Chapter Fifteen Tiernan
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
TIERNAN
Tierney: She ate everything. You need to pay her some attention. It’s not her fault her parents are assholes and her husband is psychotic.
I stared at the text message my sister sent me.
I never cared what women put in their mouths unless it was my cock, and my wife was no exception. Until now.
Lila had been losing weight. A lot of it.
Now, I wasn’t an expert, but I was pretty sure she was supposed to gain, not lose, weight in her condition. Infuriatingly enough, her beauty didn’t diminish along with the rest of her frame. She remained too delectable for her own good.
Her beauty wasn’t here nor there for me. What I needed was to make sure this woman didn’t drop dead from malnutrition. The Ferrantes’ army was crucial for my plans against the Rasputins.
If I wanted my siblings safe, I needed to finish them off.
I knew the solution to my predicament. Namely, to stop vying for every World’s Worst Husband Guinness record. I could do that. In theory, anyway. My chief problem was that her absolute dryshite of a mother refused to send over any of her staff to keep my wife company.
I didn’t have time to play house with little girls. Figured the best course of action was to assign her someone she knew and trusted.
I’d called Luca and asked him which of the staff Lila would like with her. He said she’d want Imma.
When I called Chiara to ask her for the woman, she flat-out refused.
“You didn’t let me take her with me to Chicago, and now you want a babysitter for her?” she’d barked. “Fat chance, stronzo.”
“She’s not going anywhere without proper Irish security, and I can’t send my soldiers to Chicago because the Outfit would decapitate them before the sun’s up,” I’d explained stoically.
“Punishing her through me is the height of idiocy. Surely, you’re not that fucking daft. The family eejit is Enzo.”
Enzo wasn’t really stupid, but he was both perky and agreeable, which was almost worse.
“My daughter shouldn’t be living with you for another minute, Callaghan.”
“Bitching about the situation won’t fix it,” I’d volleyed.
“Your daughter looks like a corpse. She isn’t eating or sleeping.
She is under my care, and we both know I don’t give two shites.
Either you send someone over to put her back together or watch her slow and painful death,” I’d threatened. “Happy to send pictures.”
I’d thought this would make her put the damn maid in one of their executive cars and send her my way.
To my surprise, the witch stood her ground.
“Let her die, then. See how that works out for you. My husband might not care much, but my sons?” She tutted. “They’d kill anyone with an Irish last name in your zip code.”
My fingers flew over the screen now.
Tiernan: Cancel all your engagements for the next few months. Your new job is to feed her and make sure she sleeps.
Tierney: She’s not a Tamagotchi, Tiernan.
Tiernan: Tell me about it. She costs more than twenty bucks. So act accordingly.
My sister replied with a middle finger emoji, forever the picture of eloquence and grace.
I thrust my phone into my back pocket, then proceeded to unlock my apartment door. It was eerily quiet, the only audible sound coming from the industrial fridge in the kitchen.
Spending time with my wife was at the bottom of my to-do list, but bigger sacrifices had been made throughout history to achieve one’s objective.
Who knew? Maybe she’d try to kill me again and things would actually get interesting.
I raised my fist to knock on Lila’s bedroom door, realizing it was slightly ajar.
A rare oversight. Lila was an expert at locking herself away from me.
Taking her error as an invitation, I stepped inside, finding the room empty.
The adjoined en-suite bathroom was also vacant, which meant she was probably in her walk-in closet.
I stopped at the nightstand next to her bed.
Her leather-bound sketchbook sat there, a pencil tucked between the pages.
I made no effort to be silent or discreet.
I figured if she was naked, it’d give her time to get dressed before she greeted me.
I flipped the sketchbook open, my brow furrowing. I didn’t know what I expected. Maybe finger painting or stick figures of people with lines for bodies and circles for heads. But it wasn’t this.
This was…
Fuck me, it was spectacular.
A pencil drawing, realistic and shaded to its finest detail, like an old black and white picture.
The portrait of a man was vivid, alive, and…familiar. Very familiar.
Hold. The. Fuck. Up.
Tate Blackthorn.
My wife drew Tate Blackthorn’s entire dick-ass face. From memory. Smoking a cigarette, staring into an invisible camera, his cocky half-smirk on full display.
The urge to burn down the sketchbook along with the entire street slammed into me, but I suppressed it. Of course, my wife, who was knocked up with someone else’s baby, was also obsessed with my archenemy.
Of. Fucking. Course.
