Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 132791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
No one knew this. No one but Mama and Imma. How did he figure it out?
“Your speech was the final nail in the coffin,” he explained, watching me watch his lips. “Though I had my inkling for some time now. You never seemed to acknowledge me unless I was right in front of you, where you could read my lips. I tried dropping shit whenever we were in the same room—mugs, hardcovers, small furniture—waiting for a reaction that never came.”
I gulped. I always found his clumsiness to be out of character whenever I found a shattered glass in the kitchen.
Did he find my speech funny? Weird? I wished it didn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter to me. Yet it did. Because, as much as I hated it, I cared what he thought about me.
“I speak ASL,” he said after a beat. “Tierney, too.”
I reared my head back, surprised.
What were the odds? And why on earth did the twins learn ASL? I was starting to suspect they weren’t with their father and older brother the entire length of their childhood.
He snapped his fingers once. His soldiers evacuated the hallway. The Camorrista hesitated for a moment, deliberating, before Tiernan shot him a glance that sent him stumbling downstairs.
We were alone.
Tiernan signed to me, “Tell me something. Anything. Now.”
His movements were smooth. Confident. It was the last nail in my lie’s coffin. The temptation to speak with someone who wasn’t my mother was too great.
I raised my quaking hands to answer him. “Go to hell.”
“Grew up there. Never going back. Let’s try again.”
“I hate you.”
“I tolerate you.” The admission seemed to slip from him without permission, because his jaw locked in annoyance. “And I don’t tolerate people very often. Third time’s a charm. Say something.”
“Get rid of your whore.”
It was the first time I saw him smiling with mirth, not sarcasm. All the other times, his smirk was tainted with darkness. Still, he didn’t blink. I wondered if he closed his eye when he slept.
“That’s better, Gealach.”
He marched back into the apartment. I followed him. The receptionist was standing outside my room, reapplying her lip gloss, using her smartphone as a mirror.
I wasn’t a violent person, but she knew he was married with a baby on the way. I was pretty sure I could kill her and get acquitted by the jury.
“Brandy?”
“What’s up?” She clicked her small mirror shut, batting her lashes at him.
“Get the fuck out. You’ve served your purpose.”
Her jaw hung open in shock. “Are you serious right now?”
“I’m always serious.”
“You didn’t even…we didn’t even…wait.” She held a finger up. “What was my purpose?”
“Making my wife yell at me.” He tugged his wallet out of his breast pocket, pulling a wad of rolled cash and patting her cheek with it. “Here. Use it to buy some self-respect.”
“I thought you said you aren’t together.”
At this point, I lost my patience. With a huff, I wrenched out Tiernan’s gun from his holster and pointed it at her.
She shrieked, stumbling backward and hitting the wall. For the first time in my life, I was glad I couldn’t hear.
“Stop this nonsense, Lila. The paperwork would be insane.” Tiernan touched my shoulder.
I gave him a shut-the-hell-up look.
He sighed. “If you want to kill her this much, at least let me drive us somewhere secluded.”
I swiveled toward him, pointing the gun at his face.
“Care for a rerun of our wedding night?” I spoke out the words.
He arched a sardonic eyebrow, posture as languid and laid-back as a big cat. “Don’t mind if I do. I’m not picky with the way you touch me, as long as you do.”
When I turned back to Brandy, she wasn’t there anymore. Probably ran off while I was contemplating blowing my husband’s head off.
“My gun?” He opened his palm for me to dispose of the weapon.
“No.” I tucked it into the waistband of my pink ensemble. I raised my hand to sign to him. “Next time you bring your whores to my apartment, I’ll just assume I walked into a suicide pact.”
He studied me with an approving sparkle in his eye, a wolfish grin on his face. He almost looked…proud.
“I mean it, Tiernan. No more sluts.”
“How about you sit your ass down and answer all my questions? If I find them sufficient, I might grant you your wish. If not, get ready to see me fucking the entire Northeast population.”
Even though he deserved his other eye plucked out for this answer, I did acknowledge he was entitled to some explanation. Deceiving your lawfully wedded husband wasn’t an ethical thing to do. Even if he was a bloodthirsty murderer.
I walked over to the couch and perched myself on its edge. He joined me on the opposite recliner.
“How do you compose music if you’re deaf?”
His question surprised me. First, because there were so many bigger questions to ask. Second, because he wasn’t supposed to know that.