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“I have nothing to do with this.”
I shake my head. “That’s not what your conversation suggested.”
“Then answer the fucking phone. It’s Declan on the line. Ask him, for Christ’s sake.” I stare at the phone and weigh my options. I don’t want him coming after me if I make a move. I have to stay in control.
I have to find her.
I hold his gaze and lift the phone. If Declan betrayed us…
“Hello?”
“We’ll talk later, Tor. You’re on the same fucking side. Put me on speaker.”
I do. “You pricks both listen to me. YOU’RE ON THE SAME SIDE. They’re starting the auction in three minutes. Table your fucking weapons and go find Valentina.”
Chapter Thirty-One
VALENTINA
My mind is racing with what I can do, what I should do. She doesn’t want me. She wants Torin, behind bars. She wants our families destroyed, and she’s already taken the steps toward that end. She and the force of the Boston Irish, the same monsters who held me prisoner and abused me, want to dominate and destroy.
I won’t let them.
They won’t get Torin. They won’t get my brothers.
They won’t get me.
I quickly consider my options and decide that the best course of action for now is to stay exactly where I am. To observe.
But my heart aches to reach out to Torin and my brothers. I don’t want anyone else I love to be hurt, even if I go down in the process.
The room she takes me to has the same goddamn mirrors. A wall of mirrors, ringed with bulbs the color of weak tea, reflects back at me, just like before. I will escape this nightmare and wake years from now in another bed, in another place, and I will not forget these mirrors.
The first time, I fought. I won’t forget that. The first time, I was stupid with terror and made it eleven feet down a fire escape before Ginger caught the back of my dress and hauled me back to captivity. I remember screaming into a rough palm that smelled of nicotine.
This time? I hold still. I make myself say it, silently. Don’t come. Please, don’t come.
Shannon comes up behind me wearing green. She looks at my reflection and gives me a half-hearted smile. “You clean up well.”
I don’t bother to reply. I pretend she doesn’t exist. I pretend I’m the victim here, not the one who’s going to take this to the fucking ground.
Shannon puts her hands on my bare shoulders, and it takes everything I have not to flinch.
“You know what I’ve never understood about you?” She tilts her head. “You had it all. The beautiful house. The well-stocked bank account. The brothers who’d burn the world for you, and a father who’d give you anything you wanted.” Her fingers move, adjusting a strap. “And you were bored. I watched you for a full year. You were bored out of your skull, posting an idyllic life that was only a mirage. Bored in that beautiful life, and you didn’t even have the decency to be grateful for it.”
I can’t help it. I laugh out loud, rudely and without explanation. This woman is an imposter in more ways than one. As if she knew anything about me, about the staggering grief of living in a house of cards, mourning the loss of my mother and fearing my father’s backhand. Beautiful life, indeed. I’d give anything to be alone in the humblest of homes with Torin by my side and nothing else.
She lifts a necklace out of a velvet box and fastens it at the back of my neck. I recoil when her fingers touch me and think, If I put my thumb in her eye right now, I’d get about four seconds before someone comes through that door.
So I don’t move. I don’t have enough time or resources. Torin drilled that into me on a mat in Ballyhock, his hand on my sternum. You don’t move until moving finishes it.
His words echo in my mind.
Finish it.
That’s what this will be, in the end. Not another fight that sends our enemies retreating so we come back another day. Not a battle in which only some remain standing and we count our losses. No. Today, we finish this. Once and for all.
The elevator is at the end of a corridor. Somewhere in this building, Torin is looking for me. Maybe my brothers are too.
