Chapter Twenty-One
KIERAN
I get home justafter six-thirty in the evening, still wired from my meeting with Brennan atThe Blackthorn.
It wasn’t supposed to run so long, but Brennan’s always had a gift for talking in circles. By the end of the meeting, I was ready to wrap my hands around his throat just to get him to shut the hell up.
He’s worried about Sean and wants to know if there’s a retaliation plan in place.
I simply told him to stop asking stupid questions.
Of course, there’s a plan.
Sean O’Keefe is going to bleed for what he did to our father, and I’m going to make sure that I’m the last face he sees before he ends up in the ground.
I walk through the front door, tugging off my jacket and tossing it onto the back of the couch when the sound of footsteps on the stairs catches my attention.
I look up, and everything else vanishes.
Riley is halfway down the staircase, wearing an obnoxiously tight black dress that shows off her legs. Her auburn hair is curled and loose around her bare shoulders, and her lips are painted that same shade of red as the night we got married.
My mind is halfway to the gutter when she freezes and guilt flashes across her face.
My jaw clenches as I sink my nails into my palms. “Going somewhere?”
She doesn’t answer right away. She just presses her lips together and adjusts the tiny purse on her shoulder.
From the looks of things, she was hoping she could sneak out before I got back.
“You do realize I have surveillance on this place, right? Cameras, sensors, the whole nine yards. So, I would know if you tried to sneak out even if I hadn’t walked through that door.”
“I don’t care,” she heads the rest of the way down the stairs.
Her words stop me cold. “You don’t care? Since when?”
She shrugs, still not looking at me. “Since I decided I’m tired of being watched all the time.”
Her defiance is like a slap in the face.
The girl who curled into me in Vegas when she thought Sean’s men were outside our hotel room, the girl who flinched when they followed us back from the airport,thatgirl is gone. And in her place is someone who doesn’t give a damn.
Well, unlucky for her,Ido.
I step closer. “I don’t get it. You were scared out of your mind a week ago at the thought of Sean tracking us down. What makes you think New York is any safer than Vegas?”
“Maybe it’s not.” She finally meets my eyes.
I almost wince at the lack of warmth in them.
“But I can’t put my life on hold because of what Sean might do.”
“So, where are you going dressed like that?”
“Out. To a party with Lucy.”
“Aparty?” I spit the word like it’s poison. “You’re going to some frat house, wearingthat?”
My eyes rake over her dress, but this time, the sight of so much bare skin doesn’t have my blood heating with arousal. It has it boiling with undiluted rage.
