Chapter Thirty-One
RILEY
As of this very moment, there are only two things I know for sure. The first is that I am in love with Kieran Sullivan. The second is that Sean O’Keefe is going to kill me before I ever get the chance to tell him. To beg for his forgiveness.
“Where the hell are you taking me?” I demand as the car jerks to a stop.
“Yer new home.” His lips pull back over his teeth.
My door is yanked open, and before I can get another word out, a hand grabs my wounded arm.
I don’t have a chance to scream before he pulls me backward out of the car.
“Let me go!” I thrash against the man, but his hold on me only tightens.
Sean chuckles.
Of course, the bastard is enjoying every second of my pain.
I try not to let the tears fall, but the pain in my arm is blinding, and it’s all I can do to stay conscious.
“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” he growls. “Blindfold her.”
“Wait! Stop!” I struggle as another one of Sean’s men steps up in front of me, carrying a bloodied piece of fabric in his tattooed hand and wearing a sneer that makes my skin crawl.
I gag as it’s placed around my eyes, the metallic stench making my stomach churn as my world is plunged into darkness and my hands are bound behind my back.
I try to tell myself not to panic, but it’s almost impossible not to, considering that I am completely at the mercy of Sean and his men.
More men move around me, their boots crunching against the gravel followed by the dull clink of metal.
Sean’s voice comes from somewhere behind me, calm and almost amused.
“Careful with her. I don’t want her to break before I have a chance to get started.”
The men around me laugh, and my pulse spikes as I’m forced forward.
In the darkness, every step I take makes me off balance.
I try to focus on what I can hear and smell, to find any indication of where the hell Sean has taken me, but all I can smell is gasoline and damp soil.
I can hear the faint echo of water dripping somewhere nearby and the distant hum of traffic, but not much else.
Wherever we are, it’s clearly isolated, which doesn’t bode well for Kieran finding me.
That is, of course, if Kieran is still alive.
“Keep moving,” one of the men snarls, shoving me hard enough that I almost lose my balance.
Every instinct in me screams to run, but there’s nowhere to go.
My wrists are bound behind my back, and the gun pressed into my spine is an unspoken warning of what will happen if I try.
“Please. You don’t have to do this.”
“Quiet,” one of them snaps.
A hand closes around my upper arm, their fingers biting into my skin hard enough to bruise.
I’m shoved again, and I stumble forward.
The sound of metal scraping against metal rings in my ears, followed by the sound of footsteps approaching.
“Put her down there where I can keep an eye on her.”
Sean.
“Please… don’t do this,” I sob.
A door creaks open, and I’m shoved through, my shoulder smacking into a wall in the process.
“Get down,” someone orders.
I’m pushed to my knees, and I cry out as they collide with the concrete floor.
But I’m barely able to catch my breath as something heavy and cold snaps around my ankle.
A cuff.
“Wait. Please, just tell me where I am—”
“Ye’re home, Riley,” Sean says before something sharp hits the side of my head.
For a second, stars explode behind my eyes before darkness swallows me whole.
Pain.
It’s the first thing I register when I start to regain consciousness. A throbbing, heavy ache at the back of my skull that pulses in time with my heartbeat.
I reach up and touch the back of my head.
I don’t even have a chance to feel relief at the fact my hands are no longer bound because I find my hair is matted with blood.
“Oh, God.” I pull the blindfold off.
The light in the room is dim, but it’s enough to make my eyes sting after being trapped in darkness for Gods knows how long.
I blink until the blur steadies and the dim outlines around me come into focus.
An old mattress is beneath me, but from how little cushioning it provides, I can’t imagine many of the springs are remaining.
Glancing around, I find the room completely empty except for an old and rusted radiator heater that my ankle is cuffed to.
Before I can start to panic, I catch sight of the angry gash on my arm from the barbed wire and let out a strangled sob.
The skin is bright red and swollen and already seems to be leaking fluid other than blood. I’ve seen enough medical dramas to know that it isn’t good. It’s likely infected. And if that infection spreads to my bloodstream, my window for escape just got a hell of a lot smaller.
I press my palm against the wound. The flesh feels raw and hot, but I have nothing to clean it with.
My body starts rocking back and forth as I try to take a slow, steadying breath.
It’s almost impossible to do when I feel like the walls of this tiny cell are starting to close in on me.
I’m scared, not just of Sean or of the pain, but of what might happen if this gash gets worse, if the infection takes hold before anyone finds me.
I squeeze my eyes shut and press my forehead to my knees.
I have to stay calm. Panic will make everything worse. But every second that passes, every second that I spend chained up in this room, the more helpless I feel.
I have to do something.
“Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? Please!”
Silence.
I try again, louder this time.
“Help! Somebody, please!”
Nothing.
The realization that no one can hear me, or worse, that no one cares, hurts more than the pain in my head.
