Page 58 of Stolen Rebel

“Can’t a girl fall apart in peace?” I try to laugh, but it gets stuck somewhere in my body and sounds more like a sob.

“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.” Liam folds his arms.

I let the silence stretch between us. But beneath the panic—buried deep—something else pulses. It’s not fear. It’s power.

“Is Brian the reason you’re scared shitless, Rebel?”

Chapter 27

BRIAN

I stare at the phone, anger rising, consuming me in a white-hot rage. Stupid really because all she’s done is prove what I already know. She’s flipped loyalties. Although, I guess, deep down, I had held on to a thread of hope that she was playing him until she figured out a way to escape.

But if that was true, she’d have told me he’d kidnapped her as soon as we were back in contact. Facts are facts. Her loyalties were never with me. The only thing that kept her from running back to Mahoney years ago were the lies I threaded into her life until she believed them. That she witnessed a murder, the murderer saw her face, and that put her and Mahoney in danger.

That if she ever tried to contact him, I’d use the leverage I’ve been building and take them all down.

If I think about it, there are so many holes in the fake murder I set up, but she was so gullible, so trusting, so eager to save the life of that bastard that she fell for it. Gave me full control over her life—and his. Gave me time to slot all the other pieces into place to take down him and his vile criminal family once and for all. It’s been a painstaking process, but I was so close. So fucking close.

Mahoney kidnapping her has altered the order of events, but the end game is still in sight. One or two things to get ready, and I’ll be able to pull the rip cord. A little longer, just a little longer and me and Mother will have our revenge for Aisling and my father.

By now, I’d expect him to know I was the one who took her. Yet he hasn’t come for me, which means maybe he doesn’t. Whatever, let him come. I’m ready. I’ve waited five fucking years for this moment. Mahoney is too late, too fucking late to save himself, his family, and her.

Erin’s mine. To fuck, to torture, to kill. She always was. She just doesn’t know it yet.

She soon will.

Chapter 28

LIAM

Usually, the part where I catch an adversary in a lie is a moment of triumph, of winning. But Rebel isn’t an adversary—far from it. Nor do I feel anything akin to triumph. Sweat dots her upper lip, and I can almost see the cogs in her brain turning, excuses developing as slow as evolution.

She can’t think fast enough, panic slowing her brain’s neurons. So what tactic does she deploy? She does what people cornered often do. She attacks.

“How dare you burst in here? I could’ve been naked or on the toilet.”

“Nothing I haven’t seen before.” I’m tired of pretending. She knows who she is. She knows that I know who she is. “Who’s Brian?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She turns her back to me and checks out her appearance in the mirror, smoothing both hands over her hair to tame the flyaway strands.

A trickle of disappointment runs through me. It doesn’t matter which version of myself I show to her, she doesn’t trust me enough to tell me what the fuck is going on. Is her silence to protect me, as Sorcha told me it was? Or is it because Rebel doesn’t see me as capable of handling myself? That whoever this Brian is, she believes, deep in her gut, that he’s more powerful, more able to solve her problems, than I am.

Fuck. That.

“Get your shoes and coat on. We’re going out?”

“Where?”

I don’t answer. Spinning on my heel, I leave the bathroom. “Five minutes. Don’t make me fucking wait.”

I stomp down the stairs, frustration warring with rage at whoever the fuck this Brian shithead is. He’s got Rebel in a chokehold, and if it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to break it. No, not break it. Destroy it, and him, too.

She had a phone. All this time, she had a phone and was in contact with this guy while she kept up the pretense that we’re strangers.

The way her voice cracked, though, when she said his name. He terrifies her.

“Who’s shoved a butt plug up your arse?”