Page 26 of Bad Bishop

My new husband never blinked. It made the hairs on my arms stand on end. It was like he decided to compensate for the loss of his other eye by never closing his good one.

I wanted to beg for mercy. The only thing stopping me was the knowledge that he got off on fear. I saw it the night at the fountain.

Weakness would only encourage more cruelty.

His eye landed on a painting of a crucified Jesus above the headboard.

“Your parents sure know how to set the mood.” He plucked a fig from the charcuterie board, tossing it into his mouth on his way to the en-suite bathroom. “Wait here, and don’t do anything stupid.”

“Don’t damage her.” Papa’s words haunted me.

He could leave me unmarred from the shoulders up. No one would ever know.

Everything else was fair game.

I didn’t waste time. Scrambling to my feet, I rushed to the desk, grabbed one of his guns—heavier than I’d imagined—and aimed it at the open bathroom door with shaky fingers. He reemerged a few moments later, zipping himself.

A gun was aimed at his head. Yet, all he did was stare at me with leisured amusement, like I was a lab rat trying to work out a Rubik’s Cube.

I was used to being underestimated. Still, for some reason, I couldn’t bear that this man thought I was so toothless.

“Put that down,Gealach. That is a grown-up toy. I’ll have your mother send your crayons and coloring books over tomorrow.” Tiernan fished out his phone, frowning at a text message. I knew the basic mechanics of guns from watching the men in my family handling them.

I flicked the safety with my thumb.

The sound made Tiernan’s gaze flit back to me.

He sighed. “Fuck’s sake.” He flew toward me, grabbed the gun by the mouth, seized the silencer from the vanity table, and screwed it on. “It’s one in the morning. Show some decorum.” He handed the gun back to me, staring at me with a glint in his eye, daring me to hurt him. He pushed his chest against the gun, his dark gaze penetrating my soul, squeezing it with his ice-cold fist.

His heart thudded against the silencer.

Slow. Steady. Calm.

Not one muscle in his face moved.

He was calling my bluff.

He was not only calling my bluff, but suffocating my soul, touching me without permission, and pushing me to my limits like no man had ever done before. My rage, my fear, all gathered in the pit of my stomach, like a storm building momentum and speed, an anger that sat dormant for years…

I pulled the trigger.

The force of the blow tilted the gun upward. The recoil made me stagger back, and I hit the wall, falling to the floor.

The bullet grazed his shoulder. Crimson spread across his pristine white shirt.

I shot my husband.

The most vicious, bloodthirsty man in America.

Terror gripped me, and I crawled on my hands and knees toward the door.

Tiernan unbuttoned his dress shirt unhurriedly. His face gave away nothing.

He let his shirt slide down his arms, using the tip of his shoe to press the door shut to stop me from fleeing. I forced my gaze to travel up to him.

“You know, if you were a real Callaghan, I’d have taken you to the shooting range to work on your aim. We have a reputation to uphold.”

He had a sculpted body with a prominent six-pack, defined pectoral muscles, and a tattoo running from the side of his ear along his right shoulder.