Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
It’s better for her health if she keeps on denying everything.
My husband’s a lot of things, but forgiving isn’t one of them.
We leave the hospital. The driver takes us back to my father’s house. Mom has trouble with the steps, but we manage. I get her settled in the living room, go through her care plan with her for the tenth time, and make sure she’s got her medications already filled. I’d like to bring Dad into this, but that asshole’s nowhere to be seen.
“You sure you’re going to be okay?” I look around and idly fluff a pillow. I want to do more, but there’s not much else. “I can go find Dad for you?”
“Please, don’t bother him.” She touches my hand lightly. “I’m fine, Caroline. Go back home. How is that husband of yours, by the way?”
“He’s okay. I haven’t seen much of him recently.”
She tilts her head to the side, considering me intently. I wonder briefly if she realizes that Finn and I were there specifically to kill Redmond, or if she thinks it was some bizarre coincidence that I was waiting in the night with a hammer, only to freak out when he was beating her. She probably figured it out, but I can’t ever be sure. Again, better not to ask.
“Listen to him.” Her voice is cool all of a sudden. Her fingers dig into my wrist. “Whatever you’re up to, just be careful.”
“It’s fine, Mom. You don’t have to worry.”
She releases me and smiles vaguely. “Actually, you can do one more thing for me. Can you show me how to work this stupid remote? We got a new TV a few weeks ago and I just can’t make it work the way I used to.”
“Sure, Mom. I’ll set you up.”
25
CAROLINE
Idon’t see much of my husband over the next week.
When this all started, the idea of going an entire seven days without having to interact with Finn Whelan would’ve seemed like heaven. Back then, all I wanted was to be left alone.
Now I’m getting plenty of time to myself. I can swim, sauna, lounge, watch movies, basically do whatever I want without anyone bothering me. I don’t have to think about money, about cleaning the apartment, about my family hunting me down.
I’m free in a way I’ve never experienced before.
And I hate it.
I keep feeling the hammer bashing into Red’s face. I keep seeing Shane’s bloated and disgusting corpse. Sometimes I’ll surface from being under in the pool and feel like I still have blood stuck all over my skin.
I want to talk to someone about it, and Finn’s pretty much the only person I can turn to. Except he’s never around.
Sometimes he’ll appear. An hour here, fifteen minutes there. The door to his room shuts, the shower comes on, and he’s gone as soon as he’s finished. I’m not even sure if he’s sleeping here anymore. I have my own room, my own space, my own life.
But I’m itching for more.
Dermot and Malachy are still out there.
My father is too.
When did I get like this? All my life, I’ve been hiding from my brothers. The idea of getting revenge never even occurred to me. At best I thought I could be like a mouse, hidden and quiet, never making any noise that would draw the attention of predators.
Now it’s like I’m a different person.
Was this in me the whole time and I just never knew it?
Thoughts swirl in my head. But most of all there’s a quiet but intense yearning for my husband. I want his hands on my body. I want his mouth near mine. I need to feel his solid, steady breathing, so I can feel like I’m not falling apart. And I need him to break me, just a little bit.
Eventually, I can’t take it anymore. It’s a Saturday night when I finally storm out of the apartment and down into the city. I know the Whelan family and I’m very familiar with their haunts. I’ve been to half the bars and heard about the rest. There’s a non-zero chance I’ll run into someone I know, but that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, right?
To everyone else, I’m just a married woman looking for her no-good husband.
They don’t know I’m a killer trying to find my accomplice.
I hit pay dirt on the fourth place I try. It’s a bar at the edge of Whelan territory, an old rundown dive with a broken dartboard and sticky floors. It smells like whiskey and something sour. Liam’s sitting at a corner booth with a laptop open in front of him and a drink clutched in his hand. He’s frowning at the screen.
“You’re not who I wanted to find, but you’ll do in a pinch.”
He looks up, momentarily startled, and quickly gathers himself. His customary smirk spreads across his lips as he leans back, shuts his laptop lid, and considers me.