18. Rory
18
RORY
“This steak is incredible,” Lara gushes. “What did you season it with?”
I give her a slow smile. “Salt and pepper, a little butter.”
“Well, it’s unbelievable,” She takes another big bite.
I chuckle. “Don’t hurt yourself, honey.”
She tilts her head, looking over at me.
I’ve already finished my plate, but watching her is fun. She’s cute, eating bloody steak like a grown man.
“Why do you call me that?”
“Call you what?”
“Honey.”
“If you don’t like it?—”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” she says quickly, and I grin.
“I dunno. Ma used to call me and Bree that when we were little. I guess it just stuck.”
“You call all girls that?”
I raise an eyebrow. “All girls?”
“You know what I mean,” she mutters, chewing furiously.
“Are you jealous, honey?” I tease, and Lara gives me a withering look.
“Don’t start.”
I chuckle. “What? I’m curious.”
“Of course, I’m not jealous. We’re not married for real .”
“I mean, it’s legal,” I point out, and she groans.
“You know what I mean. It’s not like we really like each other.”
I pause for a moment, looking at her. “I like you.”
Her eyes snap to mine. “You do?”
“Sure. You’re beautiful and smart, kind of funny. What’s there not to like?”
She flushes. “I mean, I like you, too. You’re pretty cool. For an accountant.”
I throw back my head and laugh at that. “Glad you think so.”
“But it’s not love.”
“Of course not.”
But it’s certainly something, and that something makes me nervous.
Today was a lot like a date, with the tour and the creek and ending up making her dinner in our room.
I’m definitely getting closer to her, and that’s not a good sign.
I can’t allow myself to get attached. After this is all over, I’m leaving town and going back to my job. I don’t want to be a gangster. I never have.
“Oh, no,” Lara says, and I frown.
“What?”
“You’ve got that look on your face.” She points at my expression.
I bring a hand to my face, confused. “What are you talking about? Is there steak blood on my face?”
She snorts. “No. It’s just your expression. You make this face when you’re thinking too much.”
“How would you know that?”
“I’ve spent enough time with you to know your expressions.”
My heart skips a couple of beats.
She knows my expressions? Should that worry me?
“I’m thinking just enough, thank you.”
Lara snickers. “If you say so.”
I stand up, feeling restless, like there are ants in my pants. “I think I’m going to go for a drive.”
She tilts her head, frowning. “Look, Rory, I didn’t mean to offend you?—”
I shake my head, leaning down to cup her face.
I kiss her lips softly, chastely. “You didn’t offend me. I just need to drive around and think.” I pause. “About the plan.”
“Sure. The plan,” she says, like she doesn’t believe me, but she hands me her plate so I can take it down to the kitchen.
I leave the room quickly because if I keep looking back at her, I’ll want to kiss her again, deeper, more hungrily.
I’ll want to make love to her again, and I should stop doing that. It’s only complicating things.
I head downstairs with our plates, going into the kitchen and rinsing them before putting them in the dishwasher.
I regret not taking the back door to the kitchen when I see my father sitting at the dining room table.
“Are you coming to dinner?” he asks as I walk through, and I freeze, turning to face him.
“Already ate.” I hope this conversation won’t continue for long. I hate having to talk to my father. I hate having to pretend to be the monster that he is.
He looks at me with a blank expression. “How’s it going with the wife?”
“Fine.”
He hums. “Just fine?”
“She’s a spitfire.” I chuckle to myself.
“They’re always the most fun to break.”
I don’t answer, just leaving the room and stalking out of the mansion and to my car.
My skin is heated, my blood boiling.
He deserves to be behind bars, and I hope this is the way to do it.
I head nowhere in particular, just downtown where I can make a couple of turns and get back on the highway. I think better when I’m driving, when I have the road ahead of me. I guess it turns the rest of my mind off, and I can focus.
I recognize the area I’m passing when I drive by one of my father’s warehouses, and stop at the red light. I idly look at over at the abandoned building.
I spot a couple of guys I recognize. Not by name, just by face. They’re Irish gangsters, men I’ve seen around my whole life. There are also a few I don’t recognize.
One of them, taller and stockier than the rest, gives me a weird sense of déjà vu.
I narrow my eyes to get a better look, and when it hits me, it washes over me like ice water over my head.
Scott.
