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“There are three guys near the dugout. All dead. I think they’re Bratva. I heard their accents,” Riordan whispers.
“Dotheyknow who Nolan is?” Lachlan asks.
My last name being said again and again has my heart pounding. “They sounded like they knew who Father was.” I’m trying to help them. I’m broken and wrecked, but my mind is working.
“Shhh. It’s okay, Prissy. I got this.” Riordan hugs me, and tears leak from my eyes, his arms feel so good around me.
“Don’t call me Prissy,” I softly argue to make this a normal conversation like the ones we’ve been having for years.
“I’m bringing you to the hospital, I’ll call you whatever I want.” he says sweetly to me.
“Give me a rundown.” Kieran sounds serious, like a future king. “I have to call Da.”
“I found one animal…” Riordan holds my head against his chest so I can’t see what he’s mouthing to his brother. A moment later he lets go and I see the hard expression on Kieran’s face. “Two others were watching. I grabbed them, bashed their heads with a pipe.”
“What about the one who raped her?” Lachlan says with no emotion.
“Shut the fuck up, she has no memory of it,” Riordan sneers through clenched teeth. “I want to keep it that way.”
The hell I don’t remember. But I don’t want to think about it, let alone talk about the worst moment of my life. I won’t let this ruin me. I have that power.
“What did you do to him?” Kieran asks.
“I gutted him.” Riordan hands over a knife full of blood.
“Did she see you?” Kieran sounds panicked all of a sudden, and the tenor doesn’t sit right for him.
“You can trust me,” I whisper, but no one acknowledges me.
“She’s one of us.” Riordan declares, like all those dinners at my house, sharing stories, and telling him about the sleuth books I was reading sunk in. He knows me so well. “And she’s traumatized.”
My body is broken, but my brain is crying out for them to recognize that I’m strong. I can help them.
“Three Bratva dead because they attacked aNolan.” Kieran lowers his head. “That will start a war.”
Lachlan looks around. “I don’t see any cameras. Let’s just dump the bodies.”
“I’ll do it.” Riordan nods. “After we take her to the hospital.”
I’m piecing everything together. Bratva. Riordan killed three men. I’m a victim, but I’m also a witness. And that makes me a liability. Kieran and Lachlan will silence me. One way or another.
And Riordan…
After what he saw happen to me, he’ll never want me the way I want him.
“Stay right here, Prissy. I’m just walking over there.” Riordan lets me go and I slump forward, my legs cold on the metal bench.
With the three of them talking far off with guns drawn, watching for more Bratva, I shuck off Riordan’s coat. I can’t deal with his scent around me any longer. It hurts too much. I back away, inch by inch, the cold stinging my skin worse than the bench. When the coast is clear, I make a run for it. But I don’t go home. I can’t go home to Father. Not looking like this.
Someone sent those Bratva bastards to hurt me. Now they’re dead and I have to leave Astoria or a war will start because of me.
I’ll do everything I can to forget this horrible night.
And Riordan O’Rourke.
Present Day
I wake up on my left side, pain radiating from my right shoulder. I dreamt of my violent past and the boy who rescued me, but it felt like yesterday. Or today.
