Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Nora
I hurry outside the building, pulling my jacket on as I go. I want to be away from here and can’t put enough distance between me and Brendan Quinn fast enough. My stomach is locked in knots, even as my chest aches.
Brendan Quinn.
How could I be so stupid?
My hands tremble as I pull out my phone. From anger, shame, or fear…I couldn’t say which. With my mind spinning, I couldn’t say much of anything for certain. My heart sinks when I realize my phone is useless—no signal.
Seriously?
I huff and secure the belt of my jacket, pulling it tighter around me as if it might shield me from the danger I’ve put myself into. Slinging my purse over my head and across my body, I start up the street, casting glances behind me.
The night air is cold, biting through the thin fabric of my dress. I scan the shadows ahead, but as far as I can see, they’re empty. Not that I can see much. The street is dark and solely washed by the sweeping spotlights of the Quinn event and a flickering streetlight down the block.
Stupid Quinns. They’re likely using up all the electricity for the block.
I know that’s ridiculous, but I’m mad. At Brendan. At myself. At the universe for making me believe a guy like him could be interested in me.
Then I see him.
At first, I’m too caught up in my mental maelstrom to think much of the man across the street, but there’s something about his body language and his focus that sets off my female instincts of self-preservation.
Better late than never, I suppose.
Dressed in all black, the stranger steps out of the shadows of a closed building. He moves with purpose, crossing the empty street to intercept me. My stomach knots even tighter and I take a quick left on a side street and pick up my pace. I may be riding a bit of an alcohol buzz, but I’m not so gone that I don’t recognize how vulnerable I am in this moment.
My head moves on a swivel as I search for someone to run to or a group to blend in with. Come on. I can’t be the only person out here tonight.
Is everyone on this block at the fight?
The streets are much too quiet, and it feels like a trap. Great, now I sound as paranoid as my father. But one good thing about my father being paranoid about my safety and always expecting the worst for me is that I’ve run through the ‘what to do’ drills a bazillion times.
“Fine. Fuck it.” Despite being thoroughly disillusioned by Brendan, I need to double back to the gym. There are a lot of people there and I can get help. I hurry toward the next corner, jogging on the balls of my feet to avoid breaking my neck with these heels. The cobblestone sidewalks of Ireland will be the death of me if I panic and don’t play this smart.
Jordan ‘the Warden’ Kelly didn’t raise a fool and even though I’m terrified, I focus on each hurried step. When I get to the next corner, I turn left and risk a look backward.
He’s getting closer.
The shadowy figure has quickened his stride, and the panic of survival grips me like a clutched fist around my throat. I fight to pull oxygen into my airway, the world starting to spin. The moment I’m around the corner and out of his sight, I break into an all-out run.
“Help!”
My scream sounds weak even to my own ears—an empty plea echoing off the brick walls. This is the back of the other street and even more deserted.
No one will hear me.
Each labored breath becomes thinner as I sprint past darkened doorways that mock me with their shadowed stillness. My mind races through scenarios. If he catches me, I’ll be mugged at best—raped or killed at worst.
Could I fight him off? Does he have a weapon? If he pulls out a knife or a gun….
“Help!” I shout again, my breath thready as I gasp for air.
I focus all my energy on the upcoming street. One more left and I’ll be headed back to the street where the charity event is still in progress. I don’t need to glance back because the heavy footfalls of my stalker can’t be over twenty feet behind me and gaining. His footsteps thunder—too close—and fear spikes through every fiber of my being.
“Help!” The primal cry escapes my lips as adrenaline burns wildly in me. My legs are rubbery and I’m fighting not to let my knees buckle beneath me.
I push to get around the corner, heart hammering against ribs that feel ready to crack under pressure. My breath echoes loudly as reality hits.
I’m not going to make it…
Brendan
I burst through the side door of the gym, the adrenaline from my match still coursing through my veins like nitrous. I sprint through the darkness of the side lot and come out on the street, turning left and beating feet.