The last time I’d seen him, he’d been trying to wrap Lara’s long legs around his waist, trying to force her…
Before I know what I’m doing, I’m parking the car on the street and jumping out, striding toward him.
I don’t confront him right away, though, just blending into the shadows until he separates from the others.
When he goes into the side of the building, I walk up behind him as he pisses on the brick wall, and I wrinkle my nose at the sight, waiting for him to finish.
As soon as he puts his dick back in his pants, I push him, slamming his face against the brick wall.
“Hey, fuck!” he yelps, and I twist his arm behind his back.
“Remember me, asshole?” We are far enough away from the others that they can’t hear us unless he screams.
“R-Rory,” he stutters, twisting his head to look at me. “What are you doing here?”
I shrug. “Just passing by, saw you here, and thought I’d ask you what the fuck you thought you were doing with Lara Burke.”
He snorts. “It's none of your business what I was doing with Lara Burke.”
I let out a short breath through my nostrils, trying to calm myself. “That’s where you’re wrong, boyo. Lara Burke is now Lara Murphy. She’s my wife.”
I loosen my grip on him, and he turns, frowning. “So what? It doesn’t mean anything. A Burke isn’t fit to be a Murphy. You’re just doing it to piss off Patrick.”
“I need to know if my father treats all women this way, or if this was all you.”
He rolls his eyes. “What’s your problem, anyway? She’s just a Burke . Filth. Less than human.”
“I bet a guy like you thinks all women are less than human.”
“Well, they’re not like us, that’s for sure.”
My head hurts, my heart beating in my ears.
“Tell me what orders you were under.”
“You can’t ask your father? Aren’t you daddy’s little boy?”
I slam him up against the wall again, and he gulps, looking around.
“Who are you looking for? There’s no one around to save you. No one gives a shit. I’m Rory Murphy. I could slit your throat right now, and no one would say boo.”
His Adam’s apple bobs. “You wouldn’t.”
“You want to try me, or do you want to tell me what I want to know?”
“He said to keep her safe. He didn’t say don’t touch her.”
“Does he usually allow his men to touch women like that?”
He pushes me away roughly.
I stumble backward, and he throws a punch at me, catching me high up on the cheekbone.
A bloom of pain sweeps through my jaw, but it doesn’t knock me out. Unlucky for him.
I draw my knife out of the spine sheath I keep it in and press it to his throat, pricking his skin so that blood slowly begins to trickle down to pool in his collarbone.
“What are you doing?” he asks in a strained voice.
“I’m getting you to tell me what I want to know, Scott. It’s not that complicated. You talk, and I don’t cut you to ribbons.”
“Your father?—”
“Is my father here?” I look around mockingly. “Looks like he’s not. Too bad for you.”
“Fine.” He huffs, licking his lips. “What do you want to know?”
“Does he allow you to touch women like that? Like you did with Lara?”
“He always says that once the job is done, the product doesn’t matter to him,” Scott says, and the words sound so much like my father that it makes me physically ill.
My stomach rolls.
“He lets me do whatever I want. He lets us all do whatever we want, especially to useless bitches like Lara Burke.”
I’m about to take the knife off him when he speaks again.
“And when this marriage shit is over, I’ll do whatever I want with her, and you won’t be able to stop me.”
Rage rockets through me, and my vision goes nearly red.
I don’t know what I’m doing until I’m doing it, dragging the knife across his throat.
I expect to feel horrified when he scrabbles at my shirt, digging his nails into my skin, when he gasps out a bubbly breath and blood floods down my shirt.
I don’t feel anything. I’m numb.
The blood feels sticky and hot.
When he starts to slump over, I let him go, and he crumples to the floor.
That was once a man. A man with thoughts and feelings. Maybe a man with a family.
Not a good man, that’s for sure. The world is better off without him.
But he likely had a mother, a brother, something. He had people who cared about him.
And I took his life without so much as thinking about it.
My breath comes in shorter, I look down at my bloody hands and chest and then look around, wondering if anyone saw me.
There’s no one to be found.
I keep to the shadows as I jog back toward my car, and I crank it up, breathing hard. Breathing so hard that it catches in my throat, and I have to slow down.
I don’t take off for a long, long time, just staring down at my bloodied hands.
I asked myself the other day if I could ever kill someone. I wondered if I’d ever take a life.
And now, I have.
And I still can’t feel a damn thing.
Chapter Nineteen