Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 132791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Her throat bobbed with a swallow.
“They call me Deathless, you know,” I hissed, my voice groggy. “I survived six assassination attempts and fuck knows how many more gunfights. Wouldn’t it be ironic if what takes me out is a sloppy stab in the chest by a fucking nobody?”
Lila’s face remained impassive. Her hands on my bare flesh were sweet torture. Her fingers tingled and teased, like little flames licking at my skin.
I wondered what other talents she was hiding.
And if Tate Blackthorn knew about them.
“You should let me bleed out,” I mused, watching her unwavering expression. “You know you want to.”
Not a muscle in that perfect face of hers twitched. She wasn’t going to break. Not even crack. For a reason beyond my understanding, Lila decided to spare my life, but didn’t deem me trustworthy enough for her confessions. For her words.
I focused on the delicate contours of her face, wondering when I last saw something quite as superb. Never, was the definite answer.
“I’m not letting you go, you know.” My voice was calm, final, before I let my eye flutter shut. “You’re mine. Only fucking mine. Till my last breath.”
She pricked my skin with her needle, extra hard.
And I smirked, knowing she heard me.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
LILA
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Why did I help him? Why didn’t I look the other way and let karma finish the job?
I’d been awake as usual, staring at the ceiling, when I felt the sharp bang of the entrance door reverberating through my spine. When I walked out of my room, I noticed the carnage.
I wanted to let him die…
But something inside me refused to be as ruthless as the men in my life. And while Tiernan was a terrible human, he never crossed my red lines. He didn’t force himself upon me, made sure I always ate, and even took me to see the sunset.
I knew, from watching old Mama-approved movies, that allowing your wife to stab and shoot you didn’t qualify as romance. However, in our world, it made for a damn decent husband.
Besides, I never missed a chance to suture.
It was my first time stitching a human. Not that he needed to know that. All my other experience was with pig bellies and chickens. Imma was a nurse back in Naples before she joined our family. She’d taught me some useful skills to help me pass the time, since I didn’t go to school.
But the most dangerous thing of all wasn’t Tiernan finding out, beyond any reasonable doubt, that I wasn’t intellectually impaired. It wasn’t even the fact that he frightened me with his even pulse and dead, abrasive stare the entire time I worked on his wound, unmoved by the pain.
No. It was the complete and utter chaos that swirled in my body at our briefest touch.
On our wedding night, I thought I needed to hurt him to feel the gooey, warm honey in the pit of my stomach. Now, I realized, I simply needed to touch him.
His body felt good. All lithe, sculpted muscles. Inked with tattoos I wanted to trace, and study, and maybe even kiss. Warm. Alive. Safe. The latter was stupid, I knew. The man promised he’d force himself on me if he found out I was a spy.
But he had so many chances.
So many opportunities to take what our world deemed was his.
Yet he didn’t.
The hatred I wanted so badly to cling onto was slipping between my fingers like quicksand. Maybe it was Stockholm syndrome. Or maybe I realized my ire should be directed at my father and my rapist.
Either way, Tiernan “the Deathless” Callaghan was no longer the man I hated the most.
Worse still, he no longer felt like the enemy.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
TIERNAN
Three days later I sat in Fermanagh’s back office, surrounded by Luca, Achilles, Fintan, and Sam Brennan.
The latter was Boston’s most formidable ex-mobster. Now retired in Switzerland with his doctor wife and their frankly demented number of kids.
I pulled him out of retirement because he could find a grain of salt in a pile of shit. Figured I could use reinforcements in my search for my wife’s attacker since I had my own plate full.
He cost a pretty penny, but I considered every dime well spent.
“I cropped the raw CCTV footage into the twenty minutes during and after Lila took off from the ballroom.” Sam swiveled his laptop toward me, flicking his finger to the screen. My wife appeared in grainy resolution, hurrying toward the exit. “My IT guy did a body count of the room and all the other wired locations on the premises. All eight hundred guests and staff were accounted for. All, aside from fifteen men that disappeared within that timeframe. I compiled them into a list.”
“And you caught them leaving through the main entrance?”
Sam shook his head. “She slipped through a side exit, probably the secret passage in the wine cellar. The attacker followed her. That part’s not wired.”