Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Ashland
Once, I was in a fight, and the bastard in the ring knew exactly how to provoke me. I was a young lad at the time, and he made fun of every one of my goddamn family members.
I beat the living shite out of him until he was crying, begging for mercy, and covering his face with his broken hands.
Tiernan had to pull me off him. He leaped into the ring and held me back, his arms like bands of steel around my chest, keeping me from swinging.
I can still feel it—the way those steel bands locked me in place and kept me from killing the eejit.
And I feel like that now .
There's a metaphorical band of steel wrapped around me, holding me back from running after Bianca and dragging her back to safety.
But I did that once, and it didn't fucking work.
I told her who Crowning was and what he'd do to her. But she was too wedded to her own sense of propriety, and maybe too scared of me, to trust a word I said.
I understand now that that method won't work a second time.
So I wait. And I watch.
I wonder if she'll tell Crowning that I took her. If she'll spin some story about being kidnapped, giving him a reason to retaliate.
When there's no blowback—no message to Seamus, no bombs at the warehouse, no attacks in the middle of the night—I realize she didn't.
She stuck to her story. Whatever lie she told him, it held. And now I wonder if the bastard's giving her shite about where she's been.
I pace the cabin and pull up my footage of her—only to realize the screen's gone black.
Why can't I see into her room anymore?
Panic slices through me, sharp and instant. I stab at the buttons, rewind the feed, and then I see her—glaring directly at the camera before yanking the damn thing down and pointing it at the empty room .
Goddamn it.
She's too smart for her own fucking good.
I narrow my eyes at the dead screen and shake my head. Clever lass thinks she's won, but that’s not the only way I have to watch her. And I don't give up that easily.
I look back at my last text to her. She read it but didn’t respond. She didn’t block me, and she didn’t tell Crowning what happened to her.
Does she need to see for herself, then? Does she need to watch him show his true colors before she'll believe me?
I blow out a breath and drag a hand over my shaved head. Fine. I know the ins and outs of her neighborhood like the back of my hand—I've been there so many times I could walk it blindfolded. And I happen to know there's an apartment available, half a block from where she lives.
I pack up my things, and I book it.