Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Bianca White is sunshine and innocence.
I’m the monster they whisper about in the dark.
And she hates me, for good reason.
I told myself I’d stay away. That I’d keep my distance and just make sure she was safe. But on the night of her college graduation, I have no choice.
So I take her.
I cage my little bird in the woods where no one can touch her. Where no one can take her from me.
Yet she doesn’t take it easy. She fights me and begs to go back to the man who will kill her.
She’ll learn, though, that some cages are gilded for a reason, and that anyone who wants to harm her will have to come through me first.
Bianca didn’t know it, but she was always mine. Now everyone else will too.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
Six Years Earlier…
Ashland
I love the taste of blood in my mouth during a fight. Proof I’m alive, that I’m winning. It tastes like victory.
I spit it on the floor of the ring, and red splatters across gray. The echo of cheering is like distant thunder, the smell of sweat and Guinness flooding my senses. The abandoned warehouse is officially a gym, but the underground knows that beneath the official exterior is where the real action takes place. This is where men like me come to fight, and I fucking love it.
Lawless. Violent. Cathartic.
My ribs ache where the Cork bastard caught me early, a hit I'll feel tomorrow. But when he comes in with a right hook, confident, thinking he's got me figured out, I duck. I drive my fist into his kidney. Once. Twice. Three times in rapid succession, each hit precise and targeted. I feel something give under my knuckles.
And I love this. God help me, I love this.
He grunts and tries to pivot away, but I'm too fast for him. He swings wild, desperate now, and clips my jaw. Blood floods my mouth, the familiar metallic taste sweet and satisfying. My opponent’s desperation is my first taste of victory.
Beautiful.
He grins, breathing hard, and his guard drops.
“Come on, then,” I say, my voice rough. I tap my jaw where he hit me. “That's all you’ve got?”
He charges.
I sidestep and drive my elbow into the base of his skull. Not hard enough to do permanent damage—I'm not trying to kill the fucker—but hard enough.
He staggers, and his knees buckle.
I'm on him before he can recover. Left jab to the temple, right cross to the cheekbone. I feel the satisfying crack under my knuckles. Another shot to his fucked-up ribs, and this time, something cracks.
“Finish him, Ash!” Tiernan shouts from somewhere behind me, and it's all the encouragement I need.
I drive my knee into his stomach. The air leaves his lungs in a sick whoosh.
He drops face-first on the canvas. The ref's beside him instantly, checking him, and I step back. My chest heaves. My hands throb. There's blood on my knuckles, and I can't tell if it's his or mine.
His crew screams for him to get up, but he won't, not after what I did to his ribs. Wouldn't be wise, would it?
“Time.” The ref's voice echoes through the warehouse, and the crowd erupts.
I don't hear them when I'm playing, don't hear them when I'm fighting, but I do after I win a damn fight.
“McCarthy! McCarthy! McCarthy!”
The McCarthy family's name is one of their favorite cheers, and I fucking love it. I love being part of something bigger, knowing I stand in solidarity with my brother and cousins.
Today, I don't move or raise my arms, don't celebrate. I just stand there, knuckles split and bleeding, waiting for the roar to fade. It doesn't, really.
I've found that violence just sits in my chest like a living thing, coiling tighter and tighter until the next fight. I've come to welcome it.
“Ash.” Tiernan's voice cuts through the roar of the crowd. “Get out of the damn ring, lad, will you?”
I turn and find him at the ropes. Tiernan's been in my corner since before I was tall enough to throw a proper punch. My mother's brother, near enough my age to feel like a brother himself. He has a family of his own now, but he's always been my mentor.
“Y'alright, lad?” he asks as I duck through the ropes. He tries to dab blood off my face with a rolled-up rag, but I swat his hand away and reach for the bottle of water—swig it, swish it in my mouth, and spit out blood. He reaches for my hands instead and starts unwinding the tape.
“Aye. Grand.”
“That wasn't grand, Ash,” he says, giving me the look of pride mixed with worry I've come to recognize. “That was fuckin' brutal.” He leans closer, and I can see the gray mixed with ginger in his hair, the lines around his eyes, and the way his brow creases. I remember when I thought he was invincible—the day I saw him in this ring and decided it would be me one day. Tiernan’s a legend here in Ballyhock.