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Page 48 of Stolen Rival (The Stolen #1)

SORCHA

What happened?

Where am I?

Awareness pulls at my brain like it’s an ant trying to drag me through treacle. A shard of panic slides under my skin as a better question strikes. Who am I?

Keeping my eyes closed isn’t helping the throbbing behind my eyes and at the base of my skull, and my whole body feels weighted, like I’ve been buried under wet sand.

My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth, and when I try to move, nothing happens.

There’s a weird burning on the side of my neck. Did I get stung by something? Is that why I feel this fucked up? Am I having an allergic reaction to a sting?

My eyes fill with tears right as the shivering kicks in. What the fuck is wrong with me? Am I sick?

“She lives.” A voice I think I recognize sounds closer than I’d like it to be.

I try to move, but pain shoots up my arms.

“Don’t do that, Sorcha. You’ll only hurt yourself. ”

Sorcha.

Does that sounds right? Think. Think . What’s your fucking name? How can you not know your own name?

“You really made it easy for me. I at least expected you to put up some kind of fight. But sure, isn’t that the way of the McCarthys? All useless fuckers.”

The way he snarls the name sends a ripple of fear through my already trembling body. There’s a ringing in my ears, and I’m not sure if it’s actually cold in here or if I’m in shock, but at least now I know my name.

Sorcha McCarthy. Wait. No. I’m Sorcha Mahoney now. Memories drip through the thick fog as I try to dampen my dry lips with a somehow even drier tongue. The fuck happened to me?

I blink, opening my eyes and wincing as the light in the room makes everything hurt even more.

“Wh-what did you d-do to me?”

“Ketamine.” Andrew’s face comes into focus as he offers me a smug curl of his lips. “Works quickly and can immobilize someone while fucking you up.”

I’ll say.

“Messes with perception, memory, and motor control. It’s also a known dissociative anesthetic, so if you feel like you’re outside your own body, or that time’s skipping, that’ll be the drugs.

” He sounds like he’s reading from the back of a medicine box, and the elation and gloating in his tone tells me he’s very proud of himself. He’ll probably high-five himself, too.

Talk about big dick energy. Drugging an untrained, unarmed woman and kidnapping her. Sure, doesn’t that just make him a fucking hero?

“Such a big man,” is what I try to say but it comes out more a garbled mess. Might take me a minute for my body to catch up to my—I retch, remnants of whatever I last ate spew onto the floor in front of me, splattering a pair of polished black shoes.

“Stupid bitch.” There’s a crack, a beat, then sharp pain radiates across my cheekbone. Is this a dream? I feel like I’m floating, like the edges of reality aren’t glued down and the whole room could come unhinged and drift away.

I retch again, and again, emptying my body of whatever poison is inside. My limbs feel rubbery, like they don’t belong to me, and the more I try to focus on them, the more they feel like they’re melting.

Oh, my God, are my arms melting?

I’m sinking, deeper than my body, deeper than the floor. I’m being consumed. A shrill scream pierces the air. I tip my head back trying to bring focus. The ceiling blinks back at me.

“You gave her too much,” a voice scolds.

When I look back at the two men in front of me, their faces are blurry, like they’re wearing some kind of mask. The shadows behind them have teeth, and the walls ripple like water.

Where the fuck am I? What are they doing to me?

Panic claws at my chest while I struggle to take in air.

A voice speaks so close to my ear, a wispy murmur, but when I jerk to face it, no one’s there.

What are they doing to me?

“Calm down, we’re not doing anything to you, Sorcha.”

“I told you, you fucking gave her too much.”

Tears stream down my face as the walls scream. Then nothing.

Cold water to the face shocks me awake. My body’s still heavy, my mouth dry. Was I out for a minute? An hour? Has it been days? Jesus Christ, it might have been days.

Memories rush in, far faster than before. Patrick. Is he okay? Where the fuck is he? If it’s been days, why isn’t he here to rescue me? He can’t leave me here to rot with this piece of shit.

A shadow looms close to me, and I jerk back.

“Would you fucking stop? You’re going to hurt yourself!”

There’s laughter in the air. It might be coming from me.

I might be what hurts me? That’s fucking hilarious.

My neck is so itchy I want to dislocate my arm to try to scratch it. More water douses my face. It’s colder, stealing the air from my body.

“Better?”

I blink through the chill, my teeth chattering, and every fiber of my being wanting to rip this slimy weasel’s arms from his body and beat him to fucking death. Fucking Andrew. It’s Andrew who’s taken me.

“Where’s your lackey?”

“Who?”

“The other guy who was here.” I lick my lips, trying to take in some of the water still trickling down my face.

