Chapter 20
LIAM
The frantic, staccato beat of her pulse against my palm sends me feral. Her eyes drown in tears, but there’s a flicker of fire in those blue eyes of hers that doesn’t belong to a timid little mouse called Erin.
It belongs to my Rebel.
The cinnamon spice of her scent hits me like a physical blow. My dick hardens immediately, the traitorous bastard. This situation calls for calm, for an icy response to the flames licking beneath my skin. I lean in—I can’t fucking help it—and roll my nose up her neck, filling my lungs with her.
It’s not enough.
“I-I…”
“What’s the matter, Erin. Cat got your tongue?”
“Let her go, Liam.”
I snap my head to Sorcha. “This has nothing to do with you. Fuck off.”
Her lips thin, and she crosses her arms over her chest. “If Patrick were here, he’d take your head off for talking to me like that.”
“Patrick isn’t here. But don’t worry. I’ll be sure to tell him to keep his fucking woman in line and her nose out of things that don’t concern her.”
I drop my hand from Rowan’s throat, only to grab her wrist and haul her down the corridor to my bedroom.
I thrust her inside and slam the door. If Sorcha dares to burst in here, she’ll wish she hadn’t.
She might think she’s lady of the fucking manor, but my business is not her business.
And Rowan is very much my fucking business.
Her eyes dart to the exit, but I’m standing between her and the door. She forces her gaze back to me, her chin lifted in an attempt to hide the fear that’s blindingly obvious. “What are you going to do now? Beat me? Rape me? Kill me?”
“Is that the kind of man you think I am?” My voice is low, threatening. “You think I’m capable of those things?” I take a step forward. She takes one back.
It was the worst move she could make. See, now, all I want is for her to run, and for me to chase her, catch her, remind her with my mouth, my tongue, my hands, my dick, of what we once had.
Of how desperately we used to love each other and how that desperation manifested in more torn shirts and dresses than I can count.
Rebel isn’t a lie back and think of Ireland kind of gal. She fucks like an animal, a perfect partner for me who is an animal.
Even from here, with several feet between us, I can smell her fear. And God fucking help me, it turns me on.
I have my answer, the one Patrick asked me the day I forced her back to Ireland. There isn’t a chance in the deepest bowels of hell that I could harm a single hair on this woman’s head, even if she did set me up.
Doesn’t mean I won’t make her think she’s in harm’s way.
“I don’t know what you’re capable of. Two weeks ago, I didn’t even know you existed.”
Fuck. Me. I blow out a breath loaded with irritation.
“So we’re back to that bollocks.” Before she has a chance to react, I move, trapping her against the wall.
I plant one hand on the wall and the other over her thumping heart.
“The lies may trip off your tongue, but your heart tells the truth, Rowan. And sooner or later, you’re going to have to give up that secret you’re determined to hold on to. ”
“I don’t have any secrets,” she whispers. “Please, I just want to go home. Let me go. It’s better for both of us.”
The smile I allow comes slow, but it’s menacing rather than kind, carved from old wounds I can’t allow to consume me. “But Rowan, you are home.”
She visibly blanches. “You’re… you’re never going to let me go?”
“Never is a long time. Let’s just say until you start telling me what the real fucking story is, you’re stuck here. I don’t give a fuck if it’s years. Decades.”
“Y-you can’t do that.”
“Princess, I can do whatever the fuck I want. This is my home, my domain. You have no power here, and the sooner you realize that, the better.”
Her fingers curl into fists, and her pulse hammers at the base of her throat. “You’ve no idea what you’ll unleash if you don’t let me go right fucking now.”
Ah… finally we’re getting somewhere. “And what is that?”
She bites her lip as though she realizes she’s slipped up. “Nothing,” she says dully, slipping back into her Erin persona. “You’re in charge.”
Normally hearing a woman say that would play to my ego, but on this occasion, I’m filled with disappointment.
I keep seeing these flashes of Rowan, and as much as they torment me, they give me hope that all isn’t lost. That the woman I once loved is still in there somewhere, fighting to hold on to her secrets. What I can’t figure out is why?
Keeping her off balance is the way I win this war. And win it I will. She doesn’t stand a chance.
I switch tactics. “What did Sorcha want?”
She blinks, unsettled. Exactly how I want her to be. “I don’t know. I didn’t get a chance to ask her.”
Another lie. “I heard her say something about the two of you talking. What about?”
Panic leaches across her face. I see the effort it takes her to push it away and plaster on a blank mask. “She’s being kind, that’s all. She knows what I’m going through.”
I study her face. Every micro-expression, every flicker of truth she’s desperately trying to suppress. The panic she couldn’t hide when I mentioned Sorcha isn’t only about being caught in another deception.
