Page 145 of Manacled Hearts

“Christ, listen to me, you’ve been here for too long. We have to go.” His tone grows colder. It doesn’t match his expression.

“Go then.”

Please don’t. I’m scared. But I’m even more scared to be alone with him, to face him properly.

“I’m not fucking playing. Someone could have witnessed this, and if the police were called, you can’t risk being seen.”

I draw in a deep breath as his eyes narrow on me. He’s losing his patience. Oh well. I shrug, but that angers him further.

“Fuck this!” He grips my good arm, pulls me up, and before I can register the movement, he dips down and throws me over his shoulder.

That snaps me right out of my trance, bringing me back to the reality I’ve been avoiding.

“Son of a—! Put me down, right now!” I smack his lower back, avoiding his annoyingly perfect-shaped ass as he moves to walk away.

“No. If I say we have to go, we have to fucking go.”

“I’ll walk!” I argue, as I plant my palms on his lower back and push myself up.

But a crack splits through the softening crash of the surf, and a sharp ache heats my right ass cheek.

“You didn’t just—” the protest lodges itself in my throat when the last man I killed comes into view, lying on a bed of blood-stained sand with my blade stuck in his gut.

“Ronan, grab that knife.”

Even his brother’s here?

Embarrassment pools in the pit of my stomach, but I’m unsure why. Maybe it’s because I consider the man normal since he’s technically not part of this world anymore. And now he’s a witness to my sins.

Actually, there’s another witness.

“The woman!” I say on a loud gasp.

“We got her. She’s fine.”

The bobbing around on his shoulder is making me nauseous, and I grab onto him to steady myself.

“What will you do to her?”

“With, Evelyn. With her. We’re not gonna do anything to her. Carter will question her to find out if she’s a threat, and take it from there.”

“Carter?!” I all but squeal. “He’s going to eat her alive!”

“Only if he has to.”

Finnigan ducks down and settles me back onto my unsteady feet, and I’m about to argue that his answer isn’t soothing me in any way, but it only reaches his warm palm. Frustration pools in the back of my throat and bleeds through my eyes as the man holds his hand over my mouth.

“I said”—his tone lowers just as his brows do—“we have to leave. Get in the car.”

He pushes me backward, and my legs hit something, but there’s only empty space behind my ass.

“Le’ ’e ’o.” I mumble against his skin, and the bastard grins.

He actually grins. So I push my tongue out against his palm, licking it as surprise hits his brows.

“Get in the car, Evelyn.” He says it with the softest, most soothing of growls rumbling deep in his chest, and the command spills through my body like syrup, driving my legs to bend and shift until I’m sitting in the car.

A few moments after the door shuts, he slips on the other side of me, and Maddox and Ronan climb at the front at the same time.

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