Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 93463 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93463 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
He had that message on his phone. Because he was hiding something big. He was in league with someone who wants to burn my family to the ground.
No wonder we rarely left the bar. No wonder everything’s always on edge. He’s been lying to me. Keeping things from me. Playing a game I didn’t even know I was in.
Has he been seducing me this whole time? Was I just another part of the plan?
I sit in the quiet, waiting for the fallout. And it comes faster than I imagined.
Chapter 7
SEAMUS
By some miracle or maybe divine intervention—the Kopolovs don’t show up.
“Destroy them all.” Orders straight from my boss.
But I don’t destroy the Kopolovs. The Kopolovs never come.
It’s my chance. My chance to enact what I’ve been plotting now since I first heard the rumors.
I know why my men followed me to Russia. To undermine me. I see every step they’ve taken to usurp the throne.
My throne.
But I’m the son of Keenan fucking McCarthy, and I’m not giving up a damn thing.
By the time I empty the Wolf and Moon of all its occupants with a fire alarm trigger, I know my time has come. Her brothers aren’t here and aren’t on the way, but my boss will think they are.
When I arrive, it’s just me and the traitors.
Excellent.
But when I get there… she’s there.
Zoya, my willful little lass, toe to toe with fucking Finnegan. The big fucker has the goddamn nerve to touch her.
“Get your fucking hands off her.”
My voice cuts through the chaos. They freeze. She doesn’t move, just turns, her eyes wild and a bit guilty, her lips parted like she can’t believe what she’s seeing.
I draw my gun and start with the fucking redhead who has the goddamn nerve to touch her.
No warning. No speech. One shot to the skull. He drops. Zoya stifles a scream she doesn’t release.
The rest panic when they see him go down. Some reach for guns, others run, but it doesn’t matter.
“Stay back,” I growl to Zoya, making damn sure she’s out of the line of fire while I send every last one of the motherfuckers to hell where they belong.
“For betraying me.” Bang.
“For your lies and theft.” Bang.
“For laying fucking hands on her.” I put a bullet through Finnegan’s skull to finish him off.
That one I take slow. I make it hurt.
When the last one drops, the silence rings louder than the gunfire. She’s shaking, pressed to the wall like her legs won’t hold her. The blood on her face isn’t hers. Her breath stutters.
My phone rings.
Boss.
I lift a finger toward her. Wait. Don’t speak.
She nods, just once. Swallows.
“Yeah.”
His voice is thunder on the line. “What the fuck happened?”
“Bad intel,” I say, calm as the grave. “Handful of Russians. I tried to hold them off. Couldn’t.” I let a thread of grief weave through my tone. “They’re dead. All our men.”
His voice splinters. I hear it, the shock, the loss. It’s real. “Any survivors?”
I know what he means.
Did anyone see what you did?
I look at her.
She looks back. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t beg.
I crouch in front of her, thumb brushing a streak of blood from her cheek. Soft. Reverent.
I lift the phone to my mouth.
“No,” I say, my voice broken. “None.”
Then I hang up.
Every man who came to take down the Kopolovs died by my hand.
No, this was about loyalty. About betrayal. Those men crossed me. They tried to usurp me, to take what was mine. And the McCarthy clan, my clan, belongs to me. I made sure they would never forget that, even if they had to die to learn it.
I turn back to look at Zoya.
The fury I feel—nothing compared to the times I wanted to scold her for putting herself in danger. This is deeper.
She dared to come back here when I told her to stay away. She defied me.
But here she is. Wide blue eyes. Heart-shaped lips.
I’m shaking with the effort of holding myself back.
I don’t trust myself not to hurt her this time.
“Go home, Zoya.”
Thursday night. I made it.
By the skin of my fucking teeth.
And here she is. Walking in like she owns the place, like she’s got every right to.
She slides into the seat across from me and says, “I want you to tell me everything.”
“Excuse me?” I say, my voice like ice. She’s trying to be all tough, but she has no fucking idea who she’s talking to.
“I want to know why you were here that night. Why you told me to stay away and then sent me home.”
She won’t look at me, though, but looks away.
“I saw the message on your phone,” she whispers. “I’m not saying anything else here. Not in public. I want to go to your place. I want to talk there.”
She breaks a little. Cracks open. “Please,” she says.
I’m already on fire. But that does it. That fucking does it.