Page 15 of Stolen Rebel

My mouth dries up, because I don’t have an answer for how to get around that. And I don’t want to think about what might happen if I do.

Five days.

I drop my head onto my knees, sucking in a steamy breath through my nose. I won’t let Liam break me. And if he does, I won’t let him see that he has.

I refuse to give him the satisfaction of the truth. It could be my strongest weapon. Though weapons often cut both ways. Being here, in such close proximity to the man who once owned my heart hurts with every breath I take.

Brian always says the truth is what destroys people, that lies are the only thing that ever kept them alive. He hasn’t been wrong yet, keeping me alive and safe for the last five years has been a monumental task.

I can’t think about what I lost, what might have been. I can only figure out what comes next. So for now, I’ll do what I’ve done since I witnessed a murder that changed the course of my life: survive.

Chapter 9

LIAM

My head is splitting, my scar itches, and all I want to do is crawl into bed and sleep. But how can I when Rowan is in my house and likely plotting how to kill me so she can escape?

Until she discovers there is no way out.

What the fuck am I doing?

I scrub a hand over my face. What’s the plan here, dickhead? Seeing her in that pub playing the innocent and pretending she doesn’t know me made me act on impulse. I never fucking act on impulse, but here we are.

What if… what if she does have amnesia? That she believes, deep down, that she’s this Erin person. If that’s true, then the woman I once loved is probably gone for good.

A harsh laugh escapes me. Who the fuck am I kidding? Even if she does have amnesia, that doesn’t change the fact she set me up. She betrayed me and what we had. She almost took my life.

I reach over to my bedside table, pick up my phone, and type “is amnesia permanent?” into a browser. Results filter in. I scroll past the fucking AI summary and click into an authoritative medical site. I read the opening line.

Bingo.

She’s a liar.

It says right here that people forgetting who they are is often used as a plot device in movies and books, but the truth is people with amnesia rarely forget who they are. It’s either trouble learning new information or trouble recalling past events. So, she might be telling the truth that she doesn’t remember who I am, but she is a hundred percent lying about who she is.

She fucking knows her name is Rowan Byrne.

The question I intend to get to the bottom of is why? And even if she is suffering from amnesia, she wasn’t when she called me to beg for help, sending me into a spin because I thought she’d been beaten or raped. She wasn’t when she sent me that letter. She wasn’t when she taunted me with postcards and dropped phone calls and deliveries of my favorite chocolates.

It’s past time for some answers. Never did have that much patience.

I open the bottom drawer in my dresser and remove a folder. Tucked away in between the last birthday card I received from Mam and Da before they died and my birth certificate is Rowan’s letter. Reflexively, I run a hand over the rough scar covering the left-hand side of my face. That letter was perfectly fucking timed.

I’d just got the news that I wasn’t going to need a kidney transplant after those bastards shanked me, that the surgery to stitch me back together had been a success. Then this arrived and the life the surgeons and I had fought to save turned meaningless.

Anger and my desire for vengeance are what saved me. Five years later, they’re about to save me again.

I stuff the letter in my pocket and yank open my bedroom door. After marching down the hallway to Rowan’s room, I wrench the bolt back, the sound loud and ugly in the quiet. I push open the door and flick on the overhead light. Rowan launches upright in bed. Her left breast slips out of the nightgown I’m guessing belongs to Sorcha. I stare and stare until she follows my gaze and, with a gasp, covers herself.

I’m fucking hard. Five seconds of looking at just one of her tits, and I’m housing a bat in my joggers.

A flash of fear whips across her face. “What… what do you want?”

I kick the door closed and prowl closer. She grabs the covers and pulls them up to her throat like they stand a chance of protecting her.

“Time for a little chat, Erin.”

She scuttles back a few more inches, until the headboard stops her pointless wriggling. Pulling her knees to her chest, she wraps her arms around them.