Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 120475 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 482(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120475 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 482(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
“Look, I’m sorry, baby girl, but I need you to break it off with the priest. For your brother’s sake.”
What the actual fuck?
I sit up straighter in my chair, eyes narrowing. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Mads gives me a look like she’s debating throwing her drink in my face.
“Bad guy math,” she says. “You had to go play hero at that dumb Christmas thing and drag your big dumb boyfriend into the spotlight with you and me. Well, guess what?”
She leans back, arms crossed. “Some not-so-nice people saw that photo. People I’d rather keep avoiding.”
I blink. “We were only out there because of you!” I wave my arm for emphasis.
“I had it handled!” She waves hers even more dramatically. “Before you brought the fucking Avengers outside and made a front-page-worthy spectacle.”
“Who even are these people?” I demand. “And why the fuck would they care about me?”
Mads levels me with a look so flat it could be a table. “They don’t care about you, dumbass. They care about him. Heir to the richest man alive? Ring any bells?”
Oh. Right. That.
“But he gave up his inheritance,” I argue, grasping at straws that are rapidly turning to dust in my hands.
Mads laughs, a sharp, unpleasant sound. “Is that what he told you? Because Daddy Warbucks apparently disagrees. Bane is still the heir apparent.”
I shake my head. “Okay, fine. Still don’t see what any of this has to do with me.”
Mads exhales like she’s talking to a particularly stupid puppy. “I don’t know, blackmail? Someone else wants you out of the way so they can marry their pet chess piece off to Bane? There could be a hundred reasons.”
She leans in, voice dropping lower. “All I do know is that the charming sociopaths my father used to make me work for have now tracked me down. And they’re working for someone who wants you out of the picture. They’ve given me a nice little ultimatum: get you to dump the priest and disappear, or they kill me, Domhnall, and you.”
I stare at her.
She stares back.
“I’m thinking we call it ‘rehab,’ and you go sip piña coladas on a beach somewhere. Maybe the Riviera. I hear it’s nice in the spring.”
I let out a laugh, short and disbelieving. “Kill us?”
Mads doesn’t even blink. “Did I fucking stutter?”
But I was just… I was just putting on a pretty outfit this morning so Bane would notice me. I was worrying about stupid shit like whether I should get out of bed, not fucking life-or-death decisions.
I slam my hands on the table. “What the fuck did you get us into?!”
Mads just shakes her head, mouth a hard line. “Oh, you got yourself into this one all on your own, baby girl. You should be grateful for my connections. At least I’ve got a way to get us out.”
I glare at her. “You’re not who I thought you were.”
Her face stays hard. “I never am.”
I suck in a breath, my heart pounding. “Do you even love Domhn?”
Her hand whips out, a sharp forefinger in my face. “Don’t you ever question my love for that man. He’s the only thing I’ve ever loved in this whole blood-fucked world.”
Then she pushes back from the table, chair scraping. “Now come on. Time to go break up with your boy toy.”
I stay frozen, my brain short-circuiting. It’s all moving way too fast. But Mads is already grabbing my arm and hauling me up like I weigh nothing.
“Fuck,” I hiss. “Why do you have to be so rough?”
She just keeps dragging me toward the front of the bar. “Sorry, kid. Not all of us were raised to live in cotton candy houses with peppermint dreams.”
Once we hit the sidewalk, I yank out of her grasp. “Wow, you really are a bitch. And there’s just one little problem with your brilliant plan.”
She crosses her arms. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”
I smirk, wiping sweat from my palms onto my jeans. “We got married. The priest and me.”
For once, something I say actually shocks Mads. She blinks. “Well, shit.”
But she doesn’t even have time to process what I’ve said before a white van screeches to a stop right next to the curb. The doors fly open, and six men in black gear and face masks spill out like a fucking nightmare.
They grab us.
Mads kicks. I scream.
We fight like hell.
It doesn’t matter.
We’re dragged into the van, kicking and cursing, and the doors slam shut behind us.
I barely have time to breathe before the van takes off.
Well.
This is new.
FORTY-FOUR
BANE
I smirk down at the texts Moira sent earlier when I finally get out of my day of meetings and walk out of my office at the church. She wants to milk me, does she? My beast roars his approval.
The diocese was having a morning-long virtual retreat, and I was presenting on several panels, so I had to turn my phone off.