Andrew chuckles. “It’s just me, princess.”

Alone. He’s alone? I could have sworn I heard him having a conversation with someone. Was he talking to himself? Was I hallucinating ?

“Yeah, enough ketamine will do that to you.”

I blink. “What?”

“You asked if you were hallucinating. Yes, you were. It’s just you and me. See, Mrs. Mahoney, it turns out when you’re fucking useless, you don’t need a team to take you. Just…” He points at himself, and I want to break his fingers one by one and use them to dig his eyeballs out of his skull.

“Why?”

He tuts, making an annoying sound with his mouth. “You really are green, aren’t you? You can’t even guess?”

“I’m sorry. Some limp-dicked arsehole shot me up with a drug that made me imagine you had a sidekick. I seem to be having a hard time coming out of the fog.”

The backhand stings before I even realize what has happened. There’s a trickle of blood making its way down my chin from the lip he’s just split, and my eyes water from the force of the blow.

“I like you, Sorcha, but I’m on a short fuse. You’ll be released to Patrick when he does what I asked him to do.”

Kill you for taking his wife? Because he’s going to fuck you up for what you’ve done. “Give back Dylan’s business interests?”

“See? Not so stupid after all, are you?” He leans in close to condescendingly pat me on the cheek, and I make a split-second decision.

It’s going to hurt, and I’m going to pay, but it might distract me from the pain of his annoying fucking voice gloating about getting one up on my husband who already thinks I’m as useful as a chocolate teapot.

I snap my head forward, catching him on his nose and cheek. There’s a burst of pain on impact, but the satisfying crunch of his face against mine was worth every single neuron in my body exploding into white-hot agony.

I’m pretty sure I read somewhere once that if you’re kidnapped you should try to reason with your attacker, make them see you as a human being, try to reach their humanity.

But I’m not a stranger to this guy and still his eyes are devoid of any emotion.

There’s nothing but a cold, hard killer left in front of me, and if all I can do before I die is give him a shiner and a broken nose, then that’s what I’ll fucking do.

He grips me by the hair, his fingers biting into my scalp as he fists my messy bun. “I swear to God, Sorcha. I’ll fuck you up so badly Patrick will have to identify you by your dental records. Don’t push me.”

For a bad guy, he seems pretty easy to knock off-balance. Aren’t they supposed to be calmer than this frenzied man snarling in my face? Patrick can fuck someone up while remaining freakishly level. I open my mouth to say as much, but he yanks me back again.

“That’s if he even comes for you. You’re turning out to be more hassle than you’re worth, aren’t you, princess? Quite a burden for the Mahoney family to undertake if they have to keep bailing you out of sticky situations like this one.”

Sticky situations? Is that what this is? Being tied to a chair, drugged to the point of hallucinations, and smacked around by a man whose mammy didn’t love him right as a child is sticky?

Shit. I don’t want to think about what getting into real hot water looks like to these people.

I’m dizzy, my head bobbing from side to side. Is it still the drugs in my system? Or did my headbutt add injury to the ketamine insult?

“He-he needs me.” He does. He might not think I’m worth a shit, but he needs me to make sure he holds onto Dylan’s side of the business. No untimely deaths, that was the rule.

“He-he needs me,” Andrew mocks back. “Riiiight, but when I take back Dylan’s interests, what will he need you for then?

” He taps his bottom lip, squinting like he’s thinking.

“Oh, that’s right, nothing. He can find a pussy to fuck anywhere.

” He sweeps his hand out to the side. “He probably has a few side pieces on the go already.”

I shake my head. He nods even more aggressively.

“’Fraid so, princess. Then you’re going to join your da and your whole extended family in hell.

” He puts his fingers to my temple and makes the sound of a gunshot.

“Too bad, so sad. I can’t think of any other reason for him to keep you around, can you? ”

He doesn’t even give me a second to answer. “No, me neither. The smart play would be to put you out of your misery.” He cups my chin, skimming his thumb over my still throbbing cheek. “It’s too bad such a pretty face is such a massive fucking liability.”

“Then why would he even bother giving you what you want at all? If he doesn’t want me, or need me… why would he trade something so important to his business for me?”

“I guess we’ll find out. He has…” He checks his watch. “Twenty hours to go before I…” He drags his thumb across the front of his throat.

My blood runs cold. From the look on his face, it’s a win either way for him. Either he gets to kill me, or he gets his dream of taking over for his dead mentor.

I rack my brain for something smart to say back to him, a put-down to wipe that permanently placed smirk off his face. But I come up empty.

“Tick tock, Princess Mahoney. Time’s running out.”

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