“You to disappear out of my grandson’s life once and for all.”
It was said so matter-of-factly, and remembering how happy I was to have reconciled with Cillian the night before, I placed my hands on my hips. “It’s never going to happen.”
“Never say never,” he replied, and the way he stared not at me, but almost through me made me shift from one foot to the other. I was already losing my ability to look unaffected by him, which I suppose had been his plan. “A harlot like you has to have a price. What is yours? I might just pay it to get you to disappear.”
I felt both angry and insulted at the prospect. “I cannot be bought, and I will not be. If you’ve only come over here to insult me, you can consider yourself successful, then get the hell out.”
“I was so sure that I had rid my grandson of you. My men cut your fucking eyes out of your skull, or at least that was what we had thought. They’d regaled me with tales of how you had screamed and tried to fight them off.”
Tears sprang to my eyes as I imagined how terrified Rowan had to have been. There was no telling what the last words she’d heard were before death, or if she was already dead when they mutilated her beautiful face. A sharp pain twisted in my chest like a knife, but I refused to give Ronan the satisfaction of seeing me cry.
“Your mother had gone quickly, but your sister had fought back. It was a valiant effort. I should’ve realized right then and there that she hadn’t been you. You were weak then, and you’re weak now.”
I turned back toward the door and quickly twisted the knob. After opening it, I moved enough for him to get by me, but he stood where he was with a shit eating smirk on his face. Everything about him infuriated me, but I kept reminding myself to stay calm, cool, and collected, because that was the easiest way to deal with a narcissist like him.
“One of my men wanted to see what Cillian’s obsession was with you, but your sister was quite the bleeder. I know they were disappointed to not get to fuck your dirty pussy like my grandson did. It’s not too late to give them another chan?—”
“Get the hell out of our house,” I said to him after I’d finally heard enough. I should’ve been happy to know that they hadn’t raped Rowan first, but the very idea of it all had bile rising in my throat. I literally felt close to vomiting, but again I held it all together. “Now!” I said more forcefully.
Ronan walked toward me, allowing me to breathe again, but he stopped just in front of me. Then in a flash, he had his hand wrapped around my throat. Unlike last night with Cillian, he immediately tightened his grip as much as he could, which made me start coughing. No, choking was the better word. As I struggled to breathe out of my nose as I tried to pull his hand away, he kept tightening it more and more. He could very well kill me where I stood. Refusing to let last night be the last night of my life instead of the first one of my new life with Cillian, I used both hands to finally free myself.
As soon as I did, I had no more than a nanosecond to suck oxygen back into my lungs when he struck me, and hard. He had multiple rings on his hand, and one of them connected with the bone right below my eye, sending shooting pain upward, which temporarily blinded me in that eye.
I staggered backward and ended up falling over the side of the loveseat. I saw his shadow before I saw him, and on instinct, I crawled backward as far as I could. When he did surface, I realized that no amount of space would save me now. In his hands, he held a pistol which made my blood run cold. He could, and likely would, shoot me right here.
As my life flashed before my eyes, I saw my mother and sister’s faces. I even saw Monica’s, but every other face I saw belonged to Cillian and Ciara. I didn’t want to leave them now.Cillian and I had only just reconciled, and Ciara had always been the most important person in my life. She was six years old, and all I wanted was to live long enough to see her grow up into the beautiful woman I knew she would be. I wanted to see her graduate from school, get married, and have children of her own one day.
Life wasn’t fair, and it certainly didn’t wait for anyone. Death was a cruel mistress, and I realized in that moment that the only hope I had of surviving more than the next few minutes was to keep him talking. If I could do that, I stood a chance to find another way out of this. After all, I had perfected the mastery of escape over the years. Had I not gotten sloppy back in New York City, I still wouldn’t have been found out. I would’ve been back in the States, but I would likely be with...
My cell phone started to ring, and I knew from the ringtone who it was. If only I could get to it. Unfortunately, it was on the table next to the couch. As I looked over in its direction. Ronan did the same. He kept his weapon drawn on me as if he wished I would make a move. I knew he would enjoy emptying the clip into my skull, then leaving me for Cillian to find.
“Why do you hate him so much?” I asked him.
“Hate who?” he asked.
“Your grandson. Cillian.”
“I love my grandson, even if he is the weakest link in the family. He?—”
“If you loved him, you would want him to be happy. You would accept his choices in life, even if you didn’t like or agree with them, because his happiness would be all that mattered.”
“That’s what’s the matter with the youth of today. You’re just worried about beinghappy. Joy is the thief of responsibility. Cillian, like my other grandsons, had an obligation to this family and organization, and there was no room for a good-for-nothingharlot like you in it back then, and there is not any room for you now.”
“We have a child together,” I pointed out to him.
“And only because she has his blood would I spare her. You, on the other hand,” he said as he waved the gun at me. “You’re nothing but gold-digging trash. The daughter of a common headmistress with nothing, including a proper education, to offer anyone. You spread those disgusting legs of yours and put my garmhac under your spell. I had broken it once, and I’ll do it again.”
“Cillian was miserable without me. Did you not see how much pain he was in when he’d thought I’d perished? What kind of monster would do that to someone they claimed to love?”
“Love, like respect and trust, is earned. My grandson had to learn the hard way about which of those three mattered the most, and which one mattered the least. You put some sort of spell on the boy, and he was better off without you. He...I...He...”
Ronan went from talking clearly to getting flustered. It was only when I heard the sound of the gun clanging off the tiled floor and I saw him clutch at his chest that the reason for his speech change became obvious. His hand moved from his chest to his left arm, and I watched his entire body turn red.
“Call some...Cillian...Call?—”
He fell to the floor, and I lay there in horror as I watched his body jerk on the floor. I’d seen this a time or two at the clinic. He was having a heart attack. The tables had finally turned, and I now had my escape. I had the means and opportunity to rid both Cillian and me of this deranged monster once and for all. He could never hurt us, or even think about hurting our daughter.
Scrambling off the loveseat, I hurried over to him and was able to pick up the weapon. It was still warm from where he had held it, and as I stood straight up, I pointed the gun at him. Hiseyes widened as he was now in the crossfire, and I suspected it was the first time in his entire life that he likely had ever been.
