Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
A soul-deep anguish reared its head as I began to think of Rome growing close to Nixie. Wanting a life with her and their child and moving on to fall in love again. It was selfish of me and punishing all the same to entertain the thought, but it came to torture me, and I let it. Unable to stop myself.
One lone tear slipped free, and I reached up to wipe it away as another joined. The dreams I had that never came true. The love that was never mine to keep. Losing my heart at sixteen to a boy who would forever hold it in his hands. Life had been so unfair, and it just continued to be with each year I grew older. There was never a break for me. No silver lining. I’d thought perhaps that was what Eamon was, but it’d turned out, he was just another punch in the gut.
A faint clicking noise caught my attention, and I turned over to look toward where it was coming from to see the doorknob turning slowly.
Did Emmett have a key? Most likely, but why was he coming inside the room in the middle of the night? Was he sleeping in here? I assumed he would have his own room.
The door began to creep open, and unease started to settle in. That wasn’t normal. Emmett wouldn’t open the door like that. Brady had enemies. Had someone followed him? Did they have a way of tracking him when in the States? Was I about to die?
I remained frozen as a man dressed in black entered the room with a gun pointed at Brady. Three more men followed him inside. All armed.
Where was Emmett? Who were these people?
It was dark in the room, but the moonlight that shone through the windows showed me enough of their faces that I knew I didn’t recognize them.
Had Emmett seen them come in here? What if they all opened fire when he came barreling in here, guns blazing to save Brady?
I was going to die.
Oh God. My life was hell, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to give it up just yet. Not when there was a chance that I could be free one day.
Brady moved so quickly that I let out a squeal as he went from lying in bed to standing up with his own gun pointed at the men. Surely, he saw that he was outnumbered. What was he doing?
The door closed with a click as the man closest to it let the handle go.
“I’m not alone,” Brady told them, dropping his Southern accent. “Kill me, and ye will die shortly after.”
“I don’t think we will,” one of the men drawled, as if he were amused.
“What is it ye want? I’m not here to handle business, so whatever shite ye think yer here to do, don’t. It would be a waste of lives.”
“You got something we want,” the one who had spoken before said.
There was a pause, and then Brady sighed wearily. “Yer here for her.”
“Yep,” another replied. “We are here for her.”
He didn’t take his eyes off the men to look my way. “She’s my sister-in-law. I can’t let ye take her.”
“She’s not anymore,” one of them said. “And unless you want to join your brother, you’ll hand her over.”
“All right, whatever yer being paid to do this job, I’ll double it.”
One of them chuckled a deep, sadistic sound that made me shiver. He was farthest away from me, and I could barely make out his face, but my gut told me that I wanted to keep my distance.
“We must look like we need the money.”
“It’s because you need to fucking shave that shit off your face,” another said.
“You talk to my woman about that, and she’ll tell you just how much she likes my beard,” he replied.
My eyes darted from one to the other as they bantered with each other as if they weren’t holding a man at gunpoint.
“I need a smoke. Can we speed this up?”
“The longer we take, the more likely your guy out there in the black car will end up with a bullet in his head,” the guy closest to me said.
They had Emmett.
“He’ll have called for backup. Ye need to let him go if ye want to walk away unscathed,” Brady warned him.
“There are over thirty men surrounding this property. They’re armed, and they’re trained to kill. Now, unless you want your dead bodies fed to our pigs, then you’ll hand her over.”
Fed to their pigs? Eww. My stomach rolled, and I placed a hand over my mouth and hesitantly swallowed. I did not need to get sick right now.
“Ye don’t know who yer fuckin’ with,” Brady told him.
One of them laughed. “Yeah, Irish, we do.”
“I need a smoke. Hand her over, or I’ll put the bullet in your head and take her.”