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)
“Miss Erin,” Darragh mutters beside me. “Want me to queue for you?”
“No,” I say, sharper than I mean to. “Thank you. I’m fine. I’m not some helpless little lass who can’t handle a line.”
Not anymore. Not like when I was younger.
Back then, the overload would’ve had me curled up in a corner, rocking, crying, lost—praying my mother wouldn’t lose her temper at me again for being “difficult.”
A man at the counter leans back, loud enough for half the bakery to hear. His Dublin accent is rough as gravel.
“Aye, but the McCarthys—word is, they might not be untouchable anymore. Somebody’s making them bleed.”
My spine goes rigid.
I don’t want to hear it. Don’t want to care.
I don’t go to St. Albert’s anymore. The McCarthys are dead to me.
A ripple of noise rises—some curious, some pitying, some just plain nosy.
Good. Let the McCarthys fucking bleed.
I can’t think about Cavin McCarthy without my pulse kicking up like a traitor.
His hand around my waist. The heat of him pressed against me, every hard plane of his body against my softness. His voice in my ear rough, commanding. The way I wanted to lean into him. Let him carry me. Let him—
Christ, what’s wrong with me?
My thighs clench. Unbidden. Unwanted.
He made me cry in the school toilets more times than I can count. He called me “Little Miss Perfect,” among other things. He made me feel like something broken and wrong.
One moment of forced chivalry doesn’t change that.
Doesn’t change how small he made me feel. Or how I apparently also shivered when he touched me.
My body doesn’t seem to care that he’s the enemy. Doesn’t care that he hurt me. It just remembers his hands. His heat. The way my body fit against his like—
Christ, what is wrong with me?
He’s not a hero. He’s not safe. And I need to remember that.
I fix my eyes on the glass case of pastries, pretending indifference.
I can feel Darragh’s unreadable stare.
“Do they know who did it yet?”
“Not that I know of. You were there.” His voice is flat, knowing.
My throat tightens. “So?”
“So you’re shaking.”
I am. Dammit. I press my hands flat against my thighs.
“The McCarthys are no friends of yours,” he says, quieter now.
“No.” My voice sounds hollow. “They’re not. But the residents of Ballyhock adore them, don’t they?”
“Aye.”
The golden ones. The untouchables.
“Can I help you, miss?”
I force a smile. My turn. A gray-haired gentleman with a bushy mustache smiles at me.
“Aye. One sausage roll, please.”
“Of course. Can I get you anything else?”
“Mmm… bit of soda bread. Please.”
My stomach growls. I can’t even remember the last thing I ate.
“Here you are,” he says, sliding them across the counter. “How are you today?”
Tears sting, fast and sharp.
My throat tightens. I swallow it down, wishing I could tell someone, but the town is full of gossips, and my parents have worked hard at keeping Bridget’s illness quiet.
“I’m good,” I lie, pretending to yawn to cover up my sudden surge of emotion. “You?”
“Good, good,” he says with a smile, before he moves on to the next customer.
But as I turn, my mind’s no longer on Bridget but on the whispers circling the room. The shiny black car that purrs by the shop, drawing every eye.
Everyone’s talking about the McCarthys.
The goddamn McCarthys.
Darragh frowns. “They’re not enemies of your family. They’re just… bullies.”
“They are enemies,” I snap—too sharply. I make myself stop. Because if I keep talking, I’ll slip. I’ll become that same awkward, gangly girl I was back at St. Albert’s.
The target.
The joke.
The older ones, Torin, Seamus, and Kyla graduated before me. Bronwyn was in Bridget’s class.
But Cavin…
I inhale through my nose and shake my head.
Cavin McCarthy is a bully, and I hope he fucking suffers.
The sting in my gut still flares when I remember. Every white tile in that bathroom I memorized, hiding because I didn’t want anyone to see me crying.
No one else has the power to drag me back to that helpless girl… except the McCarthys.
And I hate that we’re in a place where everyone worships them.
“People change, you know,” Darragh says, stuffing a hand into his pocket.
“Why are you suddenly best friends with the McCarthys? Because they’re mafia? Torin is in prison. Cavin was just released. Only bad people doing bad things go to prison. Why would people admire them for that?” I mutter, catching a glimpse of someone nearby. Watching. I lower my voice. “They were never your mates.”
“I—It’s just that…” Darragh shrugs and sighs. “Things aren’t always black and white, Erin. And you’re not the type to hate people.”
“I don’t hate them,” I lie.
And I know I’m lying.
I do hate them.
Well, not all of them.
But I hate Cavin McCarthy, even after I saw him at the funeral. “Pay your respects,” my father told me. “It’s the right thing to do.” But I balked when I saw all the heads of the mafia there and pretended I was putting flowers on a grave.