Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 59738 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59738 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
“Time to say goodbye,” Conor tells me. “Give the lad a kiss and a hug and send him inside.”
I can’t look at him or think about what those words might really mean. Instead, I take Archer inside and squeeze him like I’ve never hugged him before. And then I manage to make it all the way back to the car before I break down completely.
She starts sobbing the moment she gets back into the car, and I can’t handle it.
“Jaysus.” My fingers squeeze the life out of the steering wheel. “You have a fecking kid?”
“Please,” she chokes out. “Please don’t hurt him. He has nothing to do with this.”
It isn’t the bleeding kid I’m worried about. I can’t even look at her, knowing that she’s a mam. That changes things. It changes every goddamned thing.
When I saw her in that park with that little boy, I nearly lost my shite. He was so small. So innocent. All I could think of when I first saw him was Brady. I can still remember when he was that age, scared and alone in this world with only me to protect him.
And now I’m supposed to take away this kid’s mammy? The tiny creature sitting next to me who couldn’t hurt a fecking fly on her best day?
Ivy’s voice rises to a crescendo as her panic grows, and she blurts out anything she thinks will save her. Promises to do whatever she’s told. Working for free. Offers to give me anything I want. I glare at her, and she reaches out for me frantically, clinging to my jacket.
“I won’t say anything, I swear it. I swear, Conor. I never saw anything.”
“Don’t—” I try to tell her to shut up because I don’t want to hear what she’s about to say. I don’t want her to seal her fate. But Ivy is past the point of reason.
“I don’t care. Honestly, I wanted him dead. You guys did me a favor. You freed me. I would never say a thing to anyone. I haven’t so far, can’t you see that?”
“For fucks sake,” I growl. “Just stop talking before you condemn yourself any further.”
Her tears continue in soft, silent sobs all the way back to Boston. And I can’t think. I can’t figure out how I’m supposed to sort her out. We end up back at my townhouse. I’ve never brought a woman here, and I don’t know what I’m thinking doing it now.
Ivy sniffles as I drag her inside. “What are you going to do?”
I don’t have an answer to that. Crow is counting on me, and he was right about her. But chrissakes if I want to kill a mam.
I haul her into my bedroom and point to the bed. “Sit.”
Blonde strands of hair fly around her face as she shakes her head, arguing and carrying on all over again. I can’t deal with this shite right now. I can’t even look at her. And maybe it’s cheap, but I’m not going to manhandle her, so I yank my Glock out from the back of my jeans and gesture to the bed again.
“Sit. The. Fuck. Down.”
A flood of tears leak from her eyes, but this time, she doesn’t hesitate to do as she’s told.
“I’ll do anything you want.” She closes her eyes and bows her head. “All the cash I earn dancing, it’s yours. I can clean your house. Cook. Whatever you want, Conor. Please…”
She looks up at me with a face so broken it physically hurts me to see her this way.
“I’ll let you do whatever you want to me,” she blurts. “Just give me your word that he’ll be okay.”
“Stop carrying on like that,” I snarl. “Did I ask ye to spread your goddamn legs for me?”
She curls into a ball and sobs harder. “I don’t know what you want. I’m desperate, can’t you see that? I’ll do anything! I don’t care.”
“Just stop fecking talking!” I edge my way toward the closet and rifle through the duffle bag I keep there. After a few minutes, I finally find what I’m looking for. Ivy freaks when I approach her with the rope, and this time, she tries to scramble for the end of the bed.
I catch her around the ankle and drag her back, climbing on top of her and using the weight of my body to pin her. It doesn’t take much. She’s only a wee thing, and I didn’t think she had much fight in her, but she’s wilder than I imagined. She bucks and screams and tries with all her might to wiggle from my grasp, and we’re not getting anywhere like this.
“Ivy.” My fingers clamp down around her jaw, forcing her to hold still and look at me. I brush the tangled mess of hair from her eyes, and when she looks up at me, chest heaving and lips wet, I freeze. An unbidden image of her lying naked beneath me comes to mind, and I have to shake myself out of it.