Did Lila know?
I couldn’t stomach what it must do to her.
She sniffled, looking up at me through glittering eyes, waiting for my words. She couldn’t offer me any of her own, seeing as her hands were busy cradling our baby to her chest.
“You did so good. I’m proud of you.” I kissed her mouth, then leaned down to kiss the crown of my son’s head. I looked back at her so she could read my lips, speaking as slowly as I could.
“I love you, sweetheart. You fractured my soul and dug so deep into it, you are now ingrained in all that I am, and all that I ever will be. As for our son.” I placed a hand on his tiny shoulder, smiling down at him. “I already love him more than I do anyone else in the world.”
But you.
She would always come first.
Before our son. Before myself.
I stayed for twenty more minutes, fussing and cooing over them, feeding her prosciutto and watching as she nursed the baby for the first time.
Finally, when the baby was napping, she turned and told me, “You haven’t had a second for yourself. Why don’t you go take a shower and a nap?”
“It’s fine,” I said, even though every fiber of my body itched to go to Fintan. “I’m happy to stay.”
He was probably halfway across the continent by now. Not that it’d help him.