Someone calls my name, but I don’t stop. The frosty night air hits the sweat on my bare chest and sends a chill down my spine. The pounding of my boots to pavement echoes off the brick buildings, but it’s nothing compared to the pounding of my heart.
I need to find her. I need to explain that I’m more than my last name.
The echoed roar of the cheering crowd fades as I spot Nora rushing around the corner, way down the block.
Someone is tailing her.
A man in black has come out of a shadowed stoop and is homing in on her. Fuck that. I know a predator when I see one.
He’s hunting her.
Violent fury burns hot, dousing every protective instinct I possess in kerosine and then tossing a flame to it, lighting things up.
There’s no sense in chasing them along the street. They’re too far ahead of me and by the time I get up to that corner, they’ll be gone. Instead, I change course and cut through the back parking lot of an office building, skirting around the parking toll booth and hurdling over boxwoods like a fucking Olympic athlete.
“Help!”
Her cry comes from off to my right and I adjust my course to intercept. “I’m coming, angel. Just hang on.”
Pumping my arms, I give it all I’ve got, knowing Nora needs me. Never have I felt so helpless and terrified. I’m Brendan-Fucking-Quinn and anyone with half a brain fears me. If that motherfucker intends Nora harm…
Blood will flow for this.
“Help!” she cries again.
My world tilts on its axis as her plea sears itself into my soul. She’s out here because of me, because I hurt her. If she suffers because of that…
My boots pound against the ground as I close the distance. The adrenaline coursing through me is like a performance-enhancing drug. It has me laser-focused on what I need to do.
“Help!” Nora’s third cry comes from much closer.
I’m almost to the next street, planning to intercept, when she rounds the corner.
She’s there, right in front of me and running.
Our bodies collide, but I wrap my arms around her and spin to absorb the momentum of our opposing trajectories. We still crash together in a tangle of limbs and an ‘oof’ of escaping breath, but I have her in my arms and that’s all that matters.
Her tear-stained face and panicked gaze snap the last of my control. How dare this fucker think to harm my angel?
I press her back against the brick building. Despite my need to look her over and assure myself that she’s unharmed, there’s no time. The thundering of boots on the ground brings her stalker into view a moment later.
The man in black barrels around the corner, his intentions written all over his face—dark and predatory.
Anger surges through me and I react before he knows what’s coming. With a swift motion, I extend my arm and swing with all the rage burning inside me. I clothesline him right off his feet and he flips back in the air. He crashes to the ground on his back, the impact hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs.
I don’t waste time with introductions. Before he can catch his breath or scramble to his feet, I descend. “I’ll teach you what it means to be someone’s prey.”
My fist connects with his jaw—a clean shot that sends his head crashing back to the pavement. I drop to my knees, my shoulders swinging with brutal precision as I unleash punch after punch, pommeling this fucker into the ground.
“How dare you scare her?”
He tries to recover, hands coming up defensively.
Good-fucking-luck.
I’ve heard the term ‘seeing red’ before, but never realized it could be an actual state of being. In that moment, with Nora sobbing behind me and this fucker looking up at me like I stole his kill, my entire world is tainted behind a veil of crimson.
“No one touches her. Do you fucking understand me?”
I don’t know that he does. He isn’t tracking much of anything now, but neither am I. The brute has truly been unleashed. Never have I been driven by such a violent need to make someone suffer. I’m fucking possessed.
“Stop, Brendan! Please!”
Nora’s high-pitched plea echoes in my mind, but her words are distant and warbled as if I’m underwater.
My fists are bloody, each swing sending gruesome strings of blood and spray into the air. Up the brick. Across the pavement. Soaking my clothes.
This predator deserves nothing less.
“Brendan! Please stop!” Her voice trembles through the chaos of fists and rage, pulling me from the dark pit I’m teetering on. I look back at her just for a second—her eyes spilling over with tears, her entire body trembling.
Her terror freezes me in place.
Shit.
She’s seen everything—the fury of the monster unleashed. Everything I keep hidden from the world. The man groans beneath me, but he doesn’t matter—all that matters is Nora and her tears shining in the dim light.
