Chapter 45
LIAM
Gravel whips off the rear tires as I skid onto the road and floor the accelerator.
The back end slides out and nudges an old oak tree.
Dan braces himself by gripping the edges of his seat, and Jeff, who I called for extra backup once I realized Murray had dropped the tracking tag grabs the “bejaysus bar” above the rear door. “One piece, yeah, boss.”
One piece. If Rowan isn’t in one fucking piece when I get to her, I’ll chop that fucker up into a hundred. A thousand. I’ll break every bone in his body and drag out his death for days.
He’s not going anywhere. She sounded confident one minute, then panicked the next. As tough as my Rebel is, she’s nowhere near as strong as a gard, a man trained for strength and combat. Unless he’s out cold, and she’s got him trussed up like a turkey at Christmas, I’m taking no fucking chances.
“How long?” I grit out, driving too fast to risk taking my eyes off the road.
Dan glances at the GPS in the middle of the dash. “Five minutes.”
Too long. Too fucking long. Five minutes is more than enough time to overpower her and disappear. She got free of him once, but there’s no way he’ll be that sloppy a second time. If I lose her now, I might never get her back.
I brake hard at a sharp bend in the road, the rear end fishtailing. There’s a loud crack. I glanced in the rearview mirror.
“Fuck.” Jeff rubs his head. “Lucky I’ve got a hard skull.”
I ignore him, too riddled with anxiety to come back at him like I usually would. “Time,” I bark at Dan.
“Two.”
This is torture. I’m not going to make it. She can’t possibly keep Murray subdued for this length of time. I can’t lose her again. I fucking won’t. I refuse. I’ll burn the fucking world down searching for her, if he takes her from me a third time.
Death is the only thing that will make me stop. Even then, I’ll search for her in the afterlife.
I fling the car around another corner, narrowly missing an oncoming vehicle. The driver swerves into the hedgerow, blaring his horn. Dan sends me a side-eye but sensibly keeps his trap shut.
“Turn in here.” He points to a gap in the hedge that leads onto a narrow dirt track arrowing through the middle of a field.
The farmer must be midway through cultivating the land ready for spring planting.
On one side, the earth has been churned in neat lines.
On the other, wild grasses blow in the wind.
My eyes scan the field.
“There.” Dan points.
“I see her.” I wrench the steering wheel to the right, beelining for Rowan, her thighs braced on either side of Murray and a knife to his throat.
There’s a red stain on his side which, unfortunately for him and fortunately for me, doesn’t look life threatening.
But there’s also blood running down his neck. Rowan must’ve cut the bastard. Good.
I’m out of the car the second it stops. Rowan’s shoulders sag, the knife sliding from her hands. I haul Murray to his feet and pull him away from her. It sickens me that he got this close, but I’ve got him now. He’ll never get close to her again.
I let Jeff take over. “Shore up that neck wound and toss him in the boot.”
I stride back to Rowan. She almost collapses into my arms. She’s freezing, her feet bare, her robe from the spa covered in mud. I take off my coat and wrap it around her. “You’re okay. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
The fight drains out of her, and she bursts into tears, her fingers curling into my shirt. Holding Murray at knifepoint must have sapped what’s left of her energy.
I rub circles on her back, barely holding myself together. But my feelings are blinding rage and a need for vengeance. Her sobs lessen and eventually stop.
I tilt up her chin. “Talk to me.”
“I’m okay.” She burrows her face into my neck, breathing me in, then leans back, eyes red from crying, but there’s a jut to her chin that wasn’t there a few minutes ago. “He and his mother took me to a cottage.” She points to her left. “It’s over there. His mother is still there.”
I beckon to Dan. “Go get the mother and hold her. She’s in a cottage over the hill.”
Dan nods and takes off at a jog. I return my attention to Rebel. She’s biting her lip hard enough to draw blood.
“I’m so sorry. I feel like I let you down. I should have been more careful.”
“At a spa?” When we get home, I’ll be having fucking words and throwing a punch at my brother for letting Rowan out of his sight. Although, even the most reckless betting man couldn’t have seen this scenario coming.
A faint smile coasts over her lips. “Is Sorcha okay?”
“Sorcha is fine. If Murray hadn’t found the tracking tag, we’d have got to you far faster.”
She frowns. “A tracking tag?”
“Yeah. Sorcha dropped one into your robe at the spa, but I’m guessing Murray discovered it because it stopped transmitting. We found it lying in a field.”
Her lips part. She stares at the ground, flicks her gaze to mine, then back to the ground. Her mouth closes, opens, closes again. A muscle spasms in her jaw. Oh, she’s mad. I don’t know why I never expected this reaction, but knowing what I know about her, I probably should have.
“Why would she do that?” Spoken through clenched teeth.
“You’ll have to ask her. My guess is she was covering all bases, especially with Brian knowing you were back in Ireland. It was for your protection.”
“Hmm.” She’s not convinced. “For my protection? That’s what Brian said. Every time he moved me, every time he locked a door, every time he tracked me—it was always ‘for my protection.’” She falls quiet again.
Poor Sorcha. She’s going to get a double-barreled Rebel reaction. Years ago, I found myself on the receiving end of one or two of those. I feared that version of my girl was gone forever, but she’s very much alive.
I should warn Sorcha to wear armor, but it’ll be far more fun if I don’t. What can I say? I’m an arsehole, and a bastard. And a bit of a cunt. I’ve made my peace with it.
“Patrick’s arranged a secure location where I can question Murray and find out what he knows. Darragh is meeting me there. I’ll have Jeff drive you back to the house.”
She cants her head. “I’m sorry, what?” Fisted hands prop against her hips.
“I don’t think so. I have as much skin in this game as you do.
” She jabs a finger in my chest. “More in fact. I refuse to find out why I lost five years of my life by proxy or some sanitized version you deem fit to share with me. Oh, no, mister. I’m there for all of it. All. Of. It.”
She’s fucking magnificent.
“Rowan, you’ve been kidnapped, had the fucking scare of your life, and you’re exhausted. I’m only thinking of you.”
She shakes her head violently. “I’m coming. And if you ever want me to speak to you again, let alone get your dick touched in any way, shape, or form, you will not argue with me. Do I make myself clear?”
While she sobbed in my arms, for one horrible moment, I thought Erin had made a comeback. I’ve never been so happy to be wrong about something in my entire life.
“It could get bloody.”
“It better had. That man deserves to suffer.”
I flash a grin and smash a hard kiss to her lips. “Then let’s go and get some answers.”