Page 70 of While You Sleep

I spun to my father. “You have to know you can’t trust him. He’ll kill you as soon as you turn your back.” Paolo was unstable, twisted. “Dad?”

“Don’t question me. I know what I’m doing,” he said, still avoiding my stare.

Paolo’s clammy hand gripped my chin, forcing me to look at him. “Unlike your soon-to-be ex-husband…your marriage will be nothing but a bad memory by the time you wake up tomorrow, just FYI, I would never murder my father-in-law.”

“What?” I whispered, horror stealing my voice. He couldn’t be serious. That’s why my father wanted me to leave Cillian, because I was part of the deal he’d made with Paolo. “I won’t do it.” I felt sick to my stomach. The annulment had been a safeguard, in case Cillian survived their attack tonight.

Paolo laughed, and it sent ice through my veins. “It’s cute you think you have a choice. I told you, Sophia, I’m taking everything from Cillian O’Rourke, including you.”

The car sped away as the sound of gunshots filled the night.

* * *

Cillian

I strode out into the hall as gunfire came from the floor below. Sophia was gone from our bed. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on, where she was, but whoever had the balls to break into my house would leave in a black plastic sack.

A gunman rounded the corner. I aimed for his shoulder and fired. He jerked back, dropping his gun and hit the ground. I strode forward, leaning over him. “Where is my wife?”

He scowled up at me, mouth shut.

I pressed my thumb into his now bleeding, fucked-up shoulder. He screamed. “Where?” I demanded.

“I—I d-don’t…know.”

His eyes darted behind me. I spun and fired another shot at the guy behind me, hitting him in the chest. He went down. I turned back to the bleeding, writhing fucker on the floor. “Tell me.”

“I t-tell you, I’m a…d-dead man.”

I pressed my gun to his forehead. “You were a dead man the moment you walked into my home. But you have a choice; die a slow, agonizing death or I keep it simple and just splatter your brains all over my floor. What’s it gonna be?”

Tears filled his eyes, his face contorted with fear. “Paolo,” he rasped.

I straightened, aimed, and shot him between the eyes, then headed downstairs.

Danny stood in the living room. There were several bodies on the floor, all dead.

“How many?” I asked him.

“Eight, the others are outside. Braiden and Lance are doing another perimeter check. Seamus and Sally are fine, but she’s pretty freaked. I told her to stay in her room.”

“Sophia?” I asked, while my heart slammed wildly in my chest.

A look slid through his eyes I didn’t like. “She’s gone. Sally saw Sophia leave and followed her. She jumped the fence and took off before the men stormed the place.”

“She look scared? Was someone forcing her?”

Danny shook his head.

Fuck. I wanted to roar, to kill, but we’d already killed everyone.

She said she’d find a way to leave when I first brought her here, that she wouldn’t be my wife for long… I’d thought…

I’d actually convinced myself she was finally happy, that she actually liked it here with me.

There are things you should worry about, husband, like if your wife is slowly losing her damned mind with all the ways her world has been thrown on its head, or if I’ll do to you what Alto’s wife did to him or whether I’ll run away in the middle of the night, because sometimes I have to seriously talk myself out of both of those things…

She’d said that to me. She’d made it clear she was unhappy, but I didn’t want to see it.

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