Slowly, reluctantly, I straighten and take in Nora standing there—her eyes wide and wet as she watches me process what happened.
“Nora. Angel. It’s fine.” I move toward her, and she gasps and slides against the brick, backing away from me.
I raise my hands, but my gesture of peace means less while my fists are stained and dripping with blood.
“I can explain. Please, angel, give me a chance to explain.
Nora
Explain? I stare at Brendan heaving from the exertion of beating a man to near death. Even in the dim light of the alley, the scene is brutal. My heart is pounding against the tension in my chest to a point where I can’t catch my breath.
“Explain how you lied to me since the moment you saved my life? Explain how the gentleman who supported me after the shooting is probably the reason Tanya died? How do you explain that away?”
He has the good sense to take stock, seeing how the drip, drip, drip of blood falling from his split knuckles onto the pavement is the background music to this moment of horror.
The man who chased me lies motionless at our feet, moaning incoherently.
“Is this the Dublin Brute in action?”
I only glimpsed his violence in the cage fight—the calculated strikes, the muscles coiled to explode, the raw power behind each blow. But this is different. Savage. Primal. The kind of violence that should send me running.
But I can’t move. Can’t look away from him.
His expressive green gaze is black in the shadows of the side street, but the man who’s been so caring and kind is there, behind the panic. His eyes flash with wild and desperate rage. Like a caged animal awaiting his judgment.
His gray sweatpants are filthy at the knees, his bare chest covered in the spray of blood. His hands shake at his sides, but his gaze is locked on me.
“Are you hurt?” His voice comes out rough, barely controlled.
I wrap my arms around myself, the cold of the night replaced by the icy realization that I’m standing here with a man I don’t know who is said to be a monster. Icy air bites through my thin dress, but that’s not why I’m shivering.
“Am I hurt? Yes, I bloody well am. You’re not the gentleman I was falling for.” I take in the battered man on the ground between us. “You truly are the Dublin Brute.”
His gaze darkens. “If you judge me for saving your life, that’s on you. I am every bit the man who cared for you the past week, but I’m this, too. I’m the man who will defend the people I care about with no restriction. This fucker was going to kill you. I won’t apologize for putting him down. If it means you survive and hate me, so be it.”
Tension crackles in the night air and I watch the rise and fall of his heaving chest. Staring at his blood-splattered abs makes things both better and worse. I don’t hate him. Despite his angry words, I don’t think I could ever hate him.
Because he’s right…he saved me. Again.
That doesn’t mean I can stumble forward and wrap my arms around his half-naked body.
I want to—but I can’t.
This man who my father hunts, who commands fear in the streets of Dublin, lives a dark and violent life. A life I want no part of. The man who took me to his French café and made me laugh isn’t real.
It doesn’t make a difference. Real or not, he’s still Brendan Quinn.
I hold up my hands, my heart cleaving in two. “I’m going to leave now. I won’t tell anyone about this, but you must let me go. You aren’t who I thought you were, Brendan, and for reasons you can’t understand, I can’t have anything to do with you. This was a mistake. Whatever it was or almost was…it was a mistake.”
The raw pain in his eyes breaks something inside me. It wasn’t a lie. He showed his true self to me and laid himself bare, and I’m rejecting him.
“I’m sorry…” The rest of my words are lost in the rush of emotion pushing against the base of my throat. I can’t meet his gaze. The pleading sorrow swimming in his eyes is too much. “I’m so sorry.”
I turn toward the main street and press a hand against the rough brick. My trembling legs won’t get me anywhere if I don’t pull it together. I draw in a lungful of chilled night air and push myself off the wall.
I make it two steps before my world spins.
Brendan frowns as I face him, bends to put his shoulder into my waist, and lifts me so I’m hanging over his back. A strong arm bands across the back of my thighs and then he’s carrying me off into the shadows. “No. I’m sorry, angel. I’m sorry to do this, but there’s no way I’m letting you walk away from me. I can’t. You’re mine.”