Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Over the years it was best friends. He came to Pittsburgh five or six times for holidays. Mostly Christmas and Easter, but one summer break as well. I even went to Ireland once. To his family castle. Met his entire ridiculously large family of twelve siblings. Most of whom were still very much present on the estate back then.
Even met his parents.
His mother was somewhat of a recluse, the matriarchal duties taken over by the oldest sister whose name I couldn't spell or say if my life depended on it. His family was so fucking Irish, it's like they were living in another era altogether. One where druids ran the religion and the filid hoarded words in a way that would make Emmaleen Rourke weep with jealousy.
His father was a charismatic gangster called Aodhán. The only fucking reason I can say that name is because it was printed on a plaque in the Saint Auggie's Hall of Trophies right next to my own father's name. I can spell it too. Though how you make that little accent over the last 'a' I have no clue.
The point is, Lorcan Ó Fearghail is not 'no one'.
And the reason goes much deeper than a few teenage summer breaks and holidays. The reason is in the woods beyond Saint Auggie's. The reason is frozen ground, and pick axes, and bodies that must be left buried.
That's when our friendship stopped being friendship and became something else entirely.
Something even more binding, even more powerful, even more impossible to sever.
Mutually assured destruction.
The kind of bond forged not in death, not trust.
I told none of this to Jino. Not because I was trying to piss him off, it's just… I've got nothing to give. Even if I wanted to tell him why we won't be hunting Lorcan down and slitting his throat for taking Emmaleen, I wouldn't.
It's none of his fucking business.
In fact, the conclusion I came to last night was that Emmaleen Rourke was none of his fucking business and I didn't owe him anything.
He's here because I allow it.
But she is mine.
Not his, not ours… mine.
Once Jino realized this, he lost his shit.
He didn't yell. Jino never yells. But his voice dropped into that register where every word is clipped and cold. His eyes narrowed and then he started demanding things.
What kind of leverage did Lorcan have that made retaliation impossible?
Why was Giovanni fucking Bavga suddenly impotent after his supposed 'friend' stole his collared submissive?
What the fuck was the plan?
When I didn't answer, his control cracked. He accused me of keeping secrets that endangered him, that put Emmaleen at risk, that violated the trust required for our arrangement to work.
I still said nothing.
The blood oath between Lorcan and me is absolute—a pact forged in frozen dirt and sealed with our own blood on a winter night that neither of us will ever speak of again.
The terms were explicit. Not one word. Not to priests seeking confession, not to family demanding explanations, not to lovers whispering in the dark, not to brothers-in-arms who've bled beside you in other wars.
This is an absolute rule with no exceptions under any circumstances, no matter how dire, no matter how much tactical advantage disclosure might provide.
One slip—one careless word spoken in anger, or fear, or whiskey-soaked weakness—and the other gets to retaliate.
And by 'retaliate' I mean kill, obviously.
Not just permission to kill—obligation to kill.
Because that's how blood oaths work in our world.
They're not symbolic gestures or dramatic promises made by boys playing at being men. They're binding contracts written in the only currency that matters.
You fuck with me, I fuck with you.
Mutually assured destruction.
We are equally damned, equally armed, equally bound.
Because what we did that freezing winter night at Saint Augustine's is an entirely sicker act than me blowing Rico LaRiccia's head off.
Much. Sicker.
I move away from the window as the bag downstairs takes another hit. The chain rattles. Jino doesn't stop.
I cross to the closet, shrugging out of yesterday's suit jacket. The shirt comes next. Slacks. Belt. Socks.
Everything peeled away until I'm standing in my boxer briefs, surrounded by the evidence of a man who had control twenty-four hours ago.
Had it. Past tense.
I catch my reflection in the mirror mounted on the closet door. Lean frame. Broad shoulders. The kind of body that looks good in tailored wool and better out of it. Women have told me this. Multiple women. In multiple languages.
I look exactly the same as I did yesterday.
But something fundamental has shifted beneath the surface, like tectonic plates grinding against each other in the dark.
I don't do helpless.
I've never done helpless. Helpless is not a setting I come equipped with.
And yet.
Here I am.
Unable to act because the wrong person kidnapped my woman.
Or maybe he was the right person?
The only person, for sure, who could get away with it.