Page 150 of Ruthless Savage

She doesn’t wait long. The door flies open, and he rushes in, holding a young man in his grip, a gun pointed at the guy’s temple.

“Get your hands off my wife!” His eyes go to mine, and in them, I find pain, so much of it.

“Ah, there you are. Took you long enough.”

My scalp burns as she yanks harder, making me wince.

“Been listening to every word you said, Lordes. It’s a shame it took us this long to meet, wouldn’t ya say?”

“Believe me, I’ve been waiting a long time for this. Now, drop the boy and come fight me like a man.”

The guy holding Karen points his weapon at Devlin, and my nerves can’t take it anymore.

“I don’t think I’ll do that,” Devlin says. “See, you’ve got a knife to her throat and I have a gun to your nephew’s head. And I have a feeling you’d rather me kill your daughter than him, isn’t that right?”

At that, Karen wails, and I wish I could hold her. I know she betrayed me, and I’m so angry, but I can’t help but want to comfort her too. Clearly, she didn’t have a good family life.

“Fuck you, you traitor!” The blade deepens against my skin. “Let my brother’s boy go! Or I kill her right now.”

The boy isn’t that young, a few years older than me.

“You’re gonna kill her anyway, so why would I let him live?” He tightens his arm around the guy’s neck. “See, you thought you were smarter than me. That your people would easily overpower me and I’d let history repeat itself. But not this time. So, what will it be? Blood for blood, or do we let them go?”

“I will kill you!” she snaps.

“You could, but I have the place surrounded. Got the Irish, the Italians, and even the Russians ready to light your arse up. So, you may kill my wife and me, but you’ll all be dead too.”

“You bastard! My father trusted you. He treated you like a son!” she hollers. “And you gave us up like we meant nothing. And for what? For some junkie brother who would’ve ended up dead on the street with a needle in his arm anyway?” She snickers. “I’ll never stop hunting you. No matter where you go, I’ll be there, taking everything from you. It’s why I needed you to marry her. Being together wasn’t enough. I wanted to take her from you in the worst way. To make it hurt as much as I could.”

“Well, you’ve done that. Now let her go and take me.”

“That’ll never be enough, and you know it. Not after the way you destroyed my family!”

I pinch my eyes closed, my body trembling, gasping for breaths that never come. Fear for Devlin and for myself hits me hard.

This could be it. Our future could vanish right here and now.

“My father never paid much attention to me,” she goes on. “You never even met me because I was never a part of the business. But little did my father know, I watched him and learned everything.” She sounds proud of herself. “You may have not known me, but I knew everything about you. I knew how you’d react if someone like Mason married her. I mean, he was already an asshole. Didn’t take much to make him threaten Eriu about her virginity.”

Devlin’s face contorts with rage, even while he tries to remain calm.

“I figured that would make little Eriu desperate enough to join the auction to avoid marrying him. I love being right.” Her voice mocks. “The only hiccup was if you’d actually marry her. I wanted her to be your wife when I took her from you. When I made you watch as another person you love got taken from you. If you’d been loyal, none of this would’ve happened. It’s all your fault.”

Devlin grunts low in his chest, glancing at me, jaw flexing. “I did what I had to do to keep the feds from taking my brother to prison.”

She claps, slapping one palm on her other forearm. “Bravo. Except he ended up dead anyway. Prison would’ve been better.”

“It’s over, Lordes,” he warns. “Give up now.”

“I’ll never go down like a coward. She’s gonna?—”

Pop.

I gasp, screaming as a bullet flies through the window and enters her temple.

And in a flash, another enters the man holding Karen.

He falls with a thud.

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