Chapter 2
ROWAN
Flashes of shadows and distorted faces assault my pretend sleep, making my already taut muscles ache. But I can’t open my eyes. I can’t stare into the beautiful, hate-filled dark brown irises of my first love. The only man I’ve ever loved.
Liam Mahoney.
I need time. Time to think, to breathe, to figure out what version of me survives this. Looking at him means questions. Questions mean answers. And answers will get people killed.
The fake me keeps her breathing slow and shallow. The real me wants to sit up and demand that he let me go. My hands stay loose at my sides, even as every instinct screams to fight.
I don’t know what level of “Mad Dog” we’re dealing with today, but I can imagine he’s pretty pissed to have stumbled upon me on his travels.
I can’t believe I meekly left the pub with him after he threatened to kill every person in there unless I told my boss I was sick and left, but the Liam I remember didn’t make idle threats.
I can’t imagine this older, harder, bitter person has suddenly discovered his empathy bone.
My character, Erin, isn’t cut out to handle the lethal edge of the mafia mobster with kid gloves. To be honest, I’m not sure Rowan is either. She’d probably have already thrown a punch at his perfect fucking jaw by now.
My heart damn near stopped when I turned and found him standing at the bar. I thought I kept my shit together pretty well, but Liam didn’t buy it. He didn’t buy my name, my confusion, and he certainly didn’t buy the idea that I’m not the woman he’s probably been searching for these last five years.
Five years. It sounds like a long time, but when you never stay anywhere longer than six to twelve months, it goes by in a flash.
Fuck. I need to get back. To the bar, to my life. To Brian. After what I saw, Brian helped me get into the witness protection program, and I relied on him for everything. I missed my old life, desperately, but in the end, I had no choice but to say goodbye. To familiarity, to Ireland. To Liam.
Brian and I have been in a relationship for the past eighteen months, if you could call it that.
It was never a grand romance, more like a contract signed in my own blood for my safety.
Brian likes to play the part of the devoted boyfriend when he’s around, but since his promotion to the Joint Agency Task Force, he’s spent more time in Dublin than with me in London.
I don’t mind the distance. In fact, I crave it.
It’s easier to be grateful to a savior when you don’t have to wake up next to him every morning.
I’ve been in London for three months, moving here after Brian decided my last place had been compromised, and if he thinks it’s not safe for me, he’ll make me move… again.
Reset protocol. Fucking ballache is what it is.
Not as big a ballache as his boss seems to be.
I’ve heard her a few times in the background when I’m on the phone to him for check-ins.
She seems even more highly strung than he is.
I thought cops were supposed to be calm, measured.
Brian is the complete opposite. Highly strung, demanding.
Angry a lot of the time, like the world has pissed on his cornflakes once too often.
The driver clears his throat, dragging my thoughts away from my Brian problem to my more immediate—still smells fucking delicious—problem, “Mad Dog” Mahoney.
There’s only three of us in the car. Me, the driver, and Liam, who is bristling beside me. As soon as I sat my arse on the seat, the door locks activated, trapping me inside.
No amount of looking out the window reveals if he’s got another carload of his goons behind us, but I’d bet considering the shock on his face when our eyes met over the bar, he wasn’t expecting to bump into me, so maybe not.
Liam shifts his weight on the back seat of the bulletproof and not-moving SUV.
I close my eyes and concentrate on my breathing.
The “Rebel” Liam knew would already be fighting, but I can’t afford to let that woman out.
That fighting spirit he once loved surges through my blood, but I need him to believe that I’m not that fearsome girl he once knew.
It’s a fool’s errand, but I have to keep it up. His life, and mine, depend on it.
Liam’s made it more than clear that if I have any needs, I really don’t.
Need to pee? Piss yourself. Hungry? Starve.
He talks to me with such venom lacing his words.
He’s lucky I’ve been trained to play this scared little woman because otherwise I’d have been tempted to headbutt him for treating me like shit.
For the way he’s staring at me like he’s plotting ways to kill me.
A barb of fear shoots down my spine.
From the moment I met Liam, I knew who he was, who his father was, and what the Mahoney family was capable of. And I loved him anyway. But do I know this version? The one that looks as if he’d happily throttle me until I took my last breath?
Tell me, Rebel, what did they pay you to rat me out?
What does he mean by that? Rat him out with what? I never even met his family, let alone have access to information that could be used against him. If Liam thinks I betrayed him, someone rewrote history while I was trying to survive.
During the entire drive to the airport, he blathers on about my betrayal, and no matter how much I plead my innocence, he refuses to believe me.
“You know what you did.”
That’s it. That’s all I get. That, and a cold, hard look in his eyes.
I remember everything. Who he is, what I saw, and every detail of my painstaking fight to start a new life in a new country with a new identity.
I close my eyes again, feigning sleep. A few minutes later, Liam heaves out a massive sigh. “So that’s how you’re playing it?”
My body heats, but I keep my breath even, slow, just like I’m in a yoga class and not hurtling toward what feels like my undoing.
“You’re a terrible actress, Rowan. I know you’re faking it.
You’re as awake as I am.” His voice doesn’t sound as angry now, more dejected, tired.
