Chapter 10
ROWAN
“He wants to see you.” The thug at my bedroom door isn’t one of the brothers, but he looks and sounds official.
Am I supposed to feel… what? Safe? Blessed? That Liam’s had the decency to summon me this morning instead of bursting in like he owns the fucking place the way he did last night?
A shudder wracks through my body at the memory: the way he stalked across the room with hate-filled eyes, the bed dipping when he sat beside me, how he smelled of toothpaste and sandalwood as he leaned over me, bracketing me against the headboard.
I couldn’t open the piece of paper he handed me. Giving me that letter was a power play, intended to provoke a reaction. I won’t give it to him.
It was tempting, though, I have to admit.
I almost opened it. I picked it up and held it up to the light to see if I could see anything, but there’s nothing in that fabricated note of his that can help me.
He wants me to open it, and the only power I currently have is ignoring it.
I smother a yawn. After the former love of your life bursts through your door, jolting you awake and thrusts a fake piece of your history into your hand because you told him you can’t remember any of it, it’s hard to settle down.
He’s trying to get into my head. But what he doesn’t know is that he never left it, or my heart.
I spent hours staring at the door, waiting for him to come back, and when I wasn’t staring at the door, I was staring at the neatly folded letter he claims I wrote all those years ago, on the bedside table.
I want to flip off this messenger and tell them to tell Liam to go fuck himself. I want to barricade myself in the bathroom and force him to come and drag me out by my hair. But I can’t. Erin Walsh is timid and meek; she doesn’t have Rowan Byrne’s steel backbone.
So I simply nod, request a moment to put yesterday’s clothes back on—because I’m not giving that arsehole another chance of seeing my bare boobs—and silently follow the man downstairs.
He leads me to the kitchen. I count the turns. One left and two right. There’s an open space before the kitchen. No visible cameras anywhere, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
Liam’s alone at the table reading a newspaper. They still make those?
Across the table from him is a plate of food, and beside him, a pile of clothes. He jerks his chin at the chair in front of the food. “Eat.”
I’d love to tell him to eat it himself, or shove it up his hole, I don’t care which, but my growling stomach demands I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
Or a full fry-up. Same thing. I don’t thank him, I don’t make eye contact, but I slide into the seat and pick at the hot breakfast in front of me.
It should be just enough compliance to stay on his good side.
He’s not eating. He’s sipping from a mug, pretending to read his paper, but I can feel his eyes on me over the top of it.
After a few long, painful moments of silence, he folds the paper closed, then folds it in half again and places it in front of him on the table.
His hand comes up to touch his scar. I’m not even sure he’s aware he’s doing it.
“In all the years we’ve known each other, you always hated silence. You weren’t even quiet when you had my dick in your mouth.” He tips his head, sliding his glasses off his face and putting them on top of the paper. “It’s funny how quiet you are now.”
He reaches forward and plucks a rind of bacon from my plate then tosses it into the corner of the room where an enormous dog leaps to meet it in the air.
Something in my chest flickers. I didn’t know him when we were growing up, but Liam always talked fondly about his family.
The Mahoneys always had dogs. Liam used to harp on about how his da insisted on German shepherds, while Mrs. Mahoney had a thing for smaller dogs.
He told me that after his parents died, he got two Westies called Cooper and Murphy to honor his ma.
Liam used to bring them out for walks with us sometimes—back when he thought I was harmless—they could hardly go home and tell anyone our secrets.
They were getting up in age, so I assume they must have passed away over the last five years and been replaced by this… killer in the corner called Titan.
That totally tracks with this new villain arc of his.
I blink away the memory, the feelings tied to the Mahoney family pets, because Liam’s staring at me, staring at the dog, like it might be giving him another thread of information to add to his evidence against me.
“Eat,” he encourages. “It’s just how you like it.”
