21. Harper
Chapter 21
Harper
One thing I never knew until I started at Dish Waikiki is how everyone who’s worked in the service industry is united in this unspoken way. When I stepped into this cute little cafe and asked to use their phone, explaining that I worked at Dish, the people behind the counter believed me. They could see the truth in my eyes.
Well, I guess I’m also still wearing my name tag from yesterday.
Doesn’t matter. I was immensely thankful to use their phone to call Riley.
We only talked for a few minutes.
Hearing her voice gave me such relief and comfort. The point was to check and see if everything Cian told me last night was true, or if he was just placating me with moderately accurate information to keep me distracted from my escape plans.
But when I actually got my sister on the phone, I started crying like a child, and so did she. We just whimpered at each other back and forth. I managed to mumble some incoherent question about whether she and Finn were an item, and I could hear the stunning joy in my sister’s voice even through her tears as she told me yes.
They really are together, and they really are happy. Cian wasn’t lying to me about that.
I release a bittersweet breath. My sister’s in love. The guy she picked is a monster, but he’s the monster she desired. And at least, since they’re together, that particular beast isn’t after me anymore.
I want to be happy that my sister found the love of her life and my ex-fiancé won’t be trying to marry me ever again. But there’s a thorn sticking out of my heart. I don’t know why it’s there, but it aches.
Ignoring that, I mop sweat off my forehead with the back of my arm and gaze at the scenery around my little shopping plaza. Rundown apartment complexes built from cement blocks sit across an intersection from a new neighborhood of cookie-cutter houses. The green of the bushes and trees bounces off the bright teal of the harbor waters.
I inhale a lungful of island air.
No matter what happens next, I’ll be abandoning this place. I spent so much time fantasizing about coming here that I never imagined how to leave.
Speaking of leaving, what’s my new plan?
Finding a way to call my sister was my only objective. The reality of what happened in that motel room crushed me flat, and I needed some time to myself to decompress. Hearing Riley’s voice helped, but it didn’t solve anything.
And now, I’m in the same predicament as last night. Alone. No money. No phone. No transportation. Homeless. Helpless.
So, if you want to live, I suggest you stop trying to get away from me.
The words Cian spoke last night in the little parking lot echo through my mind.
I could just…go back to the motel.
Voluntarily return to the cage I’ve just escaped.
No, I can’t make it on my own, and no, I don’t have a plan. But going back there can’t be the right answer.
What would I say to Cian? What can I say?
That thorn in my heart gives me chest pain, like my ribs are too tight.
With a twinge, I identify the ache.
It’s about saying goodbye.
For the love of God, I’m aching for a goodbye with my kidnapper?
The scariest part is that last night changed my opinion of Cian entirely.
He’s not just some pretty blockhead enforcer who works for my dad or answers to Shane Gallagher above all else. I don’t see him as some playboy who tagged me as his next conquest anymore.
Now, I think of Cian as a man.
A man I want the way a desert yearns for rain.
The past decade of my life has been just an ongoing series of hard pills to swallow, one after the other, and the idea of leaving Cian is the worst one. Why am I so unprepared to get back to a life without him? After just two wild, swelteringly hot nights?
I cover my face as I walk. Every time I think about it, I melt a little more inside. Imagine if just the memory of the sun could give someone a sunburn. Ugh.
Walking too fast, I stride straight into someone. My heart hits the ground when I glance up.
Panic hits me like a bus.
It’s Cian.
And he’s amped.
Fuck.
Those green eyes are unhinged by anger and an emotion that resembles…fear. Something’s wrong. My head whips around, trying to find the danger, but Cian’s eyes remain fixed on my face.
He stands there, stabbing me with his eyeballs.
“C-Cian?” My panic ping-pongs through different scenarios. But when Cian wraps his massive fist around my forearm and proceeds to drag me back toward the motel with furious, virulent strides, I realize the problem.
The rage and concern on his face are for me. All for me.
I’m lucky he didn’t throw me over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes again.
Or toss me off the nearest cliff.
When we arrive at our motel room, Cian flings the door open and all but throws me inside, slamming the thing shut behind him with enough force to rattle the frame.
For a few agonizing moments, we just stand there, Cian fuming. I can’t take my eyes off his fists. He kills people with his bare hands.
I wonder if he’s going to grant my wish , a morbid voice whispers from deep within my soul. It’s the same macabre curiosity I’ve had for years. Every time I faced a man my father instructed me to target, I wondered if that was the way I would die.
There were times on assignments where I wanted to break character, reveal to the target that my father sent me here to get him killed, ask him to kill me as the perfect revenge on my father, but that shit only leads to imprisonment. Rape. Ransom notes. Being eventually saved by Kings, only to wind up under my father’s thumb again, more broken than before. So I kept my mouth shut.
When I look at Cian and all the power in his body, I know it would be nothing at all for him to murder me.