Maybe I can somehow use that to my advantage.
If I can keep him away from the slit-my-throat level of anger, I might have a chance of him telling me what he thinks I did.
My pulse spikes, but I keep my breathing slow. He can’t know for sure I’m faking. I need to keep selling the fact I don’t remember him, or anything about him, or we’re both dead. Me first, and anyone still holding onto my old life, second.
Channeling every ounce of strength and bravery I have left in my bones, I tighten the mask Brian taught me how to wear. It presses against my ribcage like pieces of clothing that’s too small.
“My name is Erin.” It feels uncomfortable, tight, more unfamiliar than I’d like, all things considered.
Never get complacent, always be Erin, that’s what Brian said.
Always. But the more time that’s passed, the less I’ve needed her persona…
I guess I got a little sloppy lately in my daily rituals of repetition.
I keep my eyes shut tight. Looking at him is too painful. Too much of a reminder of what I lost, especially when those haunting brown eyes are filled with hate and loathing where they once held love and adoration.
“And why would anyone want to be awake when she’s been kidnapped and is being forced to go somewhere with a man who looks like he wants to murder her at every opportunity?
” I force my voice to quiver to match my trembling hands.
That’s not an act, that’s for real. I have no fucking clue how to outsmart this man and get the hell out of here, but as long as he believes I’m not a threat to him, I still have a chance.
Liam bumps his foot against mine. “Count yourself lucky, you’re not bound and gagged in the boot, Rowan. As kidnappings go, this one’s fucking civilized.”
Without opening my eyes, I can tell he’s smirking, but I also know it’s not a warm smile. It’s the detached smile of a cold, hard killer.
The vehicle hums beneath me. It’s sealed tight, its bulletproof glass cutting me off from the world outside. Even if I screamed, no one would hear me. It’s just me, Liam, a driver, locked doors, and the quiet, absolute certainty that he doesn’t think I’ll try anything stupid.
Which almost makes me want to try. Almost.
He taps my foot again, and I swear my heart’s about to do a runner right out of my chest and burst through the locked door my head’s resting on.
The burner phone in my sock feels heavier than it should.
It’s dead weight until the next check-in window.
But right now? It’s my only lifeline. The one thing giving me hope and keeping me in any way calm.
If I miss my check-in, Brian will escalate to his superiors. I’ve seen him pissed and know he’s not toothless. And then he’ll come for me.
Shit. Shit. He’ll come for me.
I can’t let that happen. If I do, he could put Liam’s life in danger, and the last five years, all that pain and sacrifice will be for nothing.
Brian has a dreadful temper, I’ve seen it.
And it’s clear from what he told me about the man sitting beside me that he hates him.
As a gard, that’s not a surprise. All police hate the mob.
I risk a side-glance out of a cracked lid and am met with Liam’s profile. The jagged scar running from his left temple to his lip doesn’t detract from the beauty of his angular jaw, strong nose, and cheekbones most women would die for.
A scar that wasn’t there last time I saw him. We’re both carrying more scars than when we were younger and in love. It’s just that mine are on the inside.
Fidgeting, I tamp down the anxiety that threatens to choke me.
I need to make the check-in. I need to make it so Brian believes everything is fine.
Back in the day, Liam knew me well enough to practically read my mind, and I need him to read the narrative that I’ve put there, memorized and repeated every day for half a decade. Not the truth.
Liam makes a call while we travel, he talks to his driver about a meeting he needs to keep tomorrow, but nothing he says is of any use.
No location. No names. Nothing exploitable.
He makes it clear that he knows I’m listening and that I’ll have a heavy security presence to ensure I can’t escape while he’s at said meeting.
His voice is smug, taunting, like he’s almost begging me to break character and push back somehow.
The Erin mask I’m wearing tightens, making it harder to breathe with every mile that passes out the window.
The car slows to a crawl and eventually stops. We’re not at the airport.
“Don’t fucking try anything, I won’t think twice about putting a bullet in your brain.”
There’s a sneer in his voice that splinters my heart. Where’s the soft-centered, devastatingly handsome man who looked at me like I hung the fucking sun? What happened to him to make him so… cold?
Or maybe this is who he’s always been—and I was just too young and naive to see it. That thought alone sends another wave of fear through my body.
No one speaks, but Liam grabs my wrist. His palms are as cold as his voice. “It’s time.”
Instinct makes me jerk my arm, but there’s no way he’s letting it go. “For what? Wh-wh-where are you taking me?” Shit. I almost call him by his name. He hasn’t told me who he is. He’s given me no name, and I can’t give him a single sign that I remember him.
Ever since those brown eyes met mine across the bar, I’ve been assaulted by memories of his sizzling-hot touch on my skin.
I loved him once. Madly, deeply. If I’m being honest with myself, I still do.
He was my first love. My only love. But that was then.
This is now, and I can’t let my heart rule my head. If I do, it’s going to get me killed.
He grabs my chin with a firm hand, looking me square in the face. “For us to have a little chat, Erin.” The way he spits my name tells me he doesn’t believe for a second that’s who I am.
Fuck.
This is my worst nightmare—and there’s no way to wake up from it.
Which means… I have to figure out a way to survive it instead.