Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 120240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
“Alright. I’ll figure it out.” I blow out a breath. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Twelve
Cavin
“Cavin,” my mother calls from the dining room. “Come here for a second, love.”
I let out a long exhale, stretch my neck, and reach my arms up over my head. My god, it’s been a long fucking week.
“Yes,” I say, stepping into the dining room where she’s got glossy magazines all lined up on the table. “We’re looking at options for the engagement party signage,” she says with a smile. “Care to take a peek?”
I shake my head. “Honestly, Mam, no. I don’t care to. I don’t care what you pick. Pick anything you want. This is a transaction, you know that.”
“Alright then,” she says with a pained smile. She likes to think sometimes that we’re normal, at least some of us. That she didn’t raise criminals who live by a different code of ethics than most of the damn world.
“Do what you like, and I’ll like it too,” I say, turning on my heel.
As I reach the entryway, the front door bursts open. Somebody screams, and another person drops a dish with a crash.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
I push through and see Declan with a split lip, holding his arm at an odd angle. Ashland’s behind him, supporting him, as Declan drips blood onto the foyer tiles.
“Christ, Declan. You all right?”
“Aye,” he says through gritted teeth. “Fine.”
“That arm doesn’t look fine,” I mutter under my breath. “Looks broken.”
“Call the damn medic then.”
“Yes. What happened?” I nod to my sister Bronwyn in the doorway and gesture for her to make the call.
“The deal’s gone south,” he says, wincing.
“Aye,” Ashland growls. “Crowning’s crew ambushed us at the docks. Three of them, armed. We handled it, but it got messy.”
I sigh. Another night, another feckin’ battle. Thankfully, this one won’t blow back. He said he handled it, and I trust him.
Mam rushes in. “Declan!”
“I’m fine,” he says again. “Seriously, don’t worry about me. I’ve got this under control, okay?”
“Alright, but…” She shakes her head. “I thought you boys coming in the house with broken bones and blood dripping on the tile would have ended when you grew out of it. I guess not.”
“I’ve got this,” I mutter under my breath and take him into the study, where the medic quickly arrives—old Doc Sullivan, who’s been patching up our family for decades, no questions asked.
“What really happened?” I ask Declan in a low voice, while Ashland’s preoccupied on his phone, scowling. Declan gives me the full details. The ambush. The retaliation. The message Crowning’s trying to send.
Great. Just fucking brilliant.
My phone buzzes with a text.
“Jesus. Look who’s waking from the dead,” I mutter under my breath.
“Who is it?” Declan asks.
“My betrothed,” I say with sarcasm and an eye roll. “This little lass.” I shake my head. “Might've been something with the mobile service? I swear to Christ, I don't understand why when I sent her a message, it turned all green like this. And now it's blue again.”
“It's because she blocked you, lad,” Declan says, chuckling to himself despite the pain. “Christ, what did you do to get yourself blocked by your own betrothed?”
“I know she fucking blocked me,” I mutter, jaw clenched. “Question is why she unblocked me now.”
He snorts. “Maybe she's finally come to her senses.”
“Is this why she hasn't responded to any of my texts?” I glare at the screen like it's personally offended me.
“Probably,” Declan says, shaking his head as I examine his arm.
I clean his wound and take a closer look. “Aye, definitely broken, lad. We're gonna have to get that set for sure.” I clean up his bloody knuckles while Doc preps the splint materials.
“So what’d she say?” Declan says, wincing.
“Eh, nothing.” I shake my head. “I can’t believe I’m marrying this girl. She doesn’t have an ounce of respect for me.”
“You think it has something to do with you taking the mickey out of her in school, then?”
I scrub a hand across my brow and shrug. “Yeah.”
“Hmm, interesting,” Ashland says with another scowl. “You sure that’s the only reason she’s angry with you?”
“I don’t know. Probably good enough, aye? She was the one who was Miss Perfect, always getting me in trouble.”
“Uh-huh,” Declan says, wincing when Doc pulls the splint tight. “Fascinating, that. What’s she say?” he asks.
I read the text back to him, and he chuckles to himself.
“She is a smart one, I’ll give you that.”
“Aye, she is.”
I glance at the clock.
Today’s the fuckin’ tribute day, and I haven’t gotten a breath closer to figuring out who’s got my bollocks in a sling. Five hundred thousand fucking euros a month that my family can’t know about is a bitch of a thing. The fucking strings I’ve had to pull to make it happen could land me straight back in prison, a hell I swore I’d never revisit.