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)
A vendetta was a good enough reason to live as any.
And Igor did deserve to die.
“If you still feel like you want to die, you can do it after you kill Igor,” Fintan bargained. “Your death isn’t going anywhere, so to speak.”
Tiernan gave him a rueful smile.
“And who knows? Maybe by the time you kill him, you’ll find something else to live for.” Fintan shrugged.
Unlikely, Tiernan thought. Nothing could reignite his lust for life. If, indeed, he was ever born with it.
And still, Tiernan decided to take Fintan’s advice and change his plan.
Kill Igor first. Die after.
After that pep talk, Fintan didn’t leave his brother alone for a few good months.
Tiernan was lucky if he could take a piss in peace.
His brother was overbearing, but his plan worked.
Tiernan waded through the trenches, coming out of them in one piece.
Fintan stopped following him like a puppy when Tiernan killed his first Bratva soldier.
The twinkle in his eye said it all.
He had found something to live for.
And that something was Igor’s death.
Tiernan made a deal with himself.
He’d kill Igor first and then give himself one year exactly to find something worth living for.
Three hundred and sixty-five days to wait for something spectacular to come along.
And on the last day, he’d kill himself.
He knew nothing quite so lovely could ever be found, though.
No magic was strong enough to save him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
LILA
Two weeks later, Tiernan and I went to check on one of his gambling joints on our way to a restaurant. He took me on a date three times a week, explaining that I needed to feel like a teenager and let loose. As soon as we walked inside, he led me downstairs to his office.
“Wait here.” He kissed my lips and headed upstairs to the cardroom.
I shook the rain off my coat and hair, watching the miserable weather through the window. The clouds were gray, dense, and pouring rain.
I settled into his plush recliner and rummaged in my coat’s pockets, realizing to my annoyance that I forgot my phone in the car. Pregnancy brain was a real thing. I was beginning to forget all kinds of stuff.
With a sigh, I took the stairs up to the cardroom in search of my husband. I found him leaning over a blackjack table, monitoring a heated game of cards. To his right were a few Irish soldiers, filling him in on something. And to his left was none other than…Becky.
My heart exploded at the sight of her, heat spreading across my body, down my arms, making my fists curl. It was the first hit of real, potent, red-hot jealousy I’d ever experienced, and I was so consumed with it, it robbed me of my breath.
She rubbed her fake tits against his arm, whispering into the shell of his ear.
I watched their lips hawkishly.
“Was it something I did?” I could practically see her whining. She wore a black leather miniskirt and a red strapless heart-shaped corset. Tall boots and puffy hair with so much spray I hoped she’d die of gas emission.
“Becky, you’re a prostitute. Were you expecting a ring and a honeymoon in Paris?” Tiernan’s eye never wavered from the green fuzzy table.
“I thought I was your favorite.”
“This is why you’re paid to fuck, not think.”
“You never come here anymore.” Her bottom lip rolled sulkily.
“Fintan’s running the place just fine.”
“The girls don’t like him. For one thing, he never uses their services. And his nosy girlfriend loiters around, always in everyone’s shit to make sure he doesn’t drink or gamble.”
“I’m off the market.” Tiernan parked his elbows on the table.
“Till when?” she pressed.
“Death and beyond.”
His words didn’t pacify me. The fact that he was talking to her at all made me want to bash his head against that table.
I took a step forward and cleared my throat.
Tiernan’s eye snapped to me in a flash. His pupil dilated as he took notice of me.
“Darlin’.”
Darlin’, my ass. His exchange with Becky reminded me of her existence, and the fact that he brought her to our home, had put her in my dress, and screwed her in my kitchen.
I turned around and briskly made my way to the exit. He was beside me immediately, his stride quicker than mine. He was talking to me, but I didn’t look to see what he was saying. The door was manned by two Irish soldiers, and when they saw us approaching, their boss at my heel, they blocked my way outside. One of them put his hand on my shoulder to push me back into the club. Tiernan responded by twisting his wrist and breaking it in one smooth, frighteningly practiced move.
“Fatal mistake,” I saw his lips move. “Nobody touches my wife.”
Rolling my eyes, I pushed through the door and headed to the car. A puddle lay at my feet between the Mercedes’s passenger door and the curb. I took one look at it, then at my velvet Jimmy Choos, and sighed.