“And what exactly does Sorcha think you’re going through?”
“Being held captive by a man who thinks I’m someone I’m not.” Her voice steadies, and there’s that flash of defiance again. The Rowan I remember never backed down easily, even when she should have.
I lean closer, enough that our breaths mingle.
“You’re right about being held captive. But we both know exactly who you are, Rebel.
” I brush a knuckle over her cheek. She doesn’t flinch.
In fact, she leans into my touch. “I will find out what you’ve spent the last five years doing.
I will find out what you’ve spent the last five years running from, and why you’re so fucking terrified of me finding out. ”
Her pupils dilate, her chest heaving as her heart scrambles to punch through her ribcage. I should move away. This proximity is dangerous for both of us. Instead, I let my thumb brush against the curve of her breast through her shirt, a ghost of a touch that makes her breath hitch.
“Don’t.” There’s no conviction to the instruction, only a reflex, a response she thinks she should make rather than the one she wants to make.
“Don’t what? Touch you? We both know that’s not what you really want.” I drop my voice to a murmur. “Your body remembers me, even if you’re pretending your mind doesn’t.”
She shoves at my chest, and I let her push me back a step. “Get away from me.”
“Or what?” I step back into her space. “You’ll scream? Run? We both know how that worked out for you.”
Her jaw clenches, the effort to hold my gaze and not back down taking a monumental effort. “You cannot keep me here for the rest of my life.”
“Watch me.”
A knock at the door interrupts our standoff. “Liam. We need to talk.” Sorcha’s voice brooks no argument.
“I told you, mind your business, Sorcha.”
“It wasn’t a request. Either talk to me or I’ll tell Patrick how you spoke to me earlier, and we’ll see how much talking you can do with a broken jaw.”
This fucking woman. She means it, too. If she gets Patrick involved, he’ll chew my balls into mincemeat. The last thing I need is him breathing down my neck while I’m trying to figure my shit out when it comes to Rowan and feelings I’m nowhere near ready to examine.
I bite back a curse. Sorcha wouldn’t push unless it actually mattered, no matter how pissed off she is at me.
I step back from Rowan, putting space between us. “This conversation is not over.” I yank open the door. Sorcha’s already halfway down the corridor, Titan trotting at her heels. I follow, irritation prickling underneath my skin.
When we reach the bottom of the stairs, she turns to me, arms crossed. “What is it about you Mahoneys that you think charging into any situation with threats and bulk will get you the answers you’re after?”
I open my mouth, but she raises her hand. “That was not a question. That girl is terrified, Liam. Whatever is going on with her, she is barely holding it together, and you being aggressive with her is not the flex you think it is.”
I jab a finger at my scar. “Don’t you think I’m entitled to answers from the woman who did this to me?”
“Scared people don’t talk, Liam. They shut down, clam up, which is exactly what she’s doing.”
“That’s what torture is for,” I mutter.
“Jesus fucking Christ Almighty. You could no more torture that woman than I could. It’s obvious you’re still in love with her.”
The words hit me like a sucker punch, but fucked if I’m going to let Sorcha see she’s landed a killer blow. “Bollocks. She saw to that when she almost got me killed then fucked off.”
“Keep lying to yourself, and see where it gets you. Right now, she’s more afraid of something else than she is of you, and that should tell you something. Think about it. What could be worse than being held captive by a man who’s convinced she’s something she’s not?”
“She’s Rowan fucking Byrne, no matter what lies trip off her tongue.”
“Fine. She’s Rowan.” She sighs. “Let me talk to her, woman-to-woman. I’ll get more out of her than you will right now.”
Despite earlier thinking that Sorcha is the route to answers, the instinct in me screams to say no. To march back upstairs and demand answers. But Sorcha’s right about one thing: I’m too close to this. Too angry. I can’t be objective. Every time I get close to her, I lose my focus.
“Okay, but you’d better tell me whatever you find out.”
She narrows her eyes, and her lips thin the way they do when she’s pissed off.
“I’ll tell you what you need to know. I’m not one of your soldiers that you can order about.
I’m your brother’s fucking wife.” Whipping around, she leaves me standing in the hallway and strides up the stairs, Titan at her heels.
She’s got balls, that woman. It’s why my brother fell so hard; he probably lives with a permanent concussion. I watch them go, but as she turns at the top of the stairs and disappears from sight, the weight of Kai’s words settle over me like a weighted blanket, and not the kind that brings comfort.
Too clean. Like someone went through and scrubbed anything interesting. No socials, no digital footprint of any kind.
If Sorcha can’t crack her, I’ll have to find another way. Everyone makes mistakes, eventually. Even her. And when she does, I’ll be waiting.