A roar rips out of me from deep within my chest, where it’s been welled up since the business card was brought to my attention. It’s so loud and powerful it rivals thunder rumbling during a storm.
It spreads across the grounds of Callahan House and reverberates against the walls of this room.
I whirl around and send everything on my desk clattering to the floor. My laptop. The table lamp. A glass tumbler that shatters on impact. Some fucking cup of pens that scatters everywhere.
But it’s not enough.
I spin in the opposite direction and knock books and a potted plant off the bookshelf, soil spilling across the hardwood. Then my fist is slamming through the oval-shaped mirror on the wall, glass exploding against my knuckles, blood dribbling down my hand as shards bite into me.
It doesn’t fucking matter. I don’t feel any of it.
The only thing that consumes me right now is the white-hot rage that’s pumping through my veins and burning me up like a deadly blaze.
So it’s fucking true.
I can’t trust anybody. Everybody’s got their own motives at play. Everybody’s scheming and plotting and lying through their fucking teeth. Right down to my own wife, who apparently wants me dead.
All after I’ve been defending her. Protecting her. Growing to actually care about?—
I cut the damaging thoughts off with a clench of my jaw, my glare hardening.
The Langstons have probably been behind the funny business all along. Maybe they’ve been sabotaging us by working with Dren and the Albanians. This whole arrangement was a ruse from the start, and my family fell for it like goddamn fools.
Dad might be an asshole, but it seems he was onto something…
My phone buzzes amid the wreckage on the floor.
I snatch it up, blood smearing across the screen as I read the message. It’s from Fionn.
There’s been a situation on the road. Simone’s safe. Headed back now.
My pulse jumps from the news. I type back with bloody fingers.
Bring her to my office.
Then I toss the phone aside and stride to the minibar. I pop the stopper off a decanter and pour half the whiskey into a glass.
Now all there is to do is wait.
No more than twenty minutes later, somebody’s knocking at the door.
“Ronan, I’ve brought the missus like you requested,” Fionn starts uncertainly. He’s entered red in the face, the look in his eyes apprehensive. “But I should let you know there was a mystery car that tried to run us off the road and then?—”
“I asked you to deliver my wife,” I interrupt. “We’ll discuss the rest after the fact.”
“Oh… uh… alright.”
He’s obviously thrown off by my dismissal, clearly expecting me to care more about the news.
Still, he knows better than to question me. A beat passes before he’s stepping out of the room and letting the door shut.
Simone remains where she is, coat still on, her face unreadable. The true definition of an enigma.
I’m opposite her by the minibar, the whiskey glass in my bruised and bloodied hand. The business card’s crumpled in the other.
Neither of us speaks or moves. We let a moment go by where we stand our ground like the enemies we are deep down.
Finally Simone indicates she’s had enough with a sigh and roll of her eyes.
