Page 62 of Faithless Vows

He slowly brushes his fingers through my hair. “Ah, Alannah girl,” he says softly. “Your Grandmam and I are here. We’ll see you through it.”

His words only make me cry harder. I close my eyes and press closer. “I’m so scared,” I whisper, hating that after all these months, I still am.

His hand stills on my head, and I lift my face to look at him, finding his expression gentler than most ever see. “I know, girl,” he says quietly. “But at least after this, you’ll know.”

I nod and lower my head again, holding on to his words as best I can. For now, they’ll have to be enough.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Ronin

The latch turns, jerking me awake, and my whole body bucks hard against the ropes tied around me before I can stop it. Pain rips through me all at once—head, ribs, shoulders, everywhere—and a groan tears out of me.

For one blissful second, I don’t know where I am. Then it all comes roaring back. Declan had worked me over pretty good earlier after I told him flat out I wouldn’t sign those goddamn papers. I must have blacked out after that.

Everything blurs for a moment, then slowly clears enough for me to make out the figure in the doorway. Malachy steps in.

I haven’t seen the old man since the first night I got here. I’m pretty sure it’s been four days now. At least that’s how many times they’ve hauled me between that damned icebox they call a cellar and this chair. Unless I lost count after one of the blows to the head I’ve taken.

Most days they shoved my food at me in the cellar and left me alone with it long enough to eat. But this morning was different. Conor and Declan hauled me out of there, past the chair they keep me tied to, and sat me at one of the long tables instead. A hot bowl of stew was waiting for me, and beside it was a bowl of soapy water, a cloth, and a folded clean shirt. Declan told me to eat first. Then he looked me over, his lip curling, and ordered me to clean myself up when I was done.

I wasn’t sure what they were playing at with the sudden change in routine, but the hot food was welcome.So was the chance to wash some of the dried blood and grime off my face, especially the crusted mess under my nose. They’d wrenched it back into place the day before—or maybe the day before that. Hard to say. Time had gone to hell in here. I only knew it had sat crooked after that first night, and now it wasn’t.

After I ate, I stripped off my shirt and cleaned myself up as best I could with what they gave me. The warm water felt good, and by the time I was finished, I felt a little more human again.

Once I was as clean as I was going to get, Conor came round behind me with a roll of bandage, and Declan told me to sit still.Like I had much choice.They wrapped my battered ribs rough, each pull sending black spots swimming in my vision. I locked my jaw and kept my mouth shut, not about to give them the satisfaction of hearing how much it hurt. Then they got the clean shirt on me and buttoned it up. I smirked at the look of disgust on Declan’s face as he helped me with it. Easy to rile up, that one.

Then Conor leaned over where I still sat at the table and set the papers in front of me again, the pen beside them. “Sign it,” he said.

I looked at the pen, then sent it skittering off the table with the side of my hand. “I’d rather not.”

Declan let out a short laugh. “Stubborn prick,” he muttered. He yanked me up from the table and dragged me back to the chair they kept me tied to. He cinched the ropes down hard, then cracked me across the head. Everything started to go dark after that.

The scrape of a chair dragging over the flagstone cuts through the fog in my head. I blink hard and lift my head just enough to see Malachy pulling one over from one of the tables. He sets it down in front of me and sits, looking me over without saying a word.

I meet his gaze and hold it. “Mornin’,” I rasp.

Malachy tips his head, looking perfectly at ease sitting there, like this is nothing more than a routine conversation. “Mornin’, Ronin. I see Conor and Declan paid you a visit this morning. You’re looking a bit more presentable.”

I taste blood when I smile, the split in my lip opening again. “I’m touched by the effort.”

One corner of his mouth twitches. “It wasn’t for you. But before we get into that, you and I need to have a little chat.”

I shift in the chair, trying to ease the pressure on my ribs. “What about?”

“About my granddaughter, for a start,” he says. “About the men who’ve made a habit of failing her. About how quick you were to prove yourself no better than the rest of them.”

I say nothing, just sit there and wait for him to come out with it.

“She told me about you,” he goes on. “The way she spoke of you, you’d have thought you were some great blessing sent down to her. Said you were kind. Thoughtful. That you made her happy.” His eyes stay on mine. “That girl believed she had been given a good man.”

My jaw tightens. God, I wish more than anything I’d been the man she thought I was.

“And I’d hoped she was right,” he says. “That for once there’d be a man in her life who’d put her first. Her father never did. The first chance he got, he handed her over for the life he wanted instead. Truth is, my son was never much interested in the burden of leading here, but standing second to your da in Boston? That suited him just fine. And once Cormac started talking of a match between you and my granddaughter, Seamus was only too happy to take what came with it.”

I frown. “That’s not how it happened.”

“No?” A small smirk touches his mouth. “Then tell me, Ronin. How did it happen?”