I should be more afraid of him as his entire frame trembles with fury.
But instead I spiral through the reality of how much I still want him. I might even want him more than I want to get away from the Kings, more than I want my freedom.
Exactly what did his monster dick do to me?
“What the fuck is it with you?” I flinch at Cian’s thunderous roar. “De Luca foot soldiers are crawling all over this godforsaken island searching for your ass, and you sneak out anyway?”
Shaking the lust out of my head, I do my best to focus on Cian’s words. But it’s kind of difficult when he’s radiating rage like a faulty radiator leaks heat.
“I just wanted to?—”
“Trick me?” Cian stalks closer, but I refuse to be intimidated. “Ignore every fucking word I said and do what I told you not to do anyway ?”
Irritation spears through my mind, cold and sharp as steel.
I scoff. “Look. You’re not in charge of me, okay?”
His teeth grind, and he cracks his knuckles. “What if they’d snatched you off the street? Are you trying to get us both killed?”
But it sounds more like him saying, I could kill you, I’m so mad.
“I needed to call my sister.” I exhale, bitter exasperation heating up my chest. “Couldn’t do it here. So I went out. What’s the big deal?”
“Bad things happen to women who don’t follow orders, Harper.”
Hurt pierces my chest. “Are you threatening me?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
A frigid glow darkens his green-eyed glare. The uncompromising edge to his demeanor, that impenetrable glower on his face… I’m reminded of my father so viciously, so terribly, I go feral with agitation and resistance.
Because Cian’s treating me like his own personal property.
Cian Mahoney actually has the gall to be upset with me for calling my own sister! Okay, yes, I tricked him with the shower to buy myself some more time. But it’s not like I had an escape plan figured out. I was going to come back here.
Probably.
And a tiny, microscopic part of me believed that after last night, Cian would understand.
“Was I wrong?” Spitting out the words only drives home their truth. “I thought?—”
“You thought what ?” Cian throws his hand at the wall behind him with enough ferocity to bruise the wallpaper. His resemblance to my father stuns me.
How could I have been deceived by some good dick?
I shake my head, reality blooming like a mushroom cloud over my mind.
“You just want to control me, same as all the others.”
“Let me tell you something.” His voice drops low as he prowls my way again. I back up until the bathroom door obstructs my retreat.
“Cian—” I force strength into my words, but he’s undeterred.
He corners me against the bathroom door, slamming his hands down on either side of the frame. “I’m taking you back to New York City. I don’t give a fuck what you have to say. It’s not up to you .”
His heat intrudes my personal space. His scent crawls up my nose, intoxicating me without my consent. I stand my ground.
Even as Cian looms over me with all the menace of the grim reaper, I refuse to back down. Our eyes clash.
“If you really think that you can just rip me away from my life, shoot some people, and fuck me all night, and I’ll just roll over and do whatever you say, keep dreaming, Mahoney.”
Offense ignites in Cian’s eyes. Hard and intimidating, he crushes his body closer into mine. “ What did you just say?”
“You heard me.” I force every ounce of strength I have into those three words. It’s not easy. As soon as the line of Cian’s body touches mine, lust begins to whir inside me.
This ferocious staring contest is going to devolve into sex. I hope.
Why am I even thinking this right now? He pisses me so much, I could claw his stupid handsome face off.
“Move.” I tuck my forearm against Cian’s chest like a crossbar and push. He doesn’t budge, still giving me that skin-piercing scowl.
“You enjoy making messes other people have to clean up, don’t you?”
Fire burns my cheeks. I didn’t expect him to hit me where it hurts. All the guilt inside me over the messes in my life that remain unclean, unresolved, festering even now…
How dare he ask me if I enjoy this half-life full of self-loathing and secret pain?
I don’t know how he always burrows beneath my skin, and I don’t care.
“ Fuck you .”
I thrust the words at him, but I guess I’ve said this to him one too many times for him to take me seriously. All the curse earns me is a clipped, humorless laugh.
He pushes away from me and pivots on his heel, leaving me to burn a hole in his head with my eyes.
I’d rather die than let him have the last laugh.
“Must be nice.” I toss the words at his back. “Using women like toys for your dick. It’s just one of the perks of your job, huh?”
Cian stops walking. He’s only a step from the bed when he swings back to face me, somehow angrier than before.
His voice is coarse with rage. “You think I ’ m using you ?”
“Aren’t you?” I glare, daring him with my eyes. “Isn’t that why you came here? Because you were sex-deprived and wanted to break the dry spell?”
He bristles. “ Enough .”
“Don’t pretend like it was part of your assignment.”
“And what’s your excuse?” He stalks back until his massive head is in my face yet again. “You didn’t fuck me for some virtuous reason! You did it because underneath all your righteous mafia princess bullshit is a starving little cunt, dying to be fed?—”
His head jerks as my palm strikes the side his smug face, the hit forceful enough for the crack to echo through the room.