Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 79462 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79462 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
“Somewhere in Dublin, closer to my home?”
“I don’t know about that.” He presses his lips together.
I bat my eyelashes at him. “Pretty please? Come on, Dublin’s a fine city. Lots of history.”
“A history of you people blowing each other up in sectarian conflict.”
“I don’t think you should be talking about blowing people up to me, sir.” I jab him in the side with my knuckle.
He winces. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. So long as you agree to move to Dublin.”
“My family’s operations are in London.”
“That’s not a no.”
“I’ll consider it, but it won’t be an easy sell.”
“Look at you.” I lean back, admiring him. “Willing to sacrifice a bit to make me happy.”
“I told you, I’ll take care of you, Fallon. That includes living in a second-rate hellhole like Dublin.”
“Oh, this man, you want a beating, don’t you?” I jab at him a few more times and he laughs as he bats me away. His arm wraps around my shoulders and he hugs me against him, pinning me so I can’t fight anymore, and our walk resumes somewhat normally.
We continue to joke and laugh. It’s a really nice morning. We stop for coffee and walk along the boardwalk on the return trip. He talks about his childhood, points out all the places where he used to get in trouble—“Like that ice cream place used to be a bar that would serve anyone, and we’d sneak in there when we were kids and get black-out drunk, until my dad went in and personally slapped around the owner to make him stop serving us.”—and I try to picture a young Jayson, carefree, happy, running around and causing mayhem with his brothers.
It’s a good thought. He was a person before the war, before the pain and guilt.
I like to imagine that boy’s still in him, innocent, happy, but I suppose that piece of ourselves never totally disappears, only gets buried under time and circumstance.
I’m in a great mood when we get back to the Sunrise. “How about we go upstairs and spend the rest of the morning in bed?” I ask, holding his hand to my lips. I kiss it gently. “You can call me some very filthy names and I’ll pretend to be insulted.”
“I’d like that very much.”
“Good, because I’m going to fight back this time, and you might have to subdue me.”
“Ah, my little wife, am I going to have to spank your lovely ass into submission?”
“Yes, please.” I laugh as he hugs me and we stumble into the lobby, feeling stupid, giddy, high on love and lust.
But those good feelings fade as Adler walks toward us flanked by several bodyguards.
“Jayson.” Adler’s voice is sharp. “We need to talk.”
“What’s wrong?” Jayson steps forward, but he doesn’t let go of my hand.
I start to shake.
My hands tremble.
I want Jayson to let go of my hand.
One of the bodyguards is holding the duffel bag I threw into the trash the day before.
“We should do this in private.” Adler’s expression is hard. “Bring your wife.”
“Sorry, wait a second.” Jayson pulls me against him. “What’s going on? Did you catch those Grady men?”
“Just come with me. We’ll talk in my office.”
“No, we’ll talk here. If this is about Fallon—”
“Jayson,” I say, tears rolling down my cheeks. “Please, we should just go talk.”
He stares at me in surprise. His grip on my hand weakens as he looks from me to Adler. “What’s going on?”
“Please,” I whisper. “It isn’t what you think.”
“She stole from you,” Adler says. “How could you be so fucking careless, Jayson? All those fucking files just lying around where she could find them?”
His eyes widen. He stares at me, his grip loosening even more until we’re barely touching. He says nothing, only slowly shakes his head as I keep on crying, feeling pathetic, weak, worthless. I failed—I couldn’t even do one thing right, and now I’m going to lose him.
“It’s not like that,” I whisper.
“What did you do?” he asks and his hand slips from mine, leaving me alone.
Chapter 33
Jayson
Fallon sits in a chair silently crying and it breaks my fucking heart.
All I want to do is comfort her. It kills me, letting her suffer like this. I want to wipe the tears away and wrap her in my arms, but once Adler starts talking, I can’t bring myself to touch her.
He explains it all, starting with the documents. “She tried to dump them yesterday, but we caught her on camera. Zach thought it was fishy, so we had someone grab the bag from the dumpster, and I found dozens of documents, all of them from your personal files. Incriminating documents. The sort of stuff that could sink you.”
Fallon releases an ugly sob but doesn’t contradict him.
“What else?” I say, forcing myself to harden, because if I don’t find some steel in my reserves then I am going to break.