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)
He holds my gaze, and I know he watches as my eyes go half lidded and heated.
“You know exactly what you are, who you are. You're just afraid to admit it, aren't you?”
“What's that? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Mine.” His voice is harsh, possessive. He says it like it's inevitable. Like gravity. “You've always been mine, Bianca.”
The logical part of me wants to tell him that you can't own a person. That this is wrong, and I hate him. But his hand cups my face, and his thumb brushes my lip. All I can think is Yes.
“Ashland,” I whisper.
“Say my name again.” It's not a request. It's a plea.
“Ashland.” I watch as something in his eyes breaks open.
He pulls me against him, and I go willingly, my hands fisting in his shirt.
“Tell me you don't want this,” he whispers against my mouth.
I can't. Because god help me, I do.
“I hate you,” I say instead.
“I know.” His forehead rests against mine. “Hate me all you want, lass, as long as you stay.”
“You're a monster.”
“I know.”
“I have to go back.”
“No.”
“I can't—” I stop myself before I say it out loud. I can't fall for him. I can't be here. I can't say yes to this life.
He knows that.
“This is wrong,” I tell him.
“Why?” His head tilts to the side. “Because I took you? Because I've been watching you? Why do you have to play by the rules when the world doesn't?”
“Because I'm engaged to another man.” My voice wobbles.
“A man who'd make you miserable,” he says gently. “You're saying yes to a life where you'd pretend to be happy. Marrying a fucking monster who's going to kill you.”
“You don't know that.”
“Who's the liar now?”
“I'm not lying.”
Something dark crosses his face. “You're just not ready to hear it yet.”
He slowly moves away. The loss of his touch makes me want to sob.
As soon as I can walk again. As soon as I can bear full weight on this ankle. When he's preoccupied, and I find a way—I'm going back to Marcus. Back to my normal life. Back to being a good girl who makes good choices.
Because that is who I am.
I cannot say yes to him. I can't fall in love with my captor. A monster. A goddamn mobster.
I can't.
Even if a little part of me already knows it's too late.
Chapter Fifteen
Ashland
The call comes at four in the morning.
My phone vibrates against my palm, and I silence it before it can wake her. I slip out of the bedroom, close the door behind me with barely a sound, and step into the hallway.
Seamus’s voice is tight and clipped. All business. “The warehouse on the docks. Russians—Morozov, by the looks of it—hit it two hours ago. Took down four of our men.”
I blow out a breath. Took down means injured, not dead. Still. Bollocks.
“Tiernan's there now, but it's bad, Ash. It's really fucking bad.”
Ice slides down my spine. Tiernan. My uncle, my trainer, the man who taught me how to fight, how to kill, how to survive in this world.
“How bad?”
“He's… alive. He's asking for you. Says he needs to talk to you before he—” Seamus cuts off, but I hear everything he's not saying. Before he dies.
Holy fucking Christ. Tiernan.
“On my way,” I hear myself say, even as every instinct screams at me to stay here, to guard her, not to let her out of my sight. Her ankle's been healing, but not as well as it should. She's still limping, wincing when she thinks I'm not looking, and says she's in a lot of pain. I'm going to have to take her to a doctor soon, whether she wants to go or not.
“Hurry, Ash.”
Seamus's voice softens, which actually takes me by surprise. He doesn't speak softly to anyone. “I know. I know you've got something going on, but this is family. He's family.”
“I know. I said I'll be there.” I don’t need a fucking lecture.
I hang up before I can say anything else, then stand there in the dark hallway, my hands clenched at my sides, every muscle in my body corded tight.
Tiernan. The man who made me into a weapon, who stood in my corner for every fight, who never once flinched at the monster I became. Who told me six years ago, when I came back covered in someone else's blood, “Sometimes the monster is what the world needs, lad.”
I can’t fuckin’ lose him, not so soon after losing Donovan.
I can’t. I won’t.
I have to go. I know I have to go.
But she's in bed, soft and warm and mine, and every cell in my body is screaming at me to stay with her, to guard her, and not to let her go more than three feet away from me.
I haven't even joined her in bed properly. I've been lying next to her for two weeks now, close but not touching, even though everything in me wants to. I want to climb into bed and tell her Tiernan’s fucking hurt, that it’s not looking good, that I have to go…