Page 5 of Stolen Rival (The Stolen #1)

SORCHA

I’m so fucking stupid.

If you let me live, I’ll do anything you ask.

Anything, I said.

Anything it is , he answered.

I’d drag my hands through my hair, but it’s matted, and I’m already in enough pain as it is. I’m not adding scalp ache from finger combing this tangled mess to my list of woes.

Zigzagging the cross hanging from a gold chain around my neck, I run the conversation through my mind a million times. Was there anything I could have said, or done, that wouldn’t have resulted in me ending up here?

Oh, I dunno. Maybe not gone out the front door? Or not headed home in the first place?

I bet my brothers would have found their way out of the clusterfuck of a situation much easier than I did. I can hear Da in my head, tearing me a new one for letting Mahoney get the upper hand so easily.

If Tiernan had opened the door, this piece of shit would have been dead in seconds .

But sure, why would they bother to train little old me? Frail, inadequate, useless. Words that have been tossed in my direction since my brothers were old enough to speak. Long live the patriarchy, I guess.

So obviously, when faced with a situation where it was life or death… I stood there, damn near shit my pants, and cried.

Ugh.

I didn’t really mean I’d do anything. And this prick knew it, too.

But when the barrel of a gun is pointed directly at your forehead, you’ll say anything to keep from being murdered by a brutish leader of what is now the last remaining mafia family in Ireland.

I pace the length of the room the murderous psychopath who claims he’s my future husband tossed me into. It’s ten feet by twelve feet, white walls, white sheets. If the windows had curtains, I bet they’d be white, too.

It’s all so goddamn bland.

The Mahoneys are anything but bland. Yet, that’s where I am. Trapped like fucking Rapunzel in one of the rooms upstairs in Mahoney Manor, without so much as a glass of fucking water.

Just as well, I’d smash it over his pretentious, unhinged, murdering face and give him a matching headache to the one beating a steady rhythm in my temples.

I survey my prison.

The bed faces a wall of built-in wardrobes, there are a couple of plastic coat hangers dangling pathetically from the rail inside, but I was thrown in here without my bag or my phone. It’s just me, my dirty clothes, my aching wounds and… white. Fucking. Ev erywhere.

No lamps, no weapons, and a sharp tug on the window tells me it’s locked, too.

I wrinkle my nose. Ugh. I need a shower, a dressing change, clean clothes, a stiff drink, and something to stab this arsehole with.

Maybe not in that order. We could skip straight to the drink and stabbing.

Then I need the biggest plate of food known to humankind. My stomach growls in aggressive agreement.

Wonder if this white prison has room service?

I have no plans to stay here and find out. I need to get out of this place. I’ve only been here for an hour, and that’s sixty minutes too many.

Once I find a way out of this room, I’ll grab my bag, steal a car, and disappear into the night.

What could possibly go wrong?

Fine, the odds are stacked against me. But I can’t stay here, or worse, marry that man.

I’ve killed your whole family, mo mhuirnín . Not just your da, not just your siblings, every single person in your family tree.

Which is why I couldn’t reach Uncle Barry or Aunt Hazel on the phone. I didn’t have time to call Da’s other brothers, but now I know it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The sneer on his face as he told me he killed my entire family is etched into my memories.

My stomach lurches as the body count rises in my brain. I feel sick.

Shit.

I really need to get out of here.

There’s nothing stopping that arsehole from changing his mind and adding me to his kill count.

I’m completely alone. I can’t let the talons of that grief get into me, not here, not now. If I let myself sit with the fact my whole family is gone, it might consume me. And right now, there’s a little boy who needs me. I’m his only hope.

I refuse to go down without a fight.

Cathal needs me. My captor shouldn’t know about the secret child my father was too ashamed of and angry at to bring up in our family home.

As far as I’m aware, no one knows about him outside of the family.

I never agreed with Da’s stance, but in this instance, it might just have saved my beloved brother’s life.

He wasn’t on the list of the deceased that Mahoney took great joy in reciting to me.

But he could easily be if I don’t get the fuck out of here.

Ambling gingerly to the door, I try opening it again, as though at some point someone might have unlocked it without me hearing.

No luck.

I go back through the wardrobes, nothing. Could I rip one of the doors off their hinges and smash the window? Maybe if bits of me weren’t held together with wire, but not like this.

The bedside table has a drawer. Is it connected?

A glimmer of hope flickers deep in my chest as I drag the drawer slowly from the table, careful not to make any noise. When it comes free, I give a silent fist pump. Thank you, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, all the saints, and the wee donkey.

I strip the pillowcase off the pillow on the head of the bed; I’ll need it to wrap around a piece of glass to use on whoever comes to investigate the soon-to-be smashed window.

The room’s too high off the ground to jump, so attacking my kidnapper is my only way out.

Gotta move fast.

Smash the window, grab a shard of glass, and stand next to the door ready to slit the throat of that arsehole Mahoney when he bursts in.

