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)
“It’s okay,” I force out roughly. “I’m just tying your wrists. Now be a good girl and hold still.”
She squeezes her eyes shut and releases a shaky breath, and all I want to do is sample those salty tears on her lips. My fingers brush over her throat for no particular reason and she shivers. Her eyes are glassy and beautiful when they open to meet mine, and I don’t know how the fuck she’s doing this to me. She’s poisoning me against everything I love, trying to take away my life. My brotherhood. And I can’t look at her.
I force my gaze away and finish the task at hand, securing her wrists to the bed frame.
“Please look at me, Conor,” she begs. “I’m human. A mother. A person. I got wrapped up in some bad shit, and that isn’t my fault. I’ll explain it all to you if you let me. I’ll tell you everything, and then you’ll understand.”
“I don’t want to understand.” I finish off the knot and retreat from the bed. “That’s what you don’t get.”
She curls into herself and I aim to put as much distance between us as I can while I figure out what the fuck I’m going to do.
I shut the door behind me and walk down the hall, taking up residence on my sofa. My eyes fall to the Glock in my hands, and an empty cavern opens up within my chest. Since my induction into the syndicate, I’ve never hesitated to kill anyone who was a threat to my brotherhood. But when I think about doing it now, it isn’t what I want at all.
Heaviness settles into my limbs when I imagine her death. Seeing those pretty blue eyes so lifeless? I’ll never get over that. I’ll never find a way to make peace with this decision. But what choice do I have?
The hours tick by as I bounce from one conclusion to another, debating every possible alternative. But there are none. Every route is a dead end with the same conclusion. Crow asked this one thing of me. The only thing he’s ever asked me to do in confidence. It’s my chance to prove myself, show my loyalty. And if I don’t do it, I’m fucked.
Ivy’s fucked anyway. If it isn’t me that kills her, somebody else will. At least I could make it easy on her. It doesn’t have to be a bullet. There are a million other ways. Pills, for example. I could make it like she just fell asleep. But when I close my eyes and her face haunts my mind, I know that doesn’t make a goddamn difference. She’ll still be dead, and I’ll still be the fucking piece of shite who did it.
I turn to my old friend Jameson to help me decide. Only, that just makes everything blurrier and less logical. I’m not any closer to a decision, but I am drunk when I wander back down the hall, Glock in hand.
Ivy is wide awake, curled into a ball, a trembling mess of nerves. She’s afraid of me. And it isn’t something I ever wanted to see in a woman’s eyes. Her gaze is fixed on the weapon in my hand, chest heaving as she waits for me to use it on her.
“There’s only one way to fix this mess,” I slur.
I glance down at the pistol in my hand and disengage the magazine, and Ivy loses it, thrashing against the bed because she doesn’t fucking get it. She doesn’t get that she’s ruined me. That she’s probably going to get me killed.
I eject the cartridge and set the round on the nightstand, a physical reminder of what should have been. Ivy wheezes and peers up at me with the first sign of hope I’ve seen in her all day when I stuff the Glock back into my jeans.
“Like I said, there’s only one way to fix this, but ye’re not going to like it any better than I do.”
“What is it?” she whispers.
“If ye fancy your life all that much, then ye’re gonna have to marry me.”
“I can’t marry you,” I blurt, horrified.
Conor shoots me a withering glare and gestures to his gun. “Fine, have it your way then. Your kid can grow up without a mum.”
My teeth grind together under the weight of his threat. “You don’t have to be such an asshole. There has to be another way.”
Conor paces the length of the room, his spine rigid. “What, do ye think ye’re too good for me, is that it? Like I fecking want to marry you? A skinny ass crack addict.”
“I’m not a fucking addict!” I shout. “I’m just hungry!”
For a split second, shame colors his eyes, and he looks away to hide it. “There isn’t another way, Ivy. It’s this or nothing. And even this is liable to earn me a bullet in the head if I’m lucky. I’m sticking me neck out for ye here, can ye not see that?”