Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 98000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll stay.” I take off my shoes, and we walk over to her bed. Both of us lie on top of the covers, looking at the ceiling. “Your brother is being an asshole.”
“Is that supposed to be something new?”
“More than usual.”
“He’ll be better soon. Like I told you before, he has a lot of pressure on him—more than you’d ever know. He’s always trying to take care of a million things at once, and none of them are ever for him…well, except maybe you.”
I roll my eyes. “He doesn’t give a fuck about me.” Still, my heart is pounding. The ache that always lives in my chest lightens.
“Yes, he does. He probably doesn’t get it yet, just like you don’t, but I see it. Cil sees it.”
I have no words, so I don’t reply. What she’s saying can’t be real. There’s no fucking way…but I want it to be. Fuck Tiernan…because I want it to be.
“Sorry for asking you to stay, but…I don’t remember if I told you, when I was scared or uncomfortable as a kid, I would always sleep with Tiernan. Even when we were little, I always knew he would never let anything happen to me. And now…I can’t explain it, but I kinda feel that way about you too. Maybe because you saw what Mike tried to do to me that night.”
Her words are a rope, thrown into that pit I live in, a life preserver, trying to pull me back up. “I’m not a hero.”
“Heroes are overrated. Give me someone who’s real, someone who will do whatever they have to do—good or bad—and I’ll take that over a hero any day of the week.”
“Go to sleep,” I say, hoping that ends this conversation. If not, I might get pulled out higher, out of those shadows. I don’t know who the fuck I’ll be if that happens.
“You’ll stay.”
“Yeah.”
She closes her eyes and drifts off, not seeming to care that the lights are on.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Tiernan
I’ve been on edge all fucking day.
We’ve done shit like this before—this being what’s going down with Michael Jensen tomorrow—but it’s always involved my father, Uncle Rian, Conan, or one of the others. Outside of cleanup, this is all on us.
And it’s something my father will lose his shit about if he finds out, so there’s that added pressure as well.
Doing it on our own is something I want, something I need to do, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot of shit on my mind. Shit I can’t share with Dean. Some of it—the nerves, the weight that crushes the center of my chest every time I’m going to hurt someone—I don’t share with anyone.
Ever.
It’s weak, and weakness isn’t allowed if I plan to succeed—and I fucking do.
It’s not easy taking a life, even a bastard like Michael Jensen. He deserves to die, and I’ll always do what needs to be done, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t strip away at me every time I pull the trigger.
Eventually, I’m sure it won’t. I don’t know if I should look forward to that day or not.
Usually when a hit is planned, I can lock myself away and not have to deal with anyone, but that doesn’t work this time. We sell a whole lot of product when I throw a party. Still, it doesn’t hurt to go about our everyday business as we’re leading up to a murder.
And then there’s Dean. He’s fucking here, all the time. He’s not an idiot. He knows something’s up. I’m not used to having anyone but my father in my business, and I’m not sure how to deal with it. I could have told him to leave, but I wasn’t ready to do that. I want him here, I just have my responsibilities to handle first.
“Kick everyone out in an hour,” I tell Cillian, who just finished a threesome with the dancing girls.
“Done. You going to find your boy?”
“Yes,” I reply, not arguing with him anymore about Dean being mine. There’s no use. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be here. If he can’t learn to control his fucking temper, though, we’re going to have a problem. Do I want to punch most people I come across? Yes. But I don’t. Was it hot as hell to see him jealous? To see that lack of fear as he approached someone bigger than him and didn’t hesitate to make a move? Fuck yes. I’d wanted to fuck him right there in front of everyone, but this business doesn’t work if you can’t control yourself. That’s how we make mistakes, how we get caught.
It’s how we die.
I unlock my bedroom door, expecting to find him there, having used the key I gave him, but my bed is empty, the covers still made, telling me he hasn’t been here at all.