Chapter 12
ROWAN
Liam Mahoney is absolutely unhinged.
There are traces of the man I gave my heart to, but it’s like someone poured poisonous concrete over him and dialed him up to eleven.
If I wasn’t trying to maintain the facade of goodie-two-shoes Erin, I’d wear the fucking dress to breakfast tomorrow and watch him choke on his runny eggs.
I dig the heels of my hands into my eyes and lean forward off the edge of the bed. Sucking in air feels almost impossible. The walls of this hellhole are inching toward me, and I can’t catch a damn breath.
The dress, the prison, the lock on the outside of the—the door. Shit. Did he lock the door? I don’t remember hearing the screech of metal on metal as he slid the deadbolt closed.
A flutter of excitement, hope, a thrill of possible escape has me bolting up off the mattress and crossing the room with eager strides. My hand hovers over the handle, my heart thrashing in my chest as I close my fingers over it and turn.
There’s a satisfying click, and the door opens.
Oh. My. God. The door opens. It’s open.
My breath stalls out in my throat. If it’s open, it’s because he wants it to be. Because he’s so fucking sure that I can’t escape. It’s another test. A tease. A falsity. A measured leash. I bet he’s downstairs waiting to see what I do with it.
That rat bastard.
There’s no way out of this place. My heart sinks to my feet like a rock in a pond.
Even so, I grip the door, every cell in my body urging me, no, demanding that I slam the wood into the frame, but that’s what he wants. A reaction. He wants me to be predictable, to break character, to snap back at him like the fiery girl he once knew.
Somehow, I channel calm I don’t feel, I close the door with a click, and put my new clothes away in the wardrobe, hanging the dress from the last time we slept together out of sight at the back.
There’s power in that dress, and I’m not ready to part with it just yet. If I can use it to help Liam Mahoney tell me the truth about what happened when I left, I’ll do it.
I glance at the door again, the urge to escape burning hot under my skin. If I made it out past the brothers, the dog, and into the garden, maybe I could call Brian and tell him where to find me without the risk of being overheard. And trade Liam’s cage for Brian’s.
Except, I’m not entirely sure I want him to find me. And the second I so much as whisper the name Liam Mahoney to my handler, he’ll go off like a firework at New Year. I might not be able to control much about this situation, but here and now? I can control not being handled by him.
There’s a cost to pulling that ripcord. Him and his interrogations, restrictions, and punishment dressed up as protection. And I think I might be getting tired of paying it.
Since his promotion, our relationship has dwindled to missed calls and the occasional weekend where he tries to play house.
We don’t live together. He says it’s for my protection, but I know it’s so he can keep his two lives separate.
The sex was never frequent, and after the one time I actually let him in, I realized I was just trying to pay a bill I could never settle.
I don’t miss him. I miss the girl I was before I became his fucking pet project.
I pace the room for what feels like hours, and I can’t waste the battery to turn on my burner to check the time.
Laughter drifts up the stairs, and a pang of envy slithers under my fingernails. The unlocked door taunts me from across the room, and Liam’s stupid piece of folded paper challenges me from the bedside table.
I need to get out of this room and start mapping this place properly. I need to learn the security in this damn prison. Figure out how far this bungee cord really stretches. And I can’t do any of that staring at those fucking bars over the window. If I run, I won’t get a second chance.
Fuck Brian. Fuck Liam. Fuck them both in the eyeballs with something sharp. I’m going to walk around this house until someone puts me back in my bland cage, and hopefully learn something while I do.
I’ve walked this bedroom floor enough tonight to know which floorboards squeak.
Quiet movement matters more than being fast right now, so I sidestep those as adrenaline surges in my veins.
I’m leaving this room. If he wants his fucking Rebel, he’s going to get her.
And I’ll do it with a saccharine smile on my face, so sweet that no one else will believe him and his angry ranting.
The handle twists again, the door opens, and I step out onto the landing, giving my hips a little shake because hell yeah.
A quick look over the banister shows two guards at the bottom of the stairs, one facing the door and one angled toward the hall.
More laughter rings out from somewhere down below, and I picture Liam and his brothers sitting around and having the craic while I’m up here playing Rapunzel in her ivory tower.
Bastards.
I’m not brave or stupid enough to go downstairs, to take on two armed men, or to invoke the wrath of an already rattled Liam. My lips twitch. The dress might have been a test for me, but it also showed that he’s still emotionally compromised when it comes to me.
More evidence of the power in that dress.
Most of the doors on this floor are locked, which feels oddly as though Liam suspected I’d venture out. That also tells me this floor is controlled. My movement is restricted; my routes are limited. He’s herding me.
One’s an office, but I can’t tell whose. There’s a dark wooden desk under a mountain of papers and files, the walls have ornate frames with photographs of the Mahoneys, their parents, even a picture of their dogs.
