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)
I glance up just in time to see the giant green highway sign flash overhead.
Austin.
“I—uh. Apparently, I’m about to be in Austin.”
Domhnall mutters a long stream of Gaelic curses under his breath. “Jesus, Moira. You need to—”
But I don’t hear the rest because suddenly, the itch is worse than ever. My hands shake as I hang up on Domhn. My whole body thrums with electricity. I don’t know what I need. To fight? To break something? To break myself?
All I know is that I can’t stop. I can’t slow down.
Everyone’s safe, but it doesn’t change anything. I can’t go back to Bane or it just starts all over again.
I yank the wheel to take the 6th Street exit.
Losing myself in the famous Austin bar scene sounds perfect just about now.
FIFTY-TWO
BANE
I sit at the club’s bar, my fingers wrapped around a glass of whisky I’m not drinking. The ice has melted, diluting the amber liquid into something weaker.
Quinn told me to feel my fucking feelings. To sit in them. To let them do their worst.
I have a better idea.
I could drink myself into oblivion. Numb it all out. Let the alcohol cauterize the gaping wound Moira left in me. It would be so easy to slide back into old habits. To drown in the dark instead of facing it.
But what’s the point?
Tomorrow, the pain will still be there. The hole inside me will still be a bottomless, black fucking void that not even the best whisky can fill.
So I sit. I breathe. I let it settle in my chest like a second heartbeat—pounding, pulsing, demanding my attention.
Punishment.
This is what I deserve. To be left. To be hollowed out and wrecked.
Quinn’s whip could tear the flesh from my back, and it still wouldn’t compare to this. This pain is deeper, a sickness in my soul I can’t sweat out or bleed away. This is the kind of agony I’ve spent my whole life outrunning.
And now, I have to sit in it.
Like a good little boy taking his medicine.
I stare down into the glass. My reflection stares back. A stranger. A man who let the only good thing he ever had slip through his fingers.
Moira.
No, that’s not true. She wasn’t the only good thing I’ve had and lost.
A face flickers behind my eyes. Another loss. Another woman I failed.
My mother.
I inhale sharply, forcing my fingers to unclench from around the glass before it shatters.
I spent years resenting her. Hating her. Believing she abandoned me. That she left me behind without a second thought.
She hadn’t.
She loved me. And I was too much of a selfish, angry little bastard to see it.
I close my eyes, swallowing against the tightness in my throat. She was good. Too good for the life she was handed. Too good for the son she had.
I never let myself grieve her. Not properly.
Grieving felt like a privilege I hadn’t earned.
I was a shit son. I didn’t fight for her. Didn’t tell her what she meant to me when she was alive. And by the time I was ready to stop being a fucking coward, it was too late.
Am I making the same mistake with Moira?
Did I not see her?
The thought grips me like a vice, squeezing so tight I can barely breathe.
I should’ve seen it. Should’ve fucking felt it in my bones. She wasn’t right today. Her eyes were wild, her body vibrating with an energy that wasn’t hers. I was so obsessed with keeping her and holding her down and making her stay that I didn’t stop to ask the one question that mattered.
What did she need?
Not me. That’s for fucking sure.
She ran from me like the devil was at her heels. Like I was the devil.
I drag a hand down my face. It’s not the first time I’ve been someone’s worst nightmare. But this—this is different.
Because she wanted to stay. I know she did. I felt it in every desperate kiss, every shuddering breath, every broken gasp of my name.
But she still left.
I frown, the pieces shifting, rearranging. Something doesn’t fit. Something is wrong.
The excuses she threw at me weren’t real. They crumbled the second they left her lips. A woman like Moira doesn’t run from what she wants. She grabs onto it with both hands and holds the fuck on.
So why did she let go?
Something else was going on.
I grit my teeth. The answer is there, just out of reach. Taunting me.
I slam the whisky back in one burning gulp and set the glass down with a sharp crack.
But I don’t move.
My instincts scream at me to act. To track her down. To hunt, to chase, to take what’s mine. That’s what Dad always said to do, right? You want something, you take it. It’s what I’ve always done. It’s what I know.
But what if that’s not what she needs?