Page 20

20

Salem

I wasn’t sure how many hours I had stared at the white wall while listening to Brady breathe annoyingly loud on the other bed. It was just shy of snoring, but that wasn’t why I couldn’t sleep.

I’d gotten sick after eating only two bites of food today and gone to the restroom at the restaurant and thrown up. Then, this evening, when I’d been in the shower, I had gotten dizzy and had to sit down for several minutes.

My lack of sleep shouldn’t have been an issue today. I’d slept both on the flight and again in the car.

Even if being so much closer to home was better, it didn’t give me back Rome. The dark place I’d found myself in mentally wasn’t going away. That had to be what was making me ill.

The relief of being back in the States gave me false hope, and I knew it. While Georgia and Florida were neighbors, Miami was nowhere near it. The distance between the two was well over three hundred miles, and we weren’t on the state line. We were hours from it. I’d have a better chance being found in Boston, which was thousands of miles from Miami. Brady had been right about a small Southern town being a good place to get lost.

My thoughts went from one thing to another, bouncing around and all circling back to Rome. The life I had wanted with him since I had been a girl. The one I had lost a second time. Tears burned my eyes, and I sniffled into the pillow, not wanting to wake Brady. He might talk, and I’d be forced to hear him. I loathed the sound of his voice—Irish and Southern. If it was coming out of his mouth, then it was the bane of my existence.

For a moment, I had felt sorry for him today. His life had been horribly sad and tragic, but he didn’t have to become the man he was. He had chosen to be a criminal. And all for money. Just like Eamon.

The emotions that memories of him stirred in me were all but faded now. Every truth I’d learned took a little more away until there wasn’t anything left.

I had mourned the loss of the life we’d shared for a year. Thinking I had lost my best friend, yet all that time, I never even knew the man. I’d loved his facade. He was as good at being a chameleon as his brother was. He’d fooled me completely.

A soul-deep anguish reared its head as I began to think of Rome growing close to Nixie. Wanting a life with her and their child and moving on to fall in love again. It was selfish of me and punishing all the same to entertain the thought, but it came to torture me, and I let it. Unable to stop myself.

One lone tear slipped free, and I reached up to wipe it away as another joined. The dreams I had that never came true. The love that was never mine to keep. Losing my heart at sixteen to a boy who would forever hold it in his hands. Life had been so unfair, and it just continued to be with each year I grew older. There was never a break for me. No silver lining. I’d thought perhaps that was what Eamon was, but it’d turned out, he was just another punch in the gut.

A faint clicking noise caught my attention, and I turned over to look toward where it was coming from to see the doorknob turning slowly.

Did Emmett have a key? Most likely, but why was he coming inside the room in the middle of the night? Was he sleeping in here? I assumed he would have his own room.

The door began to creep open, and unease started to settle in. That wasn’t normal. Emmett wouldn’t open the door like that. Brady had enemies. Had someone followed him? Did they have a way of tracking him when in the States? Was I about to die?

I remained frozen as a man dressed in black entered the room with a gun pointed at Brady. Three more men followed him inside. All armed.

Where was Emmett? Who were these people?

It was dark in the room, but the moonlight that shone through the windows showed me enough of their faces that I knew I didn’t recognize them.

Had Emmett seen them come in here? What if they all opened fire when he came barreling in here, guns blazing to save Brady?

I was going to die.

Oh God. My life was hell, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to give it up just yet. Not when there was a chance that I could be free one day.

Brady moved so quickly that I let out a squeal as he went from lying in bed to standing up with his own gun pointed at the men. Surely, he saw that he was outnumbered. What was he doing?

The door closed with a click as the man closest to it let the handle go.

“I’m not alone,” Brady told them, dropping his Southern accent. “Kill me, and ye will die shortly after.”

“I don’t think we will,” one of the men drawled, as if he were amused.

“What is it ye want? I’m not here to handle business, so whatever shite ye think yer here to do, don’t. It would be a waste of lives.”

“You got something we want,” the one who had spoken before said.

There was a pause, and then Brady sighed wearily. “Yer here for her.”

“Yep,” another replied. “We are here for her.”

He didn’t take his eyes off the men to look my way. “She’s my sister-in-law. I can’t let ye take her.”

“She’s not anymore,” one of them said. “And unless you want to join your brother, you’ll hand her over.”

“All right, whatever yer being paid to do this job, I’ll double it.”

One of them chuckled a deep, sadistic sound that made me shiver. He was farthest away from me, and I could barely make out his face, but my gut told me that I wanted to keep my distance.

“We must look like we need the money.”

“It’s because you need to fucking shave that shit off your face,” another said.

“You talk to my woman about that, and she’ll tell you just how much she likes my beard,” he replied.

My eyes darted from one to the other as they bantered with each other as if they weren’t holding a man at gunpoint.

“I need a smoke. Can we speed this up?”

“The longer we take, the more likely your guy out there in the black car will end up with a bullet in his head,” the guy closest to me said.

They had Emmett.

“He’ll have called for backup. Ye need to let him go if ye want to walk away unscathed,” Brady warned him.

