Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 91064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
But he’s big and I’m small so it just bounces off his chest. He uses his full weight to sandwich me against the wall until I can’t move and the inevitable happens.
My well of adrenaline has run dry.
There’s no use, but my mind can’t accept it yet.
“Shhhh, sweetheart.”
He pulls my hair back to whisper in my ear, and his voice is gentle and soothing. Misleading.
“I’m not going to hurt ye,” he tells me. “But you need to calm down. And breathe.”
My body goes slack against the wall and all I’m left with are my words.
“I just need five more minutes with this guy. And then I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Don’t believe her,” Teddy yells. “The bitch is fucking crazy. You gotta let me go, man.”
Rory ignores him, and his eyes are all over my face, studying me, trying to read me, and I haven’t been this close to a man since… I don’t know. And things are awkward and tense and now I want to leave.
He’s too tall and too strong. His face isn’t threatening, but he is a threat. He’s serious. And too clean cut, with his ashy blonde hair and shaven face.
“Ye’re coming with me,” he says again.
“I think that’s called kidnapping,” I tell him.
He shrugs. “Why trifle with labels?”
He’s closer now because he knows I’m going to bolt again. Or stab him again, even though my knife is gone, but he doesn’t know if I have another. All I can feel is his body closing in on me. Suffocating me.
I can’t breathe.
“There is nothing good or bad,” I whisper to myself. “Only thinking makes it so.”
I keep repeating the words, over and over.
Ten times.
Rory has moved away now, turning me slowly. Giving me space, but still caging me in with his arms. And even though one of them has a knife lodged in it, he isn’t angry with me.
His eyes are green. And deceptively soft. Like his voice when he speaks next.
“Scarlett, ye have my word that no harm will come to ye when ye’re with me.”
“Rory?”
“Aye?”
“Your words don’t mean jack, Jack.”
One
Rory
A boot nudges me in the side for the third time and there’s a groan. I believe it’s coming from me, but it’s anyone’s guess.
“Feck off.”
“You told me to wake you up.”
Conor’s voice is like a bag of bleeding cats to my ears right now.
“I said no such thing. Now piss off and let me sleep.”
There’s a sigh. Footsteps moving away from me. For a minute, I think the lad is actually going to listen. Until the ice water hits my face and I come up swinging.
I don’t manage to hit him since Conor is shielding himself with my sofa. And the woman I brought home with me last night since she’s passed out on top of it.
“Real gentleman, ye are,” I tell the lad. “Hiding behind a lady.”
He makes a face as his eyes wander to the slumped form of the blonde with raccoon eyes and her mouth hanging open while she snores. Her name is Ivy, so she says.
“Yeah, a real lady,” Conor scoffs.
The lad’s voice is hard and bitter. Conor is never hard and bitter, in fact, he’s dopey as fuck most of the time. This is how I know for certain my suspicions were bang on about this girl.
“I brought her home for you, ye fucking muppet,” I tell him. “I saw the way ye were making eyes at her all night long. But then ye disappeared and couldn’t be bothered to come back here to sort her out.”
He looks away, and just like that, he’s back to himself. The awkward, fumbling lad I first met when he decided to go Wild West on the Lenox Hill Crew. Thought he’d go down in a blaze of glory, but instead, he ended up working for our crew instead. He should know me well enough by now to know this ride isn’t my sort of fancy at all.
“Get her some breakfast and then give her a lift home,” I call out as I walk down the hall.
“You need to be at the church in forty minutes,” he says. “Don’t be late, or Crow will have both our nuts.”
I hate him right now. But the lad is right.
The only time you’ll ever see a whole load of mafia men in church is either something grand or something bad.
Weddings, funerals, repentance.
Today, we’re all here for Keeva’s baptism.
Crow’s baby daughter, who has just entered a lifetime of protection better than the president himself.
She’s a sweet little girl with the looks of her mother Mack. And this is the reason we’re all here in a church on Sunday instead of hungover at Slainte like usual.
Being that Crow’s now the boss of the Irish syndicate, there isn’t a lad in our crew that isn’t here today. We’ve all come to show our respect and support.