Page 67 of One Love

“Wait.” All eyes turn to Hallie as her head lifts from J’s shoulder, but I don’t miss the way her mother’s fingers squeeze her upper arm, keeping her in place, protecting her…even if from herself. “I want to talk to him.”

“No. Absolutely not, Kid. He’s—“

“Evil, I know. But I have to say something to him. Please, Mom?” The conflict in J’s eyes swims like a school of sharks, darkening the blue of her irises. “Please?” Hallie repeats, and if the way J struggles with releasing her is any indication, I know she’s fighting against every cell in her body to keep Hallie away from Ronan.

“Five minutes.” Hallie nods at Jordyn’s low command and Enzo and Marco step aside, giving Hallie the space to stand in front of Ronan and the other dude sitting next to him.

“Ah, little girl, we had such high hopes for you.” Ronan’s words have me standing immediately, ready to pummel his face in like a punching bag, but I stop when Hallie looks at me; no fear in her eyes, no lack of confidence in her stance. Holy fuck. In this moment, she is the carbon copy of her mother, right down to her fisted hands at her sides.

“In just a few months, you ripped apart my entire world. You talk about the superiority of the Irish compared to the Italians, which, by the way, is ridiculous…I watchedGangs of New Yorkand I’m still TeamMarco.”

We all try to hush our chuckles, but damn, the king of the Irish mob just got schooled by a thirteen-yea-old.

“But how can you say that when you’re the reason my dad’s gone? Because of you, he’s dead and I’ll never be able to tell him I love him again. Tell him that he was the best dad any daughter could dream of. You took him away from me. Away from everything I’ll ever do in my life. I miss him.” Her voice chokes on that last sentence and I’m fucking breaking inside because Hallie’s pain is a living, breathing monster sitting on this plane with us.

“Because of you, I won’t have my dad taking pictures of me graduating from high school or college. And he won’t be there, hugging me when I get a doctorate degree or maybe curecancer.” Holy shit, this girl is aiming high and I’m here for it. On this day, I vow that I will make every one of those moments happen for her. It won’t be her dad, but I’ll take those pictures and I’ll hug her and tell her how proud Murphy would be knowing his baby girl is going to change the world.

“He won’t walk me down the aisle or hold my baby in his arms. And I’ll never be able to hear someone call me Hals without feeling like my heart is being ripped out of my chest. You did this. You. Did. This.” She then surprises the fuck out of me and spits on him. Right in his face.

“Okay, that’s gross.” Hallie frowns at the spittle dripping down Ronan’s cheek, his glare on her deadly but harmless nonetheless. “Still, this is what I wanted to say…It won’t break me. You hurt me but you can’t break me. My dad is dead but he lives inside me. And you, sir, can go straight to Hell.” With a nod like she’s giving herself permission to walk away, she turns and runs straight back into J’s welcoming arms.

Damn, I’m a little choked up knowing I’ve got the memory of a great man watching over us, making sure I don’t fuck up in my quest to be the best step-dad in the history of step-dads.

“Here’s your water.” Enzo throws a plastic bottle of water at Ronan, hitting him square in the face, then turns to sit right back down just as Ronan starts to scream out profanities, waking up the pig-roast boy next to him.

Thankfully, the captain’s voice telling us it’s time to fasten up for our descent comes over the speakers just as Shoo shoves an old, recently worn sock in Ronan’s mouth.

Then silence rains down over us and we don’t speak until we land in The City, where two cars and a van wait for us.

Eddie stands there with his crew, pain mixed with hatred written all over his face as we load the two guys into the van and I watch as they truss them up on hooks and shit.

I mean, the mafia is no joke. Their organizational skills are legendary for a reason.

It takes us a little over thirty minutes to get from La Guardia to the docks where Marco’s warehouse of torture sits, nondescript and completely normal, on a practically empty lot.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” I whisper above Hallie’s head to J as we pull up to the large open doors of the warehouse. Marco followed us here but he’s taking Hallie to his Upper East Side mansion so she can eat, shower, then sleep. Apparently, there are only two people J trusts to take care of her baby girl and I’m not one of them…yet.

Jordyn’s narrowed gaze bores into me.

“Yeah, yeah, you don’t like surprises, but I promise…you’ll love this one.”

Quickly saying her goodbyes to Hallie as she switches cars and rides away with Marco, J turns to me and sighs.

“All right, let’s see what’s happening in there.” I stop her as she takes her first step into the warehouse, my hand at the back of her neck and my lips so close I can taste her.

“Hey. She’s going to be okay. We’ll make sure of it.” J’s steely blue gaze searches my face like she’s assessing and making sure I believe my words, that I’m not just saying what she needs to hear. “I promise.”

With a nod that’s more for her than it is for me, she tries to pull away but I’m not having that. My hand tightens around her neck and I pull her in those final inches it takes for me to kiss the breath from her lungs. The most amazing thing about this moment is that she lets me. She fucking lets me without fighting it, without simply relenting. She lets me because she, too, needs the touch of us.

“Now, let’s see if my present works.”

As we walk in, Shoo is circling the big barrel I had delivered, crouching and tapping the sides, using his nails to…I don’tfucking know what he’s trying to do but it’s taking all of his concentration. To the side, Devon is whistling and testing his knots on the hooks that have been lowered from the ceiling. Meanwhile, on the far end of the huge open space, our two prisoners are tied to their chairs, duct tape firmly pressed against their mouths and eyes so wide I wonder if they’ll pop out of their sockets. They look petrified and I can’t feel an ounce of empathy for them.

“The only thing I need a barrel for is drinking, so I have no fucking clue what this is for, Boss.” Tab is following Shoo around, his tall frame looking inside the plastic lined barrel, brows drawn together in confusion.

“Let me introduce you to the medieval techniques of long-term torture.” My tone is light and airy like a salesman amped up about his new product. Giving Ronan my full attention, I wink. “That one’s for you, big guy.” The way he recoils makes my entire bloodstream sing with vengefulness.

“What do you mean by… ‘long-term’?” It’s J’s turn to assess the big barrel, circling it and noticing how the top is made to open and close like a flower petal, allowing the head in the center to stand out. I had that custom made to limit the odors.

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