Maybe he’s changed tactics and isn’t trying to catch me in a lie, maybe he’s trying to provoke me into reacting instinctively. Good. Let him pivot. The more he shifts, the more I can figure out where his cracks are.
I look at my plate, evaluating the fry in front of me, noting the hard yolk on the fried egg. Liam knows how I take my eggs. Or at least he used to.
This isn’t about breakfast. It’s a test. The question is—whose? If I get this wrong, he learns something. If I get it right… so do I.
“Something wrong?” His voice sounds almost taunting, laced with challenge.
I shake my head.
“You’re going to be staying here for the foreseeable, Rebel. If there’s something on your mind…” He sweeps his hand at me.
I swallow down the anxiety in my mouth and force myself to say words I’d never in a million years say if my life wasn’t hanging in the balance.
I poke at the egg, making my nose crinkle as I frown at it.
“I just prefer my egg yolk a little runnier is all.” The lie settles on my tongue far too easily.
He stares at me, his eyes spearing mine and seeking the truth somewhere in my soul. I hold my breath. This is the moment… where he decides if he knows me… or if I’ve just rewritten the version of me in his head.
The corner of his lips twitch, but instead of calling me out on my lie, he simply nods. “I’ll be sure to have Maeve make you the perfect soft egg from now on.”
There it is. It’s not victory, but the first crack.
I try to mask my disappointment, my disgust at having to force runny eggs down my throat for the duration of my stay, but from the way he stares at the hard yolk on my plate like it owes him money, I might have convinced him that he doesn’t know me as well as he thought.
Or that I might not be Rowan after all. Either way, I’ll take it.
Even if it means enduring slimy eggs, and even if I can feel the walls shifting around me as he recalibrates, thinking of his next move.
It’s a small price to pay for gleaning some information about who he is now and how he plays. Liam Mahoney thinks he’s the one testing me. But he has no idea that I’ve just started testing him back.
“You’ll eat with the rest of us in the mornings. I won’t have poor Maeve busting her arse all morning in the kitchen. Either you’re down here for six thirty with the rest of us, or you go hungry. Your door will be unlocked one minute before mealtimes, so make sure you are ready.”
I flare my nostrils, wanting to stamp my foot at yet another condition of my imprisonment being added to my sentence, but instead, I shake my head. “It’s okay. I don’t want to be a hassle. I can make myself toast, or get cereal. It’s no big deal.”
He slams an open palm on the table, making the cutlery jump and the crockery clink, then smiles like he hasn’t just rattled the pictures on the walls. “Those are your options, with the family at six thirty, or you go hungry. Are we clear?”
I swallow down any retort that may be simmering on my tongue and instead nod before shoving a mouthful of breakfast into my mouth to keep from digging myself an early grave.
I look past the plate, and my breath hitches.
Tucked beside the teapot is a small ceramic jar of honey.
Did Liam remember I take honey in my tea?
He doesn’t mention it, and he doesn’t look at me while I reach for it, but the weight of his awareness in the room shifts, a silent acknowledgment that he’s still cataloging my preferences even while he tries to break me over fucking eggs.
“Sorcha won’t be around for a few days.”
His words hang heavy between us, and tears prick my eyelids as I blink them back from spilling onto my cheeks. My heart sinks at his words. The only woman I’ve met here, the only potential… ally? Is gone.
“Unless I decide otherwise, you’ll leave your room for mealtimes only. It’s the only time your room will be unlocked.”
I clench my teeth but still don’t answer.
“If you need something, you knock on the door and someone will come.”
My jaw aches from the clench, but I refuse to snap back at him. I keep my eyes lowered to my plate and push the food around to make it look like I’ve eaten, but my appetite disappeared along with whatever hope I held that he’d let me go soon.
He’s like a spider playing with a fly trapped in its web. He has no intention of freeing me. He’s not going to stop until he gets what he wants, and yet… the one thing he wants, the truth, is the one thing I can’t give him.
Instead, I’ll give him exactly what I want him to believe.