Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
She thinks I'm the fucking monster.
Maybe I am, but I'm the monster keeping her alive.
“Ashland,” Seamus says again. His voice is harder now. His ruddy cheeks are a little darker than normal, his blue eyes narrowed. “You need to be somewhere, lad?”
“No,” I say, staring at him without flinching.
“Then put the fucking phone away and pay attention.”
Kyla shifts in her seat and sits up straighter. Lorcan's downright grinning now, enjoying the tension. Bronwyn's eyes dart to me sympathetically.
I let out a long breath, then check the feed one last time, risking my fucking neck with Seamus.
There she is again. Trying the door. Testing the locks.
Everything in me says go. Leave. Get back to her.
Now.
“Sign whatever needs signing,” I tell the lawyer. “Transfer it. I don't fucking care.”
“There are tax implications—”
“I don't care.”
My da's rubbing at his eyes. “I don't want to talk about this anymore either, Seamus. Finish it,” he says. “Please. Sign the papers. I want to get back to my wife.”
He looks at me then, and Lorcan lays a comforting hand on his shoulder.
Why do I feel tears prick my eyes? Donovan was a good man before he turned traitor.
He taught me how to ride a bike when I was four, running beside me with his hand on the seat until I found my balance. Taught me how to speak to a woman—respect her, Ash, always respect her—even though he was shite at taking his own advice. Taught me how to throw a punch, how to take one, and how to get back up when the world knocked me down.
Losing a brother is a devastating sort of blow. It's like losing a limb you didn't know you needed until it was gone. It's phantom pain that never stops, an ache in your chest that won't heal, no matter how much time passes.
Because no one really knows the fabric of who you are better than the one who grew up beside you. Donovan knew every scar, every secret, every stupid thing I'd ever done. He knew me before the ink, before the fights, before I became the weapon the family needed.
He knew me when I was just… me.
But he's gone.
And I'm still here, carrying all the parts of myself only he understood.
“Right,” Seamus says. “Let's finish up, then.”
Still, his eyes linger on mine. Seamus didn't get to his place as The Undertaker and head of the McCarthy family by being easily duped.
He stands and dismisses us.
I take a casual look at the bank draft in my hand. It's a lot of fucking money, and I hate it. I hate that my brother died for me to have this money.
But I'll put it to good use.
Seamus walks over to me, his hands shoved in his pockets. “What's got you so distracted, Ash?”
Everything. Nothing. Her.
“Got things to handle,” I say in a way that doesn't invite questions—before I come up with a lie that won’t hold up under his scrutiny.
My phone vibrates.
Connection lost.
Fuck.
She found the fucking router and broke it.
“I need to go,” I say quietly.
“Ashland—” Da turns to me.
When I look at him, he's watching me with red-rimmed eyes. “Whatever's got you running, son, don't end up like Donovan. We stay loyal. We don't hide things from the McCarthy family, aye?”
The words hit me like a fist to the gut. If he knew I've got the daughter of a traitor locked in a cabin in the woods… If Crowning found out I took her…
The McCarthys won't just lose me. They'll lose everything.
But I can't just hand her over to a man who'll kill her the same way he killed the others.
I fucking won't.
“You don't have anything to worry about,” I tell Da. But I'm swallowing a lie.
Seamus puts his hand on my shoulder. “Go,” he says. “But I want the truth, Ashland. I don't want another problem.”
My truck's parked out in the front, right outside the gate. I'm in it before anyone else leaves. The city blurs past. It's a rainy, gray day, nothing like the quiet of the woods where I've got her hidden.
Where I had her hidden.
The cabin's forty minutes out. I make it in twenty-five.
The router's smashed on the kitchen floor. She's not in any of the rooms—not in the bathroom… not in the bedroom.
Fuck.
Where is she?
I look frantically, tearing through the whole fucking cabin until I find the back window, the one I was fucking sure was safe. Apparently, the metal panel inserts came out.
Fuck it.
I'm out the door and into the woods in seconds. She can't have gone far, not on foot, not in this terrain. Not without knowing where she is.
But she's clever. Desperate. Scared of me.
I start running.
Chapter Twelve
Bianca
I thought getting out was the hardest part. Turns out, I was wrong.
These woods are endless. My palms are still scraped raw from the rough wood siding after I took the metal insert out.