Sean is going to kill me, and he’s going to make sure it hurts.
Tears prick at my eyes, but I force myself to blink them back.
Crying sure as hell isn’t going to help. If my baby and I are going to have any chance of surviving this, I have to stay calm. I have to think.
I wrap my arms protectively around my stomach as I force myself to look around the room again, slower this time.
The walls are bare concrete, stained with something dark near the base. There’s no window, just a single bulb overhead that flickers occasionally. A steel door sits on the far wall, heavy and rusted, with no handle on my side.
I tug at the cuff on my ankle.
It’s tight, but the chain attached to it gives me about three feet of movement, which is enough to reach the far edge of the mattress and the radiator, but nothing else.
There is nothing sharp that I could use to pry myself loose, but maybe if I pull apart the mattress I could use a spring as a makeshift key…
My thoughts of escape seemed to have summoned someone at last as the sound of footsteps cuts through the silence.
I freeze as the door suddenly unlocks with a sharp click.
The rusty hinges groan as it swings open, and Sean stalks inside.
He looks surprisingly rested despite holding the pregnant wife of one of the most powerful men in the city hostage.
Is he really stupid enough to think that the Sullivans aren’t a threat?
But then again, he managed to wipe out Ronan’s security in one hit. If that isn’t enough to make someone think they’re invincible, I don’t know what is.
“Well…” He takes a few slow steps into the room. “How did ye sleep?”
I don’t answer and even if I wanted to speak, my throat is so dry that I doubt I could get the words out.
“Cat got yer tongue?”
He crouches down next to me until his face is only inches from mine.
The smell of whiskey and cigarettes on his breath makes my stomach churn, and I let out a shaky sob as his breath tickles my cheek.
But my clear discomfort only makes Sean chuckle.
“Ye’re such a little princess, ye know that? I was really lookin’ forward to deflowering ye back when yer uncle promised ye to me. I would have treated ye like a goddamn queen.” He lightly brushes his calloused fingers against my jaw.
When I try to jerk my head away, he grips my chin and forces me to look at him. “But no. Ye had to go and pick him.”
“Sean,” I plead, my voice trembling. “You don’t have to do this.”
He leans closer as his lips pull up into a cruel smile. “Oh, but I do.”
Tears spill down my cheeks, hot and fast.
My whole body shakes, but I keep my arms wrapped tightly around my stomach.
“Please. Don’t hurt my baby.”
“But, Riley, that’s the whole point. Did ye really think ye would be able to humiliate me and walk away without any consequences? If ye did, ye’re not as clever as yer brother made ye out to be.”
My heart pounds so hard it echoes in my ears.
“Please. We can work this out—”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing, because this is justice.
Yer uncle and I had an agreement, and ye chose to run straight into the arms of Kieran Sullivan.
Now, I take great offense to that. And seeing as yer uncle and brother are unwilling to honor the contract, I’m taking matters into me own hands. ”
I can see it in his eyes, this isn’t just about hatred, it’s about obsession.
The kind that festers until it rots you from the inside.
He sees me not as a human being, but as an object that belongs to him.
There is no reasoning with someone who thinks like that, and yet if I don’t, I’m going to die.
“You don’t understand—”
“Oh, I understand perfectly.” His tone is almost casual now. “Ye thought ye could play me. That ye could crawl into that bastard’s bed and hope that I would forget who ye really belonged to. But ye were wrong.”
My body trembles, and I can’t tell if it’s with fear or rage or both. So, I squeeze my eyes shut, not wanting to see the sick satisfaction on Sean’s face any longer as a sob tears from my throat.
The cuff around my ankle digs in as I try to pull away, but that only makes him laugh.
He’s enjoying every second of this, and the more I struggle and beg, the more I play right into his hand.
“Ye were supposed to be mine,” he snarls as he takes my chin in his hand and my eyes fly open. “Do ye know how long I’ve waited for this? To make you feel what I felt when you turned yer back on me?”
“Please, Sean,” I choke out, my voice trembling.
Something like satisfaction flicker across his face, and my stomach sinks.
Nothing I say will convince him to change his mind. He’s too far gone.
“Sleep well, princess.” He traces his fingers along my jaw, and I shrink beneath his touch. “Ye’re going to need it.”
Tears stream down my cheeks as Sean gets to his feet, and the urge to scream claws at my throat.
The door slams shut before any sound can escape. So, I curl back up on the mattress and close my eyes.
That brings with it a whole different kind of nightmare because all I can see is Kieran’s face, frozen in that look of disgust he gave me when he realized I had lied to him about the baby.
His words play on repeat in my head.
There is no us.
He has to know I’m gone by now, but does that mean he’s looking for me?
I want to believe he’s out there, that he’s coming for me and our baby that I’m growing inside me.
But what if he’s not?