How could I have been so stupid? All the signs were there. The way he looked at me, how he pushed me away, his talk about getting an annulment.
I'd convinced myself since we got to Dublin that it was about his trauma, his fear of intimacy, his belief that he wasn't good enough for me. When really, it was so much simpler than that. He just didn't want me. I was forced on him, and he's spent weeks trying to figure out how to get rid of me without breaking his agreement with the Council.
The thought of him touching me, kissing me, being inside me—now knowing I was nothing but a burden he decided to ease in one way or another—makes my skin crawl. I feel used. Dirty. Ashamed.
I slide down the wall until I'm sitting on the cold pavement, my arms wrapped around my knees. A few people give me curious looks as they pass, but no one stops. I'm just another girl having a breakdown on a Dublin street. Probably happens all the time.
I don't know how long I sit there. I’m shivering, my clothes damp from the evening mist, but I can't bring myself to move.
Where would I even go? I have no friends here, no family. The only person I know in this entire country is Flynn, and he's Sean's best friend. He probably knew too. He probably knew I was Sean’s punishment and pitied me for being so pathetically grateful for any attention Sean gave me.No wonder he was so nice to me.
The humiliation is overwhelming. I bury my face in my knees and let myself cry, deep sobs that shake my whole body. I've lost everything. My family, my home, my dignity. And for what? To be some criminal's punishment for failing a job?
I'm so lost in my misery that I don't notice the footsteps approaching until it's too late.
A hand clamps over my mouth from behind, and I'm being hauled to my feet before I can even process what's happening. I try to scream through the hand, twisting in the person’s grasp as I try to fight, but another pair of hands grabs my arms, pinning them behind my back.
"Stop struggling," a voice hisses in my ear, and I feel something sharp press against my ribs.A knife, I think with a cold flood of terror. "Or this goes in your gut."
I stop struggling, my body going rigid.
"Good girl," the voice says, and then I'm being dragged backward, away from the streetlight and into the shadows between buildings.
I try to look around to see who's grabbed me, but the hand over my mouth is too tight. I catch a glimpse of a van parkedin the alley, its side door already open, and fresh panic surges through me.
This is it.This is how I die, kidnapped off a Dublin street because I was too upset to pay attention to my surroundings, too caught up in my own pain to remember that people want me dead.
Sean was right. It's not safe. But I ran anyway, and now I'm going to pay for it.
27
MAEVE
For one terrible moment as they drag me toward the van, I'm too shocked to react. Then instinct kicks in, the muscle memory from all those training sessions with Sean, and I drive my elbow back as hard as I can into whoever's grabbed me.
There's a satisfying grunt of pain, and the grip on my arm loosens just enough for me to wrench free. I spin, bringing my knee up the way Sean showed me, aiming for the groin, but there are two of them and I'm crying. My vision is blurred and I miss. The second man catches my leg, twisting, and I go down hard on the wet pavement. The impact knocks the breath from my lungs.
I try to scream, but a hand clamps over my mouth, tasting of leather and cigarettes and making my stomach turn. I bite down as hard as I can, feeling skin break between my teeth, and the man swears viciously in an accent I don't recognize. He backhands me across the face, and stars explode behind my eyes.
"Fucking bitch," he snarls, and then they're hauling me up, dragging me toward the dark van with its side door already open like a waiting mouth.
I fight with everything I have, desperate to not end up there, remembering everything I’ve ever heard about not letting yourself be thrown into a car. I kick and claw and twist, recalling every single thing Sean taught me about vulnerable points, refusing to give up. My nails rake down one man's face, leaving bloody furrows, and he howls. I manage to stomp on the other's instep, and for a moment I think I might actually get away.
But there are too many of them, and I'm too small, too light. No amount of training in a few short weeks could make me strong enough to fight off this many professionals.
They throw me into the van like I weigh nothing at all. My head cracks against the metal floor, and the world tilts sideways, going grey at the edges. Someone zip-ties my wrists behind my back, the plastic biting into my skin, and then there's a hood over my head, rough fabric that smells like oil and sweat. I can't see anything anymore.
The van door slams shut, making me think of a coffin closing.
I'm shaking so hard my teeth chatter. The van lurches into motion, and I slide across the floor until I hit something solid. My shoulder screams in protest and I cry out, biting my lip. I can hear the men talking in low voices, but I can't make out the words over the roar of blood in my ears, the engine noise, and my own ragged breathing through the hood.
I try to calm down and think. Sean will come for me. I know he will. He has to. Even if I'm just a punishment to him, even if he never wanted me, he won't let them take me. He's too possessive for that, too protective, and I cling to that thought like a lifeline in the dark.
Even if he doesn’t want me, he has to keep me safe. Whatever punishment he would have suffered for refusing to marry me, he’ll suffer if I’m killed by Brennan. He hasn’t done all of this—teaching me to protect myself, guarding me religiously, lookingin every corner of Boston and Dublin for Brennan—to let me die like this.
The van makes several turns, and I have no idea where we could possibly be. I don't know Dublin well enough for it to matter, and with the hood on I can't see anything anyway. Time feels as if it warps. It could be ten minutes or an hour before the van finally stops and the engine cuts off.
The side door slides open, and hands grab me again, hauling me out. My legs are numb from being curled up on the floor and from the cold, and I stumble. Someone catches me—not gently—fingers digging into my upper arm hard enough to bruise.
