I struggle against the restraints. They’re old, rudimentary handcuffs attached to a chain that’s looped around the headboard. I can’t stay here.
Now that I can think properly, almost, the room still spins and shifts on occasion like a living beast, I pluck a pin from my hair.
Mama put it up so that my thick mane wouldn’t hide my body from the men who wanted to buy me. I’m repulsed by the memory. How could she do that?
Working the pin into the cuffs, I manage to free myself just as the door swings open again.
I go rigid. My muscles coil with tension, ready to sprint away from danger.
Cian reappears. He drags in my father at gunpoint.
I blink twice to make sure that I am not hallucinating. This scene very well could be wishful thinking. A gruesome daydream.
“You can’t do this to me, O’Rourke. We have a peace treaty,” Papa sputters, face red and eyes bulging. I never realized how much smaller he is than Cian until now. Seeing them side by side, Papa seems like a small, frail man—which he is not.
Cian presses the gun into the back of Papa’s head. “On your knees, Lorenzo. Now.”
Papa seethes at me, as if this is somehow my fault.
Then, like all bullies, my father folds as soon as he doesn’t have the upper hand. Flinging insults at Cian, he lowers himself to his knees.
“Confess,” Cian demands of him.
“Confess to what? I didn’t do anything, you Irish son of a whore.”
Cian’s jaw works for a moment before he says, “You beat your daughter.”
Papa laughs. “The slut deserved it. And after you see reason and let me go, I’m going to beat her all over again. Maybe I’ll even break a few bones this ti–”
Bang!
I jump and scream at the sudden, deafening sound. A few moments pass before I finally realize what happened.
Sticky redness splatters across my legs. Papa slumps, then collapses onto his face. That’s when I note that the gun has a silencer, though the sound was still intense in this small space.
A pool of blood grows around Papa’s head. He’s dead? At least, I think he’s dead. Though that seems impossible. Papa is invincible. No one can kill him. Many have tried over the years. He would never die. Until now…
But if death was that easy, someone would have put a bullet in his skull ages ago. They haven’t because he’s untouchable. Or so I’ve always thought.
“Ravenna.Ravenna.” Cian’s voice snaps me out of my stupor. “We have to go. Now.”
“Y-you killed him.” I point out the obvious, unable to contain my thoughts.
Cian’s lips form a tight line. “Yes.”
“Are you insane?” Does he realize what he’s done? With one bullet he’s ruined the treaty.
“Probably.”
“You’ve destroyed the peace between our people. This is a disaster. Why would you do that?” I wrack my brain for any logical explanation but my thoughts keep circling back to the same one.
I swallow hard, my stomach a flurry of butterflies. “You did this for me.”
As impossible as that seems. It’s the only answer. Isn’t it?
Grunting, Cian undoes his shirt and drapes it over my shoulders. I shove my arms through the sleeves. The garment hangs on my form like a tent.
Scooping me into his arms, he carries me through the door. “Yes. I did it for you. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
