Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 103141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 413(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 413(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
“Jesus. I can’t believe this is happening. What the fuck is going on here?” Abbott threads his fingers through his hair, pulling the short strands. His eyes dart toward his father and then back to me. He sways slightly, and I think the whole day is hitting him now. That he’s really taking in what happened.
“Hey. Shh. You’re good. I can stay with you. We’ll say I was here with you. Maybe the shot was meant for me.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I want you as far away from this as possible. I don’t want to risk you. I can do this.”
“You can, but I’m not leaving you. Your dad was just shot by a sniper.” What if they come back?
“Rian…you know they’re gone. If they wanted to take us out, they would have right then. They’ll know we’d look for them and would be prepared now. We need to go.” This from Tiernan.
He’s right. I know he is, but I came so close to losing him tonight. I don’t want to let him out of my sight. “Would you leave Dean?” I ask and that shuts him up quickly.
“I’ll stay,” Rory says. “Someone else can stay with me. We’ll hide out, keep an eye on him from a distance and make sure he’s safe until the police arrive.”
“I’ll stay too,” Conan offers, and I breathe out a sigh of relief. As angry as I am that Conan let Abbott sneak out tonight, I trust him to keep Abbott safe. I trust Rory too.
Still, the pull to stay with him is strong, to be by his side in everything and protect him in any way I can, but it’s Cillian who says, “Come on, Dad. We need to go. Trust him. Trust them.”
Abbott nods in agreement before I grab his face again, pressing our mouths together. When we come up for air, our foreheads touch, and I whisper, “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“I’m going to go home with Cillian. Ashford is closer. Give us fifteen minutes, then call the police. Once they’re here, call me.” Then at least I can be with him, arrive in a vehicle after they’re there. If I didn’t need to do that, I’d be the one to stay here and watch him.
Abbott nods, and I kiss him one more time before we walk out.
“You really do love him, don’t you?” Cillian asks.
“Yes.”
“He loves you too. I can tell…he’ll be fine, okay?”
I nod, believing it a little more when Cillian says it. “Okay.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Abbott
It’s after five in the morning when we get home. The night was a whirlwind of the same questions over and over, from different and sometimes the same investigators.
I sat in the same room with the dead body of my father, covered in a white sheet, while pretending not to have the conflicting emotions that I had.
I hate him. I’ve always hated him. He tried to have me killed, and he would have killed me tonight if Rian hadn’t saved me, but he was my father, and now he’s gone. I’m an orphan with no family left, and that’s stranger than I would have thought.
“The guy who’s alive…where is he?” I ask Rian as we go into the house.
“We have him. Conan and Finan will question him tonight, and then we’ll take it from there.”
Question him…hurt him…torture and then kill him. But then, that man would have killed me tonight too. That’s what I have to remember.
“I’m going to call our doctor to make sure you’re okay,” Rian says.
“What? Why?”
“You were drugged tonight.”
“Hours ago. I’m fine.”
“I just…”
“I’m fine, Rian. I’m a doctor, remember.”
He nods but doesn’t look convinced, so I change the subject. “Do you think they believed us?” I ask Rian as we go into the house. At first, the police hadn’t wanted to let him in at my father’s house, but Rian has a way of making anything possible if he wants it enough. That’s what I keep telling myself about this whole situation. It is all convoluted as hell to me, and somehow, I feel like something is going to go wrong…but I trust him.
“It’ll be okay,” he says.
“What if you coming tonight makes them look into you for some reason and…”
“And they won’t find anything. I didn’t kill your father. I don’t know who did. We’ll be fine, pretty thing. Come upstairs with me.”
I follow Rian. There’s nowhere I won’t follow him. When we get upstairs, he goes into the en suite and runs a bath.
I lean against the bathroom counter as he begins stripping me out of my clothes, kneeling to take my shoes and socks off, just…taking care of me, in this way no one has ever done for me before.
“Will you get in with me?” I ask. The tub is huge. It might be a slightly tight fit with both of us, but we can make it work.