“There are over thirty men surrounding this property. They’re armed, and they’re trained to kill. Now, unless you want your dead bodies fed to our pigs, then you’ll hand her over.”

Fed to their pigs? Eww. My stomach rolled, and I placed a hand over my mouth and hesitantly swallowed. I did not need to get sick right now.

“Ye don’t know who yer fuckin’ with,” Brady told him.

One of them laughed. “Yeah, Irish, we do.”

“I need a smoke. Hand her over, or I’ll put the bullet in your head and take her.”

Brady’s gun swung then, and it was pointed at me. I was afraid to breathe.

What was he doing? Would he actually shoot me? He said I knew things, and now I really did know things. If I left, then I’d take what I knew with me. He wasn’t going to let that happen.

Oh God. I was going to be sick. I swallowed against the bile in my throat. I didn’t want to die. Especially not like this.

“I don’t know how they do things in Ireland, but in the South, we don’t point guns at women in our family. Hell, we don’t point guns at innocent women in general,” one drawled.

“Ye left me no choice,” Brady snapped. “She knows too much.”

“We don’t want your secrets. We don’t care about your fucking drug trafficking. Not our problem. We want her. You can take the gun off her or die. Those are your options, and you got about five seconds before I let Thatcher take you out before you can pull your trigger. Don’t test it. My guess is, hell ain’t gonna be fun for any of us.”

The door opened again, but I didn’t take my eyes off the gun aimed at me.

It wasn’t true what they said about your life flashing before your eyes. At least not for me.

All I saw was Rome. Every memory I had of him.

“I don’t have all fucking day,” a deep voice drawled, followed by a pop.

Brady’s gun fell from his hand and onto the bed as his body jerked and his eyes went wide.

Staring in horror and shock, I waited for him to crumple to the floor, but he was staring down at his arm. Whoever the man was who had walked in hadn’t killed him, just shot the arm that had held the gun. Brady was breathing hard as he glared down at his arm, then back up at the man. I swung my gaze from his bleeding gunshot wound to look at him, too, but like the others, it was hard to make out much from the shadows in the room.

“Go,” the man told me, then turned his gaze back to Brady.

“You’re a cocky bastard,” the man said as the other men parted to let him step in front. “Coming into my territory, taking what doesn’t belong to you, then flaunting her as if you can’t be touched.”

I moved off the bed, still unsure if I should just walk out the door. I wanted to run, but there were guns involved, and I wasn’t willing to gamble with Rome’s life. Brady wasn’t dead. He’d heal from an arm wound, and he could follow through with his threat.

Watching the man who had told me to go, I saw him step into the light. Sweet Jesus, that was not what I had expected. Had I gasped out loud? I hoped not. But I couldn’t be the only woman who reacted that way. He resembled Charlie Hunnam, but better, and I hadn’t known that was possible.

“She’s my brother’s wife,” Brady hissed as he held his arm.

“Yet you held her at gunpoint. Don’t seem real loyal to me,” he replied, then cut his eyes back to me. “You can go.” He repeated his earlier order.

Moving a little more toward my shoes, I looked from him to Brady, who was scowling at me.

“He-he will kill Rome if I go,” I stammered out.

“Who’s Rome?” one of them asked.

“That’s Tex’s real name, I’m guessing. You know how the bikers nickname each other and shit,” the one closest to me said.

“He won’t kill Tex,” the man said, looking back at Brady. “He might not make it out of here alive to kill anyone else again. I’ve not decided yet. I don’t like it when my wife is upset. And taking a woman right from her father’s property, causing one of his closest friends grief? That upset her. I can’t have that.”

“Fuck,” Brady muttered, closing his eyes briefly, almost as if in defeat.

Another dark laugh. “That’s right, Irish. You messed with the—what was it he called us?”

“The good ole boy Mafia,” another supplied.

The gorgeous man was Liam’s son-in-law. I wanted to weep with relief. Rome had sent the Mafia to save me.

“Now, get on outside. Tex is waiting on you, and the fucker is less than patient.”

Nodding, I didn’t glance back at Brady. He wasn’t going to get my sympathy. We weren’t family.

I grabbed my shoes and didn’t even stop to put them on, but hurried for the door. The guy closest to it—the one that was most frightening until Blaise Hughes had entered the room—opened it for me, and I rushed out into the night.

The parking lot looked deserted, and my gaze swung over the area as panic started to replace my joy. Then a familiar form stepped between two parked cars and started my way. When the streetlight lit up his face, I let out another sob and broke into a run. Rome’s long strides quickened, and his arms opened as I reached him.

I threw myself against his chest while his two strong arms wrapped around me tightly, lifting me off the ground. He buried his face against my neck and inhaled deeply.

“Angel Face,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

I clung to him, praying this was all real and I wasn’t sleeping.

He ran his hand over the back of my head and let out a ragged breath. “I’m so sorry.” The anguish in his tone made me cry harder.

He had no reason to feel as if this were his fault. None of it was. This was all caused from my choices and my naivete. I’d trusted the wrong man.