Page 103 of Stolen Rebel

Death is the only thing that will make me stop. Even then, I’ll search for her in the afterlife.

I fling the car around another corner, narrowly missing an oncoming vehicle. The driver swerves into the hedgerow, blaring his horn. Dan sends me a side-eye but sensibly keeps his trap shut.

“Turn in here.” He points to a gap in the hedge that leads onto a narrow dirt track arrowing through the middle of a field. The farmer must be midway through cultivating the land ready for spring planting. On one side, the earth has been churned in neat lines. On the other, wild grasses blow in the wind.

My eyes scan the field.

“There.” Dan points.

“I see her.” I wrench the steering wheel to the right, beelining for Rowan, her thighs braced on either side of Murray and a knife to his throat. There’s a red stain on his side which, unfortunately for him and fortunately for me, doesn’t look life threatening. But there’s also blood running down his neck. Rowan must’ve cut the bastard. Good.

I’m out of the car the second it stops. Rowan’s shoulders sag, the knife sliding from her hands. I haul Murray to his feet and pull him away from her. It sickens me that he got this close, but I’ve got him now. He’ll never get close to her again.

I let Jeff take over. “Shore up that neck wound and toss him in the boot.”

I stride back to Rowan. She almost collapses into my arms. She’s freezing, her feet bare, her robe from the spa covered in mud. I take off my coat and wrap it around her. “You’re okay. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

The fight drains out of her, and she bursts into tears, her fingers curling into my shirt. Holding Murray at knifepoint must have sapped what’s left of her energy.

I rub circles on her back, barely holding myself together. But my feelings are blinding rage and a need for vengeance. Her sobs lessen and eventually stop.

I tilt up her chin. “Talk to me.”

“I’m okay.” She burrows her face into my neck, breathing me in, then leans back, eyes red from crying, but there’s a jut to her chin that wasn’t there a few minutes ago. “He and his mother took me to a cottage.” She points to her left. “It’s over there. His mother is still there.”

I beckon to Dan. “Go get the mother and hold her. She’s in a cottage over the hill.”

Dan nods and takes off at a jog. I return my attention to Rebel. She’s biting her lip hard enough to draw blood.

“I’m so sorry. I feel like I let you down. I should have been more careful.”

“At a spa?” When we get home, I’ll be having fucking words and throwing a punch at my brother for letting Rowan out of his sight. Although, even the most reckless betting man couldn’t have seen this scenario coming.

A faint smile coasts over her lips. “Is Sorcha okay?”

“Sorcha is fine. If Murray hadn’t found the tracking tag, we’d have got to you far faster.”

She frowns. “A tracking tag?”

“Yeah. Sorcha dropped one into your robe at the spa, but I’m guessing Murray discovered it because it stopped transmitting. We found it lying in a field.”

Her lips part. She stares at the ground, flicks her gaze to mine, then back to the ground. Her mouth closes, opens, closes again. A muscle spasms in her jaw. Oh, she’s mad. I don’t know why I never expected this reaction, but knowing what I know about her, I probably should have.

“Why would she do that?” Spoken through clenched teeth.

“You’ll have to ask her. My guess is she was covering all bases, especially with Brian knowing you were back in Ireland. It was for your protection.”

“Hmm.” She’s not convinced. “For my protection? That’s what Brian said. Every time he moved me, every time he locked a door, every time he tracked me—it was always ‘for my protection.’” She falls quiet again.

Poor Sorcha. She’s going to get a double-barreled Rebel reaction. Years ago, I found myself on the receiving end of one or two of those. I feared that version of my girl was gone forever, but she’s very much alive.

I should warn Sorcha to wear armor, but it’ll be far more fun if I don’t. What can I say? I’m an arsehole, and a bastard. And a bit of a cunt. I’ve made my peace with it.

“Patrick’s arranged a secure location where I can question Murray and find out what he knows. Darragh is meeting me there. I’ll have Jeff drive you back to the house.”

She cants her head. “I’m sorry, what?” Fisted hands prop against her hips. “I don’t think so. I have as much skin in this game as you do.” She jabs a finger in my chest. “More in fact. I refuse to find out why I lost five years of my life by proxy or some sanitized version you deem fit to share with me. Oh, no, mister. I’m there for all of it. All. Of. It.”

She’s fucking magnificent.