Page 89 of Bad Bishop

Michael burrowed into the fox’s fur. “Thank you.”

“Least I could do.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

TIERNAN

228 DAYS TO SELF-DESTRUCTION

“Callaghan, you dumb fuck.”

Tate Blackthorn rubbed at his eyes tiredly, hooked to lie detector wires in the Ferrantes’ dungeon.

Sam was sitting on the other end of the screen, monitoring his answers. He arched a smart-ass eyebrow. “No lies detected.”

“Ouch.” Enzo smiled ruefully, playing with his knife in the seat next to Brennan. “Blackthorn decided to club Tiernan with a truth stick. Someone get the first aid kit.”

“You’re just here to answer questions,” Luca informed Tate laconically, lighting up a cigarette.

“Nothing more.For now.”

Tate turned to face him, somehow looking both calm as fuck and angry as hell. “This is bullshit. Your brother-in-law just gave me two black eyes and a split lip.”

Guilty as charged. As soon as I saw his sorry face, I was reminded of Lila’s sketch and something compelled me to make his features just a little less symmetrical. It wasn’t like he was shopping for a wife. He already had one.

“We pulled him from you in time,” Luca reasoned. “He didn’t break your nose.”

“Night’s still young,” I pointed out. If Tate was Lila’s rapist, his nose was going to be the least of his problems. I was going tohang his balls on a meat hook from the ceiling and kill him over weeks, if not months.

I didn’t usually indulge in long, torturous killings—I lacked the time and patience. But something made me especially rabid for the rapist’s blood.

It was that stupid kiss at the shooting range last week. It undid my goddamn existence.

My whole life derailed from that moment forward. My entire days were currently planned and arranged around kissing and dry-humping my wife like a bleeding teenager. We spent every night practicing in bed. She didn’t realize it, but she was making loud, porn-worthy sounds. I didn’t want to alert her, because she was self-conscious as it was about her lack of hearing, but it made for very awkward breakfasts with Imma.

My new maid thought I was screwing the little girl she had raised.

Only Lila was no longer a little girl. She was shaping up to be a woman. One that no longer found it scary or distressing when her panties got soaked.

We were working our way up to second base. Slowly. Not only did I not want to scare her off, but I had my own hang-ups to sort through. Giving up the way I sought pleasure meant giving up my armor.

“I didn’t rape your sister,” Tate snarled at Luca, pulling me out of my own thoughts.

Sam readjusted his tall frame in his seat, keystroking some commands on the polygraph.

“How about you shut the fuck up and wait for me to ask you questions?” he suggested pleasantly.

“You’re messing with my baseline diagram.”

Tate shot him a death glare.

“Don’t be so butthurt,” Enzo tutted. “If you did it, you deserve to die. You knew it could happen. Men in our line of work… We die while we’re still alive. Young and strong.”

“He’s not that young,” Sam said, staring at the screen.

“And not that strong,” I added.

Tate snarled. Swear to God, I was having an allergic reaction to him.