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“Once she’s gone, I’ll continue down the list. Kieran, Beck . . .” He released my chin and sat back against the seat. A sigh slid from his lips as he put his phone into his pocket and murmured, “Interesting to find out you have a brother. And what a pretty wife he has.”
The space in the vehicle closed in on me.
The world seemed to tilt.
My stomach rolled and my throat tightened. And then he was there. In front of me. Cradling my face in his hands. His face within an inch of mine.
I wanted to move away, but I couldn’t find the strength to.
“But do as I ask and I promise . . . the world, Jessica. It will be yours. You’ll never want for anything. You’ll never fear anything. Not even me.” His eyes danced across my face for a few seconds before he demanded, “Tell me you understand.”
My heavy head dipped deeper into his grasp as a tear rolled down my cheek. “I understand.”
Hours later, and I was making Mickey regret ever wanting me.
We’d gone to visit a friend of his. A doctor friend who would do anything for Mickey. Including perform ultrasounds and exams. Including drawing blood from a twenty-four-year-old girl being held down by two forty-something-year-old men.
From what I’d heard in the secret meetings I’d listened in on over the years, I had no doubt this friend was one of the men who would’ve helped Mickey in his human trafficking ring.
And I wanted Kieran to add him to his list.
When he forced me into the doctor’s office, he told me he wanted me tested to make sure I was clean. I hadn’t bothered telling him I got tested regularly because I knew that piece of information would’ve fallen on deaf ears.
But Mickey lied.
No, Mickey had wanted me to endure being violated by a man I didn’t know while he and the silent driver stood over me, watching and listening to the doctor tell them things. Like the fact that my lifestyle hadn’t damaged my ability to have children, and that my body appeared to be in prime condition for carrying a child.
Mickey had smiled like a bastard at that news.
I kicked the doctor in the face and fought against Mickey’s and the driver’s arms to try to get to Mickey, my screams and accusations quickly turning into crazed-sounding laughter when I realized I couldn’t win.
Because he had Momma.
He’d threatened Kieran and Beck and Jentry . . .
I wanted to hate my brother for having the life I’d never been able to, but I couldn’t. I never would.
And Mickey had threatened him and the one girl who’d brought Jentry peace from the darkness that lived deep inside him. Inside both of us.
Hate burned so pure and so deep for the man that held me down as the doctor sedated me so he could remove my IUD without getting kicked again, but the laughter didn’t fade. I couldn’t let it.
The moment I stopped laughing, the tears would come. Mickey had already stripped me bare to find what I cared about most in this world. To find my fears . . .
I wouldn’t let him have my fears too.
“So that’s what you want?” I asked Mickey as his driver dragged me across the rain-soaked lawn behind the mansion, toward the guesthouse. There was a burly man standing guard out front, and I had a feeling he wasn’t there to speak to Mickey.
My chest heaved when we got closer and I saw his face under the porch light.
Conor . . .
But he didn’t spare a glance for me as we passed him to go into the house.
Then again, he didn’t know me.
“You don’t just want the whore you found. You want children,” I said, spitting the word at Mickey once we were inside. “You want me locked up behind your pretty little house where you can keep an eye on me and use me whenever it conveniences you. Popping out kids for you because yours are six feet under and your wife left you.”
If he was surprised I knew so much about him, he didn’t show it. He just continued through the front of the house, turning on lights as he went.
