Page 58 of Beautiful Scars

“Just listen, would you?”

“Fuck you!”

“Just…” he looks away and mutters something I don’t catch. When he looks at me again, the mask is back. Not a shred of emotion in his eyes. “This is long overdue,” he says.

I yell when he grabs me, but it doesn’t matter how hard I fight, he lifts me off the bed and carries me to the stairs.

“Let’s take a walk, shall we?”

* * *

Our walk ends at the closed double-doors on the second floor of this mansion I’ve been trapped in. Cillian sets me down and I quickly put a foot of distance between us—

But he grabs the back of my neck and just reels me the fuck back in again.

“I won’t work as a shield,” I tell him. “They’ve still got a clean shot of your head.”

“That’s one, Meisie.” Without warning, the flat of his hand connects with my ass. A loud slap rings out, and I buck forward with a yelp. If he hadn’t been holding my neck, I might have been able to glare at him over my shoulder. Instead, I just have to trot in front of him like a good little soldier when he opens the door and walks me inside.

I’m vaguely aware of metallic blinds, a glass-and-chrome desk, and a flat-screen television blaring at full blast on the opposite wall.

“Christ,” Cillian mutters, releasing the back of my neck as he surges past me. “Turn that shit down, would you?”

He grabs a control from the edge of the chrome desk, spins, and stabs at a button.

Silence floods the study.

The guy behind the desk doesn’t seem to give a fuck. Then again, unless I’m seeing things, there’s a ghostly line of coke trails on the glass in front of him, so maybe he’s too high to even notice.

But then the man behind the desk swivels on his chair and we lock eyes across the thick gray carpet.

Which is when I realize he definitely gives a shit about a lot of things.

Trust me, you do not want to fuck with my brother.

I do a double take, frowning first at him, then at Cillian as the latter turns in my direction to put the control down on the desk.

“We were watching that,” a soft voice says. I didn’t even notice the blond-haired girl sitting in one of the armchairs closer to the television.

“The fuck is she doing here?” Cillian says, directing the question at his brother. “I thought I made very fucking clear she—”

“Well, look at you,” the man says, ignoring Cillian and staring at me. I tug self-consciously at the hem of my shirt dress. Now the girl’s looking over at me too, brown eyes going wide as if she recognizes me.

Cillian glances in my direction. He frowns, but only for a millisecond, and then stabs a thumb over his shoulder.

“Cole, Meisie. Meisie, Cole.”

Cole gets to his feet, a wide smile on his mouth. He comes around the side of the desk, wiping his palms on his pants before tucking his thumbs into his pockets.

“Miss Ford,” Cole says, oozing…well I guess it’s supposed to be charm. “The pleasure is all mine.”

Yeah, I don’t doubt it. I cringe when he steps forward and sticks out a hand and instead hastily take a step back. My eyes fly to Cillian.

I know neither of us are psychic. I don’t believe in any of that crap. But when we lock eyes and I beg him—fucking beg him—to get me out of here, something has to reach him because he’s suddenly standing a little straighter, his jaw a little tighter than before.

“Not as chatty as you made her out to be,” Cole says through a laugh. He plucks his hand away, and heads back behind the desk, ripping open a desk drawer and rummaging with sudden urgency inside it. “Care for a line or two? Nothing like some blow to liven up your life, amiright?”

I’m still staring at Cillian.