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Romy
I take one step into the darkness, and my boot lands directly in a murky puddle. It could be rainwater, but by the smell that assaults my nose, it’s more likely to be shit. I turn around, regarding Ronan with suspicion.
“Look, if this is some kind of revenge for stabbing you that one time, then we can work through your embarrassment another way.”
He rolls his eyes, takes the flashlight from his holster, and lights up the tunnel ahead with its yellow glow. “I should have stabbed you back when I got the chance. Now that you’re Donnacha’s official missus, I’ll never get away with hurting a hair on your head.”
My laughter bounces off the curved concrete walls. “You couldn’t restrain me if I was standing still, let alone stab me.”
We glance at each other, grinning. An unspoken fondness for each other is starting to brew under the surface. He falls in step behind me until we reach a door on the right, which he kicks open with his steel-capped boot. It opens up to reveal a tunnel just as damp and dingy as this one, the only difference being the white strip lighting lining the ceiling. “Second door on the left,” Ronan grunts.
I freeze, dragging my heels against the concrete. There’s a bloodcurdling scream skating down the corridor, punctuated with staccato Russian curse words.
You bastard. You filthy fucking bastard.
It’s a voice I’m used to hearing sound more calm and collected, but even with the panic and fear strangling it, I’d recognize it anywhere.
Ronan marches past me, pausing when he can’t hear my footsteps. He turns around, and his scowl softens at the edges. “It’s all right, lass.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and force my feet forward until I step into the concrete block of a room.
It’s dark in here: low ceilings, no windows, and a horrible iron-like smell I recognize only from being in the same room as Danny English’s bloodied dead body. My eyes immediately fall to Leonid Belsky.
He’s center stage in this sick setup, tied to a chair and stripped from the waist up. Big, angry lashes decorate his torso, and when he rips his head back to let out another bloodcurdling scream, I notice half his teeth are missing.
Glancing down at his shackled ankles, I find them at his feet.
We lock eyes, his darker than ever and brimming with sheer loathing, then a strong arm grabs me from behind.
“You sure you want to be here?” Donnacha murmurs, branding me with soft kisses along my neck. A move so sweet and sensual that it doesn’t belong on his lips, not in a place like this.
I spin around in his forearms, meeting his gaze. It flickers with concern, searching my features for any sign of discomfort. But there’s something dark and delicious trickling through my veins, something that lights all my nerve endings on fire and makes my heart pump a little harder. A grin stretches across my face, triggering one of his own, too.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
He chuckles, that low, syrupy chuckle that I have come to love, then crushes his lips against mine, knocking the breath from my lungs. It’s over quicker than I’d like, ending with him pulling away and brandishing a pair of pliers.
“Want to see what your hubby does as a day job?”
I steal a glance at Belsky, writhing like a bloodied slug. Yes. But then my eyes drop to Donnacha’s abdomen, to the fresh pool of blood seeping through his T-shirt.
“You need to take it easy. You shouldn’t even be out of the hospital, let alone…” I gesture in Belsky’s direction, letting his screams finish my sentence.
When we had arrived at the hospital, a team of doctors and nurses were already waiting for us at a back entrance. They rushed Donnacha to a private wing, where they removed the bullet, cleaned the wound, and fed him a cocktail of drugs through an IV drip. We watched the drama unfold on the television at the bottom of the bed, him half-lidded, me clutching his bloodied hands under the bed sheets. When he was on the cusp of a medicated sleep, and I was sick of the sight of my face being replayed over and over on the news, I picked up the remote and flicked on the Cooking Channel, Bessie Bank’s Southern twang an antidote to Belsky’s poison.
Donnacha’s fingers twitched under mine, and his lids fluttered open. His eyes glowed soft as they tried to focus on me. “I fucking love you too,” he slurred. “I also love you and all of your sins. I love every psychotic bone in your body.”
Overwhelmed with emotion, I pressed my lips against his clammy cheek and whispered in his ear, “Don’t say anything you won’t remember in the morning.” Don’t get my hopes up.
I’m brought back to the damp tunnel by a heavy clunk. The sound of Donnacha slapping the pliers against his palm.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he says, “I have someone else on their way who wants to do some of the heavy lifting.”
LorcanQuinn. My heartbeat skitters at the thought of the East Coast’s most powerful mob boss strolling through the door. He must despise me with every fiber of my being, and who could blame him? I tried to take down his family, kill his right-hand man, and ruin his career.
But to my surprise, it’s not Lorcan who walks through the door.
“Mak?” I ask incredulously, squinting as I have to be seeing things in the low lighting. But when he steps out of the shadows, wringing his hands with glee, there’s no mistaking it’s my best friend. “What the hell are you doing here?”
