Page 38

I wanted to escape from my father. I wanted to find my mother again, to figure out where he and Kieran had hidden her. I tried to walk away more times than I can count, and every time it was a well-meaning, if wayward, townsperson who brought me back, kicking and screaming, to my father’s house.
The memory makes me shiver.
I don’t like mafia men. I don’t. My reasons are my own and they’re perfectly rational. Who would, after everything I’ve been through?
But the memory of Marco’s hands on my body lingers.
“So. What’s the story?” Marco rumbles.
I shift, staring at him.
He winks. “What are we going to tell them about how we met?”
“The exact story about how we met. I took you into custody–”
“Won’t work,” Marco shakes his head. “They’re going to know that I chose to be in custody.”
I snort. “You didn’t say that when I had you at gunpoint. It seemed you were very much at my mercy then.”
“You’d love to think that, wouldn’t you Roisin?”
I arch my eyebrow at him. “You were allowing yourself to be caught?”
He nods. “Yes.”
“Why the hell would you do that?’
“So that I could negotiate the deal to protect Dino’s children,” he says without skipping a beat.
I blink. “We offered you that deal–”
“I knew you would, as soon as I heard that Interpol had located the twins and Marisol. Dino came to me to ask me what to do years ago. I monitored them. It only happened recently that they were on Interpol’s radar, and I had to protect them.”
My eyebrows knit together. If that’s true, that means Marco…
“You just… stayed in witness protection?”
“Yes.”
I shake my head. “Why?”
Marco sighs. “Because I needed to at the time.”
“That’s ludicrous.”
“It’s what we mafia men do to protect what’s ours,” he says in a voice that feels laced with venom and promise.
Hmm. Interesting. Clearly, my comment earlier bothered him. “You’d just as easily sell him out if you had to,” I say quietly.
Marco’s hands tighten on the steering wheel, but he doesn’t respond.
We continue in silence, as we wind up the road. Eventually, a familiar bend comes up, and my heart aches as the manor house comes into view.
“Welcome to Aughris House, Marco,” I say quietly.
My heart sinks.
Because this house is my worst fucking nightmare.