Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 107306 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107306 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
“Don’t you ever fucking threaten him, do you hear me? I’ll fucking kill you. I’ll rip your goddamned heart out with my bare hands!” Rory shouts into the phone, but the line is already dead. Jagger is gone.
“Motherfucker!” I slam my fists against the dashboard, over and over. “I’m so fucking stupid! I never should have left her! It’s my job to take care of her!” I shove out of the car and slam the door, the cold air biting into me. My hands fist, my feet unable to stay still as I pace and rage inside.
Rory joins me, walking around to my side of the car and leaning against it. “Do you need to hit someone?”
“What?” Who the hell am I supposed to hit?
“Hit me. Hit the car. Do what you have to do, and then we’ll go get your mom back.” His face is serious, eyes set, mouth in a firm line.
“I’m not hitting you.”
“I would let you if you needed to.”
“Jesus, Rory. I’m not hitting you.” How could he even think that? But he would let me if I wanted to, there’s no doubt in my mind. “I love you,” I remind him.
“I love you too, pet. Do you think I would have made that offer if I didn’t?”
I shake my head. “I don’t want you hurt for me, and I definitely don’t want to be the one to hurt you.”
“Good. Then here’s the plan: I’ll call one of my contacts and get some guns—without having to go home. We’ll go to one of our local safe houses and wait until Jagger calls.”
Without Cillian and the others…that’s what he’s saying. I nod, trusting him the way I’ve never trusted anyone else, but as we get back in the car, something is off. Ollie’s and Cillian’s words come back to me, things they’ve both said about Rory.
“If you’re going to be with him, you need to be able to give him his freedom while being the anchor he sometimes needs so he doesn’t drift away.”
“It means indulging him when the time is right, but reeling him in when it isn’t, and the ability to figure out when that is.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Rory
Shai is quiet in the passenger seat as a million thoughts run through my head. How the fuck do I fix this for him? Because I have to. I know Shai. He can’t live without his mom. He’ll blame himself. He already does, though none of this is his fault. He blames himself because he was with me, and I’m never ever going to let him feel guilty about being where he belongs.
He’s shifting around in the seat—anxious? Scared? Angry at me? Regretting me? All these questions and more twist and turn in my head, making it hard to concentrate on any of them.
I’m going to kill Jagger.
Will I lose Shai?
What if I can’t save Kat?
Will I lose Shai?
If Shai saw what I wanted to do with Jagger, will that finally be what makes him walk away? Because I wouldn’t blame him if he did. He would be better off, but I could never let him go. I’m not that good of a man.
“I don’t know how many people he has with him,” Shai says as I try to fight my fingers from drumming against the steering wheel, try to stop the twitch in my leg and my rapidly spinning thoughts to focus on him.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“How can you take care of it if you don’t know what you’re walking into?”
“Because losing your mom isn’t an option for you, and you being hurt isn’t an option for me, so I’ll fucking fix it. I don’t care what I have to do.”
Now his leg’s bouncing up and down like mine. “What if you get hurt?”
“I won’t.”
“You can’t promise that,” Shai argues.
“Then I get hurt. I promise I’ll make sure you and Kat are okay.” It’s strange when I get like this. It’s like I can’t really feel anything but my love for him. I’ve always been like this with the crew—even when everything else shuts off inside me, that love is always there—but now it’s there for Shai too…and it’s more, bigger, that thing Tiernan feels for Dean and Cillian for Ollie.
His silence tells me I said something wrong, though I can’t figure out what. I love him. I’ll protect him. That’s what you do when someone is yours.
“You’re not sacrificing yourself for us.”
“I don’t plan to die. I don’t want to die. Then I would have to haunt you.”
“This isn’t funny, baby.” His voice is so soft…scared. Why is he afraid of me?
“What did I do?” I ask. “I’m going to fix this.”
“It’s not your job, and you didn’t do anything.”
“You’re scared of me.” I feel it. I sense it.
The long pause tells me I’m right, that somehow I’ve gotten it all wrong again and that shit in my head is too fucked up for anyone to understand.