There’s a bookshelf behind the desk. It’s got paperweights, more pictures, and a couple of dusty encyclopedias. I don’t waste time flicking through the loose documents on the shelf.
The chair is slightly pulled out, half turned, basically an invitation. My gaze drops to the seat. A thin folder sits there like it was abandoned mid-thought.
I hesitate for half a second. Then I pick it up.
Names. Photos. Notes scrawled in Liam’s handwriting.
My stomach twists.
This doesn’t feel like business. It’s personal. I look for names first. Brian Murray. Erin Walsh. Rowan Byrne. Anything tied to my witness protection.
There’s nothing obvious, which likely means anything important isn’t left in the open.
I check the desk edges, the underside, but there’s no key taped, no quick-access stash, no James Bond type button to open a secret compartment.
The drawers are all locked. Of course they are. Which means whatever matters is inside them.
My stomach sinks with disappointment. I’m not sure what I expected to find, but this is kind of… boring for the mafia. If Liam finds me here, he’ll probably think it’s defiance, when in fact I was looking for leverage and came up empty.
I could guess what the second room is with my eyes closed from the minute the door swings open. Is there anything better than the smell of old books and cologne and something inherently belonging to a person you love?
Loved.
If this room isn’t Liam Mahoney’s, I’ll eat my fucking hat.
Not that I have one right now, but I’ll find one and eat it.
I’m not complaining. Being in his space makes me supremely happy because it not only gives me a chance to get under his skin, but perhaps it gives me access to delve a little deeper into his mind.
Access means opportunity, and opportunity means leverage.
If he had a TV mounted in here, I’d binge watch something under his account on one of the streaming platforms. Then all the shows and movies the algorithm suggests would turn from whatever documentaries and crime shows he’s watched to rom-coms and reality shows.
He always fucking hated reality shows.
Instead of a TV, or a gaming console or a shelf full of jigsaw puzzles, there’s a massive bookcase stuffed with books.
I suppose it’ll do. I’ve always been a voracious reader, and it’ll give me something to do while I wait for Liam to figure out how he’s going to seek his revenge on me—or I decide to tell Brian where I am and let the pieces fall where they will.
I inch inside. I don’t want to turn on the big light—Ma would be proud of me—so I find a lamp that brings a warm glow to the room. Dragging my finger along the books on the shelf leaves me with a dusty fingertip. When was the last time he picked up a book?
I lean in to look at what books this angry Mahoney man has for me to dive into. It takes a few shelves before I find something remotely readable. The Art of War by Sun Tzu makes me smile, but it’s too obvious, too big of a “fuck you” to my captor. I need something a little more subtle.
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli is a tempting thought. It’s about power, manipulation, fear and control. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius could work to tell him I’m centered and unbreakable. But when I spy Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky, I know I’ve found the right book to flip Liam the bird.
The one upside of not being allowed on social media, and being picked up from everything I knew and plopped into a new life, is that I’ve had plenty of time to read everything I could get my hands on.
And the message of disrupting power structures between the covers of this book is the exact message I want to communicate to my ex.
It says: I’ll burn your system down from the inside.
And more importantly, it tells him I’m thinking.
It’s a manual for destabilizing men who think they’re untouchable. Fucking perfect.
As I slide it off the shelf, a low growl rumbles through the room from behind me, making my blood run cold and my hands shake so violently the book hits the ground.
No sudden movements, Rowan. Nice and slow.
I turn to face a really fucking angry dog. Ears back, teeth bared, viciousness dripping from its fucking fangs.
Shit.
I drop onto the floor, hoping if I make myself as submissive as I can, Titan won’t rip my throat out.
If I can get this dog to trust me, the balance of power in this house could change.
Cross-legged on the rug, I open my hands.
The dog stares at me for what feels like a lifetime.
Sweat’s prickling on my palms and my hairline, my heart rate’s thundering at an inhuman speed somewhere in my throat, and the dog just keeps staring, like it’s assessing me.
After what feels like an hour, the dog prowls to me, sniffing me as it comes closer.
“That’s it. I’m no danger to you.” And if you’re not a threat, you might be useful.
“I’m not going to hurt you. And I’m not trying to leave.
” I force calm into my voice as I talk to the dog.
When its snout hits my palm, I swallow a frightened squeal.
And when a rough tongue slips out to lick my hand, I swallow an elated one.
After a few more minutes of getting to know me, of letting the dog sniff me and giving it a good scratch behind the ears and on the belly—ah, she’s a girl—I climb up onto my captor’s bed and open the book.
For at least an hour, Titan simply sits staring at me like she’s standing guard, still unsure of me, but eventually, she curls against me like I belong here, like I’m safe, like I’m part of the family.
The Mahoneys built this house to keep people out. I bet they never accounted for someone turning his security inward. One guard down, who knows how many more to go. Take that, Liam Mahoney. Even your big bad death dog doesn’t believe I’m the bad guy.