Perhaps she wasn’t raped, after all? Tate was at Luca’s wedding. She obviously adored the motherfucker. Yes, he was married, but he wouldn’t be the first filthy rich mogul to cheat on his wife when a young, pretty thing dangled herself in front of him.
What if she opened those creamy legs of hers for him?
I tipped my head back, taking a deep, greedy breath. My list of people to murder kept growing. The saying was accurate—there really was no rest for the wicked. But, I mean, a fucking afternoon off wouldn’t hurt.
Tate lived in the UK. I didn’t have time to start expanding my business into Europe.
Her drawing subject aside, my wife was either a savant or a genius. For her sake, I hoped she was the former. I’d hate to kill her and the unborn baby in her belly.
No.
That wasn’t true.
The truth was, killing them would solve many of my problems. It’d just create a thousand new ones in the process.
Feeling much less inclined to honor her privacy now, I dropped the sketchbook on her nightstand, proceeding into her walk-in closet.
She was, indeed, dressed.
She also had her head buried in a cell phone she wasn’t supposed to own, sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyes glued to the screen. Her pupils moved from side to side.
Left. Right. Left. Right.
She can read.
Venom spread inside my veins.
Can you read?
What else can you do?
Are you here to spy?
Is Blackthorn your baby daddy?
Are you texting him now?
I wanted to pick her up, pin her to her bed, and fuck every single answer out of her.
Or, I marveled, maybe she was watching something. Her mother mentioned she let her watch classical concerts. After all, this wasn’t the response of someone who was just caught doing something they shouldn’t. She completely ignored my presence.
I rapped on the wall, crossing my arms and leaning against the doorframe.
She didn’t look up.
Little shit.
I stepped inside, entering her line of vision. Her head jolted up, and her mouth dropped open.
Recognition and horror filled her pretty eyes.
“Hello, wifey.”
She scrambled to her feet, shoving the phone into her pocket and jutting her chin up defiantly. The facade of an insentient child was slipping almost as fast as my patience for this marriage.
I knew asking outright wouldn’t get me anywhere. Lila was a Ferrante through and through. If not by blood, then by nature. I couldn’t break her through torture.
But hey, it’d still be fun trying.
“Do you like fucking married men, Gealach?” I pushed off the doorframe, entering her domain. After that sketchbook, she couldn’t convince me she was intellectually challenged if her life depended on it. In a way, it did.
She stared at me steadily, refusing to balk.
“Do you like spreading your legs for older men?” I strolled leisurely in her direction. Blackthorn was twice her age. She had no business sucking the old man’s cock.
“Do you call him Daddy?” I taunted.
She answered with a slow, bored blink. She wasn’t going to fall down on her knees and beg for forgiveness. My young wife had pride, and fire in her eyes.
I stopped when my abs were flush against her chest. She was tiny. Finishing her would be easier than killing a fly.
“You know he’d never leave his wife for you.” I arched an eyebrow, smirking. “He’s crazy about her. Was fully prepared to give me the keys to his kingdom when I kidnapped her. You were just a quick fuck.”
Her cheeks flushed, and finally, finally, the mask slipped and her emotions showed.
“Did you fuck him?” I palmed her face, tilting it up, forcing her to stare at the grotesque husband of hers. Without the eye. Without the soul.
Her nostrils flared. She said nothing.
“Answer.” I clutched her jaw tightly.
She spat in my face in response. Her saliva hit my left cheek.
“Grave mistake, sweetheart.”
It was time to terrorize an answer out of her.
I reared my fist backward.
Lila whipped her head sideways, bracing herself for the hit, but didn’t close her eyes. Her jaw locked, her eyes blazed with anger. My knuckles landed square against the wall above her shoulder, denting it. The crack looked like spiderwebs.
A soft gasp escaped her. The first time she made a sound. It was so fucking soft I second-guessed I really heard it.
Shit. What was I doing, unraveling over a child bride?
It was time to try another tactic.
Threatening her with rape, murder, and the decimation of her already destroyed life didn’t work. Maybe I’d get more bees with honey.
“There’s an Italian deli down the street.” I stepped back. “Make yourself presentable. Wear something that isn’t fucking pink.” I grabbed my jaw, working it from side to side. “You could use some fresh air.” She hadn’t left the apartment since her mother left for Chicago.
As expected, she didn’t answer. But her teeth captured her lower lip contemplatively.
She didn’t hate the idea of leaving the house.
A weakness. I can work with that.
I pressed on.
“They have homemade gelato.”