It’s mental, and probably not going to go how I want it to, but it’s my only hope.

I’d rather give it my all and die trying to escape than wait for that burly fucker to come back in here and do…

whatever the fuck he wants to me. The thought of his ginormous body caging me on the bed sends a disgusted shudder through my body.

In his fucking dreams is that man claiming my virginity.

Swinging the drawer at the window takes a monumental effort and pulls on my stitches.

Bridie wouldn’t be happy, and neither’s my torso.

It makes me grunt louder than I’d like, but it does the job.

The edge of the wooden drawer cracks into the window and shatters the pane, sending splinters of glass tumbling both out the window and onto the sill.

I grin at the spiderwebs in the shattering glass. Old buildings like these are often protected by law which means you can’t replace the ancient windows with double glazing, making them fragile and easy to smash in with a drawer.

Choosing the biggest shard of glass I can find, I wrap the pillowcase around the end and take up my position next to the door.

The sound of thundering footsteps along the landing gets louder as they close in on my room. That’s it, come on.

Going well so far.

It’s a matter of seconds before there’s a key turning in the lock. The door opens. I pounce, swinging the pointy end of my weapon at his face as I roar.

“Fucking hell!” He puts his arms up, my shard of glass catching him on the forearm but not doing enough damage to kill him, and I now can’t get near his neck because his hands are in the way .

I don’t need to ask who he is. He’s got the same sloped nose, slanted smirk, and solid jaw as his fucking brother.

Another Mahoney. Might not be Patrick, but I’ll take whoever I can get at this point.

An eye for a fucking eye and all that. Patrick has killed everyone I love; I’d give damn near everything I have left to even the score.

The man in front of me, blocking the doorway, has an intriguing, gnarly scar down the length of his cheek. If I get close enough, I’ll give him a matching one on the other side.

Rage surges through my body, right down to my bones, and I lurch toward him. He ducks around me, but not fast enough to create much space between us. My back is to the open door. I could run, but I need more information. Who else is in this house, for starters. “Where’s Patrick?”

The pointy end of my weapon is pressed against his throat because the arrogant fuck dropped his hands low enough for me to get the jump on him.

A tiny bubble of blood appears along the edge of the glass, and a deep satisfaction comes over me. Getting my own back on these arseholes for what they’ve taken for me might not ever be enough, but it’s a start.

“So, he brought you back here?” He rolls his eyes. “Always the fucking crazy ones with that mad bastard.”

A feral growl grows in the back of my throat, until a low, blood curdling chuckle from behind me makes me freeze. I risk a glance over my shoulder, then whip my attention back to the other Mahoney under my makeshift weapon.

“Don’t move, Patrick. I’ll sever his fucking jugular.”

He snorts. “Aye. Take you a while to saw through that fucker’s thick neck.” The sarcasm… impatience… and worse, indifference that drips from his every word gets my b ack up.

I press harder, more droplets of blood appear on the sharp edge of the glass.

“For fuck’s sake.” Firm arms band around me from behind, capturing my biceps and pinning them against my body. “Would you catch yourself on?”

Ha. If he thinks I’m going to give up and let him have his way with me, he’s got another think coming.

I bet he’s riddled with STIs from the very long line of notches on his bedposts. I’ve heard all about the Mahoney boys; they’ll dip it in anything that’s wet. Bet Patrick’s forced all those women to fuck him, too. He might be handsome on the outside, but he’s ugly as fuck on the inside.

I’m pulled back as his brother rubs his neck. “Your new girlfriend’s not the full fucking shilling, Patrick. Not to mention she’s supposed to be in the ground, not in our guest room.”

The snarl that comes from me probably doesn’t help my case, nor does the flailing of my legs, and I thrash my limbs in a bid to throw my attacker off so he drops me. Guest room, my arse. It’s as clinical as the inside of a damn hospital.

I can’t swing my arms, but I make short stabbing gestures with the glass all the same, just in case I can land a blow.

“I’m not his fucking girlfriend,” I spit.

The growl behind me sends mixed signals through my body. A bolt of heat, and a surge of indignation.

“She’s right, Liam. She’s not my girlfriend.” He grabs my wrist and shakes until I let go of the piece of glass.

Liam licks his lips, his eyes traveling the length of my body before settling over my shoulder.

Fuck.

I’m not going to be Liam’s anything either .

Patrick’s putting pressure on my wound as he holds my arms against my body.

The throbbing is so insufferable that it’s making me dizzy.

The edges of my vision blurs, and from the dampness spreading on my shirt, I think I’ve popped more than a stitch, though I’d die before asking these wankers for help.

If he keeps squeezing, I might die anyway. No amount of willing my body to get free is making a damn bit of difference to the fact Patrick’s built like a brick shithouse.

When he speaks again, his voice is painfully close to my ear. “She’s my fiancée.”